Conffederate
Confederate

October 16, 2011

Death By Cultural Misunderstanding

"The Iranian terror plot: Why would Iran do it the way they allegedly did it?" So goes the title of an article by Allahpundit at Hot Air. It is representative of many, not only on the Internet, but across the conventional media. Allahpundit is not nearly as credulous as many and raises several good points.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is former Federal Prosecutor Andy McCarthy—whose article is also linked in Allahpundit's article—who concludes:

"But, as night follows day, the State Department and other administration officials are out throwing cold water on these claims with their usual tap dance: Iran is very complicated; the IRGC is like a government within a government; there are various rogue elements, so this was probably a rogue operation; just because somebody in the Iranian government may have been complicit does not mean muckety-mucks like Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei were involved; diplo-blah, blah, blah. It looks like we will keep chasing the Holy Grail — rationalizing inaction in the face of ever-mounting provocations while we keep searching for “moderates” embedded somewhere in the regime who will somehow maneuver Iran into a new era of good relations with the Great Satan. Continued good luck with that."

What we now know is that the Iranian used-car salesman from Texas who was apparently the prime broker in the plot was actually trying to arrange not only the murder by explosives of the Saudi Ambassador in a Washington DC restaurant, but attacks on American and Israeli embassies possible in simultaneous strikes. Not only was this used-car dealer traveling between Texas, Mexico and Iran, but was prepared to deliver $1.5 million dollars to the DEA informant posing as a representative of a Mexican drug cartel. It is not known with certainty, but it seems we may have intercepted this plot for no reason other than that the Iranians blundered—by pure chance—into one of our assets rather than the Mexican killers he sought. If so, this is truly one of the most remarkable cases of serendipity on record.

Some excerpts from Allahpundit:

"As Iranians struggled Wednesday to comprehend an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, analysts here agreed that even if U.S. charges of official Iranian involvement were true, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his government likely had nothing to do with the scheme…"

"The Quds Force is Iran’s A-team, equivalent to the Mossad in Israel. As Robert Baer, a former CIA analyst, told WaPo, “If they wanted to come after you, you’d be dead already.” And yet, their big idea for striking a blow against the Great Satan and its Wahhabist puppet in Riyadh was to … hook a used-car salesman from Corpus Christi up with an alleged member of a Mexican drug cartel? Seriously?"

In its 30-year history of attacking the West, the Quds Force went out of its way never to be caught with a smoking gun in hand. It always used well-vetted proxies, invariably Muslim believers devoted to Khomeini’s revolution. And when the operation was particularly sensitive, they gave the job to Lebanon’s militant Shi’ite Hizballah, organization the Iranians themselves had founded and which has an unsurpassed record in political murder. Hizballah has cells all over the world, including in the United States. But the point of it all was that if caught — and they were, more than once — Iran still enjoyed plausible deniability, a commodity in this business worth its weight in gold. So, if this plot was genuine, why didn’t the Iranians use tried and tested Hizballah networks and keep Iranian nationals, much less unknown Mexican narcos, out of it?"

Allahpundit suggests that the Revolutionary Guards have somehow gone rogue and are conducting, dangerous, provocative operations on their own, outside of the knowledge and control of the Iranian leadership. Another possibility is that the democratic Iranian opposition is trying to frame the Mullacracy in an attempt to bring the United States into a direct conflict that might unseat the hardliners, allowing democracy to flourish.

McCarthy is less apparently conflicted:

"Iran’s brazenness. It is surprising to hear suggestions that Iran has suddenly crossed a line by — allegedly — plotting to kill a Saudi diplomat on U.S. soil. As Iranian provocations go, this one is pretty tame. I related the history here a couple of years ago, and the best accounting is found in Michael Ledeen’s books — most recently, Accomplice to Evil. To highlight just a few things: Iran killed 19 members of our air force at Khobar Towers in 1996; it has had a working relationship with al Qaeda since the early nineties; it was likely complicit in the 9/11 attacks (a matter the 9/11 Commission strongly suggested — but on which neither the Commission nor anyone else in government followed up); and Iran has been plotting against and killing American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq for a decade. Compared to that rich record of direct attacks against Americans, the current plot is no more than par for the course."

In my conversations with adults, and in the classroom with teenagers, I am endlessly fascinated to discover that most Americans seem unable to truly understand that the peoples of other nations are so utterly different than Americans, so actually alien in the truest sense of the word. Americans seem to believe that since other peoples wear blue jeans, watch American movies, have McDonald's, speak English, even attend college in America they must be more or less unusual looking Americans with funny accents. My students, for instance, are universally amazed when they learn that hundreds of millions of people have never seen toilet paper, using their left hands instead.

In the same way, Americans tend to think of religion only within the American framework of separation of church and state and tolerance for the faiths of others. Americans may think adherents of some faiths to be a bit odd--holy Mormon underwear, people going to church on Saturday, eating only fish on Fridays—but they are generally accepting of that, and the fact that Americans are free to change religions and churches as often as they change their socks. Many Americans take their faith seriously, but the idea of killing in its name is—alien, as alien as the idea of being ruled by ministers, mutilating the genitals of their wives and daughters, killing their wives and daughters for violating family honor, killing friends, even family members who leave the faith, or killing anyone not of the faith for that reason alone.

Perhaps the most pitiful—and potentially deadly--example of American inability to understand Muslims in general and other cultures in particular is Mr. Obama who has a tendency to want everything both ways. Mr. Obama is Muslim, or at least, observant Muslims would certainly consider him to be Muslim. In every Muslim culture, the children born to a Muslim father are themselves Muslims. It is not a matter of choice. Muslims do not leave the faith, for if they do, they immediately become apostates and there is one punishment in Islam for apostasy: death. It is the duty of all Muslims to defend the faith by killing apostates.

Mr. Obama has declared himself to be Christian by choice, and has denied that he is, or ever has been, Muslim. His supporters cry racism and foul if anyone speaks or prints his middle name: Hussein. Yet for a Christian POTUS, he seems determined to do everything possible to support Muslim sensibilities and causes. For example, he told newly appointed NASA chief Charles Bolden that NASA's new primary mission was to make Muslims feel good about the scientific accomplishments of their ancient ancestors. Mr. Obama reflexively supports—or at the very least shows great deference toward—Muslim despots. Because of our cultural and Constitutional heritage, we think nothing of those who choose to change faiths, or who profess no faith. Not so in the Muslim world.

Mr. Obama traveled to Cairo and extended a hand to Muslims. What could they have thought of this? Did they recognize his Muslim middle name, hear his words of conciliation and peace, believe that he was one of them, a man they could trust and with whom they could do business? Hardly. Most would simply ignore him. True believers would want to kill him, not only because he is the President of the United States, but because he is a self-confessed apostate. The Iranians almost certainly see him as a weakling, a fool not to be feared but manipulated. They believe their actions against us will have few, if any, consequences, and thus far—since 1979--they've been right.

In a very real way, we are dealing with medieval thinking, a mindset that sees the world in black and white terms. There are the strong and the weak, the elect and infidels. There is, above all, the Dar al-Islam—the realm or land under Islamic control—and the Dar al-Harb—the realm of war or chaos, the land of the infidels where Islam is not in control. In the Dar al-Islam, Sharia—Islamic law—reigns supreme. It is a medieval code of conduct and justice administered by Imams, essentially Islamic ministers, who have absolute power over life and death. In Islam, there are no individual freedoms, not separation of church and state. The church is the state and individuals live—or die—at its whim.

Islam and Sharia are absolutely incompatible with freedom of religion and individual liberty. Christianity teaches the inestimable worth of each individual, the incalculable value of each human life, not just during its earthly journey, but because each human being possesses an immortal soul which can have, by means of faith, eternal life. These beliefs are the foundation of our Constitution and our criminal and civil laws, yet no American is required to pay them deference or to adhere to these beliefs. A nation where ministers decide civil disputes, hand down brutal, medieval punishments, treat women little or no better than cattle, afford children no rights at all, is almost unimaginable for Americans, yet this is the reality of daily life for the Dar al-Islam.

Christianity does not demand that its adherents conquer—in the spiritual or military sense—the world. It suggests only that they spread the Gospel; it is an entirely voluntary faith. Therefore, Christianity does not proscribe specific steps to be observed in the waging of war, nor does it demand that those who do not accept Christianity be treated as second-class beings, with a complete set of rules for how such beings may be enslaved, treated, taxed, even killed. Islam does all of this and more.

Winston Churchill observed that individual Muslims may have "splendid qualities," and indeed, most Muslims wish only to live in peace with their neighbors. However, it must be clearly understood that these Muslim are not, in fact, following the dictates of their faith. It is those who war against the Dar al-Harb who are being true to the letter and intent of their religion. And if there are only ten million such Muslims in the world—and there are surely that many—who are determined to follow the clear dictates of their faith to the letter, it's not hard to see the depth of our problem.

The leaders of Iran, those who so brutally crushed the Iranian democracy movement—the movement Mr. Obama studiously ignored—are very much determined to conquer the world for Islam, to turn the entire globe into the Dar al-Islam. The Koran holds special enmity for Jews, specifically preaching their destruction. It is no accident that Iran's leaders constantly refer to America as "the Great Satan," and Israel as "the Little Satan," for when they mouth these labels, they mean that Satan is the fount of all evil and must be destroyed by those faithful to Islam.

In waging war, Americans generally abstain from striking the first blow, are incredibly cautious about harming non-combatants, even risking and losing American lives rather than accidently killing innocents. Americans even avoid unnecessarily destroying property. For Americans, there are specific laws regulating the conduct of soldiers. None of this is true for Muslims waging Jihad—holy war aimed at establishing a global Dar al-Islam. They kill indiscriminately, ignore the international laws of war, use innocents as human shields, and commit inhuman atrocities as common practice.

In the pursuit of Jihad, Islam encourages and allows Muslims to lie to infidels. However, it requires Muslims to give infidels a chance to convert to Islam. If they do not, they may be slaughtered at will. When Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens America and Israel and suggests conversion to Islam, he is not doing this because he has a sincere religious concern for the souls of Americans and Israelis, but because he is adhering to Islamic rules for war.

Americans make the mistake of hearing what they think is yet another preacher trying to convert them and think ignoring them will have no consequences just as it does in America. They fail to realize that when they don't immediately convert to Islam, the safeties have just been released on Muslim weapons.

Jihadists recognize no international laws, no "international norms," no treaties, no diplomatic protocols. There is only the struggle to conquer the world, and apart from the Islamic rules for waging war, they observe no restraints, even killing other Muslims, which the Koran forbids.

Islam is a culture of death; Christianity is a culture of life. Islam preaches that the most sublime pleasures of paradise are reserved for those who die in Jihad. Christianity teaches love for all and the attainment of paradise through steadfast faith, mercy, kindness and tolerance.

One of the most dangerous misconceptions Americans have is confusing the political realities of America with those of other nations, particularly Islamic nations. "We can't attack Iran," our State Department says. "It's only the leaders of Iran that are bad. The people love us. There are many factions. There are moderates. Why, the leaders of Iran may not even know what is being done in their name!" Idiocy.

Doubtless many Japanese in 1941 had no desire for war. Many Germans were likewise peaceful people, but nations are responsible for actions done in their name, using their resources--$1.5 million and more in this case--pursuing their stated national goals. All of these factors are clearly present in the thankfully foiled plot.

Islamic nations, particularly rogue states like Iran—unquestionably the foremost terrorist nation on the planet—do not brook internal opposition. There is no democracy, no debate, no effective political opposition. Iron-fisted rule extends from the top down. And while it is true that millions of young Iranians think well of the United States and would welcome having the heel of the Islamic boot lifted from their collective necks, this is a tactical, not a strategic concern.

It is not as though we are contemplating turning all of Iran, or even its major populations centers, into a sheet of glowing, radioactive glass. Alone in the world we possess the military means to strike with amazing precision, severely limiting collateral damage. Our assets could, with a few days of overwhelming strikes, severely damage, even obliterate Iran's ability to produce nuclear weapons and wage war.

But Iran would be angry with us! Iran would strike out at us! Iran has been doing just that since 1979. Not only have its agents been caught on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have captured its munitions, specifically designed and manufactured to kill American soldiers. There is no doubt that Iran is arming and training our enemies, enemies that have killed Americans and the citizens of our allies. Iran declared war on us in 1979 and has been actively pursuing that war on multiple fronts.

Yet, Iran has exercised some restraint. Its leaders understand that in a conventional military conflict with the United States, it wouldn't last a week. But they also understand that we are tied down in two conflicts. It works with China, North Korea, Syria, any nation opposed to America, to keep us occupied, to limit our ability and willingness to respond. Above all, it knows that with Barack Obama in the White House, there is virtually nothing it cannot do—even producing nuclear weapons it has sworn to use against Israel and America—that would provoke Mr. Obama to punishing military action.

Would Iran conduct an attack against Americans that would cause hundreds, even thousands of deaths? Of course it would. Iran has been killing hundreds, even thousands of Americans for years. But iran has never done anything so brazen before! You mean like seizing hundreds of American diplomats hostage and keeping them for more than a year? You mean like killing hundreds of Americans through proxies and by providing purpose-built weapons to them? But this hasn't been Iran's modus operandi—their method of operation—in the past!

Even if that were true—and it isn't--it is now.

Mark Twain said that one should be careful in reading health books because they could die of a misprint. Americans must now be careful in interpreting the clear words and actions of one of our most deadly and determined enemies. They say: "we will kill you all," over and over again. If we don't take them at their clear words, if we don't understand their mindset, millions of Americans and Israelis could die of a cultural misunderstanding.

Posted by MikeM at 09:47 PM | Comments (4)

October 11, 2011

This Is A Parody--Right?

Well, now they've done it, and the United States is fighting back with every tool at its disposal:

1) The United States "…will use the plot to marshal international pressure…" against those responsible.

2) Attorney General Eric Holder said: "The United States is committed to holding [them] accountable for [their] actions."

3) A "State Department Official" called it a "flagrant violation of international law."

And then we brought out the really big gun:

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said we'd work with allies to "send a very strong message that this kind of action, which violates international norms, must be ended."

She also said:

This "crosses a line," and she and President Obama are calling international leaders to tell them what happened. She said Mr. Obama and she intend to "pre-empt" any efforts by [them] to deny responsibility, and to "enlist more countries in working together against what is becoming a clearer and clearer threat…"

One might be tempted to think that this situation—whatever it is and whoever it involves—is a very serious matter and that our government will respond with the kind of righteous rage demonstrated after 9-11. It is a very serious matter indeed, but that's where reality breaks down.

As reported at Fox News, we've intercepted an Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to America, with explosives, on American soil. Iranian members of the Quds Force," a paramilitary spy/internal security force pursued a hit on the Ambassador by trying to hire what they thought was a Mexican drug cartel to make the attack. Two Iranian agents were captured and others remain at large.

Would this be the same Iran:

1) that constantly threatens to obliterate Israel and the United States?

2) that has been killing Americans and American soldiers for decades?

3) that is the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the world?

4) that sponsors terrorists that kill the citizens of our allies around the world?

5) that threatens to turn the Middle East in a charnel house of unimaginable proportions?

6) that is feverishly producing nuclear weapons and which plans to use them in an EMP attack on America?

7) that is building missile bases in Venezuela and infiltrating every Latin American country that will have it?

8) that is working daily to infiltrate sleeper cells into America for future attacks?

9) that is working with cartels and Marxists south of our border to facilitate any and every kind of harm to Americans they can devise?

10) that declared war on us in 1979 when they seized our embassy and took hostages?

11) that is ruled by Islamist lunatics who want to provoke Armageddon because they believe it will produce the return of the "hidden Imam," and lead to a new caliphate?

Yes. It's that very Iran.

Our elected representatives are resolute and incensed:

"Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., urged the administration to revisit a request by dozens of senators to target the country's central bank, calling it the 'paymasters' for the Quds Force.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., called the plot an 'outrage' and called for increased sanctions against Iran.

[Senator Durbin has now, without question, cinched the title of the most-irony challenged politician of all time. He's calling for financial sanctions, which will have to be imposed through the cooperation of the very banks he first slammed with idiotic legislation, and then excoriated for implementing the completely predictable results of his ill-considered stupidity.]

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, speaking on Fox News, called the plot an 'act of war' against the United States.

'We have to do something,' he said, saying the specifics of the response should be left up to the Defense Department and the president."

And which serious steps commensurate with Iran's actions against us since 1979 is the Obama Administration planning?

"But a senior Defense official told Fox News the announcement Tuesday "'s not a trip wire for military action in Iran.' '
'No one should read into this as a pretense for any type of military response," another senior Defense official added.

Speaking to Fox News on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject, the officials said the Pentagon sees the alleged plot as a criminal act that is rightly being handled by the Department of Justice. "

"The Treasury Department said the other Quds officials named were also involved in the plot. The sanctions will freeze any U.S. assets held by the individuals and prohibit anyone in the U.S. from doing business with them."

Mrs. Clinton is reported to be planning to speak with the Swiss Ambassador to Iran who will in turn likely present a strongly worded message to the Iranians on our behalf.

There are several possible scenarios at play. With the Gunwalker debacle and the Solyandra scandal threatening to overwhelm the Obama Administration and absolutely devastate Mr. Obama's already fast-failing re-election chances, it is not outside the realm of possibility that the Obama Administration is exaggerating the involvement of the highest levels of the Iranian regime, and Stratfor, the private intelligence firm, is suggesting just that, according to Fox. However, Stratfor also notes that the Iranians have been conducting "preoperational surveillance," in the US, but have not yet carried out a high profile attack. Obamites would surely welcome the diversion of public attention from the alleged malfeasance and possible criminality of the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice, and a plethora of federal alphabet agencies. As more and more damning evidence against the Administration and its allies becomes public, the Obama Administration must be desperate to escape scrutiny.

A lengthy civilian trial—the Obamite preferred vehicle for dealing with enemy combatants--of Iranian agents extending well into the election season could potentially help Mr. Obama burnish his anti-terrorist warrior credentials when even the Lamestream Media has taken to calling him isolated and withdrawn from the day to day performance of his duties.

But the possibility that the Iranians, emboldened by what they must surely believe to be the unlimited fecklessness of Mr. Obama, would embark on such a provocative course cannot be dismissed. If Mr. Obama will take no obvious, affirmative steps to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons it has repeatedly sworn to put to immediate, genocidal use, why should the Iranians worry about Mr. Obama's response to a much lesser provocation? What will he do? Threaten to impose really serious sanctions by a date certain, and this time—unlike all the previous times--he really, really, pinky swear, double dog dare, means it?

What must the Iranians think of our response thus far? We're imposing sanctions on individual Iranian spies? American firms won't be able to do business with them? Just how many Americans firms, pray tell, do a considerable portion of their business with Iranian operatives such that these sanctions will have any effect—other than provoking uproarious Iranian laughter—on Iran? Will the threat of treating their spies as common criminals accorded the full protections of the Constitution the Iranians not only refuse to recognize but see as a sign of weakness strike fear into the hearts of the hardened terrorist murderers running that despotic nation? Will it cause them to abandon their nuclear designs? Beg for mercy and forgiveness from Israel?

At least Hillary Clinton knows the score. Our own "Lady Of Jello" knows that Iran's action "violates international norms." She recognizes that Iran represents a "clearer and clearer threat." She believes that working with other nations might "further isolate Iran." This is a parody—right? Right?

On the international stage, Mr. Obama has made several noteworthy accomplishments. One of the most remarkable has been making the French seem—compared to Mr. Obama--resolute defenders of freedom. Another has been making it possible for fiscal basket case nations to lecture us on our economic policies. But the most truly noteworthy accomplishment of Barack Obama and his Administration has been the absolute transcendence of parody. Ironhawk? The Onion? Reality? Who can say with certainty? Who would wish to expend the effort?

It is not unreasonable to wonder if even a nuclear attack against Israel, American interests, or even America itself would provoke the Obama Administration to anything beyond strong language, a stirring invocation of the "international community" and "international norms," criminal charges against individuals and sanctions which might "further isolate Iran."

America—and the world—will be very fortunate indeed if our many enemies do not take advantage of what they must surely believe to be a historic opportunity between now and November of 2012. On the other hand, with leadership that bows to despots, reflexively supports Marxist and Islamist despots and which actually delivers arms to our deadly enemies as a cynical and incredibly stupid means of imposing anti-freedom domestic policies, do we really need enemies?

Posted by MikeM at 08:50 PM | Comments (15)

October 10, 2011

Welcome to PoopStock

Here's all you need to know about the temper tantrum known as the "Occupy" movement, as a disgusting Occupy Wall Street denizen defecates on a NYPD car.

welcome to poopstock

The photo seems verboten in the U.S. mainstream media that is cheering heavily for the movement as a counter to the Tea Party, even though the "Occupy" gatherings have nothing resembling a common cause, and seem to be nothing more than angry hipsters mad at everyone for not having an easy life of success handed to them on a plate, and union thugs trying to co-op the movement for their Democratic masters.

Crapping on America. That's Poopstock, and the "occupy" (bowel) movement in a nutshell (Credit for coining Poopstock goes to @SamValley).

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:53 AM | Comments (4)

October 06, 2011

A Hilariously Unscientific Poll

Consider this scenario: You have been told, at least five weeks in a row, by memo—memos it is your job to read and act upon—that something very wrong is happening. You do nothing, and things blow up in everyone's face. The boss asks you about it, and you tell him that you have no idea what's going on; you only found out about it when things blew up. He says: "Oh, OK then."

Right. How about if you say: "Oh, I didn't understand your question." Or "I was responding to another question about some other context." How about: "Memos? What memos? I never saw any memos." Or better yet: "Memos? I don't read memos!"

Q: What is the chance of keeping your job:

A) Zero
B) Zip
C) Less than nothing
D) Hahahahahahahahaha—gasp---hahahahaha! Keep your job?! Hahahahaha…

Comes now Tina Korbe at Hot Air who writes:

"It was never a comforting thought to think the Attorney General just can’t be bothered to read his weekly briefings, but it was at least plausible to think Eric Holder overlooked one or two memos about the pernicious and fatal Fast and Furious program. But make that five memos and the AG’s incompetence and negligence appear especially gross:
Senator Chuck Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa today said that Attorney General Eric Holder received at least five weekly memos beginning in July 2010, including four weeks in a row, describing the ill-advised strategy known as Operation Fast and Furious. The memos were to Holder from Michael Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center.

The Attorney General told Issa during a House Judiciary Committee in May 2011 that he had just learned of Fast and Furious a few weeks before. Yet, on January 31, in a previously scheduled meeting, Grassley personally handed him two letters about Fast and Furious. Grassley and Issa said they find it very troubling that Holder actually knew of Operation Fast and Furious much earlier, and in greater detail than he ever let on.

The memos specifically said that the straw buyers were 'responsible for the purchase of 1500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.'”

Mr. Obama also weighed in at a press conference on Thursday:

"I think both Holder and I would have been very unhappy if someone had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that could have been prevented by the United States of America."

So we now know:

1) Senator Chuck Grassley, on January 31, gave AG Holder specific information about Fast and furious.

2) Holder received at least five weekly briefings, very specific briefings, about the case beginning in July 2010.

3) In May of 2011, Holder told Rep. Daryl Issa in a congressional hearing, under oath, that he heard of the case only a few weeks earlier.

I'll give Ms. Korbe the benefit of the doubt and literary license for understatement. Is it plausible that Mr. Holder missed a memo or two? It's plausible. However, let's consider that Mr. Holder is a man intimately involved in an Administration famous of power mongering, ignoring the law, and micromanagement. Let's further consider his absolutely mind-blowing, bald-faced lying regarding his role in securing a pardon for Marc Rich. Incompetence? Negligence? Certainly, but that doesn't account for what now appears to be absolute proof that Mr. Holder was lying under oath.

I caught Lanny Davis, former Clinton lawyer and Democrat apologist on the O'Reilly Factor last night. He suggested—and this with a straight face—that Holder has no reason to lie. Well, apart from the fact that he may be implicated in multiple federal crimes including conspiracy, murder, treason, terrorism, etc., I'd have to agree with Mr. Davis. Yup. No reason to lie at all.

Gentle readers, let's hear from you. What do you say about these three questions:

1) Is AG Holder lying?

2) Is Mr. Obama involved (and lying)?

3) Did they push Gunwalker to build support for anti-gun policies they couldn't obtain through the Congress?

Posted by MikeM at 09:55 PM | Comments (8)

October 04, 2011

Guns, Irony and Prosperity

Time for a bit of heresy: In a way, I almost hope Barack Obama is reelected. Now I've done it. I know if he is reelected America is in deep trouble, Marianas Trench-deep trouble from which we may never escape, but I speak entirely selfishly. Mr. Obama has arguably been the greatest producer of political topics and satire for bloggers in American history. I have no doubt that Bill Clinton might have been in the running, particularly where steamy content and sexually oriented cheap and easy puns are concerned, but it wasn't until after he left office—literally with White House silverware and furnishings—that the blogosphere really took off as a true alternative to the Lamestream Media. We have Dan Rather to thank for that, which is a delicious morsel of irony in and of itself.

Allow me to clarify my heresy: I'll do all I can to defeat Mr. Obama and to overturn virtually everything he did. However, it is entirely reasonable to assert that the "most transparent Administration in history" has been a particularly rich source of hypocrisy, self-parody, outrage, and above all, irony. A prime example is the fact that Mr. Obama is arguably the greatest gun salesman of all time. A slightly less hilarious and tasty counterpart is that in destroying America's economy, he is driving America's gunmakers out of their traditional, coastal, elite environments into the welcoming arms of the bumpkins of Flyover Country, thus further impoverishing his base. Self-defeating irony doesn't get a lot better than that.

An August 9, 2011 story in the New York Times (I said this was ironic!) by Timothy Williams makes clear two trends: Firearms makers in the Northeast and California are considering moving away from the anti-gun, anti-business climates of their traditional, even historic home bases, and midwestern and southern states are competing to be their new homes. Considering the economy and the Obama Administration's never-ending anti-business policies and regulations, even New York Senator Chuck Schumer—one of the most anti-gun senators in American history—is getting on the bandwagon:

"In New York, Senator Charles E. Schumer issued a news release in May praising Remington after it agreed to move a factory from Maine, bringing with it 40 to 50 jobs.

The release made no mention of Senator Schumer’s record supporting gun control. Instead, it said Mr. Schumer had 'led the effort in Congress to repeal the law that limited competition for small arms contracts, so that Remington can now compete for small arms contracts with the Department of Defense.'”

Life doesn't get much more ironic than that.

For nearly two decades, South Dakota has been working to attract gun manufacturers. Many famous manufacturers of high-quality, top dollar firearms have relocated there, including HS Precision and Bar-Sto Precision Machine. SD Governor Dennis Daugaard actively recruits at gun and trade shows:

“'When we approach gun makers, we first make the cultural argument,' said Gov. Dennis Daugaard of South Dakota, a hunter… “People in business want to feel their business is wanted and welcome in the communities where they are located. In South Dakota, the culture is there. We don’t regulate firearms businesses out of existence.”

Irv Stone, owner of Bar-Sto Precision Machine, which makes competition pistols, moved to Sturgis, S.D., from California last year because he said he found it increasingly difficult to operate in an environment where guns are shunned.

'The cultural thing is like night and day,' he said. 'I felt like the bastard child in California. It is not a firearms culture. In California, it was like: ‘Eww, firearms. Really?’ Here, on the other hand, you are looked at kind of weird: ‘Oh, you don’t shoot or fish? What do you do?’"

Draconian firearms regulations have also encouraged gun makers to move. Micro-stamping is a technology that would require specialized firing pins, perhaps even extractors and chambers that imprint unique identifying markings on fired casings. Research has shown the technology to be highly unreliable at best. Requiring it would increase manufacturing costs and retail prices, and it can be defeated merely by swapping parts or the application of five minutes of filing. Aluminum or steel cartridge casings can defeat the technology entirely. It is particularly ineffective in revolvers which do not eject fired brass, and even where semiautomatic firearms are involved, all an enterprising criminal need do is pick up the fired brass. Manufacturers are, to say the least, unimpressed:

"Gun manufacturers say proposed micro-stamping laws could drive Colt out of Connecticut and Remington out of New York, which are among more than half a dozen states where the legislation has been introduced. California, which employs more firearms industry workers than any other state, has already approved a micro-stamping law that is pending.

Carlton S. Chen, a vice president at Colt, said the company would have few qualms about leaving Connecticut if micro-stamping became law.

'At that point, we and other firearms manufacturers doing business in Connecticut would need to seriously consider whether we should completely move ourselves out of Connecticut and relocate to a friendlier state,' Mr. Chen said in written testimony to a state legislative committee in 2008. 'The upshot would be a loss of thousands of jobs.'”

Illinois, home of pay to play and thuggish government, land where the dead rise from the grave for elections and almost exclusively vote Democrat, is also driving out manufacturers:

"And in Illinois, home to several large firearms manufacturers, a law would ban assault rifles and would prohibit manufacturers from selling guns to state residents.

In recent years, Illinois has lost Les Baer Custom Inc., a small company that moved to Iowa, as well as 1,000 Winchester jobs."

Not that Illinois is getting the message:

"Marcelyn Love, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity wrote in an e-mail, 'I am not aware of an increased effort by other states to lure specific manufacturing sectors from Illinois.'”

Perhaps Ms. Love might want to get in touch with Winchester and Les Baer.

This trend is not entirely Mr. Obama's fault of course, but it is precisely the Statist philosophy embraced by the blue states--which Mr. Obama embodies--that is all but forcing historic firearm companies to move to states where the political and cultural climates are far more welcoming, and where making a profit is actually understood to be a good thing for a private business to do.

Still, some blue states are fighting back—while simultaneously shooting themselves in the foot by pushing policies like micro-stamping:

"But the attempted poaching of its gun makers is not being taken lightly in Massachusetts, which is home to Smith & Wesson, the nation’s largest handgun manufacturer (founded in 1852) and the Savage Arms Company (1894), or in neighboring Connecticut, where Colt (1836), the Marlin Firearms Company (1870) and O. F. Mossberg & Sons (1919) are located.

In 2005, this small region produced 1.8 million firearms, according to the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council, about one-third of all firearms made in the country.

…Massachusetts has published a brochure promoting its firearms makers that traces the state’s gun culture back to 1777, when George Washington chose Springfield as the site of the country’s first arsenal.

…last year, when Massachusetts sought to ensure that Smith & Wesson stayed in Springfield, the state gave the company $6 million in tax credits to relocate one of its New Hampshire factories there. While the factory employs a modest 225 people, Massachusetts wanted to make sure the company would not start shifting operations elsewhere."

Despite a horrendously anti-gun, high-tax, and insane regulatory climate, Smith and Wesson is staying in Massachusetts—for now.

Here’s some additional irony: should Mr. Obama win a second term, the economy would almost certainly continue to decline, forcing more and more businesses and manufacturers—including gun makers—to more business friendly states with rational tax and regulatory climates, with low costs of living and welcoming populations. The more Democrats win, the more their stronghold states lose. Regardless of federal policy, blue states are increasingly cutting their own economic throats, benefitting the red states they so disdain.

Perhaps the ultimate irony, even more delightful than Mr. Obama's inadvertent support for the firearms industry he would be overjoyed to obliterate is the reality that he, in only a single term, may well accomplish more to advance gun ownership, the movement of manufacturers to states where they can expand and prosper, and will have increased the total number of guns and gun owners far more than any Conservative president could ever hope to do. Now that's ironic joy.

Posted by MikeM at 09:06 PM | Comments (6)

October 02, 2011

Barack Obama: Anti-Terror Warrior?

I was discussing the recent death of Jihadist Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Al-Qaeda honcho, in a CIA directed Predator drone attack, with an acquaintance. My acquaintance is a fellow I've known for several years who, while not a flaming Marxist, still thinks Barack Obama is slicker than sliced bread, though he is beginning to admit that perhaps a bit of mold is starting to form on the loaf (or is that the loafer?) He's obviously seeking reasons to maintain that old, tingle-up-the-leg, glistening pecs, Obama is a god fervor, and was going on about Mr. Obama's manly mojo in authorizing the strike on Osama Bin Laden and now, the vile and deranged al-Awlaki. To his way of thinking, this—and the fact that Guantanamo Bay is still open for business—is proof positive that Mr. Obama is a genuine, fire-breathing anti-terrorist all-American warrior for truth, justice and the American way. Oh yes: he was also exercised that al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was not given a proper civilian trial before being executed. Irony challenged, my acquaintance.

As to Awlaki's citizenship, the facts are clear. Awlaki was an American citizen, but a citizen who took up arms against America. We know this because he explicitly told us, many times, that he was at war with America. We know that he was a top enemy commander and that he was directly involved in the planning and execution of attacks against America, American interests and Americans, attacks resulting in American deaths, the Fort Hood attack being only a single example.
Arguably, this would make Awlaki guilty of treason, and if captured, he could be tried for that offense. However, capture and trial were not required for one very powerful and well understood—legally speaking—reason: we are at war.

It is hard for most Americans to understand this simple fact: we are at war and have been since at least the first attack on the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993 and probably since the Islamic takeover of Iran in late 1979. Because most Americans have to make no sacrifice, because the ongoing war does not disrupt or directly affect their lives in any way, the very concept of war seems a matter of semantics, a debating topic, not a deadly, personal or national reality. We will almost certainly be at war for a generation or more. We may not consider ourselves to be at war with our Islamist enemy, but he does not share our peaceful convictions.

In war, our declared enemies may be killed whenever and wherever they are found. This simple fact does not change because of the nationality of the enemy. This too is a well-settled fact of law. There are no clear demarcation lines on a worldwide battlefield. Americans have, in past wars, gone over to the side of America's enemies and have as a result become indistinguishable from any other enemy soldier or leader. We have killed them when necessary and captured them when possible. When captured they were tried by military commissions.

Some allude to the Geneva Conventions, but they fail to understand that any declared combatants that do not wear the clearly distinguishable uniform of their nation, that target civilians, that use civilians as shields, or who are non-state actors—all characteristics that describe our Islamist enemy—may be summarily shot when and where they are captured without trial. Such people have none of the protections the Geneva Accords provide to legitimate soldiers acting on behalf of their nation, nor do they deserve them. Even if Awlaki was captured, my acquaintance would doubtless demand that he be tried in a civilian court, a trial for which there is no legal requirement or historical precedence.

Some have suggested that due to the unique nature of our current world wide conflict, the Congress should enact standards for stripping Americans of citizenship so that they may be killed without trial when acting as an enemy of America, but this is unnecessary and likely designed to impede rather than assist America in her war fighting efforts. American and international laws and standards are quite clear on all of the issues involved and have been since the early 1900s.

Mr. Obama and his anti-terror bona fides are quite another matter. He has shown himself, long before his inauguration, to be a man who recognizes no Constitutional restraints, no legal obstacles to his policies and goals. Recall his pseudo-presidential great seal of Obama trotted out during the campaign. Recall his extra-constitutional "Office Of The President-Elect." One might assert that this simply reveals extraordinary arrogance and narcissism—and it does—but it goes much deeper.

There is more than sufficient evidence to acknowledge that Mr. Obama is at the least a Socialist, and likely, a Marxist. Socialism is essentially Marxism-lite. His background is steeped in Marxism, he actively supports Marxist goals, does all he can to damage our capitalist economy, reflexively supports Marxists and Islamists in international relations, and hires avowed Communists (Van Jones) and admirers of Communist murderers (Anita Dunn).

He came into office swearing to close Guantanamo within a year and searched desperately for an alternative, even planning to use an unused prison in Illinois. Fortunately, even in Illinois most people are smart enough to know that the last thing they want is to paint an enormous "come get us, terrorists" target on their community and that suggestion died, even among Democrats. He quickly discovered that no other nation—other than absolute terrorist regimes—want any of the psychotics inhabiting Gitmo, and was certainly told by his more rational advisors of the consequences of turning any of them lose, the reality being that all of the least dangerous were released during the Bush years and more than a fair share of them have returned to Jihad.

He believes that military commissions are evil and that Islamist killers must be accorded civilian trials, trials to be conducted in New York City. Understanding that they have a large terrorist target painted on their collective backs, New Yorkers, and their Democrat representatives, nixed that idiotic idea and to date, only one lower level Jihadist has been tried. The case was a near-disaster. He nearly walked and was convicted on only a single count. Even so, AG Holder—and certainly Mr. Obama—would close Gitmo and begin civilian trials in a second if they thought they could get away with it.

Mr. Obama came into office attacking everything Mr. Bush did, and did away with waterboarding, which had actually been used on only three high value terrorists to great effect. There is no doubt that in those three cases, the technique saved untold lives. However, he not only kept drone attacks; he increased their frequency. This may seem to run counter to his values, but is their epitome.

What would happen to Mr. Obama if we captured a high value terrorist such as Osama Bin Laden or Awlaki and he steadfastly refused to authorize the techniques necessary to extract information from them claiming the moral high ground? Mr. Obama would be in a very difficult predicament. If he authorized anything he had previously taken away, his base and the international community—particularly the Muslims—would go berserk. His political viability would be severely—perhaps fatally--damaged. Yet if he did not authorize whatever was necessary and therefore did not intercept and prevent damaging attacks, particularly on American soil, impeachment and conviction might be the least of his worries.

Drone attacks are the perfect solution. They allow Mr. Obama to adopt the persona of the resolute, anti-terrorist leader while avoiding any real downside. Surely, the usual Leftist suspects complain and raise specious legal and Constitutional arguments, but those have no real political or legal consequence, and other Leftists won't let such minor issues get in the way of enacting their larger agenda through Mr. Obama. There are no high-value terrorists who would not be waterboarded by any rational president, and not waterboarding lesser terrorists represents a much lower attack and political risk and a much more easily defended policy. Mr. Obama would need only to trot out another teleprompter reading with high and moral-sounding rhetoric, claiming that those who oppose him have un-American values. Simply capture no terrorists, kill them instead. That way Mr. Obama doesn’t have to put anyone in Gitmo, and he doesn't have to make any potentially politically harmful decisions.

My acquaintance made much of Mr. Obama's authorization of the raid on Bin Laden. He forgets, or never knew, that Mr. Obama dithered for a full day before authorizing the raid. His dithering cost an additional day due to unfavorable weather. Consider that: Having been in the loop from the first day of the planning phase of the operation, knowing that he would have to decide on capturing or killing America's most wanted terrorist enemy, when the operation was ready to jump off, he took an additional day to make the decision. He was actually seriously considering not doing it! There is every indication that Leon Panetta—of all people—had to insist that he do it.

Imagine what would have happened had he not authorized the raid. Could any American President survive having refused to capture or kill Bin Laden? Imagine if another Bin Laden ordered or inspired 9-11-like attack succeeded. Even democrats couldn't save Obama in such a case, though I have little doubt that the Lamestream Media would labor mightily to save him. Yet knowing this—I have no doubt the more rational among his advisors would have warned him of the dire consequences—he actually considered leaving Bin Laden unmolested. Does such a man deserve congratulations? Does such a man deserve credit for doing the absolute minimum any President must do, particularly considering he took a full day to make that decision after many months to fully consider every ramification?

By the way, wouldn't it have been useful to have Bin Laden? Wouldn't it have been of great value to squeeze him for every drop of actionable intelligence? To use that information to save lives, to pressure hostile governments, and to capture or kill other high-value terrorists? But to preserve Mr. Obama's Leftist street cred, Bin Laden had to die by SEAL bullet or Predator Hellfire. Imagine the Leftist uproar to try Bin Laden in a civilian court, particularly in New York. That's what happens when we elect a President that imposes Marxist values on our abilities to defend ourselves, but not on our enemies.

Barack Obama: all-American anti-terror warrior? I think not.

Posted by MikeM at 10:02 PM | Comments (7)

September 29, 2011

Gunwalker Analysis: Where Walsh was Wrong

Via Instapundit comes a NY Post op-ed by Micheal Walsh that excoriates the Obama Adminstration's murderous gun-walking plot, but I think he draws an incorrect conclusion.

...calling "Fast and Furious" a cockamamie operation gone wrong just isn't going to cut it anymore.

There are two possible explanations. The first is that the anti-gun Obama administration deliberately wanted American guns planted in Mexico in order to demonize American firearms dealers and gun owners. The operation was manufacturing "evidence" for the president's false claim that we're to blame for the appalling levels of Mexican drug-war violence.

If this is true, then Holder & Co. have got to go -- and the trail needs to be followed no matter where it leads. For the federal government to seek to frame its own citizens is unconscionable.

A second notion is that the CIA was behind the whole thing, which accounts for all the desperate wagon-circling. Under this theory, the Agency feared the los Zetas drug cartel was becoming too powerful and might even mount a coup against the Mexican government. So some 2,000 weapons costing more than $1.25 million were deliberately channeled to the rival Sinaloa cartel, which operates along the American border, to keep the Zetas in check.

Of course, there's a third explanation -- that both scenarios are true, and that those in charge of Fast and Furious saw an opportunity to shoot two birds with one Romanian-made AK Draco pistol.

After months of following and writing about developments int his case, the only scenario that makes sense is the first one, that the Obama Administration provided weapons to the Sinaloa cartel in order to frame American gun owners and American gun dealers and support the President's oft-repeated "90-percent lie." Obama has been trying to undermine the Second Amendment since his days as a director of the Joyce Foundation doling out grants to anti-gun groups and subverting Second Amendment scholarship by gaming law reviews. It is utterly consistent with his radical views and training.

The second option and third options, that the Sinaloas were armed to counteract the Zetas, simply doesn't make sense.

If up-gunning the Sinaloa cartel to counteract the Zetas was the goal, the State Department would not have been arming the Zetas with military weapons, nor would there have been any reason to arm domestic criminal gangs in Indiana.

It would have been far cheaper and more effective to arm the Sinaloa cartel with untraceable automatic weapons from the black market.

No, the goal of the various Gunwalker plots is very clear. Elected officeholders and political appointees in the Obama Administration tried to frame American citizens in order to create the political opportunity to subvert the Bill of Rights. It will be up to a special prosecutor to determine the correct charges for such an heinous act, and determine if the actions of this corrupt government constitute an act worthy of a RICO prosecution, a prosecution for international terrorism as U.S. code seems to suggest, hundreds of counts of accessory to murder, arms export violations, or perhaps even treason.

No wonder the Obama Administration is fighting this investigation like their lives depend on it.

It very well may.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:10 AM | Comments (3)

September 28, 2011

Raleigh Television Station Doctors Perdue Quote Via Selective Editing

From our imagined betters at WRAL-TV:

"I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover," Perdue said.

"The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines," she continued. "You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Perdue's support of tyranny was edited by WRAL to make it more palatable.

Here is the full quote:

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

I bolded the very important sentence that WRAL edited out that shows just how serious our state's governor is in her call to usurp the power of the people to hold elected officials accountable.

Why, it's almost like the media is protecting her...

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:09 PM | Comments (0)

New Audio: Perdue Was Dead Serious About Cancelling Elections

Listen to the audio yourself.

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

The bolded text is mine. The treasonous sentiment is owned entirely by a governor that should be rode out of Raleigh on a high-speed rail.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:04 PM | Comments (4)

Trial Balloons for Tyranny?

North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue's dead-serious suggestion suspend elections wasn't an isolated incident.

Only days ago, former Obama OMB director, Citigroup executive, and current Council on Foreign Relations fellow Peter Orszag published an article in The New Republic entitled "Too Much of a Good Thing: Why we need less democracy."

It is stunning to hear any politician so openly discuss the throttling of democracy and the open suspension of our Constitutional rights. To hear two politicians beholden to the same political party and president make the same suggestion, within days of one another, is no accident.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:29 AM | Comments (5)

September 27, 2011

Good News: When It's Time to Hang Tyrants, I Won't Have Far To Drive

I'll only have to go just up the road to the NC Governor's mansion, where they conveniently have some very nice oaks suitable for the kind of partisan zealot that would like to suspend elections in 2012.

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Those were the words in support of tyranny uttered by North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue to the Cary Rotary Club today.

Perdue's spokesperson is trying to write this off as hyperbole, but there was nothing in her delivery, nor in the context of her statements that suggested her words were anything but exactly what they appear to be.

North Carolina Republicans took control of the state legislature in 2010, the first time they've had control since 1898, and have created a powerful redistricting map that threatens to overturn the Democrat's dominance in state politics through a century's worth of gerrymandering.

Coincidentally, 1898 is infamous in North Carolina for another reason; the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection, in which the North Carolina Democratic Party and the Ku Klux Klan overthrew the Republican government of Wilmington, NC, killing dozens to perhaps as many as a hundred in the process. The Democratic governor Daniel Lindsay Russell effectively supported the violence, as did President William McKinley, who did nothing to bring the insurrectionists to justice. Josephus Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer (appropriately enough, the same news organ that brings us Perdue's comments) also was a champion of the insurrection, infamously the only successful coup d'etat in American history.

Is Perdue serious? Considering the history of North Carolina Democrats supporting tyranny and the destruction of the electoral process, it would be foolish to consider anything otherwise.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:03 PM | Comments (5)

September 26, 2011

President Raised in Muslim Country Rips Jews

It's like his teleprompter hates him:

If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor. I have no problem with that.
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:57 AM | Comments (3)

September 25, 2011

Fuel Follies

Did you know that about 70% of all the consumer goods purchased in America are transported by truck? Understanding this bit of economic reality, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the price of fuel is directly linked to all consumer prices. This is fortunate in that Mr. Obama has charged our real rocket scientists to spend their time trying to make Muslims feel good about the scientific accomplishments of their ancient ancestors.

But Mr. Obama has reiterated, for what is it--the twentieth time?--that creating jobs is his first priority with handling the deficit following close behind. For a bit of perspective, let's journey back to April 8th when Mr. Obama ran into a man with a large family at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania. The poor fellow was concerned about high gasoline prices and suggested that Mr. Obama do something to lower them. Demonstrating the kind of common touch and concern for the little man for which he has become justly famous, Mr. Obama said:

"I know some of these big guys, they're all still driving their big SUVs. You know, they got their big monster trucks and everything. You're one of them? Well, now, here's my point. If you're complaining about the price of gas and you're only getting eight miles a gallon, you may have a big family, but it's probably not that big. How many you have? Ten kids, you say? Ten kids? Well, you definitely need a hybrid van then."

Yeow. Talk about foot in mouth disease. But Mr. Obama handled it in his usual style, even though off teleprompter:

"So, like I said, if you're getting eight miles a gallon you may want to think about a trade-in. You can get a great deal. I promise you, GM or Ford or Chrysler, they're going to be happy to give you a deal on something that gets you better gas mileage."

I'm sure a man with ten children can easily afford new vehicles at will. As you can see, Mr. Obama will not rest—except for rounds of golf and vacations costing more than a decade of most folk's annual salaries—until the middle class has some relief from high gas prices and the skyrocketing prices of frivolous consumer goods like food. He's our middle class warrior. He recently said so himself so it must be true. So let's all fast forward to the middle of August and a story by Jazz Shaw about Mr. Obama's newest effort on behalf of the middle class: That's right! CAFE standards for semi tractors!

Regular readers know that Mr. Obama is demanding a CAFE average of 54.5 MPG by 2025, but never before have the Feds meddled in the long haul trucking business in this way. Mr. Obama is now mandating that heavy-duty vehicles, work trucks and long-haul semis reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from between 9% to 23% by 2018.

Well now. Let's consider this for a moment. Truck owners and operators already know that their single largest fixed expense is fuel. They have every reason to buy the most fuel-efficient trucks they can afford and manufacturers have every reason to build such vehicles. The problem is that the laws of physics apply to semis just as they do to passenger cars. There are three primary ways to save fuel in motor vehicles: (1) More efficient engines and transmissions; (2) more aerodynamic vehicles; and (3) lighter vehicles.

Diesel engines are already quite efficient but some small progress can, and already is being made in increasing efficiency without sacrificing reliability and longevity. Transmissions are more problematic as manual transmissions are pretty much required and it is driving technique rather than the transmissions themselves that have the largest effect. However, in trucking time is money and driving more slowly is more costly. Aerodynamics and weight are closely intertwined because the only way to significantly increase mileage would be to make trucks smaller and lighter. Of course, doing this means smaller loads and more runs to transport the same amount of goods, all of which is reminiscent of Al Gore (this one, unlike the internet, really is his invention) mandating stingy toilets to save water, except that they flush so poorly that people often have to flush twice to finish the job, actually increasing rather then decreasing water use. Greenie types seem to have no understanding of the law of unintended consequences--not that they'd care if they did.

These new regulations can only greatly increase the costs of transporting the 70% of goods hauled by truck, which will directly increase all consumer costs, including gasoline costs—here comes the irony--because gasoline is virtually exclusively hauled by truck. Higher prices means lower hiring, more unemployment, less consumer spending, which means even less hiring, even more unemployment, even less consumer spending, which means…It's tempting to think that this—rather than what he says--is actually Mr. Obama's real policy. But he's the President of the United States. He wouldn't actually be trying to crash the economy. Would he?

And now for a final shot of outrage-fueled adrenalin to start the week: travel back with me to April for an article at MSN Money by Lynn Mucken. Ms. Mucken will explain to you why $4.00 a gallon—and more—gas is a good thing. I've no doubt Mr. Obama would agree, and he's the President, so we should do what he says. Shouldn't we?

After your blood pressure returns to normal, have a great rest of the week!

Posted by MikeM at 10:40 PM | Comments (4)

Obama Desperately Tries to Isolate, Polarize Blacks to Shore Up His Base

In one of the most transparently self-serving political addresses in U.S. Presidential history, a shameless Barack Obama attempted to isolate and polarize African-Americans in an attempt to shore up his crumbling base of support for his 2012 reelection campaign.

In a fiery summons to an important voting block, President Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and "put on your marching shoes" to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.

And though he didn't say it directly, for a second term, too.

Obama’s speech to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus was his answer to increasingly vocal griping from black leaders that he's been giving away too much in talks with Republicans — and not doing enough to fight black unemployment, which is nearly double the national average at 16.7 percent.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Barack Obama is not an African-American except in the most technical sense of the word, and arguably knows less about the "black experience" than any partial minority in American politics. He grew up as a Pacific Islander in Hawaii and Indonesia, but did not spend time on the U.S. mainland until he was already in college. Once there, he immersed himself in a culture that was the province of radical, higher middle-class and rich leftist whites at Columbia and then Harvard, who absorbed the son of a radical west coast hippie mother and communist father with open arms and a self-satisfied nod towards diversity.

I have spent more time "in the hood" than Barack Obama, who relates to the "black experience" about as well as I relate to the cocktail party concern circus in which he's embedded himself his whole life. He is an utter and shameless veneer of an black man, a race-hustling pusher that uses his skin-deep physical appearance to push the agenda of Manhattan, and Cape Cod, Berkeley and Beverly Hills.

It makes me ill to watch Barack Obama try to use real African-Americans as self-indentured vote slaves. But try he shamelessly does.

"Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes," he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. "Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do."

Barack Obama has a long history of helping himself by using the black community that he was never really a part of. He's treated them as stepping stones and chumps as he's enriched himself beyond his expectations and his competence.

The question is, will he be able to do it again?

MIKE ADDS:

Once upon a time in those thrilling days of yesteryear, the Lone Ranger and Tonto found themselves in great peril:

Lone Ranger: "There are indians to the left of us; indians to the right of us; indians before and behind us! Tonto, what are we going to do?"

Tonto: What you mean 'we' white man?"

Despite not being the first black president--an honor claimed by Bill "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Clinton--one would think

that the CBC would fully embrace Barack Obama, yet they do not. Their quarrel is not that Mr. Obama supports a society based on equality of opportunity; he absolutely does not. Many, perhaps most CBC members share that concept, being fully supportive instead of the Marxist goal of equality of outcome. Their quarrel is that Mr. Obama had not turned over a sufficiently large quantity of the property of others. He has not sufficiently coddled them and their version of the culture of victimhood.

Even so, some 90% of blacks will likely vote for Mr. Obama in 2012 in large part because he is black, if not in fact, at least in appearance and in the chosen cadences of certain teleprompter readings, such as those he employed when he most recently read to them. Bob is absolutely right: Mr. Obama's experience is far from that of most American blacks. Despite his literary claims to seek his black identity, he has steadfastly sought his inner Marxist, and has been remarkably successful in finding him. Despite the fact that most blacks are manifestly not Marxists, they will reflexively support a man who cares no more about them because of their skin color--and a racial heritage and culture he has never shared--than he does for any other American. He is above any identification with any particular nation. He is far more important than that.

Until black Americans can be content with being just Americans and can stop voting on skin color and the vain hope that black politicians will look out for some ill-defined set of monolithically "black" issues and concerns, they will never fully obtain the promise of America, access to which their parents and grandparents secured long ago.

Blacks hearing Mr. Obama's faux-black cadenced teleprompter readings might rightfully ask: "what do you mean 'we'?"

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:10 AM | Comments (7)

September 23, 2011

I Question His Definition of "Is"

Think Progress quotes the liberal saint of stained dresses once again showing the kind of brilliance that comes from a man whose oxygenated bloodflow goes mostly below the waist.

Clinton: 'There Is Not A Single Solitary Example' Of A Country That Has Succeeded With A Tea Party Philosophy.

Really? I think the Founding Fathers might just disagree.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:12 AM | Comments (4)

September 22, 2011

Love, Loyalty and Leadership

At a meeting of the American Historical Society at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner proposed the Turner Thesis: America is unique—as are Americans—because unlike every other nation, we had a West to conquer. This both revealed and forged our unique national character. It taught us the meaning—meaning unique to Americans—of love, loyalty and leadership.

Fast-forward to September 14, 2011, North Carolina State University at Raleigh, a venue friendly—to say the least—to President Barack Obama. Mr. Obama is demanding, like an endlessly looped, stuck recording, that Congress pass his latest, non-existent, half-trillion dollar retread jobs bill. "I love you, Barack," blurts a voice from the adoring crowd. "I love you back," he replies, "but if you love me, you've got to help me pass this bill!" Mr. Obama's love is apparently conditional: one must first accept and actively support ruinous, socialist fiscal policies. What is most remarkable about this bizarre morality play is that it is utterly unsurprising and unremarkable.

Let's return to the beginning, to May 14, 1787, the State House in Philadelphia, the Constitutional Convention. There is no question of the president of the Convention. George Washington serves his new nation yet again. There is no oxymoronic leading from behind. Washington scarcely utters a word throughout the Convention; his steady presence is more than sufficient.

When the Constitution is finally ratified in 1788 there is no question of America's first president. With reluctance, George Washington serves once more. As he rides to New York to take the oath of office, Americans turn out to wish him well all along the way and he is moved to tears by their sincere appreciation for his character and accomplishments, yet he is distinctly uncomfortable for he knows that his example will establish precedence for all time for all who follow him. The adulation, even worship of kings and potentates can never be allowed to take hold in America. Washington is determined that there be no cults of personality.

Washington serves honorably, but always looking to the day when he owes no more to the future. He knows that the presidency is his for life—a virtual kingship is his—yet he chooses to close that option, not only for himself, for all. Other presidents--notably Bill Clinton--will flirt with a lifetime presidency, but Americans have always rejected such narcissistic overtures.

The Bible tells us that there is no greater love than that a man lay down his life for another. Americans have always embodied and practiced this love without reservation, not only for friends, but foreign strangers. True love is reserved for family and for those few friends whose character and accomplishments render them worthy of such devotion. Our forefathers the pioneers took these lessons to heart and passed them down, for they understood through hard experience upon whom they could rely.

Love cannot be wasted on politicians, for such is the infatuation of the teenage girl for the rock star regardless of how momentarily intensely felt. Loyalty to such people is wasted, for it cannot be reciprocated. Their loyalty is only to themselves, for most recognize no one and nothing greater than themselves. Their fame and popularity, based on the fickle preferences of crowds, propaganda and craven media support are ephemeral--fleeting. We owe our elected representatives only deference for their positions. Respect must be earned, each and every day, and freely given in recognition of character, morality and accomplishment.

For Americans, personal loyalty must be carefully, selectively bestowed. Few politicians are worthy of the least bit of it. Above all, it is given willingly, without reservation and with justifiable pride in America, to the American idea and ideals, to our national faith in what Americans alone can accomplish for good. What politician that does not gladly give his loyalty to America is worthy of the loyalty of a single American? The ultimate loyalty of all Americans must never be invested in politicians, for all fail, all pass away, but only in America which must ever endure.

While common in our military, true leadership is hardly common in our presidents. Election to office does not a leader make, though some would point to the fact that they have managed to be elected to several offices as proof of accomplishment and leadership. Leadership arises out of steadfast character and genuine accomplishment. Washington, Lincoln, Truman, Reagan, all men of character and real accomplishment rose to the challenge of the office. Barack Obama, a man famous for being famous, accomplished for being elected, has not and cannot.

Conservative radio host Andrew Wilcow suggests that the Obama sycophant expressing their love for Mr. Obama in Raleigh may have been a plant. This is a possibility not to be discounted for a White House infamous for its shameless stage-managing of Mr. Obama's public appearances, and which may be smarting from accusations that without his teleprompter, Mr. Obama is stilted and clumsy.

In either case, spontaneous or scripted, love expressed for a politician reveals a fundamental disconnect, even a repudiation of America.

Politician love is utterly misplaced, the stuff of cult-of-personality dictatorships. It reveals a sickness of the individual and national soul. Prior to Barack Obama, newsmen calling any president a god, worshiping the creases of their trousers, expressing amazement and admiration for their fly-swatting abilities or serially depicting them as pseudo religious icons with halos would have been thought deranged, but where Mr. Obama is concerned, such lunacy has become daily fair, remarkable only in its most insanely outrageous manifestations. In its intention and intensity, it is anti American, it rejects the example of Washington and embraces the worst aspects of the narcissism and vanity of the world's despots.

Mr. Obama is not worthy of the respect of any American. His character and accomplishments before and after assuming the presidency reveal a hollow man, a man who has actually admitted that he is an empty vessel—tabula rasa—a blank slate upon which the hopes—even the fantasies--of anyone may be drawn. Being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, not for any accomplishment—his chair behind the Resolute Desk was hardly warm—but for being Barack Obama, for some possible future accomplishment--is a case in point. Mr. Obama admitted that he deserved it not, yet revealed the depth of his character by accepting it knowing it to partially represent a crude slap in the face of America. This is a man whose loyalty is always to self, never America, which he sees as unremarkable, just one of many nations. He is a man who proudly announces his leadership from behind, who proposes non-existent bills and demands they be immediately passed, and who seeks to address ruinous deficits of his creation by means of class warfare and by creating yet greater deficits. This is a man who tolerates his Vice President calling fellow Americans "terrorist" and "barbarian" for daring to embrace the Constitution and demand fiscal responsibility.

The presidency of Barack Obama is the embodiment of a national holiday from responsibility and history. It is a departure from traditional and necessary American understandings of love, loyalty and leadership and a perversion of those essential, noble ideals. That such publically expressed, fawning devotion to a politician, particularly one of such abysmal character and destructive, anti-American intentions and accomplishment seems unremarkable to so many must stand as an urgent warning. It is an unmistakable indicator of how far we have allowed ourselves to stray from the path of liberty so carefully established by George Washington and so lovingly, carefully maintained by many that have followed him. It is a warning we fail to heed at our peril.

Posted by MikeM at 09:33 PM | Comments (2)

September 20, 2011

General Motors: American Jobs--For China?

The convoluted story of the Chevy Volt took another bizarre twist today with the publication of an Associated Press article detailing "cooperation" between General Motors and the Chinese government on electric vehicle technology, which inescapably means the Chevy Volt. It is, of course, the only electric vehicle (actually a ridiculously complex and expensive pseudo-hybrid) currently manufactured by GM, though an even more expensive version of the Volt is reportedly on Cadillac's drawing board and on the fast track for production.

The Volt's MSRP is approximately $41,000 and individual Volts have sold for up to $65,000. It's virtually certain that even fewer Volts would have sold without the $7500 government subsidy. Even with that generous subsidy—it's about double the cost of comparable conventional, high-mileage conventionally fueled compacts that actually get better mileage than the Volt—Volt sales have been abysmal (302 in August). But of course, the Volt isn't a product meant to survive in the free market, nor is it meant to turn a profit (GM probably loses money on every vehicle): it's an entirely political animal. It's difficult to imagine how much a Voltilac (Cadiolt?) will cost or precisely where the market for such a vehicle is. These days, Cadillac has become a brand built upon high performance, luxury and perceived prestige, none of which an even more ridiculously expensive Volt can possibly provide.

The AP story, as we’ll explore, dances around the reasons for this "cooperation." A Green Auto Blog story is more to the point, but for the moment, let's focus on the AP, which titled its story: "GM to Build Electric Cars in China, Protect Chevy Volt Technology."

The AP continues:

"General Motors Co. agreed Tuesday to deepen cooperation with its flagship
Chinese partner on development of electric vehicle knowhow amid pressure from
Beijing to hand over proprietary technology.

Investments and other details of the plan were not provided, and it was unclear if the agreement was the result of a renewed push by China to acquire advanced technology its own automakers still lack."

Right. It's unclear. But all is not smiles and fortune cookies:

"U.S. lawmakers have complained that China is shaking down GM to get the technology that drives the Chevrolet Volt electric car. GM plans to start selling the Volt in China by the end of the year, but its prospects are iffy because it doesn't qualify for a Chinese government subsidy that amounts to $19,000 per car. The government offers the subsidy only to electric cars made in China.

Lawmakers contend such requirements are unfair and may violate world trade rules."

Oh no! The Chinese Communists aren't playing fair! Who could possibly have imagined that? GM provides an unintentionally informative tidbit:

"But GM spokesman Jay Cooney in Detroit said the company has not been pressured by the Chinese government to share the Volt technology and has no plans to share it. He said GM is working with the Chinese government in an effort to get the subsidy for the Volt because it helps reach a government goal of getting more electric vehicles on the road.

The cooperation agreement was signed during a meeting of the U.S. automaker's board in Shanghai — a visit underscoring China's importance to the company's future. It was the GM board's first meeting outside of the U.S."

Hey, didn't the GM spokesman just say they have no plans to share Volt technology?

"'We can accomplish far more by working together than we can by working separately,' Tim Lee, president of GM International Operations, said as GM and state-owned partner Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp. signed an agreement on developing a next-generation electric vehicle platform.

The agreement 'to co-develop electric vehicle architecture is further proof of GM's and SAIC's plan to lead the auto industry in new energy vehicle technology," he said, describing the plan as a "very aggressive and challenging project.'

Cooney said the companies will work together to develop a new fully electric car. The Volt can travel about 35 miles on battery power, and a gas-powered generator kicks in to run the car when the batteries are depleted. The generator technology eliminates anxiety over whether a driver will run out of electricity."

Let's review:

(1) GM is going to "deepen cooperation with its flagship Chinese partner."

(2) GM's "flagship partner" is, in fact, the belligerent communist government of China, our undeclared enemy, the ally of our declared enemies (such as North Korea), a nation that reflexively works against American interests and is currently producing a massive military buildup obviously aimed at directly challenging American interests in Asia and the Pacific, and a nation whose generals and politicians often rattle their collective sabers at us. You know, those guys, our pals who flood our market with children's toys virtually dripping in lead-based paints.

(3) GM spokesman say they're not going to share EV technology with the Chinese.

(4) The Chinese are demanding that GM share EV technology or they'll do something absolutely horrible and unfair: Make Chinese peasants pay the full MSRP for Chevy Volts. Good grief! Even the evil running dog American capitalists don't do that! They're proletarian enough to provide a $7500 people's subsidy, and they're not even Marxists! OK, so having a Marxist president and government doesn't count.

(5) So GM is not going to share EV technology with the Chinese, except they're going "'to co-develop electric vehicle architecture," which is " further proof of GM's and SAIC's plan to lead the auto industry in new energy vehicle technology," all of which lack of cooperation and sharing with the Chinese will be a "very aggressive and challenging project."

(6) The primary method American diplomats use in negotiating with the Chinese, particularly under Democrat administrations, consists of the Chinese making outrageous, bellicose demands to which our diplomats respond by saying "OK."

What is the most unintentionally revealing part of the story? The Obama Administration, including Mr. Obama himself, has repeatedly said that they have no role, none whatsoever, in the day to day operation of General Motors, despite the taxpayer's continuing ownership of GM and GM's continuing loss of taxpayer money, the Volt being an excellent case in point.

As Americans have learned whenever Mr. Obama says "let me be clear," or in any way suggests that he's going to tell the truth, he's about to obfuscate and lie on a cosmic scale. While GM has, in recent years, demonstrated some familiarity with political lying –most notably it's "we paid off our government loans early by taking money from another government loan" ploy--Mr. Cooney does not seem to play in mendacity's big leagues.

Mr. Cooney's statement has an unclear pronoun antecedent. Does he mean to say that putting more EVs on the road is a goal of the American government or of the Chinese government? I suspect it's a Freudian slip. We know beyond any doubt that putting immature EV technology on American roads, regardless of whether Americans want it, is one of the foremost goals of the Obama Administration, which has made no secret of it. Mr. Cooney is merely confirming what those who have been paying attention to this debacle have long known: The Volt exists at the demand of the Obamites and their greenie bundlers and they will stop at nothing to promote it even if it again bankrupts GM, for real this time.

Green Auto Blog suggests a somewhat more pedestrian motivation for GM:

"As General Motors seeks to introduce the Chevrolet Volt to the Chinese market, it's counting on these subsidies to help make the car attractive to potential buyers. It could work, too, since the Chinese subsidies are large enough to essentially slice the Volt's MSRP in half."

Notice that if GM can get the communists to agree to extend their $19,300 per vehicle subsidy to the Volt, it would actually be affordable to American consumers, who, of course, won't be able to take advantage of it because, well, they're seriously disadvantaged by not being Chinese and living in America. It's difficult to believe that GM is making this deal—you know, the deal they're not making--for financial reasons. After all, no matter how large the government subsidy or which government pays it, GM is almost certainly losing money on each and every Volt that rolls out of the factory. There must be more pressing reasons for this non-agreement agreement. What could they be?

Mr. Cooney has provided the answer: The Obamites wants to put more electric vehicles on the road. Their green purity keeps them from realizing—or caring—about whether their EV flagship actually works, will sell in anything approaching fiscally rational numbers, or whether those EVs are on the road in America or China. The environmentalist virtue of displacing vehicles powered by evil carbon based fuels takes precedence over reality, politics, national security and certainly common sense. Let's not even try to bring rational business practices into this infernal mixture.

There is no doubt that GM will give away the EV technological farm to the Chinese—or the Chinese will steal it if they haven't already. There is also no doubt that whatever electronic technology they glean from this venture will be used to the maximum degree possible in military applications. Perhaps the Obamites have forgotten that the Chinese Military has its hand in every state-run business venture, and certainly controls all exchanges of technology with foreign states, particularly the United States. And have I mentioned that the Chinese are almost certainly behind a massive and ongoing cyber espionage and sabotage program against America?

On the other hand, the Obamites probably know all about it. No wonder they're behind this "very aggressive and challenging project."

I've long thought that if Mr. Obama loses his bid for office in 2012 that GM, which will almost certainly be thrown out into the cold, hard reality of existence in the free market, will dump the Volt like the economic albatross it is. The only way that the Volt could ever be profitable in America—absent unbelievable leaps in technology which could greatly extend its range and lower the price—is if manufacturing costs could be drastically lowered, and by drastically, I mean essentially cut in half. But of course, the only way to do that would be to outsource the production of the Volt, to move it to a country with very cheap labor costs, a country like—no! You don't suppose they're thinking about moving Volt production to China, do you?

A $20,000 Volt just might be at least marginally economically viable in the American market. But wouldn't that be a complete repudiation of Mr. Obama's serial promises to make American job creation his first priority? Wouldn't shipping the production of an entire model line of American vehicles to China be counterproductive to job creation in America? Wouldn't it in fact be strengthening an avowed, if not specifically declared, mortal enemy of America? OK, OK, maybe I'm exaggerating. After all, they probably only have several thousand nuclear warheads aimed at us. What's a few nucs between friends?

Surely Barack Obama wouldn't be un-American enough to benefit the Chinese communists at the expense not only of American labor, but national security, and all in the name of putting more EVs on the road? Why, that would be—unimaginable.

Posted by MikeM at 10:46 PM | Comments (3)

September 15, 2011

... Of a Miserable Failure

In 2007 and 2008 the signs were there and all too vivid for those who cared to look.

Unrepentant and continual contact with not one, but two of America's most infamous political terrorists. Ties to another mentor who was both an admitted child rapist and a radical. Befriending a radical priest that advocates lynching. Spending more than two decades in a radical church that is a blend of Marxist political theory and racial supremacy.

An short and undistinguished political career marked by radical positions, when he would even take a position at all. An incomplete, sometimes contradictory personal history and an unwillingness to divulge everything from his associates to his collegiate records. The padding of his resume.

But he was new, and charismatic. He was a handsome and gifted speech reader with a on-pitch delivery and a vague promise of "hope and change" at a time when much of the nation wanted to simply pretend everything that had happened from 9/11/01 onward was just a bad dream.

He wasn't a candidate.

He was an escapist fantasy for a nation worn down by protracted wars and deep domestic divisions. Looked at it objectively with the benefit of hindsight, it seems obvious that the Democratic Party could have run almost any fresh-faced candidate and won against the feeble and caustic old man offered up by Republicans.

Barack Obama was then, and always has been... a miserable failure (NSFW).


(also NSFW)

We all know that now.

Between arming drug cartels and street gangs with guns and grenades, and using his position to press for loans to campaign donors, Barack Obama will be lucky if his legacy is something other than a prison library.

We did this to ourselves and deserve every bit of what we're getting, America.

Perhaps you should research your candidates a little deeper next time, and cast your vote for someone with a proven track record of leadership, and not, as Obama has given us, "just words."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:09 PM | Comments (7)

September 11, 2011

9-11's New Rallying Cry

On this hallowed day, I leave devotions to others. The Lord embraces his own; our concerns are, of necessity, more worldly. Perhaps the best way to honor those not lost, but murdered, ten years ago is to recognize the very real lessons of 9-11, lessons even more pressing today. Among them: Appeasement is disaster, medieval barbarians and contemporary despots fear only strength and we cannot afford Progressivism—we never could.

From Jimmy Carter's feckless encouragement of and mishandling of the Iranian hostage taking—an act of war—to Bill Clinton's dismantling of our human intelligence networks, to Barack Obama's continuing attempt to treat the world's most rabid terrorist murderers as common criminals, the evidence that progressives are as dangerous to our national security, to our very lives, is long-standing and unmistakable. We can't afford to ignore it any longer.

Mr. Obama's "smart diplomacy" has predictably made the world even more dangerous to freedom. Indeed, Mr. Obama has continued many Bush/Cheney policies, but this is not a result of his firm commitment to American Democracy and freedom, but because to do otherwise would have dissipated his political viability and even led to impeachment. We should waste not a single breath in praise of a politician doing the bare minimum any president should do.

Instead, let us remember and pay attention to these imminent threats:

1) Egypt now stands ready to take up Islamist rule and at the very least has abandoned its groundbreaking stance of non-aggression toward Israel. Unless Mr. Obama intends to abandon Israel in case of war—and this cannot be discounted (I'm sure this is much on the minds of Israelis)—heightened aggression toward Israel is heightened danger for us.

2) The "rebels" Mr. Obama supported with American air power in Libya are now revealed as Al Qaeda terrorists. This does not bode well for peace and democracy in North Africa, to say the least.

3) Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons proceeds at great speed. Iran continually swears that it will use nucs against Israel and us. We would be idiots not to take them at their word, yet "smart diplomats" are incapable of treating such unambiguously genocidal threats seriously.

4) Turkey is throwing off democracy in favor of Islamism and cutting its peaceful ties with Israel.

5) North Korea not only provides missile and nuclear technology to terrorist states, it is actively aggressive toward us and our allies, attacking at will. The Leaders of North Korea are easily deranged enough to use nucs or to provide them to terrorists.

6) China's aggression and military build up are a substantial threat not only to our allies and interests in the Pacific, but to our survival. Their serial cyber attacks on us are arguably acts of war.

7) The drug war in Mexico threatens to cause the failure of the Mexican state and to spill across the border in far more serious fashion than the relatively limited incursions we've already experienced. The Obama Administration responds by passing, through administrative fiat--bypassing the Congress and people--the DREAM act, and by using our law enforcement, diplomatic and national security apparatus to arm the cartels through the Gunwalker scandal.

These are far from the only threats facing us as a direct result of progressive policy and disdain for America. The media—a wholly owned arm of progressivism—has never shown the footage of innumerable Americans falling to their deaths from the Twin Towers, choosing a few final seconds of life and freedom rather than death by fire. They have withheld this footage not to spare our sensibilities, not out of concern for decency, but because they know that each and every falling body would only harden the resolve of Americans, would only pound terrible, final nails into the rotting coffin of Progressivism.

Honor those who died by restoring America, by restoring limited government, self-reliance, the work ethic, personal responsibility, and the unashamed, unreserved appreciation for all that America is and has done for the world. Take America back from those who deal with nuclear threats with repeated, weak threats of sanctions against terrorist despots that murder their own people. Take her back from those who see our defense budget as just another bargaining chip, from those who don't believe that America is in any way exceptional, from those who scorn and belittle Americans who believe in God and the Bill of Rights, calling them "barbarians" and "terrorists" and telling them to go to Hell. Restore it to those who will uphold America's sovereignty and who will restore and preserve her economic and moral might.

Our enemies have, for some time, been taking advantage of the perception of American weakness. If America is to survive in the brutal and endlessly perilous world Progressivism has so foolishly created, Americans must utterly and finally reject Progressivism beginning now, and in 2012. From this day forward, this should be 9-11's rallying cry that such an atrocity never be repeated on American soil.

Oh yes--we're actually at war against an enemy devoid of mercy. It might not be a bad idea to have a president who can actually say the word "war."

Posted by MikeM at 01:59 PM | Comments (4)

September 09, 2011

Triumphs Of Smart Diplomacy: #28,764

Crowds of Egyptian "protestors" attacked and breached the Israeli Embassy in Cairo on Friday, forcing the ambassador, his family and other staff to flee to Israel.
Egyptian military police helped them evacuate safely, but the police did not impede those seizing and ransacking the embassy.

According to Fox News, President Obama told Israeli President Netanyahu that he was working "at all levels" and also expressed "great concern."

The seizure of the embassy of a foreign nation is normally considered an act of war.

ObamaCare, the Stimulus (which name may no longer be spoken), leading from behind, overseas contingency operations, "reeducation," Gunwalker, single-handedly dismantling the Arab-Israeli "peace process," allowing Iran to build nuclear weapons, and now expressing "great concern" over the seizure and sacking of the Israeli Embassy. Is there anything Mr. Obama cannot destroy within less than three years?

Israel will be fortunate to survive the Obama Administration. We may not be in much better shape.

Posted by MikeM at 11:24 PM | Comments (4)

The World Turned Upside Down

The Associated Press nails Obama for lying about Son of Son of Stimulus, and the NY Times compliments Sarah Palin.

I think I need to lie down.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:44 AM | Comments (4)

September 08, 2011

It's Muslim Day At Six Flags!

"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities."
Winston Churchill

"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Houston Bugle, Friday, September 2, 2011

SAN ANTONIO: As many as 4000 Catholics from around the state are expected to converge on Six Flags Rodeo Texas on Sunday for "Catholic Family Day," to spread the eternal truth of the Gospel and to assure Americans that Catholics are peaceful and mainstream.

Activities will include Catholic prayers and devotions, entertainment, socializing, and confessionals set up throughout the park. The event, which is open to the public, was organized by local chapters of the Knights of Columbus.

The interaction with the public at a popular, high-traffic amusement park will go far in reducing anxieties between Catholics and the larger community, said Steve O'Donnell, The KOC's local president.

"It's our community too, and we are mainstream just like anybody else," he said.

Local Baptist minister Paul Chilton observed: "the event is a sign of the gradual acceptance of local Catholics. After all, they're just like the rest of us, except for maybe the whole fish thing on Fridays."

Readers with a keen eye will recognize this "news" story as a parody of a recent story appearing on the Houston Chronicle's website titled "Muslim Family Day Will Spread Peace At Six Flags" (links at the end of the article) The event, reported with all of the diverse, culturally sensitive prose one might expect in such a story, reportedly went off without a hitch on Sunday, which is as it should be and less than surprising.

Why is this "event" news, and why should anyone care? Can't Six Flags, which took pains to note that it was not formally sponsoring Muslim Day, and which is a private, for-profit business have a Catholic day, or a Mormon day, a "celebrate little yapping, ankle-biting dogs day" or an "Aliens are coming to take us to Venus day"? Of course it can, and while most Americans would find devoting a day to a given faith a bit odd, most would shrug their shoulders and move on. Not so where Islam is involved, which is why the Houston Chronicle thought the event newsworthy and why CAIR sought to publicize it. Islam is indeed a special case, and with the annual approach of 9-11, now is a particularly good time to remember why.

Americans are a people who truly welcome all faiths and all peoples. As long as those peoples are willing to honor our Constitutionally established separation of church and state, they are welcome. Some might consider the practices of a given faith to be odd or perhaps even mildly sinister, but America has never been into the policing of thought, at least not too much thus far in the Age of Obama. Americans simply accept Muslims who are willing to assimilate. Such acceptance takes no conscious thought or action; it's merely taken for granted. Some, however, can't take "yes" for an answer and seek to stir the pot of intolerance. CAIR is among the most egregious pot-stirrers in America, and the Lamestream Media is not far behind.

In April of 2006, in an attempt to make, rather than report, the news, NBC sent men dressed in outlandishly Islamic clothing to a NASCAR race, hoping to record what they obviously hoped would be the intolerance and racism of the red-necked, gun and God clinging denizens of Flyover Country. NBC ended up with nothing to show for its clumsy efforts, which any NASCAR fan could have told them beforehand: Southerners—even NASCAR fans--tend to be polite people. NBC probably ended up with hours of tape of people of all races, genders and faiths saying "hello," "how are you," or "the men's room is down that way."

Americans, like Winston Churchill, are quite capable of understanding that most Muslims are not Jihadists and wish no one harm. However, most Americans are also aware that tens of millions of Muslims—even some in America--are Islamists and do wish not only to harm infidels but to subjugate the world. A global Caliphate will certainly not be compatible with amusement parks, just as prior to American intervention in Afghanistan, the punishment for kite flying could easily be death. Unfortunately, those Muslims who choose to assimilate are not following the literal dictates of their faith, in fact, they are commonly considered apostates by their more militant, scripturally adherent brethren who have no scruples about killing fellow Muslims who do not mirror their beliefs.

This is why CAIR promotes this, and similar events. CAIR, which has a long and well-documented history of support for Islamists and their goals, and its supporters surely understand that Muslims are universally accepted in American culture where people are judged by their character and actions rather than their faith. What CAIR seeks to do is to normalize Islamic practices as part of a long- term strategy toward its eventual goal: Islamic rule and the imposition of Sharia, or Islamic law. In essence, CAIR is hoping to gradually, subtly condition Americans to give them the unthinking acceptance and blindly ignorant tolerance necessary for Islam to prevail.

At a teacher, I find that one of the concepts with which my students struggle most is the idea that other cultures are not like Americans. They may wear blue jeans, listen to rock, eat at McDonald's and watch American movies, but they do not share our religious, political or cultural assumptions and beliefs. Islam admits no such thing as the separation of Church and State, which has been essential in establishing a nation where all faiths may practice freely. Islam is a complete scheme of theologically based government. It is anti-democratic—utterly incompatible with democracy and individual freedom--and is dedicated to enslaving the world and imposing Sharia.

Unfortunately, this global caliphate all good Islamists seek must be carried out by human beings who must, as best they can, try to divine the will of God, or Allah, as they prefer. Politicians are, of course, not fit to understand God's will (or even understand basic economics, particularly if Progressives), so only ministers may rule, and all law is based on the Islamic scripture and commentaries as interpreted by the minister/rulers. The Koran is quite clear about all of this, and even lays out precisely how war against the Infidels—that's all non-Muslims—must be waged.

When an Islamist terrorist leader issues a demand that a nation or people submit to Islam, he is not preaching repentance or engaging in mere rhetoric as Americans used to religious rhetoric would imagine, he is following the Islamic principles of war as outlined in the Koran. Muslims must first give an enemy an opportunity to convert, and if they refuse, may put them to the sword. Once conquered, Muslims may simply kill all of their enemies, or they may allow some to live. If they choose the latter course, they may institute Dhimmitude, allowing the conquered some measure of political, cultural and religious tolerance in exchange for the Jizyah, a tax which all Dhimmis must pay for the privilege. However, even in conquered people allowed this privilege, the fact that they are infidels always hangs over them like a sword of Damascus steel, for the fate of infidels and apostates in Islam is death and it may be imposed at any time.

It is particularly fascinating to find American politicians, ministers, gay activists, even feminists supporting Islamists and calling for "understanding" and "tolerance." Should Islam prevail, there will be no cultural or religious understanding or tolerance. There will be no Christian or other ministers, gays will be killed wherever they are found, politicians will be out of the job unless they are willing to convert to Islam and become Mullahs (Islamic ministers) and women will find themselves to be worse off than cattle, for in Islamic countries, cattle are often afforded more concern and care than women and girls. Genital mutilation, beatings, forced marriage, torture, the denial of even basic education, honor killings, and more are the fate of hundreds of millions of women in Islamic nations, particularly those with a more Islamist bent.

There is no need to publicize a Muslim Day at an amusement park any more than there is a need to publicize an Episcopalian day or a Lutheran day or an atheist day. All are accepted; all are unremarkable. All are, if not exactly mainstream, subject to the protections and legitimacy mandated by the Constitution. This goes beyond an earnest desire for acceptance and assimilation, yet it may provide a benefit CAIR could not anticipate.

Even as we remember those savagely murdered on 9-11, let us not forget that they died not as a result of an unfortunate accident, not in a tragedy, not as a result of an "overseas contingency operation," not because some felt aggrieved, not because of American domestic or foreign policy, but because we are, and have for decades been, engaged in a war for the very survival of Western civilization, a war we did not provoke, did not start, and would prefer not to have to fight.

Muslim Day at Six Flags in San Antonio, Texas was merely one small yet important propaganda effort in that war, a war we cannot afford to minimize, ignore or lose on any front.

Links For This Article:

http://www.chron.com/default/article/Muslim-Family-Day-will-spread-peace-at-Six-Flags-2153726.php

NASCAR: http://www.nascar.com/2006/news/opinion/04/06/cross.nbc.dateline/

CAIR Background: http://spectator.org/blog/2011/03/10/yes-cairs-terrorist-ties-are-r#

Posted by MikeM at 10:07 PM | Comments (3)

The Major Economic Salvation Speech

"Pass this bill." "Pass this bill." Pass this bill right now." "If you pass this bill…" "PASS THIS BILL RIGHT NOW!" And that—and more—was just the first 10 minutes of Mr. Obama's major economic salvation speech. It was like judging a round of beginning debaters, and very dim beginning debaters at that. And now we discover that there is, in fact, no actual—ahem—bill. Once again, Mr. Obama is expecting the CBO to score a speech. Obama uber-advisor Valerie Jarrett has admitted that the bill does not exist. They're still writing it, she tells us, and it will be delivered to Congress next week (maybe). Talk about a Pelosiesque "you'll have to pass it to find out what's in it," ploy!

And the way to promote job growth is for the Federal Government—you know, our "federal family"—to spend $450 billion dollars! That's roughly half the failed stimulis.

I was going to write about this monstrosity in some depth, but all you really need to know is that it was essentially Mr. Obama telling Congress and the American people about how smart and wonderful he is and how only partisan, barbarian (thanks Mr. Biden!) terrorists could possibly oppose anything Mr. Obama wants.

Mr. Obama condescending and lecturing, Congresswoman Waters telling us to go to hell, VP Biden calling us Barbarians (in comparison with union thugs—see Bob's article on the Longshoremen and Rob's article as well), and now they want conservatives to come together in peace and brotherhood to spend money we'll have to borrow to do essentially nothing to actually create jobs? For them, it really is a feature, not a bug.

Oh, and does anyone really believe that when the ink is dry—if that ever happens—the price tag will remain at a mere $450 billion?

They really do think that the American people are utter morons, particularly those of us in Flyover Country. And yes, gentle readers, they do think and talk just that way.

PS: Biggest, most bald-faced lie: It's all paid for. Uh…the Super Committee will have to figure out how to do it!

Posted by MikeM at 09:22 PM | Comments (5)

Labor Union Terrorism Strikes WA State Port

union label
Thugs first, last, and always.
Hundreds of Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha.

Six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said.

No one was hurt, and nobody has been arrested. Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting brake lines and spilling grain from car at the EGT terminal, Duscha said.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union believes it has the right to work at the facility, but the company has hired a contractor that's staffing a workforce of other union laborers.

They committed multiple counts of kidnapping, assault with deadly weapon, assault on a police officer, vandalism, property damage, and God knows what else, because they feel they have the right to take the jobs away from other people.

Expect either a half-hearted response or not response at all from the Democratic Party, including the President.

You will not see a forceful response from Homeland Security.

You will not see a forceful response from the Department of Justice.

This is precisely the kind of violence that they condone, and why the labor union constituency that are the enforcers of the Democratic Party must not just be controlled, but utterly destroyed.

Update: Shockingly, it's co-ordinated and happening at other ports.

ILWU is claiming that the actions must be local, which would be much more credible if ILWU International President Robert McEllrath wasn't personally leading the Longview assault and union rags weren't triumphantly showing photos of him being arrested.

thug-arrested
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:23 PM | Comments (8)

Obligatory, Next-Day Reagan Debate Commentary

Rick Perry may as well have walked on to a bullseye instead of a stage last night at the Reagan Library, with fellow Republican Presidential candidates and the moderators doing their level best to tear him apart.

Overall, Perry held his ground, which is all you must do as the front-runner. He got testy with Mitt Romney, which was expected, and with Ron Paul, which is unnecessary (you don't punch down, and you don't engage crazy).

Mitt Romney, was, well, Mitt Romney. Incredibly polished, impeccably Presidential in his bearing, and yet so slightly off-putting and almost imperceptibly insincere. He's like a more refined version of Joe Isuzu.

Newt Gingrich showed us all he is still a masterful debater and personality, and I hope they keep him around well into the primary season if for no other reason than to drop like a sack of hammers on badgering moderators like we saw last night. He will not be President or the Veep, but he is a brilliant man, and whoever the eventual candidate would be smart to find him a place in their administration.

Herman Cain gave the most direct answers of the night, and impressed me with his ability to stay on message. He didn't duck or weave like the professional politicians, and had the kind of confidence that comes from experiencing real success. He and he alone stands on the stage as the only candidate in either party with a legitimate claim as a job maker. I want to see him around until the end, and suspect he would be solid Vice Presidential pick for the eventual nominee, where he could be set loose to promote job growth for the next four years.

There was also another Mitt Romney in a orange face and yellow tie. I think they called him Jon something.

Michelle Bachmann, God bless her, was neutered last night, primarily by the moderators, who all but excluded her. I quipped on Twitter that I thought she must have left early, and of course, Politico thought I meant that literally, when I was actually a bit ticked at the way the moderators focused on trying to destroy Perry and Romney instead of trying to provide an actual forum people could learn from.

I think there were a couple of other candidates, but they don't matter.

And there you are.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:03 AM | Comments (9)

September 07, 2011

They Do WHAT?!

Submitted for your approval: A federal regulatory agency that, lacking a legal mandate to impose its will, encourages radical pressure groups to sue it so that it can claim that it is being forced to do what it, and the radical pressure groups, want to do in the first place. And that's not all. The agency has also paid one of the pressure groups to produce a do-it-yourself guide to suing the agency, and routinely pays the legal bills of the pressure groups it encourages to sue it!

How could any federal bureaucracy be so out of control? Why is such a bureaucracy allowed to exist? Go here to my latest Pajamas Media article to find out. Take your blood pressure medications first. You might want to sit down first too.

Posted by MikeM at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)

That Game's a Killer

So we have violent rhetoric from the Hoffa that's still above water to "take these sons of bitches out," and a nice little Brooklyn liberal who created a video game so that progressives can get whet their eliminationist instincts by violently killing Fox News personalities and conservative politicians... all under a shallow veneer of being a zombie killing game.

Yeah, right. It's the joy of killing zombies that makes progressives happy, not the enabling of their fantasy to murder real-life, flesh-and-blood conservatives that they loathe without facing consequences. It's like being Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, without all the nasty side effects. Win!

I have another one Starving Eyes Advergaming could develop.

It's called the "OZombie Shooter."

In it the Executive branch ships guns and grenades to Mexico, everyone dies, and the media tries to cover it up.

Real damn funny, isn't it?

If only it were a game...

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:45 AM | Comments (1)

September 06, 2011

Obama Stealth Socialism And The EPA

As a nation breathlessly awaits Mr. Obama's upcoming homily on his certain economic salvation of the nation, it might be good to recall that President Obama recently directed the EPA to put on hold proposed regulations that would have substantially ramped up smog control controls relating to ozone. The regulations, if imposed, would have hit American businesses with as much as $90 billion dollars a year in compliance costs.

This move has been met with praise from some quarters. Even Conservatives, who tend to want to respect their leaders and who tend to want to seek the good in them, even to the extent of giving due credit to political enemies who have sworn ever-lasting enmity against them, have also given cautious praise to the President. Perhaps a few are wondering if, at long last, Mr. Obama might be seeing the light—compact fluorescent light, not incandescent light, of course.

However, many Progressives, including virtually all environmentalists, are wailing, gnashing their teeth and rending their garments in expressing their disappointment, even outrage at Mr. Obama's enviro-apostasy.

All are wrong.

Barack Obama remains what he always has been: A Marxist-indoctrinated stealth Socialist. However, extraordinary circumstances of Mr. Obama's own making have forced him to temporarily bow to reality, not for the sake of reality, but for a far more important consideration: the sake of his own reelection.

To better understand what is happening, it may be useful to consider three discrete time frames: the upcoming presidential campaign (for Mr. Obama, the campaign is eternal), the lame duck post election day period from early November until the inauguration in early January of 2013, and the next presidential term.

On September 2, Friday, the traditional Washington bad news dumping day, the Labor Department admitted that in August, not a single new job was created (or presumably, saved) for the first time since 1945, and that official unemployment remained at 9.1%. Adding to the economic bad news, the Obama Administration also admitted that unemployment would almost certainly remain at 9+% throughout 2012. Historically, no president has won reelection with unemployment at such an elevated level. In fact, Democrats ruthlessly excoriated President George W. Bush for unemployment in the 5% range, which videos will make for amusing viewing during the coming campaign.

No doubt Mr. Obama, at the behest of his more occasionally rational advisors, has realized that unless he creates at least the appearance of moderating his reflexively anti-American, anti-business, rabidly pro-labor union and environmentalist core beliefs, his electoral prospects are grim at best. So why not announce a roll back (which can be reinstated when the heat is off) of a juicy, politically charged regulation about to be imposed by a much-reviled agency? It's a perfect, and perfectly predictable, stealth Socialist ploy.

Mr. Obama's base will be allowed, even encouraged, to complain while giving independents the illusion that he has suddenly discovered rational policy. Even some conservatives might be tempted to partake of the Kool Aid for they, trusting souls (suckers!), seek the good in others and hope for their repentance and redemption. Simultaneously, the more rabid environmentalists are unleashed to express vitriolic disgust. All the while, however, the wiser of the Socialist base know that Mr. Obama is winking at them and that they can't lose.

If Mr. Obama wins a second term, even if Republicans control both houses of Congress, America will see a blizzard of executive orders and bureaucrat-imposed regulations that will take a generation to undo, if such undoing is even possible. If he loses, America will experience a two-month blizzard of executive orders, regulations and pardons that will make Bill Clinton's pardons of Puerto Rican terrorists and of Marc Rich seem paragons of wisdom and rectitude in the administration of justice by comparison. In both cases, Progressives know that many such mandates, once established, will never be fully overturned. Despite their hatred for Ronald Reagan, Progressives ironically give him credit through their actions for his aphorism that the closest thing to eternal life we will ever see on Earth is a government program.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, Mr. Obama's actions are merely a cynical continuation of his standard operating procedure: If it can't be obtained legislatively, accomplish it by means of executive order or bureaucracy. Like a bargain basement children's party magician, with his left hand he misdirects, rolling back or temporarily delaying a handful of ruinous regulations and mandates, while with his right he imposes thousands of new, far more destructive regulations.

More than 4200 new regulations enacted since his election have been put into effect or will soon be imposed. Unless it is fully repealed, the more than 100 new federal bureaucracies conjured by ObamaCare will add thousands of additional regulations even more expensive, economy-destroying and enervating than those already imposed or planned, for the full impact of ObamaCare is not in those regulations written in the thousands of pages of the law, for in those which will be created by unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats. Mr. Obama will surely do nothing to ward off this perfect storm of rule making and imposition by the Socialist administrative state he has worked so hard to create. This is Mr. Obama's only true accomplishment, and it is to America's detriment.

It is Socialist orthodoxy, not rational thought or concern for America that drives Mr. Obama. It forces him to continue to double down on obviously failed policies rational men would have long ago abandoned, for the Socialist truly believes only two things: Socialism cannot possibly be wrong, and Mr. Obama and his cadre of self-imagined elite Socialists will succeed where all Socialists before them have failed. This may seem self contradictory, but that's certainly not Socialist thinking.

Rational people behold the abject failure and obscene waste of the Stimulus and vow never to repeat such an idiotic mistake. Socialists believe it failed only temporarily and only because it was too small. They demand more and even bigger and more wasteful Stimuli; they want to do more and spend more. Rational people behold Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and realize that they will soon bankrupt the nation. They want to take affirmative steps to retain necessary social protections for the deserving while preventing disaster. Socialists ignore the washed out bridge over the looming fiscal abyss and pass, against the wishes of the American people, ObamaCare, an entitlement which will, by itself, bankrupt the nation, even cynically stealing a half trillion dollars from its lesser brethren to prop it up.

If a Socialistic program is floundering, this can only be because insufficient socialism has been applied. If more is applied but still avails nothing, this can only be because conservatives are allowed to exist to oppose it or because the program has not had sufficient time to work its transformative miracles. Socialism is always and in all ways unfalsifiable; it cannot fail; it cannot be wrong.

Has Mr. Obama truly seen the CFL light? Ask Texas. If a January 1 EPA rule regulating cross-state air pollution goes into effect, Texas—and a great many other states—will have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade their coal-fired power plants. This despite the fact that even the EPA admits that Texas really doesn't contribute to the problem and has its own, stringent, pollution control laws. Mr. Obama, during the campaign, promised to essentially destroy the American coal industry and threatened to bankrupt coal-fired power producers.

The effects of such a regulation in Texas alone would be catastrophic. Texas, like most states, cannot do without a single megawatt of power. Any degradation in power production capacity would result in periodic blackouts in times of greatest demand, particularly during the summers, resulting in multiple deaths of the poor and infirm. Those of greater means will almost certainly install fossil-fueled generators, which will contribute to rather than reduce pollution, but Socialism cannot be wrong. Texas was never going to vote for Mr. Obama anyway, so why should he care?

Before the election, Mr. Obama earned the coveted title of the most leftist Senator in America, more left even than the sole self-identified Socialist. That title is surely richly deserved, unlike the Nobel Prize he won for being Barack Obama. Like all magicians, Mr. Obama deals only in illusion.

Posted by MikeM at 10:42 PM | Comments (1)

September 05, 2011

Liberal Academics Support Prejudices Against Conservatives

Specifically, a couple of college professors asked ambiguous questions and inferred racist intent from questions like these:

...Mr. Abramowitz also said they were more likely to harbor racial resentment, which he judged based on their answers to questions such as whether blacks could succeed as well as whites if they "would only try harder," and whether they agreed with the statement that Irish, Italians and Jews overcame prejudice and "blacks should do the same without any special favors."

Mr. Abramowitz said tea party supporters were substantially more likely than other voters to question how much effort black Americans are making to advance themselves, versus being held back by social factors.

You see, for liberal, often Marxist and truly racist academics, blacks are lesser humans, and they need subsidies, special treatment, and incentives. How else are they supposed to be "equal" unless we make them equal?

Tea Party supporters of every race view this as condescending rubbish with good reason; equality means everyone having the same opportunities, not ensuring that everyone has the same results.

In the eyes of the ignorati, however, such sentiments equal racism and bigotry because it doesn't embrace their belittling view of minorities.

Remind me again... who are the racists?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:57 AM | Comments (1)

September 01, 2011

The Eco-Aliens Are Coming! The Eco-Aliens Are Coming!

In July of 2010, newly appointed NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was proud to announce the new mission given him by President Obama, the mission he considered most important to NASA: To make Muslims feel good about the scientific accomplishments of their ancient ancestors. Even then, Mr. Obama exhibited an almost divine prescience, for a year later, NASA no longer had the ability to send men into space, so why not focus on more Earthly pursuits? Exhibiting the same spirit that once landed men on the Moon, NASA has done just that.

According to Ian Sample of The Guardian, NASA has turned its legendary scientific brilliance and can-do culture to conquering an entirely new—if not essentially debunked and disgraced—frontier: Global Warming. Wait a minute! NASA is the National Aeronautic and Space Administration. Where’s the aeronautics or space in that? It’s actually spacier than anyone could have imagined.

According to NASA scientists and Pennsylvania State University, we can forget all of that Climategate stuff, and all of the other evidence indicating that the UN and other climate doomsayers have been more or less making it all up. There is now a new and far more compelling reason to bankrupt the entire world even faster than was thought possible through ObamaCare. Using the unfathomable brainpower of NASA scientists and the tenured fecklessness of academia, NASA has determined that the gravest threat to Earth is: Greenie space aliens.

Among the scenarios posited by this galaxy-class brain trust is the idea that alien civilizations watching Earth from across the vast expanse of interstellar space will be compelled to destroy Earth because they detect a change in Earth’s atmosphere due to greenhouse gas emissions. Being just about as green as they come (who knew the little green men were literal and figurative?) these advanced alien intelligences will be terribly offended by what we have done to our planet, so they will, of course, have to obliterate mankind. The authors wrote:

"These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets."

This is not, by any means, NASA’s first foray out of rocket science and into crackpot science. Dr. James Hansen (who was just arrested while protesting a proposed oil pipeline) of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has a long history of embarrassing NASA and reputable scientists with his global warming pronouncements, which have upon occasion forced NASA to disavow or walk back his alarmist claims. Even Hansen’s boss, after his retirement, stated that Hansen violated NASA’s official position on climate forecasting, and embarrassed the agency with his unsupportable claims of impending climate catastrophe.

Yet contact with extraterrestrial life is not beyond the realm of possibility, and responsible scientists have pondered it. Dr. Travis S. Taylor and Dr. Bob Boan published Alien Invasion: The Ultimate Survival Guide for the Ultimate Attack in 2011. The book was an outgrowth of a two-hour documentary produced for the National Geographic Channel in 2010. Taylor and Boan served as consultants for that effort. In the book (pp. 116-118) Taylor and Boan propose fourteen general reasons that might motivate an extraterrestrial visit, including a desire for conquest, food, resources, and a variety of other reasonable possibilities. Unsurprisingly, Earthlings being mean to Mother Earth thus sparking genocidal rage in a technologically advanced space-faring race is not among them.

No longer able to put men in space, reduced to begging the Russians for a lift on their 70s technology capsules for the short hop to the International Space Station and further reduced to serving as self-esteem coaches for cultures that are, for the most part, unable to design and manufacture toasters, NASA has fallen to trying to prop up Al Gore’s declining fortunes. Mr. Gore, obviously deranged as the global warming scam which provided such amenities as a 100 foot houseboat and a mansion that uses more electrical power in a week than most people use in a year collapses around his ears, dissolved into an obscenity-laced rant at an August 8 speech at the Aspen Institute. More recently, he branded as racists those who don't worship his AGW orthodoxy. Poor Al. People just aren't taking him seriously anymore.

It doesn’t take a doctorate in astrophysics to understand why this particular NASA rocket blew up on the launch pad, much like the August 24th launch of a Soviet resupply rocket. Let’s listen in on two alien scientists:

Alien Scientist #1: “Hey, look at this!”

AS#2: “What?”

AS#1: “Extreme range sensors indicate an infinitesimal increase in carbon dioxide concentration with a miniscule increase in global temperature on planet X-39822877B993XC988.1”

AS#2: “What! What are those maniacs doing to their planet! We must immediately rally a fleet and obliterate every sentient being on that planet that we may reduce carbon dioxide and the ambient temperature! We must…wait a minute; which planet did you say?”

AS#1: “Lemme check again…Yup, it’s X-39822877B993XC988.1 alright.”

AS#2: “How far away is that?”

AS#1: “Gimme a sec…uh, says here three trillion light years, give or take a billion or two.”

AS#2: “Three trillion…hmmmm, even at maximum glorg quotient, that's quite a ways…wait a minute, isn’t that the planet a deep space mission visited last clerch, you know, the one that sent back what the inhabitants call “television broadcasts?”

AS#1: “Now that you mention it, I think you’re right.”

AS#2: “Forget it. I’ve seen them. There’s no sentient life there.”

There are those who suggest that anything is possible, but they’re wrong. Monkeys are not going to fly out of my posterior. Barack Obama is not going to create jobs, Iran is not going to sue Israel for peace, and pigs aren’t going to achieve self-propelled flight. Of all of the potential alien visitation scenarios, this is probably one of the most far-fetched (apart from coming to Earth to get modest dressing tips from Lady GaGa), and besides, it’s a shameless rip off of a shameless rip off. One would expect rocket scientists to have a bit more imagination.

I refer, of course, to the classic 1951 classic SciFi film The Day The Earth Stood Still. At least the motivation of the alien visitor, Klatu, was remotely plausible. Alarmed at Earth’s nuclear weapon progress, his civilization, representing many alien races, delivered a warning: Expand Earth’s destructive tendencies beyond Earth, and face "obliteration."

Produced at the beginning of the Cold War, the film has a great deal of charm and delivers its message without Al Gorish condescension and pedantic hectoring. However, the idea that advanced aliens would take notice of a force as slight as a handful of low-yield nuclear weapons wielded by a barely advanced species requires a bit of suspension of disbelief. Why the aliens would be concerned about a species unable to travel even within its own solar system is an interesting question, as is why a race capable of obliterating entire planets via a single eight foot tall autonomous robot would be worried about a few miniscule nuclear explosives. But the film is well made and entertains 60 years later.

The first rip off was the 2008 Keanu Reeves vehicle of the same name. Reeves demonstrates his chops as an honor graduate of the Mt. Rushmore school of acting as an alien race comes to destroy Earth because we’re mean to it in a sort of vague, non-ecologically conscious sort of way, and probably because we eco-racists don’t listen to Al Gore anymore. Reeves is convinced to spare the planet by Jennifer Connelly, who could probably convince me that Al Gore actually won in 2000.

NASA’s rip off requires us to believe than an alien civilization sufficiently advanced to have mastered interstellar travel and with the power to obliterate an entire species on a given planet, ostensibly without harming any of the other flora or fauna, would even notice a completely unremarkable planet in a completely unremarkable star system in a completely unremarkable galaxy in a completely unremarkable corner of the universe. Such a species almost certainly wouldn’t notice if our sun went super nova, and we’re to think plausible that they’re measuring, across the unimaginable vastness of space/time--our global temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations as a sort of omniscient inter-galactic greenie police force?

To be fair, NASA has disavowed its own scientists involved in this scenario, much as it has done with Dr. Hansen from time to time, treating them all like the crazy uncle every family keeps locked in the attic. But perhaps all is not lost. If the alien greenie police do arrive to exterminate us, Mr. Obama can practice the smart diplomacy for which he is so famous. On second thought, maybe not: that would doom us for sure.

Posted by MikeM at 09:34 PM | Comments (5)

August 31, 2011

C-A-R-S-O-N is Just Another Way of Spelling R-A-C-I-S-T

The Congressional Black Caucus has beclowned itself yet again with ignorant, inflammatory and race-baiting rhetoric with comments like thse.

A top lawmaker in the Congressional Black Caucus says tea partiers on Capitol Hill would like to see African-Americans hanging from trees and accuses the movement of wishing for a return to the Jim Crow era.

Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana who serves as the CBC's chief vote counter, said at a CBC event in Miami that some in Congress would "love to see us as second-class citizens" and "some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me ... hanging on a tree."
Carson also said the tea party is stopping change in Congress, likening it to "the effort that we're seeing of Jim Crow."

Carson's comments—which he refuses to retract—are some of the most vile and volatile levied by members of the CBC as they travel on a national tour that seems to have the express intentions of fanning racial discord so that black voters react emotionally, instead of intellectually.

The caucus is attempting to drive in a psychological wedge and isolate African-Americans from the larger American community, and assert control over their votes by defining acceptable behavior.

According to the Congressional Black Caucus, it isn't acceptable to embrace values that champion small government, or lower rates of taxation, or spur innovation, or take concrete steps that actually create jobs, and it certainly isn't acceptable to think rationally about which political group serves the individual interests of your family and its circumstances.

Instead, the CBC wants each and every African-American beholden to them, and what they deem is acceptable. Who died and made them Massa?

The CBC wants blacks beholden to big government, robbed of the respect and the self-satisfaction that comes from being the master of your own destiny.

Let us state clearly, in no uncertain terms, that Andre Carson and his ilk support nothing less than the mental chaining of African American minds to the Democratic Party.

It is a shameful display of naked bigotry by small-minded zealots that are trying to bully an entire race into voting in a monolithic block so that this handful of bomb-throwers can personally benefit from the polarization and strife they insist on creating.

If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, and he really meant what he said about wanting all Americans judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, he would be appalled at these bigots in the CBC that claim the right to decide what all African-Americans should think and feel.

They are building a prison for those they should be uplifting, and that is anything but leadership.

MIKE ADDS: Q: What do Tea Party activists say when they meet a black person? A: Hello. What is conspicuously missing from Rep. Carson's narrative is anything resembling actual evidence of his projection of racist hatred on unspecified Tea Party supporters. However, evidence to the contrary, in the form of actual black people, can be seen at any and every Tea Party event throughout America. Rep. Carson is counting on two things: The media will slavishly report whatever he says while asking no questions about his complete lack of supporting evidence, and because the Tea Party is a loose federation of Americans of all political parties and walks of life who want smaller government and reduced spending, no unified Tea Party resistance will be raised against his irresponsible and race-baiting rhetoric.

Readers may remember that it was Rep. Carson, who with several other prominent members of the CBC, staged a stroll through a Tea Party gathering accompanied by a legion of video cameras on March 20, 2010. Obviously, they hoped that someone would say or do something they could turn to their political advantage, and when no one did, they did as Rep. Carson has now done: they made it up. Carson and the others claimed that they were pelted with racial epithets and even spat upon. The Lamestream media uncritically parroted their fabrications. A Washington Post account even called Carson "a revered figure on both sides of the aisle."

Unfortunately for Carson and his CBC co-fabricators--several of whom quickly went silent--despite multiple witnesses and multiple video cameras with unobstructed camera angles, not a single racial epithet or molecule of saliva was documented. Andrew Brietbart offered a $100,000 reward for video of such abuse of the tragic legislators. It remains unclaimed to this day.

Rep. Alan West (R, FL), a former Army officer, has informed the CBC that unless they repudiate Carson's comments, he will quit the CBC. That is statesmanship of the kind Rep. Carson cannot imagine. If Carson is indeed a revered figure on both sides of the aisle, those so uncritically bestowing reverence on the race-baiting Congressman might want to reconsider, just like Rep. West. Perhaps it is men like Rep. West who deserve a bit of reverence.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:32 AM | Comments (2)

August 30, 2011

On Public Service: Dick Cheney

Not long ago I finished watched Sean Hannity's most recent interview of Vice President Dick Cheney on the occasion of his second autobiographical book In My Time (go here for Amazon ordering information). Mr. Cheney looks quite thin, if not exactly frail, and I learned that he has had a very rough year, including a five week period in an ICU during which time he was on a ventilator and in a medically induced coma for several weeks. He lost 40 pounds and is kept alive by a mechanical heart pump. These devices, in the past, were appropriate only for keeping very sick people alive long enough to receive a heart transplant, but as Mr. Cheney said, the technology is now sufficiently advanced that he is living quite well with its assistance without the immediate need for a transplant. This is remarkable indeed for a man who suffered his first heart attack at the age of 37.

I'll not go into the specifics of the interview, the content of which is very much in line with the contents of his book. Rather, my purpose is to honor a fellow Wyomingite and American who has for more than 40 years served his country with dignity and courage, despite suffering the kinds of health problems—to say nothing of mindlessly vicious attacks by the media—that would have sidelined a lesser man.

It was refreshing indeed to see a man with such a depth of experience, an experience that served him and America very well indeed during one of its darkest chapters. It was also refreshing to see a man whose experience has served to temper and even humble him, a man who chooses his words with care, yet does not hesitate to speak directly to issues of importance. Of course, Dick Cheney earned my eternal respect when he appropriately told the execrable Democrat Patrick Leahy, on June 22, 2004, what he might do with himself, a service provided for the victims of Leahy's leaks not alive to deliver that message in person.

What also impressed is that Mr. Cheney's life is, and always has been, an open book. We know precisely who he is and how he became that man. We know of his upbringing, his high school years in Casper, WY, his college experiences, and all of the details of his public service. This is not a man who has spent millions hiding his transcripts or birth certificate.

Mr. Cheney also takes, without prevarication or evasion, responsibility for his mistakes, even when they are painful, as was his accidental shooting of a friend. Dick Cheney is not the kind of man who blames others. He has always lived in a world where action—correct action and competence—matter and where words have value only in their service to the truth. He is, clearly, a serious man, a man any American should want on their side. We are, in fact, far better off because he was on our side for so long, because he was willing to come when called when it would have been far easier and more personally profitable to do otherwise.

Ultimately, my greatest portion of respect for Mr. Cheney lies in the fact that no rational person could ever doubt his devotion to America. It is there in his eyes and in the reverent tone of his voice as he speaks of his country and the honor of serving it. He surely believes that America is the one indispensable, exceptional nation. He knows that America is mankind's last, best hope. It is impossible to imagine Dick Cheney groveling to foreign dictators, bowing before foreign dignitaries, or in any way denigrating America, domestically, or particularly, abroad. He has never had any difficulty telling the difference between our allies and our enemies, and clearly understands that the only way to deal with the latter is to make them respect and fear America. He is more than capable of calling a war a war, and has no time for moral fecklessness.

I fear that Mr. Cheney will not be with us much longer, but pray that I am wrong. Still, even now, to paraphrase Shakespeare, nature might stand up and say, "this is a man." Even more, Dick Cheney is unmistakably an American. In this fallen world, to what greater title might one aspire than "American?" Mr. Cheney's advice to the disgraceful Leahy to those who imagine otherwise would be quite fitting.

How tragic, even heartbreaking, that those who now lead us cannot hold a candle to such as Cheney, yet foolishly consider themselves his superior.

God Speed Mr. Cheney. Grateful Americans honor your service.

Posted by MikeM at 10:23 PM | Comments (4)

August 29, 2011

It's Turned To "11"! Run! BUMPED AND UPDATED

BUMPED AND UPDATED:

While it is certainly reasonable and rational to be outraged at the Obama Administration's recent raid on the Gibson Guitar Company...What? The Gibson Guitar Company?! You haven't heard about that one? Les Paul is surely spinning in his grave.

This week the Feds raided Gibson, seizing what they claim are woods prohibited by various environmental regulations from importation and use. The most bizarre aspect of their raids seems to be that Gibson is not actually, you know, violating any American laws nor are the Feds enforcing any American laws. The Feds now seem to be enforcing Indian--as in the nation, not domestic indian--laws.

One of the truly good and Obamaesque parts of the whole sordid affair is that federal agents at our borders have for some time been seizing guitars if they suspect that portions of them were made--even decades ago--with wood that might, under some obscure treaty or foreign law somewhere, be somehow currently illegal, even if the owner could have had no possible way to know that. Apparently the feds intend to continue this practice as well. Guilty until you prove yourself innocent; it's the Obama way!

All I can say is thank goodness Mr. Obama is now focused on doing away with a handful of unnecessary, idiotic and nationally suicidal regulations--while simultaneously implementing literally thousands of unnecessary, idiotic and nationally suicidal regulations each and every year. And thank goodness someone is now dealing with the horrific societal effects of a bit of imported ebony or other semi-exotic woods, whether it's actually illegal or not. No doubt Gibson is responsible for most of Global Warming. Notify Al Gore!

Wait a minute! I'll bet this is just a part of Mr. Obama's never-ending campaign to save or create jobs! I wonder how much a federal guitar raider makes a year? Do they have groupies? Could be a pretty cool gig!

The best way to attack such totalitarian lunacy is through humor, and the invaluable Ironhawk has done just that to magnificant effect. Go here for the musical mayhem. Who knew this whole mess was related to Gunwalker?

With Barack Obama, we really do have to pick and choose our daily outrages. There are just so many. Rick Perry's promise to make Washington DC as inconsequential in our daily lives as possible is sounding more and more like the new "don't tread on me" every day.

UPDATE: 093011

From Tina Korbe at Hot Air comes proof that some people are beyond parody and irony. It now seems that a prominent member of the Obama Administration is also likely guilty of trafficking in precisely the kinds of woods and instruments crack federal guitar agents seized from Gibson. The environmentally insensitive, anti-globalist, fascist rare wood and forest hooligan is none other than---wait for it---Michelle Obama! That's right! It's the ten million dollar woman and First Lady of the United States. Check your dictionaries students, because when you look under "irony" and "hypocrisy" you'll find her smiling visage.

In 2009 Mrs. Obama gave French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy a shiny new
Gibson (there's the irony) Hummingbird guitar featuring an Indian Rosewood fretboard, which is one of the types of wood seized by the ever vigilant federal coherent fiber agents (that's the hypocrisy). The Hummingbird, long a feature of the Gibson catalog, is a high-dollar acoustic guitar featuring various expensive woods. Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy is a musician who has produced several albums.

There is, of course, one other possibility: Perhaps Mrs. Obama, acting undercover and in concert with an alphabet soup of federal law enforcement agencies, cleverly funneled that Hummingbird to Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy in the hope that French rock and roll cartels would use it in their criminal endeavors, thus stirring up the support of the American public for bans on domestically produced "assault guitars" and illegally modified automatic extra-capacity amplifiers that go all the way to "11."

Wait a minute…you don't suppose Nigel Tufnel is in league with them…?

UPDATE #2: 093011

As readers have suggested, there is clear evidence that the raid on Gibson could well be politically motivated. Go here to Hot Air for convincing proof via direct links that the Obama Administration would surely consider Gibson, whose CEO donates to Republic candidates, to be the enemy. C.F. Martin, perhaps Gibson's most direct competitor, is very much aligned with Democrat interests and uses precisely the same kinds of woods from the same sources as Gibson, yet Martin has never been targeted by the Obamites. In fact, there are many guitar makers both large and small, that use the same materials in their instruments and they too remain unmolested.

The question remains: Would the Obama Administration, steeped in the corrupt juices of the Chicago Political Machine, stoop to blatant, thuggish intimidation of political enemies? Would the most partisan and politically corrupted Justice Department in American history abet such overt attacks on the rule of law? Would Barack Obama, the man who even now is hard at work on a speech about how to create jobs, directly attack an American industry that not only gainfully employs many skilled, well-paid (though non-union) workers, and whose products are exported around the world?

The answer lies in each and every bit of "unexpected" horrific economic news. If that's not convincing, ask Boeing, the American oil industry, Texas, and American business, both small and corporate.

Thanks to Junk Science Skeptic for help in documentation before my day job allowed me the time for research.

Posted by MikeM at 11:45 PM | Comments (3)

August 28, 2011

Substance vs. Appearance

This is an interesting photo comparison I came across in the last few days. Trying to trace it back to its origin has been a bit like running a maze. It may have been originally posted by David Limbaugh, but apparently Limbaugh didn't know its origin and it has been posted in multiple other places. From what I can tell, Texas Gov. Rick Perry would have been about 22 years old in the photo, but I suspect that Barack Obama looks a bit younger than that. There's just no way to know for sure. If anyone has a solid lead on the origin of the photo, please let me know and I'll be glad to give proper credit.

perry-at-22-e1314270044719

What is fascinating is that in some cases, a picture really is worth a thousand words. On one hand, we have future Texas Governor Rick Perry, a young man with the right stuff. The Air Force does not allow just anyone to fly its jets. Being selected for pilot training says a very great deal about one's judgment, intellect, grace under pressure, courage and leadership ability. Completing pilot training says even more. Perry eventually flew C-130's--four engine cargo aircraft with amazing capabilities--all over the world. Not bad for a small town Texas kid raised on a ranch that graduated from a no-name, non-Ivy League school. Oh yes, and anyone involved in military aviation, despite its overarching emphasis on safety, is risking their life on every flight.

On the other hand, we have the young Barack Obama, future President of the United States. Virtually nothing is known about his college years. We have no idea which classes he took or his grades in those classes. All of this information is carefully hidden. By his own admission, he spent his time hanging out with Marxists and consumed at least his fair share of marijuana and cocaine. Judgment? Intellect? Grace under pressure? Courage? Risking his life? At least we know that his idea of leadership is "leading from behind," which in the real world, the world inhabited by Rick Perry (yes, and even George W. Bush) from a young age is the epitome of lack of judgment, lack of intellect, no grace under pressure, cowardice, no risks and of course, no leadership.

It is a sad commentary on contemporary America that anyone, let alone a substantial portion of the citizenry, viewing this post will almost certainly sneer at a young Air Force pilot, minimizing and denigrating his service, while simultaneously lionizing a young, Marxist doper unwilling to release most pertinent details of his past.

But Barack Obama was an Illinois State Senator and a US Senator! Indeed he was, and what were his accomplishments in those positions? I mean, apart from voting present some 130 times, including on bills he sponsored, as a means of leaving no political footprints? Apart from earning the title of the most leftist man in the US Senate, more left even than the only avowed Socialist? Apart from running for president most of his time in the Senate?

But he's the President of the United States! Indeed he is, and every one of his "accomplishments" has, in only 2.5 years, caused substantial harm to the nation. Those not yet fully implemented, like Obamacare, have been revealed to be lies and will surely bankrupt us.

But he got Bin Laden! He deserves credit for the absolute minimum any president should do? He dithered for a day on even that decision, causing an unnecessary two-day delay that could easily have allowed Bin Laden to slip through our fingers and endangered our troops. But he won in Libya! Well, if you consider constant hesitation and a complete lack of any policy for pursuing what he denied was a war or anything like a war, and having no idea who we were supporting winning, perhaps. But he has played more golf in 2.5 years than any other president in eight! Well, you got me there.

One can only hope that the Republicans use this, or something like it, in the campaign. But considering how often Republicans have pulled defeat from the jaws of victory, I'm less then encouraged.

Certainly, people change with time, and dissolution in youth doesn't automatically mean failure in adulthood. But sometimes, youth foreshadows the future. In the cases of Rick Perry and Barack Obama, this would appear to be very much the case. It's a matter of substance vs. appearance.

Posted by MikeM at 06:53 PM | Comments (5)

Obama's Illegal Alien Relative Gets Drunk, Nearly Hits Cop Car, Is Arrested. No, Not That Illegal Alien Relative. Another One.

The President's illegal alien aunt continues to suck off the public teat (and blames the system for it), but it looks like his uncle may be headed back to Kenya.

A number of media outlets have already reported that an illegal immigrant from Kenya by the name of Onyango Obama, 67, was arrested last week on Wednesday after he nearly rammed his SUV into a police car in Framingham, Massachusetts.

He was later charged with DUI among other violations. I spoke to Framingham Public Information Officer Lieutenant Delaney who told me that when Onyango Obama was asked at booking if he wanted to make a telephone call to arrange for bail, the Kenyan immigrant replied: "I think I will call the White House."

...

According to article, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement has warrant for his arrest and ICE previously ordered him to be deported back to Kenya. In the meantime, a judge has not set bail on the driving charges but ordered that he be held on the ICE warrant.

Oh, who am I kidding?

Aunt Zeituni is a welfare leech that thinks we owe her citizenship, and the government ha decided to let her stay in the country because of her relationship to the President, despite the fact she is nothing more than a drain upon the economy.

Uncle Omar will no doubt get the same sort of waiver—the Obama family exemption—and be allowed to stay, suck up money meant for citizens, and increase the national debt.

It is, after all, what all Obamas due, regardless of their citizenship.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:56 PM | Comments (1)

August 25, 2011

Martin Luther King: Spinning Like A Lathe

Much has been written—at least in the conservative blogosphere—about the images of Mr. Obama produced by his eternal campaign and his slobbering worshipers. But for those not familiar with the issue, merely google "obama posters" and you'll see what I mean. Conservatives, and those who lived through the Cold War, have been rightfully appalled by the iconographic, fawning images because they are very much in the style of Cold War Communist propaganda iconography, imagery that reflected the hero worship of some of the most vile monsters humanity has ever produced, men like Stalin, Lenin, Mao and the lesser monster in terms of numbers of victims, Che Guevera. Equally appalling has been the starry-eyed worship of these images by Mr. Obama's leftist followers, people who are apparently unaware of the horrific parallels, don't care about them, or see in those parallels the kind of virtue and power sought only by the deranged and tyrannical.

MLK PHoto

It is with this in mind that I write about the recently unveiled Martin Luther King Memorial on the Mall in Washington DC. The centerpiece of the four-acre memorial is a massive, 30 foot tall statute of Dr. King, a work some eleven feet taller than the statutes of Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. The Memorial is the only such shrine on the Mall not dedicated to a former President. The statue is of a piece with Communist propaganda and rather than being rendered in the classical (ancient Greek/Renaissance) style as the majority of other monuments in DC, it resembles nothing so much as the massive, triumphal statutes of Chairman Mao (a dictator beloved of Obama appointees), arguably the most depraved—in terms of sheer body count—mass murderer and despot in the history of mankind.

The statute--amazingly--was carved by Chinese artist Lei Yixin who prior to carving the MLK statute, was best known—imagine this—for massive statues of Mao. Or perhaps I should observe that it is amazing only to those who consider America to be an exceptional nation and the beacon of freedom and liberty in the world, a nation that expended considerable blood and treasure during the Korean War fighting the Chinese and North Koreans that South Korea would not experience the kind of oppression and mass murder the Chinese—and later the North Koreans--visited on their own people.

By all means, go here and here for an American and a British take on the Monument.

Interestingly, this is not the first time an Asian was involved in controversy roiling around a Washington memorial. Maya Lin, at the age of 20, won the design competition for the Vietnam Memorial. Lin is a natural born American. In fact her parents fled China for America in 1949 when Mao came to power.

With emotions about the war still raw, opposition to her concept was angry and fierce, with some referring to it as "a black gash of shame." Others were upset that the monument contained no statuary reflecting the soldiers who served, nor was an American flag on display. Still, the monument was completed and dedicated on November 13, 1982

Over time, a flagpole was added, and finally, by Nov 11, 1984, a statue by Washington sculptor Fredric Hart entitled "Three Servicemen," was added. The statute depicts three Vietnam-era soldiers with correct uniforms and equipment as though emerging from the forest after a mission. These additions did much to silence opposition, and Lin's vision has been vindicated. The Vietnam Memorial is the most visited in Washington, and is renowned for its solemnity, dignity and emotional power.

Sadly, it is unlikely that the MLK Monument will ever attain similar status. The statue is clearly rendered in the Soviet/Mao propaganda style. King stands, his massive, stiff arms crossed, his visage not impassive and noble as in classical sculpture, but rather, stern, even angry and menacing. Unlike the graceful, lifelike fluidity of the statues of Jefferson and Lincoln, King—rendered in coarse, abrasive texture--appears more rock than man, more state-conjured goblin than human being, more stiff, grim, and threateningly stylized in the blatantly intimidating Marxist style, a style that does not inspire awe and reverence, but inescapably reminds the unwilling viewer of the consequences of failing to demonstrate sufficiently worshipful public deference. This is no idle threat even today in China where dissidents are often shot in the back of the head and their surviving relatives billed for the bullet. Most bizarre is the inescapable observation that Lei Yixin has carved Dr. King with unmistakably Asian features.

I suspect that as with so much else in contemporary America, some 25% of Americans—leftists all—will be thrilled with the statute, for it directly reflects their policy and political preferences. It symbolizes the strength, rigidity and inflexibility of the idealized leftist state, ostensibly caring for "the people" with appropriately soaring rhetoric, but in reality, more than willing to wield the iron fist of power, to crush any individual or disfavored group to achieve its ends, the Constitution and freedom be damned.

The rest of America will be, at best, ambivalent about it. Many will be as appalled as was I to see the monstrosity. But I suspect none would be as appalled as Dr. King himself, who was far from an admirer of Communist doctrine and its propaganda manifestations.

Yet another triumph for the Obama Administration. Yet another disgrace for America.

Posted by MikeM at 10:18 PM | Comments (7)

August 23, 2011

Becuase Ideological Conformity is More Important than Solutions

Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) is the latest member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to try to blame the problems of her constituents on anything but the policies she champions.

"When you look at African American males, 40% of them are unemployed, those under 30 years of age. I understand exactly the entire nation must be involved in this recovery but the black community is experiencing a great recession. That's what we're experiencing," Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) told MSNBC.

First, criminals are all but unemployable, and while blacks comprise just 12.6% of the U.S population, they make up 39.4% of the prison inmates in 2009 according to Wikipedia.

A Guardian post claims that 30-percent of black men will go to jail.

So who is really to blame, the business community for not wanting to hire convicted criminals, or the culture and communities that allow such a high percentage of their young men to turn to a lives of crime and celebrate a popular culture of "thug life" that glorifies gang activity, violence, and misogyny?

The Great Society brought about by liberalism destroyed the black family unit, and Planned Parenthood is nothing more than slow-motion genocide being waged against African-Americans by white liberal cultural elites.

If black Democratic legislators were something other than Stepin Fetchits "out to get me mine's'" and cash in on the misery of their peers, they are a substantial enough force within Congress to effect positive change for their communities.

But they aren't there to enrich their communities.

Corruptocrats like Maxine Waters, Jesse Jackson Jr., Charles Rangel and others are there to personally profit at the expense of their communities, and instead of providing a way out, merely reinforce the broken system that that caused so many parts of what was once a thriving African-American middle class to implode.

From their perspective, it makes sadly perfect sense.

The unemployable and destitute will reliably keep voting for Democrats to ensure the table scraps offered by the Democratic party continue to come their way.

A thriving black middle class would turn their attention to matters of business and culture would break the Democratic stranglehold on the nearly monolithic black vote, and put shameless race-baiters out of work.

Wilson, et al find a wonderful scapegoat in vague claims of racism. It excuses the fact they've done nothing for their constituents, and serves to reinforce the low expectations that keep them chained to servant and victim mentality.

It's loathsome that a sitting Congresswoman is allowed to make such claims unchallenged, and sadly, completed expected.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:35 PM | Comments (1)

August 21, 2011

I'm Takin' A Vacation!

What to make of Mr. Obama's Martha's Vineyard vacation? Some have suggested that considering the horrendous economic situation for which Mr. Obama bears primary responsibility, it is, as the trendy saying goes: "bad optics." Indeed it is. Others claim that Presidents are due their vacations, which also has the ring of truth. Others bewail the extravagance of the Obama family's choice of vacation spots and of the expense involved. The Obama's will be staying in digs reportedly costing some $50,000 per week, which is more than a great many Americans make in a year. There is indeed a case to be made for unthinking, uncaring extravagance.

All of this is disturbing too because the Martha's Vineyard excursion is hardly an isolated event. Combined with Mr. Obama's plethora of golf outings and his many command performance White House parties starring himself with a supporting cast of various celebrities, to say nothing of jetting on Air Force One on various "date nights," Mr. Obama has succeeded in creating a particularly unfortunate stereotype: The low roller suddenly come into money who lives large and fast and blows it all in an ostentatious display of greed and carelessness.

In Julius Caesar (Act. II, Scene I), Brutus speaks of those who climb the ladder of power too fast, and reaching its upper rungs, forget how they got there and the people they used and tend to abuse power. One might be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Obama didn't learn that lesson from Shakespeare, or the most important lesson: When the mighty allow themselves Hubris—excessive pride--they fall.

Yet this is far from the only evidence of Hubris. Mr. Obama recently went on a "jobs" bus tour of the middle states of flyover country. The two busses specially ordered and manufactured for this transparent campaign junket were painted Darth Vader black, which is as far as I'll go into the symbolism of that odd choice, except to wonder if perhaps some little bit of color, such as an American flag, might not be appropriate for Mr. Obama, who when last I checked was the President of the United States. Symbolism, you know.

What is most interesting is that prior to embarking on a bus tour to reassure America of his serially renewed, laser-like focus on creating American jobs, Mr. Obama chose a Canadian company to build his conveyances. Costing the American taxpayer $1.1 million each, the busses are among the most luxurious manufactured by Prevost of Quebec. Why so much? Armor, various conveniences, and of course the electronic and other support gear required by the Secret Service. The costs of housing, feeding and otherwise maintaining all of the minions of the Obama campaign machine on this trek are not yet available, but surely are not, as Dr. Evil suggested about the details of his life, "quite inconsequential."

Remarkable is that even as Mr. Obama ventures into the lands of those bitter clingers to God and guns who have antipathy for those not like themselves—which presumably includes Mr. Obama (such Olympian bravery!)—he hasn't the faintest notion of a plan to produce that about which he now, yet again, claims to most concern him: jobs. He has, however, announced that after Labor Day, when his Martha's Vineyard labors are done, he will deliver—a speech! Praise be! If I can only hang on until then! This particular speech, it is said, will reveal Mr. Obama's plan to produce jobs and to rescue the economy. It is even rumored that he will propose spending cuts far in excess of anything seen to date. However, considering that to date, nothing at all has actually been cut, two cents might qualify.

And here I have my quandary. I have often criticized Mr. Obama's class warfare and his Socialistic fixation on taking money from the rich and giving it, if not exactly to the poor, to those Mr. Obama feels more worthy such as starving labor unions, waifish community organizers, down on their luck car manufacturers, pitiful Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and similar down on their luck victims of Mr. Obama's policies. Such class warfare is indicative of bad breeding, of envy and of coveting a neighbor's possessions. It is a repudiation of the American values of hard work and industry, of self-reliance and pride. It ignores the fact that the creation and accumulation of wealth in America is not a zero-sum game. A dollar my neighbor makes is not a dollar that I can no longer make—at least not until Mr. Obama completes his dissolution of the economy.

It's rather hard to teach our children to take sincere pleasure in the good fortune and honest accomplishments of others, and to encourage them to engage in the character building and hard work necessary to do the same while supporting those who paint the industrious and prosperous as somehow indecent, heartless and even evil.

So bless his heart, may Mr. Obama and his family enjoy themselves on their vacation and on all the vacations, golf outings, date nights, White House command performances, campaign tours, and other frolics they can afford. The Obamas are apparently paying for their lodging on this particular trip, which is only right and I salute them. If I am to be consistent I must; we all must.

But we are completely justified in our disgust, perhaps even outrage, about $1.1 million dollar busses made in Canada. When last I checked, there were one or two firms in America capable of producing luxurious busses, perhaps for a bit less than $1.1 million. Some of these firms might even employ union employees. Look for the union label—in Canada? Of course I could ask whether it was really necessary to buy the busses at all, but that might make too much sense. No doubt future presidents can conduct their own Star Wars tours when possessed, as Chris Muir's Day By Day cartoon on August 17, 2011 suggested, by the power of the "Debt Side," which fits well when one is traveling in one's own personal "Debt Star."

Our annoyance entitlement also extends to all of the other ostentatious displays of wealth, power and excess in which Mr. Obama seems to revel, particularly since we are footing a substantial portion of the not inconsequential bills for these quaint and frequent gatherings of the self-imagined elite. We are on solid ground as well when we observe that the "optics" of much, if not all, of this seem particularly wretched, for they do make Mr. Obama appear to be a man who considers himself to be superior to the little people with whom he occasionally condescends to mix. At the very least, his leisure choices would seem to indicate a sense of entitlement far beyond what reasonable people would consider justified or wise. True believers would observe that the Scientific Socialists leading the masses on the path to socialist utopia deserve certain perks as a reward for all they have done for those incapable of understanding and appreciating their altruistic revolutionary labors. Fortunately, for the moment, Americans seem of a mind to boot them—and America—off the path.

So we begrudge not Mr. Obama's vacations. He is free to use his wealth as he pleases, for if he is not, one of the foundations of America, one of the cornerstones of good manners and character is illegitimate. But it does not violate the principles of good manners, or even the Ten Commandments, to consider any man's character as revealed by his choices and actions. Americans are rather good at those kinds of considerations, and they tend not to make the same mistakes twice. In 2012, they'll have the chance to rectify a very expensive mistake.

Posted by MikeM at 09:01 PM | Comments (1)

Self Defense Or Socialism?

Do you have an inalienable right to self-defense, or is the value of your life measured only in its utility to the state? Is your right to continued existence contingent on the whims of Socialistic politicians and their allies in the permanent bureaucratic class? Who is more valuable to society, a member of the producer class or a member of the parasite class? And how does the Gunwalker scandal relate to this?

My latest article, published by the good folks at Pajamas Media, brings it all together. My thanks to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit for linking to it.

Posted by MikeM at 03:42 PM | Comments (1)

August 17, 2011

Vacation + Presidency = Vacancy

Like OJ chasing the "real killers" of his wife and Ron Goldman across the golf courses and country clubs of America, Barack Obama is chasing economic recovery from one vacation hotspot to another as the economy falters.

In the third year of his Presidency, he still doesn't have plans to create jobs or reduce the deficit, and you won't see anything, either, until after Labor Day.

The official who disclosed details on Obama's jobs and deficit plans spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama has not yet disclosed them. No final decisions on the economic package have been made.

Seeking re-election in a dispiriting economic time for the nation, Obama's rollout plan allows him to come into September swinging after one of the roughest periods of his presidency.

The economy has improved from the deep recession Obama inherited, but growth and hopes have stalled.

The unemployment rate is at 9.1 percent. No president in recent history has been re-elected with a jobless rate nearly that high.

He doesn't want to do the work that goes with the job, he just likes the power and the perks. Far from being one of our smartest Presidents, Barack Obama is proving to be the most peevish and lazy President to ever occupy the Oval Office. The sooner he is primaried, the better it will be for both parties and the Republic.

Sponsered link: online bingo games

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:08 PM | Comments (3)

August 15, 2011

BEASTWEEK: Evil Christian Candidates Want to Rule World, Bring Back Slavery

Radical progressives are just peachy with 7th Century ideas if the offending party prays to Allah instead of Jehovah, but if you happen to be a Christian—especially a living, modern-day one—rest assured they can't wait to smear you as a nutter.

The author, Michelle Goldberg, seems to be a progressive feminist with half-baked delusions of Christanity tied together with murky and tenuous associations and assertions. It would be amusing if fellow leftists weren't so easily duped into thinking that such off-the-wall conspiracy theorizing wasn't well, the gospel.

And yet in every election in recent memory where the Republican challenger is a practicing Christian, the left trots out their "theocracy" scare card.

That Tina Brown's rage-rag is reduced to retreating to this schtick so early in the 2012 Presidential run merely serves to indicate how badly the left thinks Obama will fare.

The early panic is, I dare say, heavenly.

MIKE ADDS: I've been fascinated and disgusted by this utterly insupportable tactic of the left. The only truly political movement of contemporary American Christians was the Moral Majority, led by the Rev. Jerry Fallwell from 1979-1987. It collapsed of its own internal political and theological contradictions, and while it could claim some electoral successes, since its self-extermination there has been no organized Christian political movement that could claim even a tiny fraction of the influence of the Moral Majority.

Cal Thomas, a high ranking Moral Majority figure, left that organization in 1985 and in 2000, published Blinded By Might, in which he repudiated the imposition of Christianity through politics and once again fully embraced the Gospel. Many others have done the same.

In truth, the Christian political threat imagined by Leftists hasn't existed since before 1987. In fact, the Gospel does not support such political machinations and never has. The Rev. Fallwell and many of his followers were surely guilty of hubris, but were never capable of coming remotely close to imposing a theocracy. Ms. Goldberg and others are erecting a smokescreen to distract people from the real and continuing threat of Islamism and the related machinations of the Left. To paraphrase Shakespeare: "Methinks she doth protest too much."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:11 PM | Comments (11)

Krugman's Sanity Leaves Via Anal Probe

The Nobel-winning economist has gone around the bend in trying to defend the failure that is Keynesian economics, and now admits that just about the only thing that can save the Obama presidency and his own delusions of adequacy are invading space aliens.

If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months. And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren't any aliens, we'd be better –

I think the next word out of his mouth before he was interrupted would have been "off"... and Krugman certainly is.

Off his rocker.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:53 PM | Comments (3)

August 14, 2011

Why We Can't Afford to Have Ron Paul as President

A reader asked me why I have such a low opinion of Rep. Ron Paul and his fan base. I gave him a rather lengthy answer, but my opposition to the candidate himself is summed up well enough in this reference from Rep. Allen West, who has a much better grasp of the way the real world works.

Paul's "hand's off" philosophy if implemented after World War II, would have gleefully let Russia pile nuclear missile batteries in Cuba, and expand in Central and South America unopposed. It would have let the Iron Curtain extend fully over Western Europe, Africa, and the Korean peninsula. It would have certainly led to our decline as a world power, and quite possibly would have plunged free populations into tyranny, or even a third World War.

Simply put, Paul's beliefs, if implemented as policy, would constitute a clear danger to this nation's very existence.

My second objection to Paul is the cult-like followers he has attracted. That are every bit as zealous as the Obamites, and their constant screaming and yelling at events is off-putting (to put it mildly). I've seen enough of cult-leaders with destructive policy agendas. No more.

I'd contemplate sitting at home if it came down to Paul versus Obama. Sadly, I suspect more Americans would simply vote for Obama again in a landslide, assuring our fiscal collapse.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:00 AM | Comments (12)

August 13, 2011

News That Doesn't Matter

In the Iowa Straw Poll, Bachmann edged out the insane clown posse, some dude from Minnesota came in a distant third, and the folks who are most likely to end up with the nomination weren't even on the ballot.

Next.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:41 PM | Comments (1)

August 12, 2011

It is Going to Get Bad. It is Going to Get Bloody . The Question is How Bad, and How Bloody.

Over at Hot Air Jazz Shaw points to a new Rasmussen poll that indicates roughly half of Americans expect violence when it comes time to pay the piper.

Nearly one-out-of-two Americans (48%) think that cuts in government spending are at least somewhat likely to lead to violence in the United States, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. But that includes just 13% who feel it’s Very Likely.

A bit less than have thinks that cuts will not lead to violence. These would be you victims.

I stopped by one of my local gun shops Wednesday night to drop off a part I had that belonged to the owner, and the gentleman behind the counter (who knows me as a gun blogger) took just a few minutes to tell me about the significant increase in calls about firearms just this week.

The calls were in response to the S&P downgrade, the rioting in Great Britain, and the mob racial violence in the Midwest and Northeast in recent weeks. It can happen here, and people are starting to say so.

A majority of calls were from young families that had not owned guns before, but who were now concluding that they need firearms to protect themselves.

Interestingly enough, the majority of callers seemed to be requesting information about AR-15 pattern rifles, similar to what our military carries but without the option of automatic fire. Most of these callers were hit by the shock shock of the cost of an AR ($750-$1500 and up) and didn't have the money to purchase them, and so turned their attention to pistols and shotguns.

People are scared, and the clerk lamented that a lot of people now in the market aren't going to get the training they should, and are going to end up shooting people they don't legally have a right to shoot, and a lot of these people are going to end up in jail.

We're going to have to severely cut social programs. As much as liberals are burying their heads in the sand (or other warm, dark places) to avoid dealing with that fact, we simply have to cut spending, and that is going to mean significant entitlement reform. Combine that with an entitlement mindset and a consumer culture with eroding moral guidance, and you have the recipe for the kind of violence you saw in the United Kingdom, and the very distinct probability that it will happen here to some extent.

The big question no one can answer is that we don't know how widespread or deep the rioting and violence with occur.

Will it be mindless, but weapon-free looting and racial attacks like we've seen in recent weeks that just sent a few people to the hospital, or are we going to see cities burn again?

Will the violence be confined to small isolated incidents quickly stomped out by effective policing, or will President Empty Suit dither as America burns?

It is likely to get bad. How bad, we simply don't know.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:19 PM | Comments (10)

Don't Listen to the Government. If You do, You're Going to Be Labeled A Terrorist Threat.

Mike Vanderboegh pissed me off last night. No, it wasn't anything he did. He simply emailed a link to his story about how the paranoid Obama Justice Department has decided to label a significant part of the population as a terrorist threat for buying common disaster preparation items.

Yes, while one branch of the government urges you to develop a disaster preparedness kit, another is poisoning the local police against you for doing so.

The FBI handout, entitled "Communities Against Terrorism: Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities Related to Military Surplus Stores" also instructs surplus store owners to:

"Require valid ID from all new customers.

Keep records of purchases.

Talk to customers, ask questions, and listen to and observe their responses.

Watch for people and actions that are out of place.

Make note of suspicious statements, people, and /or vehicles.

If something seems wrong, notify law enforcement authorities."

The handout also instructs surplus store owners to consider as "suspicious" anyone who "demands identity 'privacy'" or anyone who expresses "extreme religious statements" and those who "make suspicious comments regarding anti-US, [or] radical theology."

The list of items that the Feds consider possible indications of terrorist intent are common items set aside by disaster preparedness:

  • Weatherproofed ammunition or match containers
    Weatherized ammunition optimized for long-term storage to avoid corrosion is very common, as is the bulk purchase of ammunition in general. Matches work best when they aren't soggy. horrors!
  • Meals Ready to Eat (MREs)
    Without question, the single most common disaster preparation foodstuff, almost always bought by the case. Want to eat after a hurricane? You terrorist!
  • Night Vision Devices; night flashlights; gas masks
    Night vision gear and flashlights are essential for search and rescue for those disasters not conveniently scheduled during the daytime, and have the added benefit of not ruining the night vision of those using them, causing temporary blindness as bright normal lights can. Gas masks can filter out the deadly toxins in molds (which is why you saw construction crews using them after Katrina) and some work as well to filter out particulate smoke and deadly chemicals from fires.
  • High capacity magazines
    They are commodities, and your are supposed to have a minimum of five for each firearm for many shooting classes. A person with a half-dozen magazines ("high capacity" is a made-up term) or more for his or her weapon and steely nerve can face down crowds of thugs and looters like those that have set London ablaze.
  • Bi-pods or tri-pods for rifles
    Make up your minds! you don't want people to have magazines, because you don't want them shooting with any volume of fire. Now you're trying to tell me you want to take away the weapons stabilization platforms that enhance accuracy? Is the FBI trying to encourage innaccurate shooting?

The more I see from this Justice Department, the more it concerns me that they are devolving into armed enforcers (and occasionally covert criminals) for the Executive branch, and that they are creating opportunities to envision solid citizens as threats to their power.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:01 AM | Comments (6)

August 11, 2011

The Osama Bin Laden Dead Cat Bounce

Since the death of Osama Bin Laden, I've seen bits and piece on the Internet that suggest that Progressives and Mr. Obama himself are perplexed and frustrated that sending Bin Laden straight to Hell resulted in only the briefest PR bounce for Mr. Obama. Of course, Mr. Obama can't understand why every American isn't continually singing his praises, saying on more than one occasion, and with substantial indignation, "you [meaning the American people] ought to be thanking me" for this or that.

What is interesting and more than a little disturbing is that I've yet to see anyone touch on the reason. It's not rocket science; it is common sense. Perhaps that's why Mr. Obama and his Progressive sycophants—and the Media (but I repeat myself!)—can't "get" it.

So as a public service, to whatever degree trying to convince Progressives of common sense and the truth is a service (it's probably like trying to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig), I explain why Mr. Obama's "accomplishment" accomplished only a dead cat bounce.

First and most importantly, rational Americans see the accomplishment not as Mr. Obama's, but as our military's, most specifically as the accomplishment of SEAL Team 6. They also appreciate all of the other military and intelligence assets who worked diligently for years to make the successful raid possible.

Those who are well informed know that Mr. Obama dithered for so long to authorize the strike while our warriors sat, ready to go, awaiting his order. His dithering set the strike back a full day, increasing the risk of discovery and the risk that Bin Laden could have been tipped off. While Mr. Obama is due some credit as CINC for this raid, most people see his authorization not as evidence of military or leadership brilliance, but as the very least any American President should do in the same circumstances, yet Mr. Obama dithered for a day! Imagine the PR fallout if his dithering caused the mission to fail.

It's not hard to figure out: If you're the CINC, you ruthlessly pursue America's self-identified, deadly enemies and you have no hesitation in taking them out. This is the default position, the baseline, the absolute minimum required of any American President, yet Mr. Obama and his followers expect a massive PR bounce because Mr. Obama did the minimum? Because he simply did his job, though only after considerable indecision? Indecision about getting Osama Bin Laden?

As I write, I'm shaking my head in amazement that I have to explain this. I doubt that those for whom I am trying to explain are capable of accepting this little bit of reality. What do you, gentle readers, think?

Posted by MikeM at 09:57 PM | Comments (8)

Slutwalk Feminists: Too Dumb to Survive

The chronically confused pseudo-feminists behind the dim notion of "Slutwalks" have offered up some of the least effective self-defense tips ever offered to man or woman-kind.

Somehow, I don't think the girls have the guts to take Breda's far more effective advice of using something that experts agree works.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:04 PM | Comments (5)

Radical Leftists Openly Plot Terror Attacks on Financial Centers. Obama Does Nothing. Media Ignores.

We've learned in recent days from such noted Constitutional scholars as Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) that peacefully protesting the government and asking them to undertake such radical tasks as spending within their means and acting within the Constitutional boundaries our Founding Fathers envisioned, amounts to terrorism.

Specifically, they are quoted as saying:

"We have negotiated with terrorists," an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. "This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money."

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies' misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: "They have acted like terrorists."

Like you, I view the peaceful demands for rational spending restrictions to be the exact same thing as suicide bombing, the sawing off of heads, or crashing airliners into skyscrapers... other than the fact that that viewpoint is certifiably insane.

That said, the media and progressive left (but I digress) certainly seemed to nod along with the suggestion, even when they didn't dare vocalize it.

The rhetoric was ratcheted down, but the underlying vitriol remained, when Standard and Poor downgraded the nation's credit rating from AAA to AA+, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Presidential adviser David Axelrod were quick to again try to blame the Tea Party.

Clearly, Democrats and the bobblehead media view any threat to the nation's credit or economic straits—no matter how farfetched or ill-conceived—as the equivalent of a terror attack.

So why aren't we hearing anything from the White House, Senate, House of Representatives or the editorial pages about the "days of rage," "occupation," and "revolution" targeting the heart of the nations financial sector?

A list of aligned terrorist groups (using the democratic definition) wants to Occupy Wall Street, and advocates the physical occupation and gridlock of our nation's financial nerve center... attempting the exact the same trauma on the U.S. financial markets as the late terrorist Osama Bin Laden did when he chose New York's financial district and the nation's leadership in Washington, DC as his primary targets.

US Day of Rage is one site promoting a takeover of Wall Street on September 17. Their message is as muddled as the logic of adopting a name synonymous with violence that birthed a terrorist group. Maybe they hope to attract bomb-builder and Obama mentor Bill Ayers as guest speaker.

Some in the media are noting the incredible lameness of the "cause," it's incoherence, and it's likelihood of failure.

That's fair.

But terrorist attacks are terrorist attacks, and those who commit them are not deemed to be terrorists only if they succeed.

If the Tea Party can be considered terrorists for merely standing up for traditional American values and fiscal common sense, then radical terror groupss attempting to interrupt the financial markets are most certainly worthy of being shot on sight by police.

I'm sure even our Vice President would agree.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:08 AM | Comments (1)

August 10, 2011

Interest Clairvoyance

Just a few thoughts, gentle readers, on a rather remarkable but little reported factoid. Mr. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently announced that he would keep interest rates very low for the next two years. Does this sound remarkable? It should. Consider:

(1) The Fed virtually never makes long-range prognostications. Until now, Fed Chairmen have understood that the economy is prone to unforeseeable changes, and planning more than a few months ahead is foolish. The necessity of corrections is a reality that can't be predicted.

(2) Market forces beyond Mr. Bernanke's control can, and likely will, force interest rates up. The multi trillion pound wheel of the credit downgrade has already started rolling downhill and Mr. Obama and his economic cronies remain stolidly behind it, pushing for all they are worth.

(3) Artificially trying to keep interest rates low could have most unfortunate effects on the economy.

(4) The economy is—how to put this gently—unstable. One of the primary reasons businesses aren't hiring and building is because of this instability. They have no idea what the Obama Administration is going to do from minute to minute let alone two years hence. What Mr. Bernanke has said makes as much sense—and has much in common with—Soviet five year plans.

(5) The performance of every one of Mr. Obama's high-level economic appointees has been less than inspiring. In fact, Christine Romer, first chair of Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisors recently said that the American economy is "pretty darned f***ed." Ms. Romer, recently (thankfully!) retired from government service, was one of the primary architects of that f***ing. This is known as "irony."

(6) One might be forgiven for thinking that rather than being the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States of America Mr. Bernanke is the shadow chairman of the Obama reelection committee.

Unlike Mr. Bernanke, I can make a prediction that will almost certainly come to pass: If Mr. Obama is re-elected, even if interest rates remain low, American businesses will not celebrate by means of hiring and expansion. They will realize, then as now, that our economy is in fact, "pretty darned f***ed," and that Mr. Obama is the primary economic porn film actor. This too is commonly known as irony.

Posted by MikeM at 12:18 AM | Comments (1)

August 09, 2011

Typical Leftist Wants to Introduce Us to the Reeducation Camps

Via SayUncle, proof that the violent totalitarianism the pervades leftist ideology remains deeply rooted in their fragile psyches:

Many times I've riffed on a dark, delicious fantasy about rounding up Tea Bagger types and sentencing them to green re-education camps for minimum one-year terms. Not to punish per se but to expose these contemptible morons to facts, to truth, to the way things really are and how they're being played by the rich, and the fact that Boomers have taken almost everything and that diminished lifestyles and economic security are being bequeathed to Genx and GenY for decades to come, and that the best is definitely over.

Like Chance, I'd invite Mr. Wells and any assembly of his friends he can muster to try to make his fantasy a reality.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:55 PM | Comments (6)

We're With Stupid

Or should I say, that I'm stuck with him until impeachment, his criminal trial, or his electoral defeat.

I'm sure everyone is rolling their eyes about the possibility of impeachment and a criminal trial, but you're not counting on his intellect the way that I am:

How many times have we heard it said that Mr. Obama is the smartest president ever? Even when he's criticized, his failures are usually chalked up to his supposed brilliance. Liberals say he's too cerebral for the Beltway rough-and-tumble; conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.

I don't buy it. I just think the president isn't very bright.

Socrates taught that wisdom begins in the recognition of how little we know. Mr. Obama is perpetually intent on telling us how much he knows. Aristotle wrote that the type of intelligence most needed in politics is prudence, which in turn requires experience. Mr. Obama came to office with no experience. Plutarch warned that flattery "makes itself an obstacle and pestilence to great houses and great affairs." Today's White House, more so than any in memory, is stuffed with flatterers.

Much is made of the president's rhetorical gifts. This is the sort of thing that can be credited only by people who think that a command of English syntax is a mark of great intellectual distinction. Can anyone recall a memorable phrase from one of Mr. Obama's big speeches that didn't amount to cliché?

Every bit of available evidence suggests that Barack Obama is every bit as dumb and arrogant as he appears to be. We're pressing forward with our Gunwalker investigation, and it appears more and more likely that fellow conspirators are going to turn against Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano, other agency directors, prosecutors, and the White House to save themselves from criminal prosecution for their roles in facilitating hundreds of murders.

Is our President a man evil enough to sacrifice the lives of citizens in two nations to push a policy goal? Read the evidence—or witness the on-going cover-up—and come to your own conclusions.

I'm rather fond of the mental image of ex-President Obama behind bars and facing trail in a Mexican courtroom.

Luckily for us, he's just unintelligent enough to put himself there.

Update: Via sue in the comments, another biting dissection of Obama's alleged intelligence:

It has become obvious, in a sense that cannot be denied, that Obama is a fundamentally stupid man. He has all the equipment, all the training, would probably do well on all the tests -- but it doesn't come together and produces no worthwhile results. He knows all the buzzwords, and how to get them across. He easily impresses crowds and onlookers so long as the questions don't get too detailed. But he can't turn any of this into action. Everyhing he touches, without exception, falls to pieces. He has no single political success to his record. His administration is one endless Gobi, lifeless and bare. Compared to Obama, even Warren Harding, the last man on everybody's list, looks like a beleaguered giant. What we have in Obama is the stupidest man who ever sat in the Oval Office.

That's one part of a harsh assessment. Make sure you read the whole thing.


Mike Adds: I'd quibble with the author in only one respect: there is no evidence that Mr. Obama has done well on academic tests, or that he would do well on such measures. I have no doubt that at least some of the people with whom I attended college would recall that I was quite good at test taking in general, but there appears to be not a soul who could say the same about Mr. Obama. In fact, there seem to be very few people who recall Mr. Obama doing what one does in college: attending classes, writing papers, etc. For an actual college student, college is more than a full time job, and when one is absent from work, so to speak, it is quite obvious. I rather suspect that his inability to test well, perhaps even to complete classes, is the reason that his undergraduate and graduate transcripts are protected by walls of security that would provoke envy in the CIA. Not the sort of thing one sees with the truly intelligent.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:24 PM | Comments (10)

Rhetoric vs. Reality

Perhaps the most obvious sign of Mr. Obama's narcissism is his obvious belief that his words have magical powers. He has almost certainly used "I" and "my" more frequently and blatantly than the sum of all presidents before him. He surrounds himself with fawning sycophants, fake Grecian columns, the great seal of Obama, tells members of his party that they can't fail because they have him, travels to Cairo to show Muslims his glory, travels to Germany to show Germans and Europeans his glory, plays golf and vacations like there is no tomorrow and throws a massive, command performance birthday bash for himself—charging as much as $38,000 each for the privilege of attending—while the nation's economy is melting down in unprecedented fashion before a horrified world. He actually said that his reception of the Democrat nomination would be recorded by history as the moment that the seas began to recede and the planet began to heal! Yet all of that pales in significance compared to the narcissism of a man who firmly believes that what the nation—what the world—needs is yet another teleprompter reading from The One.

America is, more than anything, an idea. It is a set of beliefs and values that bind together peoples from all over with the world because they believe that only in America, only in a nation where individuals truly have inalienable rights, where there exists the rule of law, and where the government exists to ensure equality of opportunity, only there can they live in freedom. Only there do they have the opportunity, with the sweat of their brow, with their intellect and abilities, to thrive, to prosper and to instill the American ideal in their children. When enough of the residents of this nation no longer believe, when enough of those who live within our borders no longer see any advantage in being known as an American, America is over.

Our financial problems are a symptom. That we have allowed ourselves to fall into this abyss, and to continue to dig, indicates that many of us have abandoned the idea of America, if indeed they ever embraced it. Yet it is not too late. One of the most significant powers of the presidency is, as Teddy Roosevelt said, the Bully Pulpit. Our president can use the power of that pulpit to persuade, but only if he too believes in America. He does not. He believes only in the Socialist worker's paradise that, after the fundamental transformation of America through his brilliance, will exist.

Mr. Obama's August 8th speech was indistinguishable from virtually every other every other day speech on the economy he has to date given: class warfare, demands to raise taxes, blaming everyone but himself, suggesting that borrowing money to pay people to do make-work federal jobs will somehow lower the deficit, euphemisms, evasions, and as always, no actual plans, no actual proposals, no remotely rational solutions, not a dram of leadership. So impressed were the markets that mere minutes after his latest teleprompter readings, the stock market fell an additional 200 points.

Mr. Obama has truly established himself as the post-American president. He cares nothing for America, a nation he has spent his entire life criticizing. He cares nothing for Americans, a people he considers to be beneath him. He seems to be waiting for the real job, the job beyond, above the presidency, the really important job befitting his superhuman abilities to which he will ascend when he has transcended his labors ruling the ungrateful and unwashed. But until then, he will blame others, establish commissions, panels, and support economic advisors who have no experience in the real world, who can't so much as pay their taxes, and whose brilliant advice has flung us into the abyss, all the while blaming it on a loose confederation of Americans who argue only for smaller, more responsible government that lives within its means. "Tea Party Downgrade" my American posterior.

But above all, remember that for Mr. Obama rhetoric is reality. Talk, for the most narcissistic president in American history, is cheap indeed. While Mr. Obama seems to believe that whatever he says is reality, and as such, requires no actual actions that would make it manifest, rational Americans tend to want to see results. And now, international rating agencies want to see the same. Fewer and fewer Americans are bothering to listen to Mr. Obama—you've heard one Obama speech, you've heard them all--and few of those who do take anything he says at face value. Yet he cannot imagine that we don't eagerly anticipate his speeches, hang on every word, revel in his clichéd syntax as revealed truth and fall to the floor weeping that one so magnificent would take the time to speak to such as us: bitter God and gun clingers who have antipathy for those not like us.

That's narcissism on a previously unimaginable level. What we need is common sense--such as realizing that you can't save money by spending money—and a genuine belief in the idea of America. Leadership would be nice too, but only if it leads us away from the edge of the abyss.

Mr. Obama claimed that America will always be a AAA nation. Of course, he meant that he is AAA, and how dare anyone think otherwise. We are not, unlike the companies and unions Mr. Obama favors, too big to fail. Only results, not rhetoric will forestall that failure. And all Mr. Obama can do is talk.

Posted by MikeM at 12:18 AM | Comments (4)

August 08, 2011

Dow Down (Bumped) Closes -624.24 (-5.45%)

This isn't pretty.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has plummeted to begin the trading day after the nation's credit was downgraded from AAA to AA+ by Standard & Poor's after the market closed Friday.

downdowndown

Keep your fingers crossed, folks, that this is just a downgrade and that we aren't headed for a complete collapse of the economy as the Cloward-Piven-Obama left so giddily hopes it is.

Update: 10:15AM Down-down-down: Dow at -242.11.

Update: 10:30AM Dow at -343.15

Update: 11:00AM Dow at -347.84. Stabilizing?

I'm going to try not to look again until noon.

Update: 1:59PM G U L P! Dow at -445.85, and now below 11,000.


downdowndown

Update: 4:00PM Dow closes at -624.24 (-5.45%), but soon hits -633.17 (-5.53%) and continues to fall after hours.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:01 PM | Comments (4)

Yeah. Right.

President B+ gives us a AAA.

He has to. Otherwise, it might interfere with really important matters, like using taxpayer-funded transportation to attend two fund-raising events tonight to raise cash for his reelection campaign.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:16 PM | Comments (3)

S&P Now Downgrades Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

The hits just keep coming:

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Monday downgraded the credit ratings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other agencies linked to long-term U.S. debt.

The agency also lowered the ratings for: farm lenders; long-term U.S. government-backed debt issued by 32 banks and credit unions; and three major clearinghouses, which are used to execute trades of stocks, bonds and options.

All the downgrades were from AAA to AA+. S&P says the agencies and banks all have debt that is exposed to economic volatility and a further downgrade of long-term U.S. debt. Their creditworthiness hinges on the U.S. government's ability to pay its own creditors.

Expect the Obama Administration and their Democrat allies in Congress and the Media to now do the very best they can to utterly destroy Standard and Poor's.

They don't know how to solve problems nor do they care to learn how to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.

They just intend to shoot the messenger (again), while reassuring Turbo Tax Timmy he's doing a great job on the way to default.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (6)

Another D O W N G R A D E Possible in Just Months

While our favorite trolls continue to sippy-cup and regurgitate whatever talking point excuses the lefty elites trot out to explain away Standard & Poor's downgrading of the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+, the credit agency warns again that if reckless government spending isn't reined in, our debt crisis may force them to lower our credit rating yet again.

The U.S.'s new double A+ rating "could go down more in a time frame of six months to 24 months," to double-A, depending on government action to cut the deficit, John Chambers, managing director and chairman of Standard & Poor's sovereign ratings committee tells FOX Business senior vice president and anchor Neil Cavuto in an interview on FOX News Saturday.

That means the U.S. government effectively has until at least February to find additional cuts to meet S&P's demand for at least $4 trillion in total deficit reductions over the next decade. The debt ceiling deal cuts $917 billion over the next decade and at least $1.5 trillion from a new bipartisan super committee in Congress by November.

For the first time in history, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S.'s vaunted Triple-A rating to double A+ after the market's close on Friday night, a rating it has held at S&P since 1941.

You can repeat the basic economic facts on a middle school level as many times as you would like, and it will not matter.

Congress was given horrific power when allowed to spend without a requirement to balance the budget every year. We are now so deep in debt as a nation that there is no way—even with 100% taxation of the so-called "rich"—that we can ever raise taxes high enough to bring in enough revenue to offset spending. We must slash spending, and deeply, including the sacred cows of Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.

But progressive ideology demands followers to believe that:

  • Government is the best mechanism to accomplish _______.
  • If the _______ government program isn't working, providing more money to _______ is the solution.
  • There will always be enough money to fund _______, we just need to raise taxes to pay for it.

As a result, we will continue to hear blame-casting from the political left and would be elites. They would rather demagogue those arguing for fiscal responsibility (and call them terrorists) and drive the country into default than be forced into recognizing that a free market economy will not work with their demands for an massive, all-providing government.

It is really too bad that they have so little faith in the intelligence, initiative, and grit of the American people.

We will not only handle the needed deep cuts to big government; we'll thrive as a result.

Of course, that is precisely their biggest fear.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:40 AM | Comments (3)

August 07, 2011

The Wages of Progressivism

Mob violence—in Wisconsin? The birthplace of modern Progressivism? The state that until recently successfully resisted allowing its own citizens to lawfully carry concealed weapons? Wisconsin indeed, as Bob noted in his post titled "Just One More Reason To Carry A Concealed Weapon."

It would be tempting to observe that Progressivism has been less than a civilizing, positive influence in Wisconsin. Consider that union thugs disrupted the traditional Governor's opening of the Wisconsin State Fair, and the bizarre, Mad Max-like attacks on white fair goers by gangs of rampaging black thugs (oops! I mean: "disaffected youths of color expressing their legitimate grievances against the oppressive radical Tea Party power structure"). Yes it would be easy to say all of that and more, but this post is primarily a reminder of the realities of carrying concealed weapons, a practice that I suspect, given the behavior of unions and certain disaffected youths of color—to say nothing of Democrat politicians—will be much on the minds of rational, responsible residents of Wisconsin these days.

For those who would like to do more in-depth reading on the issues raised in this article, may I be so bold as to suggest a five-part series I wrote entitled "Me? Own A Gun?" The series explores not only the philosophical, but the moral, legal and practical issues in considerable depth. For that series go to these links:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

WHY CARRY A CONCEALED WEAPON?

The short answer is because evil exists and it can and will attack anyone at any place and time. Evil recognizes no boundaries, respects no persons, no race, no gender, no national origin. Evil exists to destroy, to humiliate, to maim and kill. It cannot be reasoned with or appeased. It must be confronted and obliterated. Anyone taking the links in the first two paragraphs will become acquainted with evil, and if they are wise, will realize that those innocents thrown to the ground and brutally beaten as they were leaving the Wisconsin State Fair certainly didn't expect to be attacked that night, nor did they do anything to provoke those attacks. That's the nature of evil, and evil is particularly likely to manifest itself in crowds, but we'll deal with that shortly.

Another part of the answer is because the police cannot protect you. In fact, the police have no legal duty to protect any given citizen, nor may they be successfully sued for failing to protect any individual. For those interested, the primary US Supreme Court case is Castlerock v. Gonzalez. In that case, the estranged husband of Mrs. Gonzalez kidnapped and killed their three daughters. Despite the fact that Mr. Gonzalez was violating a protection order, and despite the plaintive and repeated pleas of Mrs. Gonzalez over many hours the police did nothing, nothing that is until Mr. Gonzalez attacked the police station, firing a handgun. He was shot and killed by officers. The bodies of his daughters were found in his truck, which was parked nearby.

This might sound outrageous, but is actually quite sane. If any citizen injured by criminals could sue the police for failing to protect them, could any municipality afford a police department? Who would be a policeman knowing that their homes and property, and everything they might own during their lifetime would be forfeit for their failure to protect someone they could not possibly hope to protect?

Most importantly, we must consider the very nature of humanity and its primary imperative, more important even than procreation: The preservation of the self, or self-defense. This is actually the foundation for the positions of those on both sides of the politics of the Second Amendment: those who believe that the fundamental natural right is the right to preserve one's life versus those who recognize no such right, but tend to see individuals as valuable only in their utility to the state.

If you believe that each man must have the right to defend his life, it logically follows that each man must have access to the means to defend that life, for not every man is as large, fast, strong or martially skilled as others. This is particularly so for women who tend to be, on average, substantially smaller and weaker than men. If also follows that the means must not be restricted to only a single type of weapon, but to those weapons most effective and most conveniently carried by any man or woman. Circa 2011, this means the handgun.

If, on the other hand, you recognize no right to self-defense, the mere existence of such convenient weapons is an enormous threat to your view of the world, for they give any mere man or woman the power, literally in their hands, to resist the power of the state. As much as such people crow about their great concern for the welfare of "the people," it is clear that "the people" are only a politically useful abstraction, and that the individuals who make up "the people," have value only to the degree that they fully support the goals of the statist elite. All others are a threat and are the natural prey of the predators created by other statist policies who are, as members of favored victim groups, particularly useful to statists.

In Wisconsin, until recently, those who recognize no right to self-defense held sway. They are very, very angry that their power over the lives of others has been diminished, and they will not surrender that power easily or willingly, as the continuing turmoil in the land of cheese hats so clearly indicates. But do keep in mind the ultimate foundation of the struggle. Those who would deny the right and the means of individuals to maintain their very existence enable and support the kinds of mobs who attacked innocents at the Wisconsin State Fair.

Why carry a concealed weapon? Because it could be necessary at any moment and at any place, and without it, you or those you love could be maimed or killed. It's very much like a fire extinguisher. Most people will live a lifetime without ever having to use a fire extinguisher, but when they need one, they need it immediately, badly and nothing else will do. The same is true of handguns.

THE USE OF DEADLY FORCE:

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that each state has specific laws with specific language relating to the use of force, and of deadly force. It is always imperative to be intimately familiar with such laws. What follows are the general principles upon which the laws of the several states are based. They are a useful foundation for studying these issues, but again, the final word is found in state law.

There is a word for those who carry concealed weapons because they hope to use them, because they hope to harm and shoot others: criminals. The law abiding who are willing to spend time and money to be thoroughly vetted by the state in order to carry a concealed handgun are among the most law-abiding Americans and are arrested at rates far below the general population. Those whose permits are revoked are commonly less than a single percent of all licensees, and experience revocation primarily for inadvertent technical violations of the law such as accidently carrying their weapon into a prohibited place. No rational man or woman carries a handgun because they are looking for trouble, but because they know that trouble can be—at any place and time—looking for them. In fact, those who carry concealed weapons have a responsibility to go out of their way to avoid trouble. Criminals, tyrants and their sycophants relish the idea of harming others. The rational do not. They understand that to kill another is a terrible, life-changing event, something to be avoided at virtually all costs. However, they also understand that to be unprepared, to allow oneself or one's loved ones to be maimed or killed is worse.

Generally speaking, one can use deadly force when there is an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death to oneself or another. The general factors, which must be present for the use of deadly force to be justified, are:

Means: The person or persons liable to be shot must have the means—a gun, knife, etc.—to make good on their threat.

Opportunity: They must have the opportunity to carry out their threat. They must be close enough and obviously able to carry it out. If they are waving a knife at you from 100 feet away across a river while threatening to kill you, they have neither the means nor the opportunity. If they have a gun, they arguably have both.

Jeopardy: They must be placing you in imminent danger. They must be demonstrating the intention to cause you or another serious bodily injury or death. Again if they are holding a knife from 100 feet across a river, you are in no real jeopardy. However, if they have a rifle, the moment it begins to swing in your direction, there is no doubt that you are in jeopardy.

I would argue that anyone carrying a concealed handgun has a duty to do all that they possibly can to avoid any situation that might turn into a deadly force encounter. If this means that there are certain places or situations that they must avoid, so be it. A large part of avoiding trouble is being aware of your surroundings, of developing situational awareness. Most people are blissfully unaware of what is happening around them; they cannot anticipate or identify impending danger. However, it is the nature of life that the unexpected can occur, and that is why we carry concealed weapons in the first place. This is also why enlightened states have enacted Castle Doctrine laws.

THE CASTLE DOCTRINE:

These laws basically allow citizens who are lawfully present in any place or vehicle at the time they are attacked to stand their ground and defend their lives or the lives of others. They have no duty to try to retreat or to run away, and the attacker, not their victim, is presumed to be at fault. In some states, prosecutors actually expect citizens to flee from their own homes when confronted by armed thugs in the middle of the night, and should they dare to defend their lives, they are likely to be prosecuted for killing those who intended to murder them in their sleep. Castle Doctrine laws prevent such perversions of reality and justice. They also prevent those injured or killed in the commission of crimes from suing their intended victims.

Those who don't believe in self-defense have screamed that Castle Doctrine laws will allow citizens to be vigilantes, murdering helpless criminals at will. Like their hysterical warnings about blood running in the streets when citizens are allowed to carry concealed handguns, these situations have also failed to materialize.

WISCONSIN AND STATE FAIR REALITY:

Let's take a moment to apply these ideas to the situations facing three citizens at the Wisconsin State Fair. None of these people were expecting trouble, let alone expecting to be placed in a situation where they could be maimed or killed, yet that is precisely what happened to them. Tragically, none of them were apparently armed. They were unprepared to protect themselves or others.

That said let's first examine the psychology of crowds, which is a well-developed field of study. People cloaked by the anonymity of a crowd are often willing to do things they would never consider doing when alone or with a friend or two. This is why gangs of people, gathered informally on the spur of the moment, or as an ongoing criminal enterprise, are so dangerous. Their numbers and the inherent difficulty of defending against them or of identifying individuals emboldens them.
The half-hearted kick delivered to the head of an injured victim by a member of a crowd carried along by the fervor of the moment might very well be the blow that imparts irreversible brain damage or which kills even if the person delivering that kick didn't intend to kill. Human beings are amazingly resilient and amazingly fragile. One blow in the right place can permanently cripple or kill.

In Wisconsin, there appears to have been a clear racial motivation to the attacks: blacks attacking whites unknown to them for no reason other than their race. While those who would deny us all self-defense are often very concerned about racial motivations, race surely meant little or nothing to the victims of their attacks, nor would it make their injuries more or less painful or lasting. While race could be a factor in a decision to use deadly force, it generally is irrelevant.

Let's also keep in mind that anyone using a firearm is responsible for each and every round they fire. We shoot only to stop, never to kill. We shoot because of the overwhelming necessity to stop our attacker(s) from doing what they were doing that gave us the legal justification to shoot in the first place. We shoot only to stop those who must be stopped, not people who present no threat of imminent serious bodily injury or death. If the attacker dies, too bad, but we shoot to stop them, not kill them. This means that the moment they cease their attack, we stop shooting, and if we can then immediately get to cover or another place of safety before calling our attorney and then the police, that's the smart thing to do.

In the practice of shooting to stop, we do not shoot to wound, or fire warning shots. Remember, we are responsible for every round we fire. Any round fired into the air in warning will come down somewhere, perhaps on someone. If you try to shoot someone in the leg, even if you are successful, will that prevent him from pulling the trigger of his handgun or from stabbing you with his knife? You shoot to stop, never to wound. Shooting to wound could even be used against you by an attorney arguing that you doubted your justification to shoot. Why else would you fail to shoot to stop?

This means that if you are justified in shooting another human being (to stop them) you may fire as many rounds as necessary with as large a gun as necessary to stop them, but the moment the threat ends, the shooting stops. If a single round from a .380 handgun will stop your attacker, great. If five rounds from a .45 are required, that's fine too. But remember, when they stop, you stop.

In many ways, the situation at the Wisconsin State Fair was a nightmare scenario for any law-abiding person, but it was more so for those carrying a concealed weapon. Some would be tempted to say that no one, therefore, should carry a concealed weapon, but then you would be placing yourself at the tender mercies of the crowd that injured so many at the Fair. Remember that the police, who were apparently present in some numbers at the Fair, did little or nothing to protect those injured, and apparently did little or nothing to arrest those who caused such carnage after the fact.

SCENARIO #1: Riding your motorcycle, you are pulled from your machine by a gang of 5-10 people who begin to savagely beat you. You have never seen these people before and have had no contact or confrontation with them before the moment they grabbed and began to attack you.

Regardless of your size or physical prowess, you are on the ground, already injured, and under unrelenting attack. By the circumstances and their sheer numbers, your attackers have demonstrated beyond any doubt that they have the means and the opportunity to cause you serious bodily injury or death, and they have already placed you in jeopardy. In fact, your only potential means of avoiding seriously bodily injury or death is a handgun, which can be employed even if you are injured or partially incapacitated.

Shooting two or three might be enough to send the rest fleeing, but you cannot be certain of that and must be prepared to shoot each and every person attacking you. Again, your goal is to stop them, to save your life. When they stop, you stop, but in this situation, you should immediately seek protection from any other potential attackers. The alternative is to place yourself at the mercy of those who have no mercy. Get to a place of safety and call your attorney and then the police.

SCENARIO #2: Driving out of the Fair in your car, you see a crowd of 5-10 people savagely beating someone who is on the ground, absorbing terrible punishment. You have a choice: watch in horror, turn your head and drive away, or intervene. Even if you could call the police, they could not possibly arrive in time to prevent the maiming or death of the victim.

If you choose to intervene, you need not shout warnings, but it would be a great idea to yell something clear and consistent such as "stop hitting him," "don't move," or "stop hitting him or I'll shoot." As they are clearly putting that person in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death, as the next blow could be the blow that inflicts that injury or causes their death, you may shoot to stop the assault. If necessary, you may shoot them in the back. This isn't a prize fight, and as the thugs will observe no rules, you will observe only the rules that apply to the use of deadly force, which do not require you to wait until a killer presents a range-perfect frontal silhouette prior to shooting. Waiting for a such a perfect silhouette might also indicate to a jury that you weren't really engaged in a split-second life or death struggle, but had the time to align potential targets before shooting.

Again, if shooting one of them stops the assault, great. But if not, you shoot at many as necessary to stop the assault.

SCENARIO #3: Waiting behind other vehicles while driving out of the Fair in your car, you are surrounded by a group of 5-10 people who scream racial threats, kick and beat your vehicle and appear to be trying to break in your windows. Your doors are locked and your windows are holding—for the moment. Are you and your family in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death?

If it is possible for you to immediately drive off, that would be the smart thing to do, even if one or more of the attackers is foolish enough to be in your way at that time. Remember that when behind the wheel of your car, you are in control of a deadly weapon—a weapon far more dangerous and deadly than any handgun--capable of mowing down everyone in your path.

This situation is somewhat problematic. The moment one of the thugs breaks a window, it would certainly be reasonable to believe that they intend to carry out their express and implied threats. Yes, it's annoying that they are damaging your vehicle, perhaps humiliating you in front of your wife and children, but cars can be repaired and feelings soothed, killing lasts forever. Certainly when they break into the car, and the moment they begin reaching for or striking occupants of the vehicle, the factors for the use of deadly force are present. However, even then you, sitting behind the wheel of a vehicle, unable to easily respond to threats in any direction, are at a distinct tactical disadvantage. The best possible option is using your vehicle to escape, so long as innocents aren't endangered. If any of your attackers find themselves inspecting the tread of your tires from close range, too bad. If not, shoot to stop, not only individuals, but the gang, as necessary. Remember that when they are stopped, you stop. You do not shoot people who are clearly running away or who have clearly stopped placing you or others in jeopardy. Escape to safety and only then call your attorney and then the police.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I've covered only the bare bones of the issues here. Being involved in any shooting surrounded by people is a nightmare. What if you miss and strike an innocent? What if one of your rounds penetrates one of your attackers and hits an innocent? There are an infinite number of what ifs involved in such situations, which is why it is always smartest for anyone carrying a concealed weapon to be so attuned to their surroundings that they avoid potentially dangerous places and situations.

However, even for the most prepared, avoidance or even escape are not always possible. Sometimes, you must be prepared to stand and fight, for if you are not prepared, if you can't fight, you or those you loved may be maimed or killed.

There are certainly those in Wisconsin—and elsewhere—who will examine the attacks at the State Fair and conclude that it was fortunate that no one there had a handgun, that everyone lacked the means to defend their lives. There are others, and I would assert that these are the citizens who are responsible and rational, who will see these attacks as clear evidence of the wisdom and necessity of being able and prepared to protect our lives and those of our loved ones.

Statists would also oppose a Castle Doctrine law, for it would give too much power to the individual. It would allow honest citizens to kill vicious criminal attackers and avoid being sued when those thugs were transformed in death into virtual saints. If the innocent can do that, the foundation of the statist worldview—the lives of individuals have value only in direct proportion to their utility to the state; they have no intrinsic value—crumbles. The law abiding would see the primary provisions of the Castle Doctrine as a logical extension of the right to self-defense.

Evil exists. The non-statist citizens of Wisconsin are now, perhaps, more aware of that never-changing, eternal reality.

Posted by MikeM at 10:26 PM | Comments (6)

August 06, 2011

Making The Grade

I just didn't expect it this early. I mean, Gov. Rick Perry (R) of Texas has not yet actually placed himself in the running for the 2012 Presidential race, so perhaps it's a bit premature for the Left (I was going to say the Media, but what's the difference?) to attack him. But then again, it's a different world these days, except when it's not.

By that I mean that one of the most tried and true Leftist attacks is to brand any Republican stupid, usually as evidenced by his SAT score or his undergraduate grades in college some 30-40 years ago. This particularly Leftist cannon has already been fired at Mr. Perry with the claim that he received a C or D or three in some of his undergraduate classes at Texas A & M, which college must, to any sophisticated journalist, surely consist of a pothole-filled dirt road leading to an outhouse and a renovated fried chicken restaurant.

Well, return with me now Gentle Readers to those thrilling days of yesteryear when Sen. John Kerry (D, N. Vietnam/Jane Fonda) was running against George W. Bush, both graduates of sainted Yale. The Left ran the usual academic attacks against Mr. Bush, representing him as an accented Texas dolt with a C or D or three in some of his undergraduate classes. Boy, wasn't that good for a few laughs around the more chic bistros frequented by the self-appointed elite? Well yes, until that is, it was revealed that Mr. Kerry's grades within those ivy-covered walls were even lower. Ooops. Suddenly that line of attack more or less disappeared as the attacks on the Swift Boat Vets—for daring to attack Mr. Kerry by stooping to revealing his actual record (such as his smiling portrait on the walls of the North Vietnamese War Museum shaking hands with equally smiling Communist murderers)—ramped up.

Now we have Governor Perry, a man with a long record of actual accomplishment and success in such insignificant endeavors as running a business and creating a climate conducive to jobs and economic growth, compared to the diametrically opposed record of Mr. Obama whose economic policy consists primarily of saying: "it's George W. Bush's fault! Nyaaah!"

"Oh yeah?" Say Obama sycophants and the press (but I repeat myself). "Perry got Cs and Ds at some no-name school in some backward, red state where everybody marries their sister—or something. So there! Nyaaah!"

Very well. Let's see Mr. Obama's grades then. In fact, let's see his undergraduate and graduate transcripts so that we can see not only which intellectually demanding courses he took, but how the most brilliant human being (a man who was actually able to swat a fly!) ever to walk the Earth fared. This information is currently classified somewhere above top secret in a classification so secret that no one, not even Mr. Obama, knows what it is. Wouldn't it be simple fairness for Americans to see Mr. Obama's brilliance? Wouldn't it be best to spread the grades around, so to speak? If Mr. Obama's supporters publicize Mr. Perry's grades, why shouldn't Americans expect to see Mr. Obama's grades?

How about it Mr. Obama? To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, a man whose words you seem more than willing to misuse: "Mr. Obama, tear down this wall behind which your grades hide!"

Posted by MikeM at 05:44 PM | Comments (8)

August 05, 2011

D O W N G R A D E D

Voting to give yourself more credit does not solve your spending problem. Any kid knows this, but Congress and the President thought they played by other rules.

They were wrong.

As a result, Standard and Poor's has downgraded the U.S. economy (PDF), marking this moment as the first time our nation's credit has ever been downgraded.

Further, S&P indicated that conditions for a further downgrade were possible in 12-18 months.

If you aren't sure what that means, let me translate it into more practical terms, when I compare it to the economic equivalent of an ELE.

If Obama really did intend to Cloward-Piven the United States intentionally, he has done so masterfully. We've just become the Nicolas Cage of world economies.

Great job, "elites."

You got the hope and change you were looking for.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:18 PM | Comments (13)

August 03, 2011

Nation of Communists Awards Obama His Own Stamp

He has, after all, carried out their policy agenda for the United States better than even Putin could.

Here in the U.S. we're also thinking of commemorating the President's birthday, and I think we agree on the perfect product to bear his name.

"Shovel ready," indeed.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:34 AM | Comments (4)

Another Nekkid Yankee Democrat Resigns Over Nude Photos

This time, a New Jersey Democrat, who claims he was "tricked" and says he may pursue legal action against the man who posted the pictures.

At least he wasn't dressed as a tiger.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:23 AM | Comments (2)

August 02, 2011

Liberal Flash Cards


Ally

Ally

Terrorist

Terrorist
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:56 AM | Comments (1)

Times Columnist: Gee, those Tea Party Types are Just Like al Qaeda, Aren't They?

Joe Nocera, apparent survivor of literally thousands of Tea Party assassination attempts, bombings, beheadings, states that the real threat to the Republic is the, uh, American people:

You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them.

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that's what it took.

Unfortunately for Mr. Nocera, he and the rest of Amy Winehouse Left don't grasp basic principles most of us figured out in elementary school.

  • You don't solve your cash flow problems by raising your credit limit. That only makes your inevitable bankruptcy that much more traumatic
  • You don't cure an addiction by feeding it

The Tea Party legislators that the Times would like to portray as radicals and terrorists are in fact the only adults in the room. The GOP in general and the Democratic Party in it's totality are committed to making our debt crisis worse by raising the debt limit, ensuring that the government will spend more money that it does not have, driving us deeper into debt and closer to an all but inevitable default.

It is the professional political class that are the terrorists that threaten to blow the Republic apart, driving a truckload of explosive debt into the heart of the nation.

Instead of trying to head off the debt, Nocera snipes at the brave few who are trying to stop the truck.

Don't be surprised. What else should you expect from a radical leftist government headed by a man mentored by a real terrorist?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:25 AM | Comments (4)

August 01, 2011

I Am A Terrorist?

"Joe Biden and Mike Doyle (D-PA) say so:

We have negotiated with terrorists," an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. "This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money."

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies' misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: "They have acted like terrorists," according to several sources in the room.

Let me tell you something, Mike and Joe.

When I plant a bomb outside your church...

...or kidnap your peers and torture them not for what they know, but purely to cause them the maximum amount of pain, just to send a message...

...or gun down citizens in the streets in a coup d'etat...

...then—and only then—will you have just cause for calling me a terrorist.

Until then, don't confuse your mirror with a window to my soul.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:44 PM | Comments (6)

All You Need to Know About the Debt Deal

Only radical idiots think the debt bill accomplished anything.

It put bandage on a malignant cancer, but did nothing to stop its growth or spread.

This was and will continue to be a failure, ensuring an eventual and even greater default.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:59 AM | Comments (6)

July 28, 2011

Debbie Downer Desperately Demagogues as Democratic Descent Deepens

If you don't have a President or a Party or a plan, maybe this is the best she can do:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Wednesday that House Republicans are trying to impose "dictatorship" through their tactics in the debt-ceiling negotiations. She said the GOP rhetoric could "spark panic and chaos," which she called "potentially devastating" to the economy.

The chair telephoned POLITICO to express "significant disappointment in where … Republicans have allowed this debate to degenerate."

Reality must be painful for the reality-based community. Democratic leadership, in the form of the President, is increasingly pathetic, offering no concrete solution of any sort to our budget problems. All Obama has done is whine and stomp his feet that he is unwilling to cut any of the trillions in spending he and his fellow Democrats have added in recent years, while insisting on raising taxes, a move certain to plunge us into a full depression.

Debbie Downer and Harry Reid have likewise offered no leadership or viable budgets, and instead merely snipe at the plans Republicans have offered.

The American people can see that it is the Republican Party, and only the Republican Party, that is offering budget plans. The Democrats are offering nothing but vitriol.

The American people are not blind, as much as the Democrats and media wish they were, and they will respond accordingly in 2012, if not sooner.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:09 AM | Comments (2)

Details of the Obama Budget

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:42 AM | Comments (6)

July 25, 2011

Norwegian Lessons

By now, most are aware of the murderous rampage in Norway. The killer—who would want his name to be prominently mentioned—is a 32-year-old Norwegian. From what is currently known, he set off a bomb made of fertilizer and fuel oil in Oslo, killing seven, and approximately an hour later, took a boat to Utoya Island, a retreat center accessible only by helicopter or boat. Dressed in a police uniform, he called many of the youngsters on the island at a summer retreat to him and opened fire, eventually killing 86 and wounding—at the bombing and on the island--more than 90. His rampage was stopped when he was shot—he survived--by a police SWAT team, but it took approximately 90 minutes from the first shot until the police were able to find transportation and travel to the island.

His weapons have been variously described as a "machine pistol," an "automatic weapon and a pistol," and various other imprecise, uninformed media formulations. There was immediate speculation that the attack was another Jihadist outrage, which these days is far from an unreasonable assumption, but it seems that this attack was most similar to that in Tucson: the act of an evil man, acting alone in response to whatever demons pursued him.

The first question that usually comes to mind—or at least to the minds of the media—is: why? Why did this person do what he did? Is he a member of a favored victim group? Were his grievances—if they align with the favored socialist/statist narrative—legitimate, even understandable, or was he a "right wing extremist?" If so, not only is he to blame but any who might share any portion of his assumed political beliefs is also to blame, and yes, Sarah Palin has already been implicated.

The first question that usually comes to the minds of many politicians is: how can I use this to my advantage? This is particularly true of those who seek to increase the power of the state and suppress the freedom of individuals, men like Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel who endeavor to never allow a crisis to go to waste—when it can be cynically exploited for political gain.

If I was truly cynical—and I am, for Lily Tomlin was right when she said that no matter how cynical you get, you can't keep up—I'd be tempted to observe that the Obama Administration would immediately try to export illegally purchased American firearms to Norway, or that it would be discovered that they already had. Stranger things have indeed happened, have they not?

But for the time being, as we wait to learn the actual, as opposed to assumed, facts, our time would be best served by considering what can be learned from this latest massacre. I'll provide only three primary lessons, though there are surely more.

(1) Gun free zones are deadly. In this case, the entire nation of Norway is essentially a citizen disarmament zone. Even though many Norwegians own firearms, even the police do not routinely carry handguns. Utoya island was very much like American schools: isolated, vulnerable, and completely unarmed. In school attacks, and in the attack on Utoya Island, the final body count will depend on the lack of marksmanship and the humanity of the killer(s), who will be stopped only by the intervention of armed police. Even in America, it takes far longer for the police to respond to such attacks than most people realize. When seconds count, it will take the police tens of minutes to arrive and longer to react. On Utoya Island, the killer—exploiting a dream Socialist gun-free zone--had approximately 90 minutes to roam the island at will, killing at a truly leisurely pace.

In America and Norway, the Left is delighted to "send messages" and to express what they imagine to be moral superiority by declaring certain places to be "gun-free." They see such posturing as an important and meaningful accomplishment in and of itself. They are incapable of seeing, or accepting, that criminals care nothing for the laws they establish, and that while preparing for the mass murder of children, gun-free zone signs are not only not a deterrent, but a guarantee that they will be able to kill without impediment. In a very real sense, the murders on Utoya Island are the ultimate expression of the gun-free zone.

(2) Evil exists. The left sees all things through a political lens. All motivations, all meaning may be found in political ideology. Socialist/Statist/Leftist ideology is infallible, so it can never be mistaken. It can never be wrong. Any problems along the way must be attributable to the existence of Conservatism, which keeps Socialism from working properly, or to the fact that not enough time has passed for a given Socialist policy to work properly, or as in the case of gun control issues, insufficient Socialism has been applied. Not until all firearms are in the loving hands of the state can the state protect individual citizens, despite the fact that the state has no obligation—or intention—to protect individual citizens.

Because all is political, morality—to the small degree that leftists recognize its existence, exists only in service to the preferred political narrative. Concepts such as good and evil have no meaning unless they are politically useful, such as evil being applied to those who oppose righteous Socialist policy, which is inherently good.

This mindset inevitably leads to the search for motivations, causes acceptable to the Socialist political narrative. In the case of the Norwegian killer, much of the media has already branded him a "right-wing Christian Fundamentalist." To the Leftist media, no greater insult, no more damning sign of politically incorrect guilt, is possible. Yet even this epithet denies the existence of evil. To the Left, evil resides in the fact that the killer is right wing, Christian, and even worse, a "fundamentalist," whatever that might mean in this context. In a nation as far left as Norway, even those with slightly left of center political views might be considered irredeemable rightists.

One need not be a Christian to believe in evil, for evil is manifested most meaningfully in acts, not words. The most revealing evidence of evil in despotism is not in the despot's writings and pronouncements, but in the millions of innocents they slaughter. On Utoya Island, the killer dressed as a policeman, and knowing that kids would not be alarmed by an armed policeman, called them to gather around him and betrayed their trust in the loving state by shooting them. He spent 90 minutes, taking his time, calmly walking about the island and shooting everyone he could find, killing 86 and wounding a great many more. He reloaded multiple times. If this was not evil, evil has no meaning.

No motivation need be sought. No political arguments need be made. No one need be blamed except the killer himself and the author of all evil. Evil exists to destroy and cares nothing for politics except to whatever degree politics and those who live by them may be twisted to enable destruction of God's greatest gift: life.

(3) One indisputable fact remains: If a single, capable innocent on that island was armed, the killer could have been stopped and nearly two hundred children would not have been wounded or killed. Life could have been preserved and evil defeated. Evil cannot be appeased or reasoned with; it must be confronted and destroyed.

This was not possible because of what Socialists would surely consider one of their greatest accomplishments, an achievement they would see as indisputable evidence of more advanced evolution, of more enlightened humanity: the more or less complete disarmament of an entire nation, including its police.

The media and Norwegian and American politicians sharing the same political and social views will be unable and unwilling to recognize or accept this final, simple truth. They will argue instead for even more disarmament of the law-abiding and innocent, and the suppression of political ideas with which they disagree, even in a country that has no First or Second Amendments, for all must be made to serve the narrative.

We often rhetorically and cynically observe that someone is going to have to die before something is done. Ninety-three are dead and the Left is incapable of learning the painfully obvious, necessary lessons. The best the left can do, the best it will ever be able to do, is to call the killer a right-wing fundamentalist Christian—which to them says nearly everything--and blame Sarah Palin, which says the rest.

Posted by MikeM at 12:25 PM | Comments (3)

The Obama Zone

Let's take a journey, a journey into a dimension of self-delusion and inattention, a dimension of false hope and unwanted change. We're taking a trip to: The Obama Zone!

Consider these excerpts from a piece by Mike Allen at Politico via Jim Geraghty at National Review (via me):

"FLY ON THE WALL: Fifty of the most prized donors in national politics, including several hedge-fund billionaires who are among the richest people in the world, schlepped to a Manhattan office or hovered around speakerphones Tuesday afternoon [July 19, 2011] as their host, venture capitalist Ken Langone (pronounced LAN-goan), a co-founder of The Home Depot, implored New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to reconsider and seek the GOP presidential nomination…"

"Langone backed Rudy Giuliani in 2008, and his guests came from both parties, although most were moderate Republicans. Most are uncommitted in the presidential race. Participants who rank on the Forbes list of richest Americans included Bernie Marcus, Paul Tudor Jones (hedge funds; $3.3 billion), Stan Druckenmiller (hedge funds; $2.5 billion) and Bernie Marcus (Home Depot; $1.9 billion). Several of them said: I’m Republican but I voted for President Obama, because I couldn’t live with Sarah Palin. Many said they were severely disappointed in the president. The biggest complaint was what several called “class warfare.” They said they didn’t understand what they had done to deserve that: If you want to have a conversation about taxation, have a conversation. But a president shouldn’t attack his constituents — he’s not the president of some people, he’s president of all the people…"

Can you can sing, without error in note or lyric, the theme from Gilligan's Island? If, like me, you can, then you remember Thurston Howe III and his wife, Lovey. Howe III was billed as "the millionaire" ("and his wife") in the opening ditty. Now, of course, millions are little more than pocket change. Like Dr. Evil awakening after decades and trying to extort a million dollars, it seems innocent and quaint in our world of debts so large their adjectives defy the imagination. What does a trillion of anything look like anyway?

But on Gilligan's Island and in America today, the very rich are very different. They must be very different—almost alien--for how else can Allen's report make the slightest sense? I don't mean that they always wear ascots, yachting caps and blazers and talk as though their jaws are wired shut like Thurston Howe III. I'm talking about altered perceptions; very altered perceptions.

People who were paying attention during the 2008 campaign must have been aware of:

(1) Mr. Obama's ranking as the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate, to the left even of Bernie Sanders, the only self-identified Socialist in the Congress. In a Congress controlled by Democrats, leaning further left than any in recent memory that was quite an accomplishment.

(2) Mr. Obama's inadvertent bit of honesty in telling Joe The Plumber that he thought "spreading the wealth around" was a good thing.

(3) Mr. Obama's fervent desire to ensure that energy prices should "necessarily skyrocket."

(4) Mr. Obama's threat to bankrupt the coal industry.

(5) This charming off-the-teleprompter rant: "We can’t drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we’re living in the desert or we’re living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world’s energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we’ll be fine. Don’t worry about us. That’s not leadership."

(6) Mr. Obama's close association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, proponent of Black Liberation Theology the foundation of which is militant Marxism.

(7) The fact that Mr. Obama had no business or real world experience at all.

(8) A wide variety of comments and indicators revealing Mr. Obama's compulsion to tax, particularly the wealthy.

(9) The use, by Mr. Obama and his surrogates, of Socialist terms like "social justice," and "redistributive change."

(10) Mr. Obama's often stated promise to "fundamentally change America."

I could extend the list virtually to infinity, but the question remains: how could these people have been surprised by anything Barack Obama has done? I have to believe that most of them are not old money. They made their money in the real world, paying bills, making payroll, working with actual people, God and gun clinging people who live in Flyover Country. They understand that without the free enterprise system and democracy, they would immediately find themselves the victims of the redistributive change and social justice built into Mr. Obama's DNA. So how did they overlook in 2008 what is now so obvious in 2011? Unlike Thurston Howe III, they don't have the excuse of being marooned on a desert island for years.

And I'm afraid the referees have ruled the Sarah Palin excuse out of bounds. Apart from Bush 43, virtually every President has treated the Vice Presidency as though it was, in the words of FDR's VP, Texan John Nance Garner: "not worth a bucket of warm spit."

It never occurred to these people that Mr. Obama would not be business-friendly? They were unaware that Marxism and Socialism are all about class warfare and inherently hostile to democracy, capitalism and America? Did they think that when Mr. Obama repeatedly and fervently promised to fundamentally change America that he was talking about changing the color of blue jeans? Presumably these people are intelligent, or did people simply give them billions because they had kind faces?

Perhaps, having been slapped in their respective well-heeled faces by hope and change, they are now firmly living in the real world, in our normal, capitalistic, democratic, American dimension. And in that world, three things don't change: death, taxes and Barack Obama's socialistic designs on America. Hopefully, this time they'll put their money where reality is.

Posted by MikeM at 12:04 AM | Comments (5)

July 23, 2011

What Can A Man Of Barack Obama's Experience Accomplish? Part II

What Can A Man of Barack Obama's Experience Accomplish? Part II.

Links To Referenced Stories/Videos In This Article:

(1) For an article about Mr. Obama's only executive experience, go here.

(2) For a video of Jack Cashill explaining why Mr. Obama did not write his first book, go here.


Mr. Obama's only executive experience was his years (1995-1999) as head—appointed by unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers—of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization set up to disburse tens of millions ostensibly to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged Chicago children. Despite blowing through a truly huge sum (more than $100 million in only four years), Mr. Obama accomplished—according to the study of the aftermath by the Annenberg Foundation—absolutely nothing but wasting more than $100 million dollars of other people's money. It is not known if Mr. Obama knew that this was vital training for his future, but he obviously did not want anyone to know about his only executive experience, and despite the fact that the press did know about it during the 2008 campaign, it was not reported. Apparently pants creases and leg tingles override fiscal irresponsibility far more than was previously understood.

Mr. Obama has identified himself as a "constitutional law professor" at the University of Chicago, but he was actually listed as a "senior lecturer" during his brief tenure. The best evidence indidcates that the school was ordered to find Mr. Obama office space and to give him a class to teach. In academia, "professor" is the highest academic rank, normally awarded only to tenured teachers after many years of experience and many successful publications. Mr. Obama has none of these qualifications, and never went through the necessary process of being awarded professor rank.

Despite earning academic credentials in the law, there is no evidence that Mr. Obama worked for any appreciable period of time as a practicing attorney. He may be reasonably called a lawyer by virtue of having a law degree, but he apparently never kept offices, met a payroll, hung out a shingle, or even worked as a regularly salaried attorney for government. Instead, most of his post-Harvard days were occupied with his "work," as a community organizer.

In his own autobiographical writings, Mr. Obama admitted that he could not explain to even his closest friends what a community organizer actually did. The job apparently was self-appointed and had no salary or benefits, yet we know that it consisted, in part, of teaching "leadership training seminars" for ACORN—photographs exist of him doing just that, and ACORN leaders acknowledged it—despite his statements that he did no such thing (normal folks call this "lying"). Like much of the rest of his past, whatever accomplishments Mr. Obama made in organizing communities—whatever that might be--remain ephemeral.

There is considerable evidence, particularly that provided by Jack Cashill, that Mr. Obama did not write his books. In fact, given a substantial advance to write his first book—a remarkable accomplishment for a minor political figure and a first time author with no experience at all--Mr. Obama could produce nothing, yet was allowed to keep the advance. It is also known that he gave all the materials of his unfinished book to Bill Ayers, and lo and behold, the book is very much in the style of Ayers, whose writings—unlike those of Mr. Obama—are available for comparison. Yet we are expected to believe that a man who produced no academic or legal writing, no known writing at all, was capable, suddenly, of producing two hot-selling autobiographies. As a teacher of writing, I can affirm that the chance of such a thing occurring is vanishingly small. Writing, like any other human skill, takes talent and many years of effort and practice, which prior to the publication of his books Mr. Obama apparently never demonstrated. The ability to haltingly read from a teleprompter and the ability to write a book are two very different things.

Mr. Obama's election to the Illinois Senate was made possible when he knocked his mentor and primary opponent off the ballot. In that role he distinguished himself as one of the most liberal members of a very liberal body. His US Senate campaign was a case of déjà vu in that his primary Republican opponent bowed out of the race after sealed court documents relating to his divorce were mysteriously released to the press. Elected to the US Senate by the only state that still refuses to allow its citizens any means of carrying concealed weapons, Mr. Obama spent two years primarily running for president, yet still managed to be ranked as the most leftist member of the US Senate, to the left even of the Senate's only declared Socialist. His record of accomplishment in both bodies—scores of "present" votes aside--is essentially nonexistent.

It was during the 2008 campaign that Americans were introduced to what is arguably the most insupportably inflated ego in American history. All politicians need healthy egos. Mr. Obama makes the worst of them look like models of humility and mental health.

When he won the Democrat nomination, he modestly announced that history would record that event as the moment that the seas began to retreat and the planet began to heal. Most people would not be capable of thinking of themselves in such grandiose terms, and fewer would dare to say such a thing. Clearly, Mr. Obama is not restrained by the ethical concerns of mere men.

For a short time, until wiser heads prevailed, he began to speak behind a pseudo-presidential Great Seal of Obama. His campaign posters adopted the style and tone of Communist-era propaganda, becoming, for Americans unaware of the murderous history of Communism (or perhaps very aware), as iconographic as a Che poster. Upon election, he established the "office" and seal of the President-Elect of the United States, despite the fact that the Constitution, to say nothing of precedent, establishes no such office. His studied rejection of the Constitution revealed by these—and more-- exercises in self-glorification were merely warnings of things to come.

Real leaders never have to remind anyone of their rank or position. They know that those who feel compelled to do that are not leaders. For real leaders, it's simply not necessary. For Mr. Obama, it has been constantly necessary. In fact, he not only began his term in office as a non-leader, he and his spokespeople now seem particularly proud of his newly discovered concept of "leading from behind," which is demonstrative of even less leadership than not leading at all. For the real world—as opposed to Obama World—leading from behind is perhaps the most self-contradictory statement known to man. Real leaders would think anyone espousing such utter nonsense a fool.

One several occasions, Mr. Obama told Congressmen and Senators "I won." In a congressional meeting, he told Senator John McCain that the election was over, obviously making that point that since he won, there was no need for discussion; his way was the only way. This man of superior temperament often appear to be ready to blow sky high. He seems to be genuinely stumped and frustrated when others do not immediately accept anything he says as revealed truth and genius.

On notable occasions, he has invited guests to his speeches, such as the Supreme Court and Rep. Paul Ryan, seated them prominently, and then lied about their positions and actions and publically berated them. Such behavior demonstrates an extraordinary smallness of spirit, a lack of common courtesy and manners, and a streak of petty meanness. Embracing all Americans requires sincere respect for them and their views. Mr. Obama shows only contempt for those who do not slavishly praise his every utterance.

Mr. Obama's mistreatment and serial insults of our most staunch allies, such as Britain and Israel, and his betrayal of the Eastern Europeans have become the stuff of legend, as has his appeasement of and weakness toward our most virulent enemies. He even hesitated for a day in authorizing our military to take out Osama Bin Laden, a day turned into two days by adverse weather, time that could have blown the mission. Some presidents grow in office. They learn that their most cherished beliefs must be altered in the face of reality. Not Barack Obama, who seems to believe that reality must bend to accommodate him.

Mr. Obama seems able to respond to crisis only be means of speech making, which means teleprompter reading. Despite being lauded as an incredibly inspiring and gifted speaker he is at best, average. As a teacher of college speech, I would allow him no more than a C. His speeches are full of straw men and false choices. They are consistently characterized by misrepresentations and even blatant lies. His rhythms are halting, determined by his ability to read from the teleprompter screens as his head constantly turns right-left-right-left, causing odd and unnatural pauses in the middle of phrases and clauses. His pitch and volume consistently drop off the tabletop at the ends of sentences, causing the loss of final consonants. Rather than employing logic and compelling argument, he employs insults and ridicule of any who disagree with him. Such serial failings are not characteristic of an exceptional speaker.

Worse still is that his speeches are, as Texans would say: "All hat, no cattle." There are no specifics, no real proposals, nothing that would indicate precisely what he intends to do. There are only broad platitudes, partisan exhortations, appeals to high-sounding aspirations and vague values. Mr. Obama seems to believe that the American people want nothing so much as to hear yet another speech from him. He actually seems to think that when he speaks, reality changes to comport with his desires, or perhaps that reality is his desires. Fortunately, many Americans are beginning to catch on. They realize that if they've heard one Obama speech, they've heard them all, and they're equally uninformed.

And so we arrive at the present, at the debt ceiling negotiations, after Mr. Obama has increased the national debt to 25% of GDP, exceeding the height reached during WWII. The only budget proposal Mr. Obama has submitted had only one feature: boundless spending far into the future. It was so unrealistic, so out of bounds with even the free-spending, unlimited taxation ways of Congressional democrats that not a single one voted to support it; not one. Yet Mr. Obama wants what he wants and expects that he can talk Americans into giving it to him. After all, everyone has always given him whatever he wanted in the past. They have always praised him as being beyond the understanding and abilities of mere mortals. Why should things be different today?

Things are different because, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher's canny observation on the ultimate problem of Socialism, we have run out of other people's money. Margaret Thatcher, a real leader, understood such things. Mr. Obama, who leads from behind, cannot and will not.

What more should we expect of a man with no apparent past, with no experience holding down a responsible job, only one miserably failed executive experience, no legislative accomplishment, and whose only solution to any crisis is rhetoric? What can we expect of a man whose only firm principles seem to be unremitting class envy and warfare, hatred of America, reflexive appeasement of her enemies and contempt for her allies, disdain for the Constitution, and an unshakable commitment to control the lives of Americans to the maximum extent imaginable, and to raise any and every tax possible while spending more money than exists?

For such a man, there is no compromise large enough, no tax large enough, nor any expenditure large enough. One might almost be tempted to think that when Barack Obama said that he was going to "fundamentally change" America, he really meant that he intended to destroy it. That is likely the only thing a man of his experience is truly capable of doing.

Posted by MikeM at 12:06 AM | Comments (7)

July 20, 2011

Fair and Balanced With Political Donations, Too

Unlike, say, every other media company on the planet.

Political donations by News Corp., its employees and their families were evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with President Obama the all-time leading recipient, according to a report from the Sunlight Foundation.

The transparency watchdog noted Tuesday that Democrats received 51 percent of contributions while Republicans received 49 percent, despite the firm's highly publicized links to the GOP, such as a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association in August.

The donation balance seems to also carry over to legitimately balanced coverage of news events, which no doubt explains the popularity of their print and broadcast news outlets.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

Wow: Ninth Circus Says Call for Obama's Assassination is Free Speech

I consider myself a free speech advocate as much as the next guy, but I never felt comfortable with calls for assassination being considered protected speech, and trust me, I've seen a lot of it... just on signs at lefty protests during the Bush years.

The ultra-liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagrees:

A divided panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that conviction Tuesday, saying Bagdasarian's comments were "particularly repugnant" because they endorsed violence but that a reasonable person wouldn't have taken them as a genuine threat.

The observation that Obama "will have a 50 cal in the head soon" and a call to "shoot the [racist slur]" weren't violations of the law under which Bagdasarian was convicted because the statute doesn't criminalize "predictions or exhortations to others to injure or kill the president," said the majority opinion written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt.

"When our law punishes words, we must examine the surrounding circumstances to discern the significance of those words' utterance, but must not distort or embellish their plain meaning so that the law may reach them," said the 2-1 ruling in which Chief Judge Alex Kozinski joined but Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw dissented.

The court seems to be saying that the message Walter Bagdasarian communicated wasn't a legitimate threat, and there was therefore not a crime, since a reasonable person should not have inferred that he had the means, motive and opportunity to carry out the threat or equip others to do so.

Am I reading that right?

I guess we can expect to see "Assassinate X with a Y" tee shirts popping up on web sites now.

Wonderful.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:40 AM | Comments (5)

What Can A Man of Barack Obama's Experience Accomplish?

The stakes are enormous, even unprecedented, and the facts are clear: Our national debt has reached ruinous, astronomical levels and climbs higher every day. Mr. Obama has spent four trillion dollars in just over two years. The number is so large—and increasing daily--that it has almost no meaning for most Americans, yet Mr. Obama wants to spend much, much more. Virtually no one outside Paul Krugman thinks our current path of spending America into oblivion is remotely rational or sustainable, and even he is beginning to have the tiniest doubts. Moody’s is poised to lower America’s AAA bond rating, which would make it far more expensive to borrow and would almost certainly set off a round or murderous, Carteresque inflation, and that's the best case scenario. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security must be reformed. If ObamaCare is ever fully implemented, it will be sufficient, by itself, to bankrupt the nation, to say nothing about giving the government de facto power to mandate whatever it wants. Our revenues are sufficient to meet our needs, but our spending is completely out of control. If we don’t stop spending far more money than we could ever possibly have, America will go bankrupt, plunging the world into an economic apocalypse.

On one hand we have the Congressional Republicans, many obviously uncomfortable in stepping out of their business as usual comfort zones, but forced by circumstances and reality to actually stand up for no additional taxes and real spending cuts. Yet even so, they’re willing to give up more than two trillion dollars in additional spending, money we don’t have, money we will have to borrow. By any reasonable interpretation of “compromise,” more than two trillion dollars is quite a compromise.

On the other hand we have Barack Obama, President of the United States. Mr. Obama knows the state of the economy. He knows the state of the debt, yet he wants to spend more money than even the most craven politician prior to the advent of The One was capable of imagining. And to do this, he wants to raise taxes to unheard of levels. What is little known is that through ObamaCare and other devices, he has already imposed enormous new taxes that will by themselves drag down an economy seriously weakened by years of wild spending abandon by Democrats. Yes, Republicans helped, but the pubic knows who the real spending addicts are and soundly spanked the Democrats in 2010. Mr. Obama speaks of “a balanced approach,” yet his idea of balance is that the Republicans not only give him everything he wants, they must praise his patience and willingness to compromise—by graciously accepting whatever he demands--as well.

As Fox News reported on July 14 (here), Mr. Obama angrily and petulantly walked out of a recent negotiating session when mere Congressmen and Senators dared oppose his majesty.

“"I've reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this," Mr. Obama angrily exclaimed before storming out of the session.

Thus did Mr. Obama, who promised to unite Americans, who portrayed himself as the great healer, the man who would once again make America loved and respected, demonstrate his superior temperament and boundless intellect. Yet even before that ostentatious display of juvenile temper, Mr. Obama, representing the party that pretends to champion the poor and the elderly, threatened to cut off the social security payments of the poor and the elderly in August if he did not get his way. That'll show 'em who's boss.

Why would the President of the United States behave so…irresponsibly? What, after all, can a man of Barack Obama's experience accomplish?

In one sense, actual experience is irrelevant. The legacy media slavishly supports, even worships Mr. Obama. Even when he recently cut off White House Press Pool access (here) to debt ceiling negotiations because he was angered that the press wasn't appropriately respectful, they took the scolding of Press Secretary Jay Carney and wrote the usual puff pieces blaming everyone but Barack Obama, as usual, following the lead of the man who obviously abhors them.

There is no doubt that the press has supported and defended Mr. Obama like the useful idiots he certainly considers them to be. There is also no doubt that they will continue to support the man in whom they have placed all their hopes, the demi-god they worship. Google "Obama Halo" and you'll find innumerable examples of Mr. Obama given a halo, and not by one press outlet, not by a handful, but by too many to count. Such mindless, incurious fealty is very valuable to any politician, and particularly those with monumental delusions of grandeur.

Placing a halo around the head of a political figure may, to the media, be very symbolic, seemingly making them special, important, even deities. Perhaps they even believe that the God and gun clingers of Flyover Country would embrace such imagery, and therefore take to heart their word. The truth, of course, is that Christians find such mindless trivialization of the holy to be insulting, even blasphemous.

The most egregious and insulting example of this kind of false idol worship is the Easter 2010 New York Times image of the White House at the base of a cross, with Barack Obama, obviously speaking (giving a sermon?) superimposed in profile over the cross. It would be hard to imagine an image that Christians would find more abhorrent and disgusting.

As far as is known, Mr. Obama has not commissioned such images, but anyone with any knowledge of photography viewing these images understands that many are obviously posed, and posing requires the cooperation of the subject of the photography. Is it possible that the most brilliant man ever to occupy the Oval Office had no idea what all those photographers were doing? Has he never seen their photographs? It is also noteworthy that Mr. Obama has never—to my knowledge—made a public plea that such crude attempts at Newsweek-like deification cease. There is, in fact, reason to believe that Mr. Obama sees himself as more than man.

There is considerable reason to believe that the press, the press that called Obama a god, that was awe-struck by his superhuman ability to swat a fly, that felt tingles run up their legs at the mere thought of The One, and thought that he would be an excellent president because of the crease in his pants leg will be every bit as taken with him in 2012 as they were in 2008, perhaps more.

Stephen Marche, writing in a July 12, 2011 Esquire article, proclaimed Mr. Obama's narrative to be ancient, literary, the story of a modern Odysseus or Gilgamesh, a man of historic import and accomplishment.

According to Marche, Mr. Obama is more than man: he is myth. He is a legendary literary hero for the ages, and Marche lays out a list of characteristics of literary greatness to better illustrate his timeless narrative and glory. It is almost impossible to fully explain the delusional, drooling man-love Marche displays. However, it is frighteningly familiar to those who understand history and Communism. It is the cult of personality worship enforced in totalitarian nations like North Korea and Cuba. You really need to read it yourself. But here's a representational excerpt:

"We can finally see who he is, we can finally understand the reality: In 2011, it is possible to be a levelheaded, warmhearted, cold-blooded killer who can crack a joke and write a book for his daughters. It is possible to be many things at once. And even more miraculous, it is possible for that man to be the president of the United States. Barack Obama is developing into what Hegel called a "world-historical soul," an embodiment of the spirit of the times. He is what we hope we can be.

We love Obama — even those who claim to despise him — because deep in our hearts and all over our lives, we're the same way — both inside and outside our jobs, our races, our cities, our countries, ourselves. With great artists, often the most irritating feature of their work is the source of their talent. Obama's gift is the same as his curse: He's somehow managed to be like the rest of us, only infinitely more so."

Such psychosis cannot be parodied. If we endeavor only to be honest, we most certainly do not hope to be what Mr. Obama is. Fortunately, for those who are willing to acknowledge that Barack Obama is a mere mortal, there is compelling evidence that he is far more mortal and fallible than most.

Consider this: If anyone wished to discover the salient facts of your life, how hard would it be to find them? Would it not be easy to discover where you lived, where you went to school, your grades, where you worked? Wouldn't a relatively simple search turn up friends, neighbors, co-workers who would know a great deal about you? If you attended college, and particularly graduate school, wouldn't it be easy to find fellow students who could recount anecdotes about your time with them in innumerable classes? If you were a professional in a profession that required publication, wouldn't there be evidence of your writings, of your beliefs and values?

For normal people, all of this, and more would be easily found for in our paths, we leave behind innumerable records, records we're not even aware are being kept. I have little doubt that a search could reveal where I went to school in the third grade and my grades for that year. It would reveal where I lived and when, and my college classmates could certainly tell a story or two about me, and my grades in college could easily be found. But little or none of this is true about Barack Obama.

Normally, such anomalies, such missing stretches of time, the chronicle of existence, would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull to a professional, competent press, but they have been remarkably uninterested in the background of The One, and with good reason. They don't want to find what they know they would find. They don't want to have to report that the President of the United States is the least qualified, least capable, most fraudulent, and most narcissistic and arrogant man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Mr. Obama's college years are shrouded in mystery. His grades are unavailable. There seems to be no one who remembers him from his undergraduate years, at least not with the kind of memories one would expect of someone who shared the college experience with a superior being in the process of becoming. Perhaps this is because in his two autobiographies (as I recall, Benjamin Franklin satisfied himself with one) Mr. Obama notes that he consciously hung out with the radical—far, far left—elements in college, which is not exactly prime material for a presidential campaign bio.

At Harvard, Mr. Obama was awarded the presidency of the Law Review on the strength of his performance as Barack Obama, yet apparently produced no legal scholarship. At the least, none of it, or any of his work in college or graduate school at Harvard, has ever been revealed. Those who remember him recall that he occasionally stopped by the offices of the Law Review to allow others the thrill and inspiration of his presence, but apparently did no actual work. In a pattern that would eventually become practice, he led from so far behind that there remains not a trace of his leadership. There are no tales of his budding legal genius, no indicators of great promise to come in trial competitions or debates, none of the indicators and milestones one would expect of virtually anyone taking Mr. Obama's educational path. Odd for a man acclaimed by the press as one of the greatest orators in American history, a declamatory genius to rival Abraham Lincoln, with whom Mr. Obama has often compared himself.


Part II of this article will be posted on Saturday, July 23. It begins with Mr. Obama's only executive experience, his years heading the Chicago Annenberg challenge. It was a complete failure.

Posted by MikeM at 12:15 AM | Comments (5)

July 19, 2011

BREAKING: Brian Ross Treated as Biased Hacks Should Be Treated

The arrogant little carp was man-handled by security today as he tried to badger Rep. Michelle Bachmann after an event in South Carolina.

I've long documented the dishonesty of Ross, both in terms of agenda-driven bias and factual ignorance. He is very driven, which is a plus for an investigative reporter, but considering his propensity for hackish, agenda-driven reporting, I wouldn't let him anywhere near my candidate either.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:32 PM | Comments (3)

Something's Fishy With This Story

The Daily Caller is running with a hit piece by Jonathan Strong, sensationally claiming that Michelle Bachmann suffers from debilitating migraines and that she engages in "heavy pill use."

And that's just in the headline.

I'm going to get out in front of this one and call "Bullshit."

I am one the few..we lucky few... that has been afforded the opportunity to experience cluster headaches.

230px-Clusterhead

They are every bit as much fun as the photo implies, and are worse than migraines (I've had those too, infrequently), and according to women who have experienced both, cluster headaches are worse than childbirth, and allegedly the worse pain a human being can experience. They get the nickname "suicide headaches" for a reason.

I say this only to establish that I know firsthand how debilitating the severest forms of headaches can be, and that leads me to strongly doubt that Bachmann could hold her present job—much less get through the frenzy of the early primaries—without having to cancel numerous appearances and interviews if her headaches were as frequent and intense as the article claims.

I'll be very interested to see how or even if she responds.

Mike Follows-Up:

Michelle Bachman has now engaged in a massive cover-up by telling what appears to be the actual truth (here): She occasionally gets migraine headaches and has prescription medication which effectively deals with them. This would seem to be the kind of media idiocy eruption that has been so common with Sarah Palin who is often accused--in hysterical terms--of saying something accurate and rational.

Migraine headaches can indeed be painful and annoying, but they are--obviously--treatable, and unlike some conditions such as epilepsy, do not prevent people from driving or even piloting aircraft. So if the government does not consider Michelle Bachman unfit to drive a car or pilot aircraft, perhaps she could be allowed to be a practicing attorney, hold public office (hasn't she already done this stuff?), or even--dare I say it?--become President of the United States? After all, a good number of Democrat politicians of the female persuasion are demonstrably bull goose loony, and Mr. Strong doesn't seem worried about them.

Of course, I could be wrong. Mr. Strong, any day, could come up with compelling evidence that various other Republican candidates have hangnails, post nasal drip, indigestion, once expectorated in front of women and children, masticate three times a day, or practice serial monogamy. You don't suppose Mr. Strong will provide the same kind of information about Democrat candidates, do you? Nah. Didn't think so. Considering what Ms. Bachman has accomplished at a relatively young age, most people might find this revelation to be evidence of strong character and determination rather than an impediment to doing what she has already proved herself capable of doing.

Bob was right: this is a fish story, but instead of being about the trophy fish that got away, this one is about the press trying to convince us they've caught a whale while displaying a minnow.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:40 AM | Comments (9)

July 18, 2011

O'Keefe Strikes Again

This time, the goal was investigating Medicare fraud in Ohio, and as usual, they were way over the top.

In the video, the men explain to Ohio Medicaid workers that they are Russian immigrants who sell illegal drugs, drive a modified McLaren F1 sports car with a gold-coated engine, and use their underage sisters to perform sexual favors in exchange for drugs.

No Medicaid employee in their right minds would provide services to drug-dealing, child-pimping foreigners with million-dollar cars. Right?

Wrong.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)

July 17, 2011

Chevy Volt Update for 07-18-11

Among the predications I’ve made regarding Chevy’s Volt is that its costs, in general, render it ridiculously uneconomical. Not only does its sky-high MSRP of $41,000 ($33,500 with the federal tax credit) place it outside the consideration of most the population which must buy the car in large numbers in order for it to make the slightest profit, the replacement cost of its battery pack, the life of which no one knows, is at least $8000.00 and possibly more. It’s highly likely to be the most expensive part in any dealer’s parts inventory.

For those interested in reading my scribblings on the Volt, merely enter “Chevy Volt” in the site search window on the CY home page and it will pull up every article and mention. Incidentally, I saw my first Volt a few days ago in its native habitat. It was actually being driven and was apparently owned by an actual person. This is significant in that I live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex, an area--due to its high year-round temperatures--ideal for electric vehicles. It’s also an area with a very large and mobile population, a population whose work commute can easily exceed 100 miles a day. I’ve seen one Volt. Not a good sign for Chevy, particularly considering the likelihood that even at $41,000, Chevy is losing money on every Volt it builds.

But now comes interesting news from Green Auto Blog (here) about a Volt belonging to Cars.Com. It seems that Cars.Com’s long-term test Volt (sounds odd—“test Volt”--no?) was in an accident. And it cost $14,187 to repair. That’s right, nearly half its post-federal tax rebate cost.

Why would it cost so much? We all know that auto repair, and particularly body repair costs are very high, but even more so with the Volt. The Volt requires multiple heat exchangers, engine control electronics far more expensive that those in other vehicles, and a variety of other expensive differences that stuck the vehicle in the repair shop for nine weeks—more than two months. I'm sure that such things are far more expensive due to their rarity as well. It simply costs much more to manufacture 10 items than ten thousand.

Those driving the vehicle at the time of the accident are indeed fortunate that the battery pack was not damaged (apparently it wasn’t; there is no mention of this in the article). Lithium-ion batteries contain substances that must be separated at all times. If they are allowed to combine through even a pinhole, fire and even explosion are the rapid and inevitable consequences. In addition, the battery contains a great deal of electrical power such that it is actually dangerous, even potentially deadly, to the occupants of a wounded Volt, or to unwary first responders. This is true even for mechanics without the proper tools, safety equipment and training.

Hmm. If I was an actuary for an insurance company, I suspect I’d be advising my company to greatly increase the price—and greatly increase the deductible--of any Volt policy. Wouldn’t you?

So to recap:

(1) The Volt sells for $41,000, and as much as $65,000, yet Chevy makes no profit at all on the vehicle.

(2) Some dealers are applying for the $7500 tax credit themselves and selling essentially brand new Volts as used vehicles, for as much as $65,000.

(3) The Volt’s weak gasoline engine requires premium fuel and achieves less fuel economy than a great many conventional vehicles with more flexible and powerful engines that burn regular fuel (Fun Fact: Federal regulations prevent the importation of small, clean burning diesel engines that get 50 MPG or more. Such engines are common in European cars).

(4) Now we learn that repair costs for the Volt greatly exceed conventional vehicles in the same general class.

(5) The Volt’s real world electric range in real world driving conditions is apparently about 25 miles. No one knows how long a Volt battery will last or precisely how much it will cost.

(6) As I reported in prior posts, because of the ridiculously high purchase price, even if the Volt managed 200 MPG in a combination of electric/gas-powered driving, it would be virtually impossible for anyone to break even in fuel savings when compared with the cost of even high-end conventionally powered high mileage vehicles. With more realistic mileage figures, it would take about two decades. When one considers that at least one battery replacement would be mandatory in that time frame, breaking even on operating costs would be impossible. When one considers that very few people ever keep a car for its entire lifetime—and that life span is usually far less than even 10 years—breaking even or saving money is absolutely impossible.

But other than that, the Volt is a great car that will change the world, and everybody should buy one. Hey, if the Federal Government can make you buy a specific light bulb and health insurance, why not a specific car? And as long as the FG actually owns a substantial chunk of Chevy, why not the Volt? As Joe Biden would likely say, it’s the patriotic thing to do!

Added Note: A commenter on my last post on the Volt noted that he has ordered one and expects to be very happy with it, considering it to be superior to the BMW he is currently driving.

I thanked him for his comments, and replied :

"I care not what anyone else drives; they're free to buy what pleases them. This is one of the great things about America. What I am concerned about is the choices made by a company in which I am--through no choice of my own--part owner. In that case, I expect that company to build cars that make a profit. The Volt does not and will not, unless the government so regulates and mandates the free enterprise system that it will no longer be free and none of us will have the choice to buy whichever vehicle pleases us. I suspect that the Volt is part of the vanguard of that Socialist revolution.

By all means, buy one if you please and I hope you enjoy it. But my point remains: The Volt makes no economic sense for virtually all of the American public. No car company can remain in business manufacturing a product like that. The question remains: Why is GM manufacturing a car that not only makes no profit, but probably costs it money, and does not have the infrastructure--which is also ridiculously expensive--to make it even remotely viable? It would seem to have nothing to do with free enterprise and individual choice, would it?"

And this is the primary problem with the Volt. GM is far from sustainably profitable, having avoided a normal bankruptcy proceeding that would have allowed it to reorganize and would have allowed it to renegotiate its union contracts so that it could once again be profitable. Preserving union power and cash, was of course, Mr. Obama's main concern. Preserving the rights of shareholders and creditors and supporting the free enterprise system were not.

The result of this is that people who had legitimate financial stakes in the company were stiffed, wealth was not only not created but thrown away, and the American public will almost certainly take a bath to the tune of tens of billions that GM will never pay back. That and we, the taxpayers, still own $2.1 billion of preferred GM stock and 61% of its common equity. As an unwilling stockholder, I'm a bit concerned by a company building a car that makes not a dime of profit, and probably loses money. Shouldn't every owner of GM be concerned about that?

Posted by MikeM at 11:52 PM | Comments (1)

July 16, 2011

Contempt Of Cop

The good folks at Pajamas Media have been kind enough to post my most recent article on the police and photography (here). As many of you know, police officers around the nation have been harassing, arresting, even beating innocent citizens for the heinous offense of daring to photograph them in the pursuit of their duties. This article explains why, with some notable exceptions, the police have no such authority. Must reading if you plan to have a camera anywhere near a police officer in the future, even on your own property--you'll see what I mean.

Posted by MikeM at 04:59 PM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2011

"Don't Call My Bluff"

A real genius, this one.

When Cantor said the two sides were too far apart to get a deal that could pass the House by the Treasury Department’s Aug. 2 deadline — and that he would consider moving a short-term debt-limit increase alongside smaller spending cuts — Obama began to lecture him.

"Eric, don't call my bluff," the president said, warning Cantor that he would take his case "to the American people." He told Cantor that no other president — not Ronald Reagan, the president said — would sit through such negotiations.

First Rule of Bluffing: Don't let the other guy know you are bluffing.

As for taking his case to the people, the people have heard his long-winded, blame-shifting, class-warfare speeches, and like honey badger, we don't care. We know spending must be cut, and that a recession is a horrible time to raise taxes.

It's too bad he can't figure that out.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:50 AM | Comments (4)

July 12, 2011

Somewhere Under The Radar: Importing Hamas

We know that President Obama likes to work “under the radar,” or in a manner that conceals his true intentions from the public, a public unlikely to approve of much of what he does. Most recently, Mr. Obama announced his under the radar work on gun control (here) to Sarah Brady of the Brady Campaign. We even learned that Mr. Obama has a White House “point man” on gun control policy, which certainly lends credence to the idea that he is working surreptitiously on gun control policies apart from the disastrous Gunwalker scandal that the Lamestream Media is now laboring to avoid reporting. The latest fruits of his under the radar gun control work were revealed by Presidential Press Secretary Jay Carney at a July 7th presser (here) where he announced that new gun control initiatives would soon be unveiled.

Days later, they were. Here are the highlights (go here for the story):

(1) A national electronic system designed to make background checks for handgun buyers simpler and faster, leaving an electronic paper trail under a law named for James Brady.

(2) A new reporting requirement that federally licensed gun shops report any person who tries to buy two long-arm weapons near the Mexican border over a five-day period.

(3) Tougher sentencing guidelines for straw buyers that Holder’s department pushed through procedural hoops at the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Another virtually unknown under the radar effort is Mr. Obama’s stalwart work to help terrorist immigrate to the United States. What?! President Obama is helping terrorists to immigrate?! Indeed, since January 27, 2009, and of course, it was done by mandate, not law. Here’s the relevant entry from the Federal Register (link here): February 4, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 22):

“Presidential Documents
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NOTICE: Part II
DOCID: fr04fe09-106
DOCUMENT SUMMARY:

[[Page 6115]]
Presidential Determination No. 2009-15 of January 27, 2009

Unexpected Urgent Refugee and Migration Needs Related To Gaza
Memorandum for the Secretary of State
By the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 2(c)(1) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 (the ``Act''), as amended (22 U.S.C. 2601), I hereby determine, pursuant to section 2(c)(1) of the Act, that it is important to the national interest to furnish assistance under the Act in an amount not to exceed $20.3 million from the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for the purpose of meeting unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs, including by contributions to international, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations and payment of administrative expenses of Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State, related to humanitarian needs of Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.
You are authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.


(Presidential Sig.)
THE WHITE HOUSE,
Washington, January 27, 2009
[FR Doc. E9-2488
Filed 2-3-09; 8:45 am]
Billing code 4710-10-P.”

What does this mean? It’s quite simple; almost as soon as Mr. Obama was sworn in, he allocated $20.3 million dollars to help Palestinians from Gaza immigrate into the United States. He has paid the way—with taxpayer dollars--for God only knows how many Gaza Palestinians to immigrate to America.

But this is about “refugees,” and “humanitarian needs of Palestinian Refugees and Conflict Victims.” Who could object to helping refugees and conflict victims? Anyone with a bit of common sense and a grasp on reality should be objecting.

Despite the media bluster about flotillas trying to deliver “relief supplies” to the horribly oppressed Gaza Palestinians, reality is quite different, and was in January of 2009 as well. Not only are the Israelis daily providing the Palestinians with food water, electrical power, medical care and virtually every other necessity of life, the UN and a wide variety of nations pour billions upon billions into Gaza every year. Oh yes, and the Israelis often intercept arms shipments meant for the “relief” of the oppressed Palestinians. America has also armed and trained their “police.”

The Palestinians are so oppressed that they have been building opulent shopping malls, and lobbing the occasional rocket, mortar round or advanced anti-tank round into Israel for many, many years. Any conflict suffered by the Palestinians in Gaza is entirely of their own making, and when their attacks on Israeli civilians result in Palestinian casualties from Israelis acting in self-defense, they don’t hesitate for a moment to rush their wounded into Israeli hospitals where they receive some of the best care the world has to offer.

Most importantly, Gaza is the home of Hamas, a terrorist organization whose reason for being is Israeli genocide. It gets even better as Hamas has recently joined in a political alliance with Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and is at least as vehemently bloodthirsty in its hopes for Israel as Hamas. Both enjoy considerable support from the largest exporter of Islamic terrorism in the world: Iran. You remember Iran, the country that has accepted Mr. Obama’s outstretched hand—and bitten it off at the elbow while it continues to build nuclear weapons.

This does not, of course, mean that everyone who lives in the Gaza Strip is automatically an Islamist terrorist, but there is no doubt that when you are dealing with a people who name streets and public buildings after suicide bombers and who raise their children to see killing Jews as the greatest pleasure and accomplishment life has to offer, it is highly likely that most people who live there are, at the very least, supportive of Jihadist goals if not willing to actively pursue such goals themselves. It is rather hard for Americans to forget video of Palestinians dancing in the streets in rapturous joy at the news of 9-11, and these are the poor victims of conflict, the refugees Mr. Obama wants to pay to come to America.

This, like so much else, about Mr. Obama is revealing of his beliefs and character. There is more than convincing evidence that he reflexively identifies with and supports America’s enemies, particularly Islamist enemies. In this case, Mr. Obama saw victims and refugees in a part of the world where there are no refugees and the only victims are those created by the Palestinian’s indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks on innocent Israeli citizens. So of course, Mr. Obama felt the necessity to use taxpayer dollars to facilitate the immigration of people who have sworn to destroy Israel, with the United States running a close second in the Islamist demolition derby.

It may be impossible to tell exactly how many actual Hamas sympathizers or terrorists have immigrated under this program, but it is entirely reasonable to believe that some have, and that even one is far too many. This is part of the legacy of Barack Obama.

Any Beltline politician looking to balance the budget could easily start with this $20.3 million dollar national-suicidal disaster. Come to think of it, I wonder how much money has actually been spent on this terrorist importation initiative? Twenty-plus million is chump change to Mr. Obama; surely he wouldn’t allow himself to be so restrained?

It hardly seems worth the effort, but saving 20 million here, a few billion there--pretty soon it adds up to real money. And it just might help keep terrorist sleeper cells out of America where they have the opportunity to create real victims, with the able assistance of the President of The United States.

Posted by MikeM at 10:35 PM | Comments (1)

Fear-Monger-in-Chief

Scaring grandmothers wasn't the hope or change we were looking for.

Desperate President Barack Obama is now trying to terrify seniors in order to "win" what he views as some sort of a game about the deficit.

President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.

"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.

The fact of the matter is that A) Social Security payments have been running at a deficit for years, and; B) the technological infrastructure of the system is so massive, redundant and complex that short of overt hostile military action to literally destroy it, or knocking down the power grid, it is not physically possible for the President and his cronies to stop payments.

It says something about the character of this man—or more precisely, his lack of character—that he seeks to terrify seniors into become a panicked lynch mob to serve his political will.

Mike adds:

Well, it's official: The President Of The United States is a cheap thug. As Bob noted, Social Security is so automated that it is unlikely that it could be stopped, but in the pursuit of partisan political advantage, I have little doubt that if anyone could do it, Barack Obama could. Socialists care only for the abstraction that is "the people." They care nothing at all for individuals who won't willingly support their schemes, preferably with cash. Such people are known as "useful idiots."

Presidential leadership is about making difficult choices and assigning rational priorities. Because Mr. Obama is virtually incapable of making difficult choices, he is content to "lead from behind," as he does with the budget. The debt ceiling--which is in place to keep irresponsible politicians whose only skill is wasting other people's money from literally spending America into oblivion--need not be raised. The alternative is to get spending immediately under control, but this is not a possibility for Mr. Obama. If the kitty is a bit short, his only solution is to rob pensioners? What brilliant, inspired leadership. No doubt our Treasure Secretary, Mr. Geithner, came up with that one. May I suggest a few additional alternatives?

Mr. Obama could--and should--have said:

(1) I can't guarantee that the EPA will be able to continue regulating American business out of existence while destroying jobs.

(2) I can't guarantee that the Department of Education will be able to continue wasting huge amounts of money while over-regulating school districts everywhere.

(3) I can't guarantee that the ATF will be able to continue allowing weapons to flow into the hands of domestic and foreign criminals.

(4) I can't guarantee that all of my unelected, unaccountable czars will be able to continue to subvert American democracy.

(5) I can't guarantee that the huge number of aides I employ in the White House will be able to continue to receive their six figure salaries.

(6) I can't guarantee that my dog, Bo, will be able to continue to fly on separate jets when I vacation.

(7) I can't guarantee that the government will continue to be able to afford the travel and security expenses for my golf outings and vacations.

(8) I can't guarantee that the Department of Energy will be able to continue to suppress energy development while continually suppressing job creation.

(9) I can't guarantee that the National Labor Relations Board will be able to continue to shill for unions while destroying jobs, forcing more jobs overseas, and helping the foreign commercial aircraft industry at the expense of our commercial aircraft industry.

(10) I can't guarantee that the Department of Justice will be able to continue to hire more and more communist lawyers so that criminals of the proper politics and race may be excused from their crimes.

(11) I can't guarantee that the implementation of Obamacare will continue, so I can't guarantee that its provisions will bankrupt America even more rapidly than anyone believed possible.

(12) I can't guarantee that America will continue to finance the UN so that its members can spit in our collective eye.

(13) I can't guarantee that the TSA will be able to continue to strip 95 year-old, terminally ill, wheelchair-bound cancer victims of their Depends, steal the property of airline passengers, or feel up six year old girls.

(14) I can't guarantee that I'm going to raise and spend a billion dollars so that I can be reelected to further crash the economy.

(15) I can't guarantee that America will be able to continue to afford smart diplomacy. [Whoa! That one's OK! That one's OK!]

I'm just a teacher and blogger so I don' know nothin' 'bout birthin' no gov'mint, but it would seem that in terms of priorities, there are thousands of government employees, boards, commissions, agencies and fiefdoms which could vanish from the face of the planet tomorrow without 99.9% of Americans experiencing the slightest inconvenience or harm. I suspect that if Mr. Obama actually wanted to deal with the deficit, actually cutting governmental waste, abuse and duplication, and doing away with anyone and any agency that is actually harming rather than helping the economy might be an excellent place to start. I rather suspect that people receiving social security have nothing to do with it.

If the Republicans don't run with this issue from now until the election and paint Mr. Obama as the class warfare loving, America-hating Socialist he is, they deserve to lose.


Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:04 PM | Comments (4)

July 11, 2011

Watching the Big Spender-In-Chief

I'm watching Obama's presser this morning, watching his attempt to justify raising taxes in a depression. He is ideologically incapable of any meaningful cuts to big-government spending, which is precisely what you expect from a socialist. Of course, he says "balance" and "shared sacrifice" as way of avoiding saying the words "raising taxes."

He has no vision. He is incapable of fresh ideas.

He beats the same drum that big government advocates have pushed for decades. Sadly, I don't think that the Republican leadership is much different, it is simply a matter of scale, and how much they are willing to rob the taxpayers.

Of course, neither party has the political courage to say "no" to the special interest groups or risk losing an election. They are more interested in amassing and retaining power than providing leadership.

If they are not willing to explicitly acknowledge that we have to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, then they are not close to being serious. There will be pain, and people who will suffer. It is just a matter of how many, and how long, and the longer we wait, the worse it is going to be.

And so I am watching our President and nominal leader of the free world once demagoguing Republicans, playing class warfare by attacking "the rich," and trying to portray his own inflexibility and partisanship as some sort of virtue.

I hope that the GOP leadership has the guts to refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

I just don't think they are capable of it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

July 10, 2011

Chevy Volt Update for 07-11-11

As regular readers know, I’ve been following the misfortunes of the Chevy Volt and its relatives for some time now. Anyone interested in my writings on the Volt should simply enter “Chevy Volt” in the search feature of the CY site. You’ll find every article and mention there.

Of particular interest to you might be my analysis on real world costs of the Volt in an April 26 post (here). In that post, I compared, among other things, the difference in cost between a Volt and a well-equipped 40 MPG Ford Fiesta and found that if the Volt managed a real world MPG average of 120 (electric and gasoline), it would take a minimum of 14 years to make up the difference in initial cost between the vehicles in fuel savings. Actually, it would be more like 19 years, which of course means that for probably 99% of the public, buying a Volt would save nothing at all over a conventional, far more useful vehicle. It would almost certainly leave most owners deeply in the hole overall.

Now come Ed Morrissey at Hot Air with an article titled: “Hey, let’s spend millions to save $116,000!” In that article (here), Morrissey speaks of the Federal Government in San Diego, which is planning to buy 101 Chevy Volts and ten Nissan Leafs for federal employees. Of course, they’ll have to buy and install the necessary charging infrastructure too. I noted the cozy relationship between GE—which builds EV charging stations—and the Obama Administration in my April 21 PJM article on the Volt (here). As the title suggests, the “experiment” is a major boondoggle and will cost the taxpayers a great deal of money while saving nothing at all. It’s a progressive dream two-fer! By all means, revisit my articles and Morrisey’s as well.

What’s new is another New York Times puff piece on the Volt (here) by Joe Nocera. Published on June 25, it has all of the objectivity and insightful analysis we have come to expect from the Gray Lady. Actually, Nocera does make some reasonable assertions, such as this:

“Carlos Ghosn, the flamboyant chief executive of Nissan, has made a different kind of bet, placing his chips — billions of them — on the $32,780 Leaf, which has a 24-kilowatt battery pack that can get 73 miles to the charge. Mr. Ghosn is said to believe that range anxiety is overblown, and that once people become accustomed to an electric car, 73 miles per charge won’t be an issue. Well, maybe in Europe and Japan, but most analysts I spoke to think he’s likely to get his head handed to him in America, and I tend to agree.”

I tend to agree as well, particularly when much of America is nothing at all like the coasts or major cities, and a daily work commute often exceeds 73 miles. Keep in mind that the 73 miles about which Mr. Ghosn is so proud is a maximum obtained under absolutely ideal conditions. Real world mileage is probably closer to 50, and with the kind of driving most people do, likely less.

Mr. Nocera observes that people like to drive only proven technologies—indeed true—but makes a leap of faith:

“Which is also why the Volt is such an appealing alternative — “the right answer for right now,” said Michelle Krebs, a senior analyst with the automotive Web site edmunds.com. It gives people a taste of the electric car experience without sacrificing any of the things we expect in a gas-powered car.”

With its limited range and ridiculously long charging times, the Volt does indeed give “a taste of the electric car experience,” but it most certainly does require many sacrifices. Particularly under electric power, the heater is reportedly very weak, interesting in that the entire car—in battery mode—is also very weak in cold climates. And the gasoline engine provides no better—likely worse—mileage than comparable compacts achieve but also requires premium fuel.

Nocera notes that one of Chevy’s primary goals was a 40-mile range, which the Volt achieves (sort of, maybe, sometimes), however it requires compromises:

“The battery can’t be under the hood because a combustion engine is still there. So G.M. had to eliminate the middle seat in the back to make space for the big T-shaped battery the Volt required. Its small body… had to be made more aerodynamic because that was the only way to hit the 40 mile-per-charge mark.”

Unfortunately, real world experience is yielding all-electric range more like 25 miles because people insist on using such luxuries as headlights, taillights, turn signals, the radio, air-conditioning and any and every other electric function in a car which, in the Volt, quickly and dramatically drains the battery. Engaging in such foolishness as actually carrying passengers or cargo only makes things worse. Nocera did hit the mark with this observation:

“And for a car intended for the mass market, it’s awfully expensive. The Volt retails for around $41,000; from what I hear, that’s pretty much what it costs to build. G.M.’s profits on this first iteration of the Volt, in other words, are essentially zero. Though there is currently a $7,500 tax credit on electric car purchases… it won’t last forever. Consumer Reports has advised readers to avoid the Volt because it costs too much. G.M. badly needs battery technology to keep improving, both so that it can lower the cost of its electric cars, and begin making Volt-like vehicles in other sizes and shapes, including wagons and S.U.V.’s that will attract families. That’s the only way it will finally reach the mass market.”

Indeed. That’s $33,500 for a compact car with the kind of limitations that belie Nocera’s assertion of no sacrifice required. Again, compared with a great many conventional vehicles, the Volt offers no savings whatever in fuel or any other way regardless of how long it is owned. Factor in the $8000-$10,000 cost of a replacement battery (no one really knows how long the original battery will last), and the Volt makes even less economic sense than no economic sense, which is quite an accomplishment for GM as it struggles toward once again becoming a world-leading, profitable company while simultaneously dragging an enormous union chain and anchor.

But I’m afraid Mr. Nocera is missing the technological point. The only reason the Volt is as economical as it is—and it’s not economical at all when purchase price is considered—is its relative lack of mass and its aerodynamic shape. Try to upscale the concept into a station wagon or SUV and battery range will inevitably diminish below 25 miles. In order to have anything approaching reasonable acceleration and driving flexibility, it will have to have a substantially larger and more powerful gas engine which will get even worse mileage, presumably on premium fuel. Add more people and cargo than the current Volt is capable of carrying—which is rather the point of a station wagon or SUV--and every negative factor is increased. Only miraculous, impossible to predict leaps in technology could possibly make even the Volt commercially viable, to say nothing of larger, less aerodynamic vehicles based on the same concept.

Mr. Nocera observes that the Volt has “a better chance of success than anything else on the market.” He also believes that:

“Though the Volt has its share of flaws, it is unquestionably a good car. More to the point, as I discovered when I drove it, the Volt makes sense for the economic and cultural moment we’re in now. The psychological grip it held me in, the smugness I felt as I drove past gas stations, the way it implicitly encouraged me to stick with battery power as much as I could — others are going to feel that as well. Somewhat to my surprise, I actually felt a pang of enviro-guilt when I gave the car back and returned to my gas-guzzling ways. Mr. Farah told me that Volt owners often drove 1,000 miles or more before they needed to buy gasoline. I believe it. It has extremely high word-of-mouth potential.”

Mr. Nocera seems to have forgotten what he wrote only a few paragraphs earlier. The Volt absolutely does not make sense for the current economic moment. He wrote that the MSRP of $41,000 allows GM no profit at all, and as I’ve observed, not only does it have only a 25 mile range, it requires premium fuel and it’s impossible to recoup any savings from its combined electric/gas function compared with common conventional vehicles. But then again, perhaps Mr. Nocera is privy to magical Obamanomics reality of which I am simply too simple to understand.

He did hit on the Volt’s primary appeal: Cultural snobbery. He’s right: it’s all about “the psychological grip,” “…the smugness I felt as I drove past gas stations,” and even “…a pang of enviro-guilt when I gave the car back and returned to my gas-guzzling ways.” Poor Mr. Nocera! Couldn’t he just take Mr. Obama’s advise and get a car that gets better gas mileage? To be fair, some people—people with plenty of money—will no doubt buy the Volt simply for its novelty value or merely as a technological curiosity, but if we’re talking about a practical car for the public for the reasons the public needs a car, the Volt simply doesn’t qualify. Any station wagon or SUV built on the Volt platform with the current level of technology would be—if such a thing was possible—even worse.

Mr. Nocera concludes:

“The second thing it convinced me of is that the electric car is no longer some environmental pipe dream. Several years ago, I drove the Tesla, and though it was a wonderful experience, its high price and limited utility did not give me confidence that electric cars were ready for prime time. The Volt has made a believer out of me. At this moment of maximum uncertainty about how the future will play out, the Volt is comforting in its combination of new technology and old. Eventually, we’ll have batteries that can get 300 miles per charge, and an infrastructure solution that will replace gas stations. Eventually.

In the meantime, we’ve got the Volt. It’s a start.”

Again, I wonder if Mr. Nocera is suffering from short-term memory loss. His own arguments indicate that the Volt is indeed “some environmental pipe dream.” It is not a practical car. It is, at best, making no profit for GM at all. The technology still has not caught up to the hope of a viable electric car, which can fully and satisfactorily replace conventional vehicles, there is no electric car infrastructure and the Volt isn’t comforting to anyone with a grip on reality.

Will we have batteries that can get 300 miles per charge? Considering we’re stretching the current state of technology to manage 40, and considering that cold will drain the power of any battery, that seems like a very optimistic idea in a distinctly hopenchangey (all rhetoric, no substance) way.

As Mr. Nocera said: “In the meantime, we’ve got the Volt.” It’s a start in the same way that the EV-1 and the Edsel were a start. When Mr. Obama is out of office, and when the US government no longer owns part of GM—if GM survives at all—the owners of the corporation, if they are remotely rational, will do away with any product that is not producing a reasonable profit. The Volt will be number one with a bullet on that list.

Posted by MikeM at 09:39 PM | Comments (15)

July 08, 2011

Joblessness Increases, Stocks Dive, Natives Get Restless

Gotta love the Obamaconomy.

It makes my decision to cash in my stock options and convert them to an investment in bulk ammo look better all the time.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:58 AM | Comments (1)

July 07, 2011

Broun: LOWER the Debt Ceiling

Today, I introduced a unique bill that goes in a completely different direction than everything else we’ve been hearing out of Washington. It would force politicians to start practicing what they’ve been preaching by lowering the debt ceiling from $14.3 trillion back down to $13 trillion. Admittedly, this is not your run-of-the-mill kind of law, but it would make it imperative for Congress to think outside of the box and come up with ways to pay off a portion of our debt while drastically cutting back spending. Since 1996, the national debt has increased by an inexcusable $8.79 trillion. I firmly believe that this calls for emergency measures to reduce the debt.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are equally responsible for the government's past fiscal irresponsibility. Sadly, whenever Congress has been given a chance to make a real impact on the budget, our spending habits, and our nation's livelihood, Democrats and Republicans alike have caved.

Moreover, in this time of crisis, liberals are pushing for a $2 trillion increase in our debt ceiling. And their only answer for our financial fiasco is to cut nothing and raise taxes on everything — which would simply give Washington more money to burn through. Even more disturbingly, under the president's budget proposal, the debt would double to $26.3 trillion by 2021, and he has no intention or plan to pay it down.

Sadly, this proposal, from Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun, is a non-starter due to inertia within both the Democratic and Republican parties. Both groups are wedded to big government, and the constant expansion of that government. They are equally intent on rocking the boat as little as possible to avoid making hard decisions, thinking that by going with the failing status quo they can protect their petty fiefdoms a bit longer, perhaps managing to get elected once or twice more and enrich themselves personally before or near-term economic collapse.

I suspect that there are less than a handful of legislators on Capitol Hill that really hold the nation's best interests at heart. When the collapse comes—and it will—I hope I live long enough in the ensuing carnage to see some of these bastards held to account by their constituents.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:02 AM | Comments (1)

There's a Punchline In Here Somewhere

While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it's helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state.

As the Madison Capital Times reports, "Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a 'union-only' job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place." Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.

The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with Walker’s new law, they have no recourse.

Union thugs have been replaced by convicts.

I guess I'm a mean old conservative, but I'm thrilled by the prospect of convicts having to give something back to the society that has to deal with both their crimes, and bear the costs of their incarceration.

It's a bonus that the convicts are replacing unionized workers, saving the citizens monies to paid to those that I rather strongly suspect have been overcompensated for their labor—"landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance"—which sounds like jobs that should have been done by high school students on summer break for minimum wage in the first place.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:40 AM | Comments (3)

July 05, 2011

Adventures in Smart Diplomacy, #2,783

THE SCENE: Conference Room at the Cairo Hilton, November, 2011.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “I want to welcome all of the delegates to this first, historic, outreach session of dialogue between the United States and the various member chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region…”

Egyptian MB Delegate: “We will destroy the Great Satan!” (Loud shouts, chants and applause)

Palestinian MB Delegate: “And the Little Satan too!” (More loud shouts, chants and applause)

HC: “…and I bring greetings from our President, Barack Hussein Obama, who…”

EMBD: “Apostate!”

Syrian MB Delegate: “Apostate!”

PMBD: “Death to America!”

Libyan MB Delegate (hesitatingly to PMBD): “Death to Israel too?”

PMBD: “Death to Israel too!”

All Delegates: “Death to Israel, Death to Israel!

HC: “Gentlemen please! We want to extend an open hand to you, so that we can engage in mutual respectful dialogue that will result in non-violent support for democratic principles of universal human righ…”

EMBD: “You must submit!”

HC: “Pardon me?”

EMBD: “You must submit to Sharia!”

HC: “It is important that we respect minority rights and fully include women in…”

PMBD: “Submit!”

LMBD (to PMBD): “Do we say that we will kill them all now?”

PMBD: “Yes! We will kill you all!” (Loud shouts, chants and applause)

SMBD (Whispered to EMBD): “What do the Iranians think?”

EMBD (Whispered to SMBD): “Death to America.”

SMBD (Whispered to EMBD): “What’s that? Death to Angola?”

EMBD (Whispered to SMBD): “No, no. Death to America, America the Great Satan…”

SMBD: “Oh! Right! (Louder) Death to America, America the Great Satan!”

HC: “But we only want outreach and mutual understanding and respect for universal principles of human rights, and…”

All Delegates (sing-song): Death to America, Death to America, nanner, nanner nan-ner…”

Two recent articles should worry rational Americans, for it has been announced (here) that Hillary Clinton is now “welcoming dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood.” A recent Pajamas Media article (here) contains very disturbing allegations regarding Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin. It seems that Abedin, an Egyptian Muslim, is a member of a family intimately involved in the Muslim Brotherhood, and that she has never been properly vetted for her position.

Informed readers will recall that Abedin is the wife of former Democrat Congressman of New York, Anthony Weiner, he of “Weinergate” infamy. Much ink has been spilled bemoaning her disgrace at the hands--and other parts--of her husband. What is not widely known is that Weiner is Jewish and Abedin, Muslim. Let us consider why we should be concerned, as Hillary Clinton, and presumably the rest of the Obama Administration, is not.

The Muslim Brotherhood is arguably the oldest, most influential and most extreme Muslim organization in the modern world. Founded in 1935 in Egypt, its most modern jihadist incarnation began in 1952 when Sayed Qtub, arguably the modern father of the Jihadist movement, returned to Egypt. He had been studying, of all things, American Literature at the University of Northern Colorado. The behavior of American women he saw in movies and in society in general—remember, we’re talking about the early 1950’s—convinced him that western society and Christianity were depraved and turned him irrevocably toward Jihad. His writings had a major influence on Jihadist thinking, an influence still being powerfully felt.

With branches in at least 70 countries (Hamas is the Palestinian branch), including America, the MB is very influential to Muslims around the world. Fatwas—religious edicts—issued by MB mullahs (priests or pastors) are taken very seriously in the Muslim world. A 2004 Fatwa by MB Shiekh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, for example, proclaiming the religious duty of Muslims to abduct and kill Americans in Iraq was widely observed and cost many lives.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s motto is: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Americans tend to analyze such things through the lens of America’s tradition of tolerance of all faiths and of the separation of church and state. Observant Muslims do not think of themselves as Egyptians or Yemenis—for example--who happen to be Muslim, but as Muslims first and foremost. Their nationality and loyalty to any nation tends to be far down on their list, after being Muslim, family, tribe, clan, and other concerns, if it registers for them at all. When Muslim Brotherhood members speak of jihad and “dying in the way of Allah,” they are not engaging in pandering or politically correct rhetoric but expressing their duty and willingness to die killing anyone they consider the enemy of Islam.

It is, for Americans, a bizarre paradox that American Muslims, people who identify themselves as loyal Americans who happen to practice Islam, people who would not take up the call of Jihad, are different from Jihadist Muslims, from Muslims who support the MB. In fact, these American Muslims are seen as apostates, fit only for death, by their more radical co-religionists. In fact, Muslims not taking the path of Jihad are not truly observing the dictates of their religion, not the other way around.

By turning his back on long-time American ally Hosni Mubarak, President Obama set into motion a chain of events, which will inevitably result in MB control over Egypt. In fact, the MB had been outlawed in Egypt since 1954 until it was recognized as a legitimate Egyptian political party in June of 2011. And now, our Secretary of State wants to palaver with the Muslim Brotherhood because the MB will almost certainly have powerful influence, if not absolute control, of the Egyptian state after the September, 2011 elections.

Consider that the MB certainly considers all Americans to be infidels, fit only for slavery, conversion to Islam and Sharia, or death. This is not political rhetoric read from a teleprompter, but the life and belief and passion of all observant Muslims who follow MB philosophy. They particularly consider women to be nothing more than chattel, the possessions of men. For Muslim males who are not posturing for the sake of keeping up a deception for gullible westerners, Hillary Clinton is nothing more than a blatant insult, a symbol of all that is corrupt and morally bankrupt in western society. Dialogue with her? They would murder her if they could for what she represents. Approach her as an equal, with mutual respect and understanding to achieve Democracy? The very idea is absolutely foreign to everything they believe and are.

Prominent MB thinkers have already been speaking of completely Islamicizing Egypt, and calling her archeological treasures such as the pyramids and statuary “idols.” This is significant in that Islam brooks no depictions of Muhammed, Allah, or photographs, statues or similar images, considering it to be idolatry. They would gladly do to Egypt’s priceless treasures what the Taliban did to Afghanistan’s priceless and irreplaceable Buddhist statuary: destroy it as contrary to the Koran.

Do they honor Barack Hussein Obama? After all, he has a Muslim middle name of historical, religious significance. He was born of a Muslim father and attended Muslim school in Indonesia as a child. On the contrary, because he has publicly identified himself as Christian, the MB certainly considers him an apostate. There is only one fate for apostates in Islam: Death. Islam does not smile kindly on those who decide to embrace another faith. Remember: In Islam there is no separation of church and state, no tolerance for other faiths. Of course, for the time being, the MB will pretend respect. Another teaching of the Koran is lying to Infidels.

What of Huma Abedin? Yes, she is a modern, apparently westernized Egyptian who has, of all things, married a Jew. The problem is that her family has strong MB ties and is active in support of MB goals even today. Americans again have difficulty understanding what this means. It is not uncommon for Americans to have family members of another faith, or who might hold extremist beliefs of one kind or another. We do not automatically believe in guilt by association. Where Muslims are concerned, particularly Muslims of the MB, we must seriously consider the possibility.

No self-respecting MB follower would embrace the marriage of a child by a Jew. The MB has never expressed support for Israel’s continued existence, or for the long and happy life of any Jew. That no prominent MB spokesman has publicly denounced Abedin’s wedding to Weiner is significant. Such a prominent and symbolic union would not go unnoticed, for MB Muslims do not marry non-Muslims.

If Abedin has not been properly vetted, this is a very serious matter indeed, for Abedin certainly has access to some of American’s most closely held secrets. Even if that was not true, she would be able to provide vital intelligence, even unwittingly, about the intentions, beliefs, needs and weaknesses of America’s leaders (those not already blindingly obvious) to those who would see us all dead. Could the lack of objection to her marriage to a Jew reflect her usefulness to MB objectives? At the very least, the Obama Administration should provide convincing proof of Adedin’s comprehensive national security vetting. If it does not exist, what is she doing as the deputy COS of the Secretary of State, regardless of her background?

And so the Obama Administration, having sabotaged the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, having ignored a genuinely democratic popular uprising in Iran, having allowed America’s allies—imperfect allies in an imperfect region, but allies nonetheless—to be deposed, is ready to hold a dialogue with the fruits of their fecklessness. They are anxious to politely chat with those who would, if they could get away with it, gladly murder them.

Can they be that dense? Is it possible that the self-imagined and press-anointed most brilliant man in the world—Barack Obama—and the self-imagined and press-anointed most brilliant woman in the world—Hillary Clinton—don’t understand the true nature of the Muslim Brotherhood and the global Islamist movement which threatens the very existence of western civilization and modernity? Or do they actually believe that they are so smart, so good, such superior examples of humanity that the brilliant force of their personalities will cause all obstacles to their progressive goals to fall down before their majesty? The Muslim Brotherhood is surely not impressed.

I lived through the Carter Administration and never imagined that I would see a President who would best Mr. Carter for sheer incompetence and damage to America and the world. Mr. Obama has already won that dubious prize, and in his desire to dialogue with those whose idea of dialogue is a dull, rusty knife applied slowly to the throat, he will set a new standard for all time, a standard that I pray will never again be attained. We’ll be lucky enough to survive him.

“Smart Diplomacy” indeed.

Posted by MikeM at 07:42 PM | Comments (3)

Economic Reality Strikes Teamsters Shop; L.A. Times Columnist/Sockpuppet Hardest Hit

Michael Hiltzik has his diapers in a bunch because BMW made the business decision to layoff a parts distribution warehouse full of union workers making $25/hr with health benefits. The company will instead rely upon outside logistics contractors for their parts depot work.

It's brutal, and people who lose their jobs don't often happen to find a new one soon. Companies and people alike are barely scrapping by, and all of us are trying to save money where we can. That is our economic reality.

Many Americans—particularly those on the left—can't seem to grasp that you cannot legislate prosperity. You can demand that companies provide salary "x" or benefit "y" through law or collective bargaining, but at the end of the day, you are faced with the harsh economic truth that government isn't nimble enough to react to market forces, and unions exist to benefit their executives, not the rank and file. This leads to scenarios where people are paid more than what their actual skill-set is worth, and that creates the opportunity for more efficient vendors to move into a market segment and make all companies involved more profitable.

On the personal, human level, these sorts of decisions are incredibly painful. Having gone through the dot-com crash of the early 2000s, layoffs and personal bankruptcy as a result, I know that as well as anyone.

But even were things were bad for me, I knew that when the market is allowed to correct itself it lifts the entire economy, and that leads to prosperity across the board for everyone. Unions and big government retard that growth opportunity, make things stagnant, and ensures eventual, inevitable failures.

Hiltzik's writing is emotional and touching and certainly captures the human drama of what these individual families are now having to face. It is too bad he couldn't use that same talent to explore why the layoffs at this plant means jobs for others in the parts business elsewhere, or how the money BMW will save here will be used to create opportunities and jobs elsewhere throughout the company, and lead to a stronger company overall.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:16 AM | Comments (14)

July 03, 2011

The Re-Creation of the New American Man

July 4, 2011 is a day of celebration, and so it will be for most Americans. They will celebrate independence, the independence of the former colonies from Great Britain, the establishment of America as an independent nation, the one exceptional and indispensable nation among all nations. But most of all, they will celebrate the independence of the American spirit, for the creation of America was, in a very real sense, the creation of a new man. Marxists and Socialists are obsessed with creating the new man. Americans—as Americans tend to do—simply ignored government and did it themselves. We need to do it again.

The new American owed allegiance to a voluntary confederation of fellow Americans. He honored no king, no all-powerful nanny state. He expected to prosper on the strength of his own character and the fruits of his own labor. The truth was important to him, and the nation was built on the strength of each man’s word and sealed by handshakes. He indulged in no juvenile cults of personality and chose his leaders—men such as George Washington—based on their character and accomplishments, character and accomplishments that were well known and demonstrated and renewed day by day, just as his character and accomplishments were demonstrated and renewed day by day.

The new American—and many generations to come—lived by simple, basic principles: hard work, honesty, doing what was right, living within their means while working to increase not only their means, but the means of their children. He understood deferring pleasure to a better, more secure day and he understood self-sacrifice. He was willing to help his neighbors because he knew that they lived their lives as he did, and that they were willing to help him for the same reasons. For him, laziness and a lack of industry were debilitating character flaws, not victimhood to be embraced and rewarded.

America was born an exceptional nation by virtue of her people and their creation: The Constitution. They understood all too well what we seem to have forgotten. When we turned our backs on self-sufficiency and hard work, when we became victims instead of doers, when we began to believe that character didn’t really matter, when we came to see the truth as nothing more than slippery rhetoric in the service of individual, selfish agendas, when we stopped being willing to pay our fair share and expected instead to be given our living by others, America started on the road to becoming just another failed socialist state.

And so we elected Barack Obama to atone for the sins of our ancestors, to demonstrate enlightened, contemporary civic virtue. We elected a man who believes that America is exceptional just as the citizens of other nations believe themselves to be exceptional. As he once said, “words, just words,” for if everyone is exceptional, in truth, no one is exceptional. If everyone is above average, average has no meaning. If all are equally worthy, equality has no meaning. The Founders understood that to be equal meant to be created by God, equal in humanity, in intrinsic human worth and dignity, and deserving of equal, unbiased treatment under the law. Mr. Obama and his supporters would have us believe that equality has to do with taking from some and giving to favored others. They buy the juvenile notion that apparent equality of outcome is far more important than equality of opportunity. This is the basis of Marxism, socialism and its fellow travelers.

The causes of our downward spiral are familiar to anyone who has been paying attention. Too many of us have abandoned the principals that make us great, that make us Americans. An instructive example is home ownership.

I am tempted to say that when Democrats in the 1970s began to say that every American should have their own home, they did this with the best of intentions, but the results of this bit of rhetoric surely say otherwise. Every American should own their home. It’s a lovely--if simple-mindedly emotional--sentiment, and that’s where it should have stopped, but socialists see sentiments—emotions—as reality, and they tried to manifest an emotion.

The problem goes back to our founding, to self-sufficiency, to the notion that we must live within our means, individually and as a nation. To the simple principle that we would not only build, but would live in the house we could afford and that when we could afford bigger and better, only then would we attain that house and the house after it. Apartments are a manifestation of that simple virtue. They are recognition that not everyone can afford a house, and our system evolved in recognition of that reality. If one could not afford a house, no bank would loan money that could never be re-paid. Even if one foolish enough to try to buy what they could not afford applied for a home loan, banks would not willingly assist them in destroying themselves and their families.

Rational people know that a mortgage payment is only the beginning, basic cost of home ownership. Maintenance, tools such as lawn mowers, utility bills substantially greater than those of apartment dwellers, insurance, furnishings, and myriad other expenses greatly expand that low, convenient monthly mortgage payment. For this simple reason, generations of fiscally responsible Americans deferred home ownership until they were certain they could actually—what’s that archaic word?—oh yes, until they could actually “afford” it. Even if they could never afford it, most could live in apartments that are the envy of most of the population of the world.

But Democrats knew better. They felt that everyone should have a house. It goes without saying that such trivial factors as being able to afford the mortgage payment, to say nothing of all of the incidental but necessary expenses of home ownership, were of no concern, and lenders were pressured to loan to those they knew would default. This was seen as compassionate, as building a better, more diverse and tolerant America, for who should not own their own house? What kind of cruel Republican would stand in their way? Surely such people were discriminating! Surely they were racists! Compassionate, caring, progressive government knew best, the free market be damned! And the free market was damned; all of us were damned.

Loans were made by lenders who knew they would never be paid, but they were willing to make such loans because they were backed by Fannie Mae, backed on the assumption that the Federal Government would make good those bundled loans when they inevitably defaulted. Many of those banks are no longer in business and other teeter on the edge of insolvency. Some banks resisted the siren song of diversity and compassion and remain strong today, but enough went along, and finally, circa 2008, the bills became due. All of that debt was bundled and packaged, and deferred and rolled over until it became so large that it reached critical mass—as everyone knew it eventually must--and exploded. So many mortgages were in default, mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--and by implication, by the public—that the whole house of cards collapsed and the bailouts and stimulus and the “summer of recovery” (remember that one? Last summer?), where nothing was recovered, began.

The Revolutionary generation could have told us this would happen. In fact, they did. The founders knew that when people discovered that they could vote themselves other people’s money that would be the beginning of the end for America. Circa 2011, about half of Americans pay no income taxes, none at all and many are given tax “rebates” because they do not pay taxes. A tiny percentage of the evil, greedy rich evilly and greedily pay most income taxes, and the rest are paid by an increasingly small middle class of producers, people who still actually produce goods, services and wealth in a manner that our forefathers would recognize and of which they would approve.

We have created an enormous and growing class of consumers, of people who do not for a moment think that they must live within their means, of people who do not expect to work for what they receive, of people who expect government to provide for much—or all—of what they have. And we have elected a man who believes in all of this, and more. Our president wants everyone to attend college on the public dime. The public dime is our tax dollars and whatever money can be begged and borrowed from nations that hate us and would delight in our destruction. As this is being written, Mr. Obama and his advisors are apparently seriously considering merely ignoring the law, ignoring the debt ceiling and spending as much money—money we do not have—as he pleases. His pleasure is unlimited. The Democrats in Congress have broken the law by not producing a budget, and proudly announced their intention to continue breaking that particular law, for they know that any budget they produce would enrage even the enervated American public. Most Congressional Democrats are more than willing to spend us into oblivion. A surprising and disgusting number of Republicans have been, and are, willing to assist them, even now.

The wreckage has become so obvious that all of Mr. Obama’s primary financial advisors have, like rats, deserted the sinking ship of state. All, that is, with the exception of the tax-evading Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who has had to recently sort of deny pervasive rumors of his impending departure. Presumably, Mr. Obama will now bring in the second string team to finish an already losing game.

We know that Socialism doesn’t work. It is the opposite of what Americans once knew and believed. It is anti-democratic and anti-American. Its foundational principles depict men as vassals of the state, as simpletons and weaklings unable to understand their own needs and unable to provide for themselves and their families. This is the very opposite of America. Yet Mr. Obama and the self-appointed better classes embrace it even as it has ruined the rest of the world, even as those sad, failing and failed nations struggle to abandon it. Margaret Thatcher was right. The problem with Socialism is that you always run out of other people’s money. And so we have.

Forget that Obamacare is not yet fully implemented and that if and when it is, it will, by itself, absent any other looming financial debacle (our other bankrupt entitlements), bankrupt the nation. The idea that tens of millions of uninsured Americans could be fully insured and that our costs would be lower and our medical care improved was a blatant lie from the beginning, a lie the new Americans of 1776 would have immediately recognized and rejected, as the majority of contemporary Americans continue to reject it. Consider what revolutionary era Americans would have thought of a president who so casually lied on such a grand scale. That we find it not only unremarkable, that we have come to expect it, clearly illustrates our national dissolution and despair.

But on this 4th of July, as fireworks soar into the night sky, so too may our hopes. All is not lost, not yet anyway. Even if a surprising and disgusting portion of Americans no longer believe that America is the one exceptional and indispensable nation, billions around the world do and they would, if they could, vote in the most sincere manner possible: they would vote with their feet and move here to become what far too many of us, starting with our president, no longer appreciate. They know what it is to be an American. They have no doubt of its distinction and value.

We may yet stave off disaster and decline. Such things are a matter of choice. By embracing the simple truths by which the first Americans lived their lives, we too may restore America to what she should be, to what she must be if mankind is to have true hope rather than the ephemeral hope of teleprompter-driven political rhetoric. It will not be easy, and it will take generations, but once again, we must—as Americans and as America—learn to live within our means and to provide for ourselves. That process has, weakly, already begun. It will truly begin with the removal of Barack Obama from office in 2012. It will continue when Americans once again embrace freedom and remove from office those who would destroy it. It will continue when Americans no longer tolerate those who do not tolerate them, domestically and around the world.

So on this July 4th, celebrate, but never forget that we remain free because of the continuing sacrifice of better men and women than ourselves. If we fail to honor their sacrifice and embrace and live the values that made July 4 more than just another day on the calendar, America will soon dissipate, like a brilliantly exploding firework against the night sky, flaring briefly and brightly, but gone forever. We will end not with a bang, but a whimper. America deserves better. The world deserves better.

Only the recreation of the new American Man, not by the government, not by fiat and mandate, but by Americans themselves, can reverse our disastrous course.

Posted by MikeM at 08:03 PM | Comments (4)

June 29, 2011

Liberal Wisconsin Justices Looking Bad in "Chokegate"

I've had my hands full lately focusing on the Gunwalker investigation, but I have been at least reading along with what some are calling "Chokegate" (Ann Althouse has done a great job staying on top of this story).

Long story short: a liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice named Ann Bradley has apparently tried to claim that another Supreme Court Justice, David Prosser, "choked" her.

The story had been leaked to a George Soros muckraking group, and then the incident seemed to get turned on its head when other witnesses came forth to indicate that while Prosser did put his hands up and touch Bradley's neck, it is because she was coming at him with fists raised, meaning the contact was defensive in nature, and Bradley was the aggressor.

The plot appears to be thickening now, with news that Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson may have had a hand in orchestrating the leak in an attempt to get the conservative Prosser impeached.

As the investigation moves forward, it appears than instead of collecting a conservative scalp, that the two liberal Wisconsin SCOTUS justices may face impeachment instead. If they are impeached—and that is far from certain at this point—Republican Governor Scott Walker will have the opportunity to add two conservative justices to the bench.

It appears that the plot to frame up Prosser has backfired spectacularly.

I can only wish for such a happy ending for all of convicted felon Soros' investments in deception.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:21 AM | Comments (4)

June 26, 2011

The Rhetoric of Losing--Everything

President Obama’s recent speech on Afghanistan was of a piece with his standard rhetoric, with one possible deviation: He only said “I” thirteen times by my count of the speech released by the White House prior to the delivery of the actual speech at West Point. I suspect that with his poll numbers at historic lows and his reelection campaign foremost on the minds of the occupants of the White House, the wisdom of more frequently using “we” has gained some urgency.

According to media accounts, few Americans watched the speech. This is unsurprising in that Mr. Obama is certainly the most over-exposed president in history. One would think that by now, someone on the White House staff would have figured out that the American people do not long for just one more Obama speech on any topic, but apparently making the I/we transition has, to date, fully occupied their attention and rhetorical energies.

A great many media outlets have covered the primary thrust of the speech: we will be pulling out of Afghanistan on a predetermined schedule and regardless of the strategic or tactical conditions at the time. It has also been noted that General Petraeus is less than thrilled with this idea. One would certainly hope so.

My intention with this post is to speak to several of Mr. Obama’s statements, which have, for the most part, escaped comment in the legacy media and even in the blogosphere. None of these comments, which are embedded among the numerous clichés and gaseous tropes, is original; they, in various formulations, have often flowed across Mr. Obama’s teleprompter screens in the past. The value in speaking to these comments is that their frequent repetition almost certainly reflects the fact that they represent Mr. Obama’s fundamental values. That should worry us all.

“For there should be no doubt that so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe-haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve.”

Actually, there is considerable doubt about this, most recently demonstrated in Mr. Obama’s failure to support allies throughout the world. Israel certainly has reason to doubt, and so do all of the leaders throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East and even NATO allies whose requests for American aid in Libya have been, at best, slow-walked. Even in the case of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, Mr. Obama took nearly a full day to make a final decision as our assets stood, on alert, ready to go. His inability to make the decision cost a second additional day due to weather conditions and might tend to make reasonable people doubt his commitment in such matters even where Osama Bin Laden was involved.

“And even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance. These long wars will come to a responsible end.”

If our departure proves—as it is likely to do—that all America’s enemies need do is wait until we grow tired and announce our departure date—a responsible end to the war is the last thing likely to happen. As has often been observed, Mr. Obama does seem to have an aversion to saying “victory,” and apparently, an aversion to achieving it.

“Instead, we must rally international action, which we are doing in Libya, where we do not have a single soldier on the ground, but are supporting allies in protecting the Libyan people and giving them the chance to determine their destiny.”

Uh, I’m confused. It has been widely noted that NATO does not have sufficient combat power to accomplish much of anything unless America is bearing most of the burden. According to our NATO allies, we’re not providing any real leadership in Libya, and Mr. Obama has announced his pride in “leading from behind” in that endeavor. Apparently Mr. Obama and his advisors consider “leading from behind” to be a good thing, a strategy so strategically innovative and brilliant that it has been accompanied by fighting the first war that does not actually involve “hostilities.” Rhetoric is a flexible thing indeed in the hands of Mr. Obama. So, apparently, is leadership.

‘Above all, we are a nation whose strength abroad has been anchored in opportunity for our citizens at home. Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource – our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industry, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy.”

Where to begin? Opportunity for our citizens at home is apparently to be won—along with the future--by destroying the coal and oil industries, destroying Boeing, nationalizing 2/3 of the American automobile industry, driving gasoline prices and unemployment through the roof, squandering nearly a trillion dollars on a stimulus that didn’t stimulate anything, and the list goes on and on. We are in a time of rising debt and hard economic times not because of our expenditures on war, but because of Mr. Obama’s ruinous economic policies and his emphasis on suppressing the private sector while enriching the public sector and unions.

Live within our means? Not when Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats are grimly determined to continue to spend money we don’t have--in unbelievable quantities--and to raise taxes so that they can do just that. Amazingly, they are talking--with straight faces--of a second, more expensive stimulus. Mr. Obama has admitted long ago that there never were any “shovel-ready jobs,” and has recently joked—in very bad taste—about that near-trillion dollar waste of money we didn’t have.

While our infrastructure is in need of repair, much of it is not the business of the federal government, and because our national debt has reached unheard of levels, there is no money to be had for that purpose. Mr. Obama and the Democrats will not admit that we have no money and that none of this may be reversed without substantially reducing spending, something they are genetically incapable of doing. Remember too that the Democrats, in violation of federal law, have not produced a budget for nearly 800 days, and have announced their determination to continue to violate that particular law rather than revealing their true intentions to the public.

It is in Mr. Obama’s so often repeated as to be unremarkable cliché about finding new and clean sources of energy that we see Mr. Obama’s most fundamental beliefs. He has long had the idea that what he says must be reality because he has spoken it. Is there any sentient being alive who does not realize that discovering “new and clean sources of energy” would make them instantly richer than Al Gore or John Kerry? Unfortunately, the laws of physics are not cooperating.

The problem is that rhetoric does not equal reality. None of the sources of energy currently under development, none currently known to man, can replace fossil fuels despite the most fervent wishes of Mr. Obama and his environmentalist allies. Wind and solar cannot, even if developed to a degree beyond their proponent’s wildest dreams, replace more than a tiny portion of our nation’s energy needs. Not only that, the very same environmentalists consistently oppose, delay and stop solar and wind projects across the nation. It almost makes one think that finding new sources of energy really isn’t their ultimate goal.

While Mr. Obama, his Energy Secretary Mr. Chu and various of their sycophants would be delighted to force Americans—for the sake of what they believe to be worthy Progressive goals--to abandon their cars, freeze in the winter and bake in the summer, most Americans realize that their lives, and the lives of their families, rely on affordable energy and that there is simply no even remotely viable replacement.

Would Americans accept new, clean sources of energy? Absolutely, but only immediately viable and affordable replacements for our current energy sources. What, pray tell, might those immediately viable and affordable replacements be? Rhetoric doesn’t fill fuel tanks and money “saved” by virtue of not being spent on the military, even if is not wasted on other boondoggles rather than being used to pay down the debt, cannot alter the law of physics and produce magic new forms of energy.

And finally: “America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.”

Uh, Mr. Obama, we already have a nation here at home. What we need is for you to quit deconstructing it. We’ll take it from there.

Posted by MikeM at 10:40 PM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2011

Anthony Weiner And The Social Contract

Bob and I have dedicated a reasonable amount of pixels to the continuing story of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Deciding whether to cover such stories is always somewhat difficult. On one hand, a great many people have done, and likely are doing, the sorts of things Rep. Weiner did, and worse. We’re not covering those people and likely never will.

Therein lies the most compelling reason to cover Rep. Weiner. Not because he is a Democrat and this is a Conservative blog; not because his behavior is particularly salacious and therefore likely to increase readership; not because of his photos (we have not published those and likely never would; doctors and police officers know one great truth: most people look better with their clothing on); and certainly not because everyone else is covering it—we like to cover things others don’t think to cover. We cover Rep. Weiner because some people, by their own choice, place themselves in positions of public trust.

I know what you’re thinking: Trust?! Trust politicians?! There is no doubt that many—Republican and Democrat alike—are not worthy of trust. But the simple truth is that most are worthy of trust, to at least some degree. It is tempting indeed to believe that all politicians are liars, cheats and thieves, and sadly, there are good reasons to be so cynical. Lily Tomlin was very much on the mark when she said that no matter how cynical she got, she couldn’t keep up.

The modern era of political cynicism might be said to have started during the Clinton Administration. A great many politicians—some of them Presidents—prior to Clinton engaged in sexual adventurism, but Mr. Clinton introduced many innovations, including taking phone calls from Congressmen while receiving fellatio. He also told perhaps the most memorable political lie of the digital age, angrily shaking his finger in America’s face through the camera lens while intoning that he did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky. Of course, he did, and compounded the lie by more lying. He was impeached (only the second President in history) but not convicted, was eventually convicted of perjury and lost his law license, but retained his office. The Clinton era came to a fitting close when his staffers vandalized the White House on their way out the door and the Clintons stole substantial White House furnishings, which they were eventually forced to return.

Now, we are saddled with a President and a Congress that forces through, without a single Republican vote, the most massive, anti-freedom legislation in history, legislation that the majority of Americans did not want and still do not want, legislation that by itself will bankrupt the nation. Mr. Obama insults our allies, appeases our enemies, makes the Middle East less rather than more safe, single-handedly destroyed the Israeli/Palestinian peace process, conducts the most opaque administration in memory while claiming to run the most transparent, claims that we will be able to keep our current insurance knowing it to be a lie, claims to be for universal energy development while doing everything possible to impede it, and the list goes on and on and on.

Why shouldn’t we embrace cynicism? Why should we care anymore?

Democracy requires trust. America is a nation built on trust. Americans have always believed that a man’s word is his bond, and built cities and made fortunes on the strength of a handshake. We have to believe, if we are willing to walk out our front doors every day and deal with the world, that others are, for the most part, trustworthy. We must believe that most Americans embrace the social contract, that they will voluntarily obey the law, that they will practice sincerity and honesty, and that they will not purposely seek to harm others. We must know that our rights to property, and all of the rights expressed and implied by the Bill of Rights are essentially intact. When a sufficient number of Americans cease to believe in these principles, when they cease to embrace the uniquely American social contract, America is lost.

That’s why we have to force ourselves to care about people like Anthony Weiner. He chose to place himself in a position of public trust, and by that choice, he accepted his part in the social contract, just as I have, on many occasions in my life, accepted places in the social contract that in very real ways set me apart from most Americans. When I enlisted in the Air Force, I accepted limitations on my freedoms and the reality that I would be held to a substantially higher standard of behavior than most Americans. When I became a police officer, I did the same, and I did it yet again when I became a teacher. Even as I write this essay, by the nature of my employment as a teacher, I willingly submit to the reality that I must abide by a more stringent code of conduct than most of my fellow Americans. The same is true of doctors, librarians, many other professions and trades, and yes, politicians.

There are simply things that Congressmen—and others—cannot do and retain their positions of public trust. We all can agree that when they break the law, when they misuse their positions for personal aggrandizement or gain or when they wrongfully enable the personal gain of others, they are unworthy of their office. But there are a great many other things that, while not specifically illegal, they simply cannot do. They cannot do them because they are morally, practically wrong, because they reveal serious character flaws, because they demonstrate appallingly bad judgment, because they demonstrate that they cannot be trusted, that their handshake means nothing and that their words and smiles are as likely than not to hide deception.

There are many who argued that if Rep. Weiner had simply told the truth his admission would have been sufficient. He should have been allowed to keep his office. Imagine the red faces of those folks after the continuing, and ever more tawdry, revelations that have, to date, come to light (yes, I know that some people are beyond embarrassment and shame). Others have suggested that no matter what he did, he should stay in office because of his political utility to the Democrat party. Some have even suggested that a double standard exists, that the public expects far less of Democrats than Republicans particularly where moral issues are involved, and there is evidence to suggest that this is not an unreasonable belief.

But all of this, too, misses the point. Rep. Weiner violated the social contract, a contract that demanded more of him than of Joe Average American, a contract that he willingly sought through multiple elections and willingly accepted. If America is to rebound from our current difficulties, if America is to remain the one unique, indispensable nation, we must demand that all those with whom we deal are trustworthy, and we must be trustworthy ourselves. Political affiliation has nothing to do with this despite what some might say. Trust transcends political lines. If it does not, if it cannot, America is lost and all that we will do over the next few years is to play predetermined parts in a tragedy written by our apathy, by our own inability to believe in ourselves and in our ability to truly embody America. We have no choice but to demand that our politicians honor, defend and protect the social contract, and of course, the Constitution.

Anthony Weiner has finally resigned. I will be relieved and pleased if I never again write a word about Anthony Weiner. The social contract is still intact, though never free from the forces that would rip it asunder. No man of good will takes pleasure in the misery of others, yet only a fool fails to learn from the willful, serial mistakes of others.

One of the truisms I tell my students over and over again is that times change, but people don’t. Hubris—excessive pride—brought down the privileged and mighty in ancient Greece and it does no less today. Arrogance, narcissism, lying, mistreating others, all of the things Mother warned us about, have never stopped being destructive, yet too many never seem to change.

Perhaps the most important lesson we can learn from the Weiner affair (and note how it is almost impossible to speak of this tawdry episode without inadvertently punning or writing a double entendre; God does indeed have a sense of humor) is that politicians—and many other Americans—must be held to a higher standard of behavior, for it is they that have chosen to inhabit the highest levels of moral certitude, and we do no credit to ourselves or to them when we allow them to abuse the example they have sought and accepted. We really do owe it to ourselves. We owe it to America.

Posted by MikeM at 10:51 PM | Comments (6)

Weiner Out, Err, Leaving Congress

The disgraceful Democrat is finally quitting, presumably after acquiring a golden parachute from the Democrat Party to step down.

Expect a lengthy screed at the Daily Kos later in the day blaming Andrew Breitbart for any missing furniture as Weiner's staff—err, personnel—heads for the exits.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

She'd Heard the Lies Before

Thoughts from someone that survived communism in the Soviet Union:

My husband and I applied for US citizenship the day we became eligible. I think my examining officer got the shock of his life when during the interview I recited the Bill of Rights, named all Supreme Court justices and added the names of all elected officials of the state including our hapless congressman. Talk about useless knowledge! After that we proudly voted in every election, but the idea of venturing a political opinion never crossed my mind (an unfortunate result of being brought up in a totalitarian society where keeping your mouth shut is a basic rule of survival). There was something unseemly in proclaiming my deep love and appreciation of America for all to hear.

When candidate Obama showed up, I realized that I had heard his typical stump speech every single day of my old Soviet life from big and small Communist party bosses -- the same structure, the same cadences, the same bogeymen, the same demagoguery, the same targets. The American people had no defense against this rhetoric. The result of the elections was totally predictable. To me it was a "Back to the Future" moment.

Imagine you are having a terrible nightmare. Just as you are about to suffer torture or certain death, you wake up and realize the sun is shining, your family is peacefully sleeping, and everything is in place. After enjoying a few blissful moments, you turn your head and see that hideous monster from your dream coming after you for real. This image described the trajectory of my life perfectly. Running from Communism, finding the safe haven and a new life, and now to have the same wrecking crew coming even here?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:35 AM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2011

Weiner Still Sexting Porn Star After His Perversions Were Revealed

The perverted New York Democrat continued to talk to former porn star Ginger Lee after the story of the scandal broke, encouraged her to lie about their relationship.

And even with the scandal blowing up in his face, he couldn't quit talking about his junk:

According to Allred, Weiner wrote Lee, "Alright, my package and I are not going to beg. We both see the hazard of going down the path of comparative sexiness."

In another email also read at the press conference, Weiner wrote, "You aren't giving my package due credit."

In yet another, Allred said Weiner wrote, "I have wardrobe demands, too. I need to highlight my package."

Anthony Weiner is the self-gratification poster child for the Democrat Party.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2011

The Palin Switch

Regular readers have long suspected this, and I’d hoped to keep it secret as long as possible, but now I’m out of the closet. Yes, I’m—gasp—conservative! I suppose I’m what might be called a quiet conservative. I’m hardly a political evangelist, running about verbally assaulting complete strangers in the hope of converting them to the one, true political/economic faith. I’m happy to converse with just about anyone on any topic, and put my opinions in writing for those who might agree and those who might not, but I always expect to discuss them with reason and civility. Indeed, I look forward to it.

I’ve found that Conservatives are generally willing to discuss political, economic and cultural issues with civility. There are exceptions, of course, but I’ve found this to be generally true. On the other hand, I’ve found Liberals to be generally unable to discuss such things with civility. All too often, they become very angry and emotional, and begin to fling about accusations of my hating this or that group, wanting to take food out of the mouths of poor children, my obviously ardent desire to murder various foreign minority groups (all non-white of course), racism, sexism and various other “isims.” There are, of course exceptions to this as well.

With that background, I provide the true, recent story that follows without comment. Make of it what you will.

Several of us, people involved in a long-term musical endeavor, were waiting for a performance. One gentleman was talking about going on a driving vacation through a considerable portion of the Western United States in the near future and was commenting particularly on the number of states he expected to visit. Quite innocently, I joked that he might take the Obama tour and visit all 57 states.

Everyone present chuckled, everyone that is except for one young fellow who was obviously unaware of the reference. I explained that it was a gaffe made by Mr. Obama during the 2008 campaign. He looked at me blankly for a moment, blinked, and in an excited, loud voice launched into a verbal assault on Sarah Palin! It was as though I had somehow thrown a secret Palin switch, which once thrown, required a complete, non-stop, pre-recorded recitation of Palin’s idiocy and all-around sub-human status. The effect was surprising as he was speaking in an animated manner unusual for him, as though he was on a sort of automatic pilot and could not stop until the entire recording was complete.

He became increasingly loud and incredulous in stating that Palin actually said that Paul Revere warned the British during his famous ride. His expressions and manner were surprising. None of us had ever seen him behave that way before, despite having known him for at least a year. This particular example of Palin’s stupidity seemed to be his ultimate proof of her sub-normal IQ, and was clearly what he considered his most convincing proof.

I traded surprised glances with several people and quietly pointed out that Palin was in fact correct, and that Revere did warn the British after he was captured. I explained that numerous historians confirmed Palin’s accuracy. He stopped only long enough to blink, and then immediately continued as though the Palin switch had been interrupted for only a second and immediately reset. He continued for another few minutes, finally winding down—the recording apparently complete--and resuming his normal tone of voice and demeanor as we sat quietly, watching the spectacle.

Minutes later, we performed as we had on many previous occasions, and he was quite himself again.


Posted by MikeM at 09:22 PM | Comments (8)

CNN Pushing Long-Debunked Cartel Guns Story To Protect Obama Administration during GunWalker Hearings

I had this as an update to the previous post, but it deserves it's own.

CNN has decided to engage in fact free anti-gun propaganda this morning on behalf of the Obama Administration, co-incidentally on the second day of Congressional hearing that promise to excoriate Eric Holder's Department of Justice in general and acting director Ken Melson's BATF in specific.

The BATF is under fire for supplying more than 2,500 firearms to Mexican narco-terrorists as part of a poorly-conceived operation that turned the U.S. government into the largest single supplier of cartel weapons found north of the border. These weapons have been used to murder two U.S. law enforcement officers (Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata), and were used to gun down 150 Mexican police officers and soldiers.

CNN has chosen to trot out a variation of the 90-percent lie, a bit propaganda debunked by the ATF two years ago.

CNN claims:

More than 70% of 29,284 firearms submitted to the U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for tracing by the Mexican government during 2009 and 2010 originated in the United States, according to the report.

"Congress has been virtually moribund while powerful Mexican drug trafficking organizations continue to gain unfettered access to military-style firearms coming from the United States," said Sen. Diane Feinstein of California.

In a letter this month to Feinstein, the ATF acknowledged that the United States keeps no record of criminal firearms seized in Mexico and that "the Mexican government does not submit every recovered firearm to ATF for tracing."

As a result, the ATF-provided figures may not be representative of all firearms recovered by Mexican officials.

"May not be representative."

You think?

Of the 100,000 weapons recovered by Mexican authorities, only 18,000 [out of the 29,284 submitted. -- ed.] were determined to have been manufactured, sold, or imported from the United States, and of those 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers.

We now know that of those 7,900 firearms supplied to the cartels via U.S. gun shops, roughly 2,000-2,500 were forced on BATF's orders making them the largest single direct supplier of cartel weaponry (not counting the thousands of military weapons the U.S. indirectly supplies).

The actual figure is that a little over 5-percent of cartel weapons have come from border gun shops, and that translates to less than one gun per shop in the region.

Of course, neither the Obama Administration nor CNN want to share that factoid, as it undermines their shared goal of pushing for more gun control laws.

Here's an idea.

If you want to stop Mexican cartels from getting U.S. weapons, have the U.s. government quit supplying the weapons.

Through legal and illegal means, it is the U.S. government the primary supplier of cartel guns.

If you really want those responsible for running guns to narco-terrorists to be put behind bars, put Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and Ken Melson on trial.

Of course, that is precisely what CNN is trying to avoid.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:48 AM | Comments (1)

June 10, 2011

New Hampshire Man Arrested for Extreme Liberalism

When liberalism isn't a persistent vegetative state, it's a faked brain injury.

A 23-year-old man pretended he suffered from a brain injury so an unsuspecting in-home nurse would change his adult diaper, police said.

Eric Carrier, of 95 Granite St., Hooksett, turned himself into police Tuesday after a warrant was issued charging him with indecent exposure.

Carrier allegedly faked having a severe brain injury that would require him to wear adult diapers. A nurse caring for him became suspicious, police said.

Carrier was attempting to live the dream of every young liberal, becoming so dependent on others that he can't even wipe his own ass.

(H/T Hot Air headlines)

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:41 AM | Comments (5)

Weiner With Honey Mustard, Please. Hold the Statutory Rape

We've wondered for over a week about Democrat Anthony Weiner's explicit sexting with at least six women, especially as it appears that at least two of the young women engaging in conversations with the disgraced Congressmen may be minors.

Patterico has been all over the story of the under-aged girls—the part of the story the MSM is trying to hardest to ignore—and may not have the smoking gun, but the circumstantial evidence is adding up.

Ethel: I love 69ing big hunt + like to use honey mustard as lube. Ohh yeahh baby I love bdh weiner May 22

Ethel on Tumblr, quoting Weiner: "I came back strong. Large. In charge. Tights and cape shit…" My favorite congressman<3
May 26


You can choose to believe that Ethel, who publicly declared her love for Weiner repeatedly, and who had no compunction about dirty talk in public, turned prim and proper when Weiner talked to her in private . . . about his cape and tights. You can choose to believe that he didn’t know Ethel was underage, despite her youthful appearance, mentions of high school, and profile talking about marching band.

Sure, you can believe that if you want.

Anthony Weiner should resign from Congress, today. There is no way this story gets better, and every indication it will only get worse.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:30 AM | Comments (3)

June 09, 2011

Weiner "Dumb and Defiant"

Call it partisan if you must, but it seems that most people—including many leading Democrats—would seem to agree with the image and teaser for this Fox New story.

dumb-defiant-anthony-weiner
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:18 PM | Comments (1)

While Weiner Cheates, Huma is Pregnant

My word. Just when I think my disgust level for New York Democrat Anthony Weiner has bottomed out, he finds a way to sink to a new level. Yesterday we discovered that a pair of shock jocks had posted a picture of the fully-exposed Congressman to their web site which moves the allegations from the realm of titillation to self-made pornography composed by a sitting member of Congress.

If that wasn't bad enough, we now discover that Weiner's online affairs were going on not just after he was married, but while his wife Huma is pregnant.

Their marriage has become the subject of intense speculation and scrutiny amid an embarrassing online sex scandal.

Now, Representative Anthony D. Weiner and Huma Abedin are about to make news of a different kind: they are expecting their first child.

Ms. Abedin, 35, is in the early stages of pregnancy, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

The pregnancy, which the couple have disclosed to close friends and family, adds a new dimension to questions about the future of their marriage.

I feel so sorry for the tribulations she is going through as the result of her depraved and perverted husband, a man without honor or the vaguest sense of moral decency. Were she my friend or daughter, I think I would advise her to evict the Congressman and begin divorce proceedings against him, shooting for full custody for the child.

Weiner has proven to be an unfit human being, and would likely be an unfit father as well. Huma and her child deserve what every family should have, in the form of a moral, loving, dedicated and decent father and husband. The kind that doesn't spread photos of his schlong to every woman he meets in cyberspace, or who apparently planned to cheat on them in the physical world with at least one of his online mistresses.

Huma's employer, Hillary Clinton, once said it takes village to raise a child. She wasn't wrong about that broader point. Both Huma and the baby would be better off if they exiled Anthony Weiner from their lives, and their nurture and care was provided by people worthy of their affection.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:57 AM | Comments (3)

June 08, 2011

Weiner's Downfall

It was inevitable.

Hitler Upset About Weinergate

From FTR Video.

Update: Radio shock jocks Opie and Anthony have posted a X-rated photo sent by Anthony Weiner to one of the young women. I will not post it here nor link to it, but you can rest assured that the Congressman is completely compromised.

The House Democratic leader has to force Weiner out over this, or lose the few shreds of ethical credibility that have left. Former DNC Head Tim Kaine has already called for Weiner's resignation.

Weiner, like Hitler, seems to have been undone at the Battle of the Bulge.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:23 AM | Comments (3)

June 07, 2011

Leftist "Comic" Says He Would Assassinate Palin

Obama mentor Bill Ayers, himself an advocate for executing up to 25 million Americans in "reeducation camps, would no doubt approve.

In responding to a question about former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's appearance on "Fox News Sunday," in which Palin defended her interpretation of what happened during Paul Revere's pre-Revolutionary War famous ride, Titus launched into a description of what he would do if Palin were elected.

"You know what man?" Titus said. "I am going to literally — if she gets elected president, I am going to hang out on the grassy knoll all the time, just loaded and ready — because you know what? It's for my country. It's for my country. If I got to sacrifice myself, it's for my country."

It's not for your country, Chris. It's for your lock-step, childish, and violent ideology.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 PM | Comments (4)

June 06, 2011

The Unbearable Lightness of Weiner

“I don’t believe that I did anything that violates any law or any rule.”

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has finally come clean and admitted, albeit vaguely, that he engaged in what is commonly known as “sexting” for years, prior to and after his recent marriage, with multiple young women, apparently around the nation. In the furtherance of his “social intercourse,” Weiner sent multiple photographs of himself, including various body parts, to these women. However, unlike former Rep. Christopher Lee (R-NY), who was recently caught up in a similarly self-generated predicament, Weiner will not resign. Note his quote, which appeared on the June 6th edition of The O’Reilly Factor. While by the standards of DC sex scandals, Weiner’s serial transgressions are relatively tame, the situation does raise many interesting questions about not just Rep. Weiner, but us.

Just as they were anxious to defend and absolve Weiner of any and all guilt, many—including elements of the Lamestream Media—are equally anxious to put the affair behind them. Some have already observed that he did apologize and admit wrongdoing. He said that he took responsibility for his acts. Indeed, we all sin. We all behave foolishly from time to time. Americans do tend to be a forgiving people, particularly when those seeking forgiveness do so sincerely and with genuine contrition.

Unfortunately, Rep. Weiner, for more than a week, lied to the nation, his wife, his constituents and his Congressional colleagues. For more than a week, he not only attacked Andrew Brietbart, actually accusing him of nefarious deeds and lying, but he encouraged others—by his example--to do the same. As it turns out, Mr. Brietbart reported only the facts. Everything he reported has been proven true, and he actually withheld particularly damaging and sexually graphic photos that Rep. Weiner sent to women. Yes, he did apologize to Mr. Brietbart, but was it sincere? Did he show contrition? What responsibility, exactly, did he take?

Rep. Weiner apologized because he had no choice. The story expanded far beyond a single college girl in Seattle and a vague photograph of a semi-erect Congressional “member” in nondescript gray undies. It was going to expand—explosively--even further. Even ABC News was about to run an interview with one of the women involved. If Rep. Weiner admitted his wrongdoing and apologized as soon as the matter became public, he would have a reasonable claim to sincerity. So much for sincerity; how about contrition?

There is little doubt that Rep. Weiner feels sincerely badly that he was caught. Who wouldn’t have such feelings in his place? But his press conference seemed less an act of contrition than an act of justification and lawyerly weaseling around the rules and the Law. Rep. Weiner observed that he didn’t violate his oath to uphold the Constitution and that he didn’t violate any rule of the House of Representatives. What about the trust of the people? What about the trust of his colleagues? What about upholding the honor of the Institution? What about setting an example of rectitude and dignity for the nation and the world? As a member of the party of the President determined to make America liked and respected around the world above all else--even our relationships with our allies--doesn’t this sort of thing make American look just a bit smaller, less dignified and worthy of respect?

What responsibility did Rep. Weiner take? Is he planning to volunteer at the Nubile Twitter-Addicted Home For Easily Visually Stimulated Girls? Has he promised not to do it again, or to at least send pictures of himself in better taste? Former Rep. Christopher Lee actually took responsibility. He recognized the damage he did to the Institution, to those he loved, to those who supported him, to the public’s respect for Congressmen, and to his party, which lost his seat because of his lack of self-control. As far as we know, he engaged in a single incident rather than many incidents involving many women over several years. He resigned, and by so doing, limited the damage to everyone involved, and demonstrated real sincerity and contrition. He demonstrated that he understood that it really wasn’t all about him, that politics does not, cannot, take precedence over honor and genuine personal responsibility.

Some are also suggesting—as some will in such situations—that it’s all a matter of Rep. Weiner’s personal life, and as such, it’s not the public’s business. Bill and Hillary Clinton used this tactic with notable success on “60 Minutes,” and the public bought it. But Mr. Clinton, by himself, burned out a great many such tactics, tactics no longer available to politicians. Not, that is, unless character and sound judgment in our elected federal representatives matters not at all.

Without a doubt, there are many areas of a politician’s life that should always remain out of bounds. The sexual thoughts or private—as in within the walls of their own homes with their consenting spouse—behaviors of any of our representatives (or co-workers, for that matter) might well shock at least some portion of the population, but unless there is a clearly demonstrable harmful link between them and that person’s official actions, it really isn’t the business of the public. That is not the case here.

Wouldn’t any reasonably intelligent person know that putting multiple photographs of themselves and their body parts out on the Internet—over years—to women he did not really know, would inevitably be exposed? Imagine further that the reasonably intelligent person was a Congressman, and not just any one of hundreds of Congressman, but an abrasive mouthpiece used on a regular basis to attack anyone and anything opposing the Democrat agenda, an image regularly plastered across American TV screens. Wouldn’t that reasonably intelligent person understand that as a Congressman, his life and behavior were under a powerful and omnipresent microscope? Wouldn’t he understand that he not only would be held to a higher standard, but that he should be held to a higher standard? Or, like all too many politicians of all political affiliations, would he serve as yet another pedestrian, sordid proof of Lord Acton’s aphorism that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely?

Rep. Weiner’s judgment was, to put it kindly, faulty. There is also a kind of cruel irony in this situation in that he married, and not long ago, an aide to Hillary Clinton. She and Mrs. Clinton will certainly not lack for topics of mutual concern and sympathy in their future conversations. I bring this up not to be cruel, but to point out the wreckage Mr. Weiner’s actions has caused.

Rep. Weiner, like far too many before him, has trivialized the Congress, if such a thing is any longer possible. He has confirmed, if any confirmation was required, that a moral double standard exists. Republicans doing what he has done are through, and justly so. But it would appear that no one expects Democrats to behave with dignity and honor. I wish that were not true, for what it says about us all—not just Democrats—bodes ill for our survival as a people and a nation. I have little doubt that, like Charles Rangel and other Democrats before him, Rep. Weiner will be re-elected by his very liberal New York Congressional District. Most will not waste a second reflecting on what that says about them.

Absent new revelations, it does appear that Rep. Weiner did not violate the law or the rules of the House of Representatives, but that’s not the most important consideration. A mere lack of rule or law breaking are not what define us as individuals or as a nation. Ultimately, we all, Conservative and Liberal alike, might want to reflect on the perilous times that surround us, times that might very well see an end to the America and the American ideals so many have bled to build and maintain. And in reflecting on them, we might want to honestly ask, is Anthony Weiner—or anyone like him--the best we can do?

Posted by MikeM at 09:47 PM | Comments (7)

Anthony Weiner to Resign For Sexting Young Women

The only question now is whether or not he knows it. What an arrogant, duplicitous, cheating little jerk.

I hate to point out the obvious, but all the leftists that have been shrieking that Weiner was hacked now look like fools, and poor souls like Kossack "Stranded Wind" have destroyed their credibility for a lifetime.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:29 PM | Comments (4)

Whine on You Lazy Diamond

Boo-freaking hoo:

LAST October, I won the Nobel Prize in economics for my work on unemployment and the labor market. But I am unqualified to serve on the board of the Federal Reserve — at least according to the Republican senators who have blocked my nomination. How can this be?

In case you haven't been paying attention for the past half-decade, the Nobel Prize has been reduced to absurdity. Even Paul Krugman has one. ManBearPig got on for junk science that was debunked. Our current war-monger President, who is fighting what the left used to call "an illegal war" in Libya, and which is supplying drug cartels with heavy weapons in Mexico via his BATF, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize before he even finished moving into the White House.

A Nobel means nothing.

The reason you were blocked Mr. Diamond, is that you are a Keynsian hack, with no understanding of real markets. The idiocy you espouse has led us into the largest recession on this side of the Second World War.

You weren't hired, because you aren't up to the job.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:02 AM | Comments (2)

June 05, 2011

Let Them Eat (Even Less ) Cake!

It is an article of faith among Socialists that Socialism cannot possibly be wrong. When any socialistic policy is failing, the only possible explanation must be that socialism has not had sufficient time to work its magic, that insufficient socialism has been applied, or that evil capitalists are hindering ultimate, inevitable success, often by their mere existence.

Economic news has been so bad of late that the Lamestream Media has, for the most part, dropped the modifier “unexpected”—as in “Huge Drop in Home Values Unexpected,” or “Unexpected Record High Unemployment Surprises Obama Administration”--from its coverage of the death spiral of Mr. Obama’s socialistic economic policies. Even so, Mr. Obama and his minions continue to claim that it’s only a “bump” on that glorious revolutionary highway to complete recovery. They claim that they “saved or created” this or that number of jobs, and that without their brilliant socialistic manipulations, things would be much worse. That we are already broke and borrowing at the rate of billions per hour means nothing to the determined Socialist, for there is no possibility but the ultimate triumph of Socialism.

This pathology—for it is nothing less—is individually debilitating. Combined with a pathological narcissism the likes of which America has, prior to the advent of Mr. Obama, never experienced, it is likely to debilitate the nation.

A recent rare accidental Administration truth-telling (here) illustrates the degree to which one may become so impaired that reality becomes a nothing more than an infinitely changeable concept, which may transmogrify into whatever shape is politically useful from moment to moment. Socialism rejects conventional reality and constructs its own. Spending far more money than you have therefore becomes merely an opportunity to print and borrow money and to endlessly spend the money that isn’t real.

Consider the case of the “let them eat cake” attorney. Obama Solicitor General Neal Katyal appeared before the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on June 1 to defend the ObamaCare Individual Mandate. The mandate requires every American to buy government approved insurance or be fined by the IRS. Never before in American history has the federal government tried to assume the power to force Americans to buy a consumer product against their will. The Obama Administration seeks to justify it under the Commerce Clause. The law does have a very limited “poverty” exception, which exempts some from buying insurance.

Under questioning from the court Katyal said that the justices were playing a “game” which he could also play, and said that people could avoid the mandate simply by choosing to make less money.

People can choose to make less money. It is now well known that Mr. Obama’s claim that those who like their current insurance can keep it is, and always was, a lie. For most Americans, ObamaCare means that their insurance rates will go up, substantially up, because they must buy policies mandated by the government which will inevitably include coverage they neither want nor need.

The magic Socialistic “Stimulus” package that was guaranteed to keep unemployment below 8% is universally acknowledged as a complete failure. Official unemployment is now at 9.1%, but in reality, it’s nearly 16%. People are struggling to find any work. More Americans are on food stamps than at any time in American history. Gas and food prices are skyrocketing—just as Mr. Obama promised during the campaign—and the dollar is being seriously devalued by mass printings of greenbacks (Quantitative Easing). We’ve already had QE1 and QE2 and our tax-avoiding Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, is planning QE3.

The private sector needs to create a huge number of good paying jobs—people making more, not less money—but Mr. Obama’s lunatic socialistic policies prevent it. And against this backdrop, the Solicitor General of the United States argues that Americans can avoid having to pay far more of their rapidly deflating incomes in unwanted and unnecessary insurance by voluntarily choosing to make less money.

It is possible that Mr. Katyal, as a lawyer, is merely employing whatever outlandish argument popped into his head at the moment in the service of defending the indefensible. Lawyers do have to do that upon occasion. However, it is more likely that for Mr. Katyal, as a good Socialist, “The People” exist only as an abstraction in service to the State. It may not occur to him that people simply cannot, indeed will not, choose to lower their incomes. They certainly do not consider our economic situation a game, individually or collectively. For most Americans, less income would mean the loss of their homes, cars, and a descent into genuine poverty and misery. Considering the times, it is amazing that any rational, humane Administration official would even think such a thing, to say nothing of saying it. However, Socialism is neither humane nor rational.

But I’m sure that if a sufficient number of Americans voluntarily lower their income, the economy, which is experiencing momentary “bumps,” will be greatly stimulated. All you have to do is believe in the ultimate triumph of Socialism—unless of course, you’re one of those Capitalists who actually believe in object reality. But who does that anymore in this brave new Age of Obama?

Posted by MikeM at 10:13 PM | Comments (5)

June 03, 2011

When the Nazis Come, They'll Sport Chaps

...and they'll come from San Francisco.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:19 PM | Comments (9)

Oops, He Did It Again

Anthony Weiner may have sexted lewd photos of himself before:

Of course, the simplest explanation of the scenario is that he had, in fact, tried to send a picture of his genitals to a 21-year-old Washington state college student. Weiner has denied that in public and in private. Two people who spoke to him privately said he had suggested that, as one said, "he took or sent a photo or photos like this at some point — but in this case actually was hacked/set up, perhaps with a posting of one of his own photos or something very similar."

"If that is the reality, there is no magic, good way to handle it," Dezenhall said. "You have what lawyers call a 'bad fact.'"

Note this is one of his protectors trying to help Weiner (therefore pushing the improbable hacking angle) that states the Congressman has a history of this kind of behavior.

Oh well, At least his real name works for a stage name once he finally resigns and begins his new career doing porn full time.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)

June 02, 2011

Goin' Up Around the Bend

It's dead simple.

Anthony Weiner took a dick pic and wanted to send it to a young woman who is not his wife. Instead of hitting "D" (to direct and privately message) the young lady, he hit "@," posting his pecker to the world, or at least the 40,000 or so people that were following the congressman at the time.

He realized his mistake and erased it quickly, but not quickly enough. He was caught, literally, with his pants down. From there, it has only gotten worse as the arrogant New Yorker has fanned the flames of scandal in one of the most disastrous political damage control campaigns in recent memory.

It has now gotten so bad that Weiner has even been forced to admit that there are other pictures of his package.

"I have photographs. I don't know what photographs are out there in the world of me," he said in one cable news interview, asked whether he'd ever snapped a photo like that of himself.

In another interview, Weiner acknowledged "it could be" the case that one of his private photos spilled onto the Internet.

Taking his own words at face value, the only rational conclusion is that Weiner did exactly what he is accused of doing.

And then there is something called a "Stranded Wind," which has created increasing more elaborate and fanciful conspiracy theories in an attempt to scapegoat conservatives for Weiner's transgressions.

Stranded Wind's latest claim is that Andrew Brietbart is behind a nafarious scheme to frame Weiner in order to protect Supreme Court Justice from (left-wing) allegations of tax evasion for not complying with disclosure requirements on financial forms. Like significant players in Obama's cabinet, Thomas made amends when the discrepancy was pointed out. I'd note that this even less than it appears to be, Thomas merely failed to disclose his wife's source of income, he wasn't a tax cheat like, say, the Treasury Secretary.

So how does a picture of a New York Congressman's erect member keep Clarence and Ginny Thomas out of jail for "corruption" in Stranded Wind's fantasy?

It's like this:

  1. Breitbart frames Weiner with dick pic
  2. ?
  3. Thomas doesn't face charges for his non-crime

If you think it sounds familiar, well, it does.

Stranded Wind apparently thinks that Andrew Breitbart is MacGyver enough to use Weiner's wiener to pick Thomas' cell lock even though, uh, Thomas isn't under investigation—or even the suspicion of wrong-doing—outside the wild and loopy world of Stranded Wind's fantasy land, where Karl Rove was frog-marched to jail and George Bush was executed for war crimes.

There is crazy, and there is weapons-grade crazy. All I can say about Stranded Wind is that national security demands that we make sure the Iranians don't put this Kossack in a centrifuge.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:12 PM | Comments (1)

A Holmes Twist for Weiner

And by Holmes, I mean Sherlock.

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

This is one of the most recognized quotes attributed to the fictional detective, but perhaps we need to go one better as we look at the continual, improbable, and ever more conspiratorial fantasy excuses that progressive bloggers are offering up to explain how a picture of a man's package was sent from New York Democrat Rep. Anothony Weiner Twitter account to a comely co-ed when his wife wasn't around.

The old saying that "truth is stranger than fiction" is indeed true often enough to make it a maxim, but the fact remains that reality is far more often boring and rote. Those events that break from the tedium of normalcy are sadly more likely the result of stupidity than brilliance, and Weiner's scandal is no different.

While it isn't appropriate for Holmes' fictional character, a real detective in this world is more likely to agree with the following.

"When you have eliminated the improbable, whatever remains, however straightforward and anticlimactic, must be the truth."

By far, the mostly likely scenario is precisely what appears to have occurred: Anthony Weiner tried to direct message (DM) a picture of his "package" to a co-ed, but mistakenly posted it to the public-facing side Twitter of instead.

That's it.

No grand conspiracy. No technological wizardry. Just a horny Congressman with loose morals and bad judgement.

Weiner is trying to save his marriage and his Congressional seat, so he has every reason to lie. Progressive bloggers want to protect one of their champions, and they have every reason to muddy the waters and offer a string of ever-more-fanciful excuses to try to get him off the hook.

But the most likely truth is simple.

Weiner did it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:09 AM | Comments (8)

June 01, 2011

Weiner Claims "System was Hacked" Which Makes FBI Investigation Imperative

Let's just play this through.

The Congressman asserts, "My system was hacked. Pictures can be manipulated. Pictures can be dropped in and inserted."

So he wants to now change his story for the third time (from twitter account hack, to "prank," to "system hack"), implying that someone was able to take control of his personal computer, scrape data from the hard drive, and then use that high level of access and control of his system to post Weiner's wiener on Twitter at roughly the same time the Congressman was, shockingly, online and using twitter.

We are now asked to believe that Weiner's PC was compromised, but that since it was his personal computer and not his government computer, cyber-crimes units of the federal government should not be brought in to investigate.

I beg to differ.

Federal computer systems or private, Congresspersons are privy to classified information, information that can mean millions of dollars in the event of industrial or commercial espionage, or the lives of our soldiers and citizens if the information compromised involves infrastructure or military secrets.

Further, it is reasonable to believe that if his private system was indeed hacked as he asserts, then the information on that computer could provide evidence of who hacked it, information that federal cyber-crimes units must have to catch the hacker or hacker responsible before they penetrate more sensitive systems.

After all, an embarrassing wiener picture stolen today could be nuclear secrets stolen tomorrow.

New York Congressional Representative Anthony Weiner simply has every obligation to turn his computer over to the FBI for investigation. It is simply a matter of national security.

Either that, or a lying crap-weasel meant to DM one of his little tarts with a tawdry photo, but because of his innate stupidity, posted it for all the world to see instead.

Yeah... Like you, I think the FBI should investigate, just to be sure.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:19 PM | Comments (1)

Weiner Lovers are Insane

New york Democratic rep. Anthony Weiner could have easily stopped the burgeoning "Weinergate" scandal in its tracks with a simple statement:

"I did not send that tweet. It is not a picture of me. Law enforcement has been notified and we will prosecute the person who sent this photo to the fullest extent of the law."

But as we all know, Wiener had the opportunity to say those things and instead imploded. He refused no less than four direct appeals by the media to deny that the erect member in the photo belonged to the belligerent member of Congress. Instead he evaded, hemmed and hawed, looking all the more guilty with each and every second.

Miraculously, there are still hardcore progressive zealots on the interwebs still insisting that Weiner is absolutely innocent, and that conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart is somehow to blame.

Really, folks?

We've referred to the far left as the "community-based reality" (a play on their claim to be a "reality-based community") for a long time because of their penchant for concocting and then following conspiracy theories with religious fanaticism. Their contortions to blame right wing "hackers" for Weiner's unseemly tweet and spiraling collapse of evasions and non-denials, however, really drives home the fact that some are simply insane.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:16 AM | Comments (3)

May 31, 2011

Putz Putts, Disrespecting the Dead

You'd never know it occurred thanks to the US media that dutifully ignored the story, but Barack Obama used Memorial Day as an opportunity to squeeze in a round of golf for the ninth weekend in a row.

Can you imagine David Cameron enjoying a round of golf on Remembrance Sunday? It would be inconceivable for the British Prime Minister to do so, and not just because of the usually dire weather at that time of the year. Above all, it would be viewed as an act of extremely bad taste on a day when the nation remembers and mourns her war dead. I can’t imagine the PM even considering it, and I’m sure his advisers would be horrified at the idea. And if the prime minister ever did play golf on such a sacrosanct day he would be given a massive drubbing by the British press, and it would never be repeated.

Contrast this with President Obama’s decision to play golf yesterday, Memorial Day, for the 70th time during his 28-month long presidency. For tens of millions of Americans, Memorial Day is a time for remembrance of the huge sacrifices made by servicemen and women on the battlefield. The president did pay his respects in the morning, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, but later in the day traveled to Fort Belvoir to play golf. The story has not been reported so far in a single US newspaper, but was made public by veteran White House correspondent Keith Koffler on his blog.

It took a British paper to report this story of Americans least favorite socialist dishonoring the dead. Obama simply doesn't know how to be Presidential, or perhaps he simply doesn't care how this will be perceived.

I can't wait until this man is driven from the office he continues to denigrate.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:15 AM | Comments (4)

May 29, 2011

Media Ignores NY Rep Anthony Weiner's Cyber-Sex Story

NY Congressman Anthony Weiner was caught sending pictures of his uh, thinly-covered namesake, to a young woman who was not his new wife. This is the kind of story that ends political careers and forces resignations, but the MSM is dutifully ignoring this transgression... for now.

His wife won't buy his alibi. Neither should we.

Weiner should resign in disgrace, but I doubt the New York Democrat has that much honor.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:05 AM | Comments (2)

May 26, 2011

Socialistic Energy-Lite

Those troublemakers at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are up to their usual tricks and have produced a outrageously scandalous report calling into question the motives of The One. It is available here. But first, a bit of background.

Communists, and their less murderous, Communist-lite comrades, Socialists, are masters of deception and propaganda. So adept are they that they long ago coined a term to describe the simpletons who believe their propaganda and are thereby motivated to betray and harm their own countries: “useful idiots.” The American left has always provided a ready supply of useful idiots who are praised by the elite to their faces, but reviled behind their backs, for Marxists love only true believers.

A part of this contempt for all but their own kind is apparent in their frequent rhetorical affection for “the people.” In reality “the people” are merely an abstraction, the non-existent body of subjects whose support for and love of their betters and rulers is unquestionable. Such caring for “the people” is ephemeral, particularly when it is applied to individuals, about whom Marxists care not at all, particularly if those individuals fail to demonstrate the proper respect and appreciation for the accomplishments of the glorious revolution and the elite who lead it.

The Obama administration often speaks of the wonderful, virtually unimaginable benefits of its policies for “the people.” Mr. Obama has even scolded the public when it has shown insufficient appreciation for his munificence stuffily sniffing that the public should be thanking him instead. Nowhere is Mr. Obama’s Marxist faux-fealty to “the people” more evident than in his energy non-policies.

Actually, it may be unfair to say that what, to any rational member of “the people,” would seem to be a complete lack of a coherent policy is in fact no policy. Mr. Obama’s policy is actually quite clear, and he and his various czars and functionaries have often and openly talked about it. From Mr. Obama’s campaign promise to make energy prices “necessarily skyrocket,” to his observation that the rest of the world won’t allow Americans to drive SUVs and set their thermostats for comfort, to his vow to bankrupt the American coal industry to Dr. Chu’s explanation of the necessity to make American gasoline prices rise to European levels of $10 per gallon or more, it’s obvious that he truly intends to bankrupt Americans, making it impossible for them to drive, heat or cool their homes, and destroy the American economy, all in the name of helping “the people,” of course.

What’s that you say? How can policies that harm every individual who constitutes “the people” help “the people?” They can’t, but anyone who recognizes that obviously isn’t one of the docile, easily controlled subjects so beloved of Marxists, but a counter-revolutionary unwilling to sacrifice for the good of “the people.” Remember, please, that the scientific Marxists, the elite, must never stoop to living under the same strictures imposed on “the people.” There must be some rewards for ceaselessly laboring on behalf of “the people,” or who would wish to become one of the elite? What’s that? The elite appoint themselves and suck the lifeblood of the people? They always have? So what’s your point?

Finally, even the Congress, including the occasional Democrat, is awakening to the reality that Mr. Obama actually intends to bankrupt the nation and “the people.” The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s report explicitly reveals that the Obama Administration’s energy policies are responsible for higher oil and gas prices because the Administration wants higher oil and gas prices. Who woulda’ thunk it? I’ve often written about Mr. Obama’s stealth agenda, an agenda that deceptively pushes action on many fronts:

(1) Public persuasion. This is the first, public front in which Mr. Obama has tried to use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to convince “the people” that their ruin is actually their salvation. As Mr. Obama’s default position is to speechify in the apparent belief that everyone in the world wants nothing so much as yet another Obama teleprompter reading, this suits him well. This first step is always closely aligned with:

(2) Legislation. When Democrats controlled the Congress, Mr. Obama was able to push through ObamaCare despite the fact that a clear majority of the public did not, and does not, want it. However, even with control of Congress, he was not able to pass Cap and Trade, which would have given him absolute control over the daily lives of “the people,” enabling Obama bureaucrats to regulate the very air they breath. When legislation fails, there is always:

(3) The Administrative State. Where the first several steps fail, Mr. Obama makes an end run around the legislature by means of his appointed, unaccountable czars and innumerable bureaucratic functionaries, constantly growing in number and boldness, who not only have the power to make up the rules as they go, but to harass, obstruct, punish and harm anyone who might try to stand in their way. Bureaucrats can, on their own initiative, bring economic development and activity to a halt. By ensuring that only like-minded sycophants are in bureaucratic positions, Mr. Obama need not stoop to issuing specific instructions: they know what to do. Freedom Of Information requests? Hahahahahahaha! You must be a Republican! In the unlikely event that this cannot bring about the required results, there are:

(4) Environmentalists and Similar Groups. Whatever can’t be obtained through the first three steps can be obtained—and opponents impeded and punished—through the efforts of environmentalists and other advocacy groups, who commonly use:

(5) The Imperial Courts. By appointing the “right” kind of judges and/or jurisdiction shopping, predictable rulings are easy to obtain. Whatever mischief bureaucrats aren’t able to secure can often be accomplished through liberal, activist judges. The best part is that their decisions are the law!

But that’s immoral! Underhanded! Un-American! Right. What’s your point? Marxists recognize no outcome but victory by any means necessary, legal or illegal. They will do whatever is necessary to win, and minor, irrelevant impediments like the law, the Constitution or the welfare of individual subjects do not trouble them at all.

This, gentle readers, is what has been happening for the first two years of the Obama Administration. Should he win a second term, even if Republicans control the Congress, expect no restraints whatever in the use of steps 3-5. It, after all, is for the good of “the people.” Individuals need not apply.

Posted by MikeM at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2011

Leadership and Statesmanship

In the last few days Americans were given the opportunity to observe, firsthand, the extremes of leadership and statesmanship. Even the American Congress, as dysfunctional as it often is, responded to the obvious difference. It is a lesson we should take to heart.

Tiny, democratic Israel is a nation in the middle of the world’s roughest neighborhood. Since its birth, its Arab neighbors have repeatedly tried to wipe it, and its people, from the face of the planet, and on several occasions, they came disturbingly close. Since their last bloody failure, they’ve never renounced their genocidal dreams and have instead resorted to terrorism, costing thousands of lives.

The Palestinians have rewarded Israeli offers of peace and generous gifts of land and infrastructure only with renewed terrorism and barrages of rockets. Their founding documents cry for genocide. They raise their children to hate and kill and die. They send women and the mentally disabled to attack the innocent as suicide bombers, and honor mass murderers as national heroes. Even their children’s TV shows preach hatred and murder. At the news of 9-11, they danced in the streets for joy.

Even so, the Israelis, each and every day, provide the Palestinians with food and water, and their hospitals save the lives of those who sometimes try to return laden with explosives, determined to kill those who selflessly saved their lives. They hide weapons and house terrorists near and in schools and hospitals, and use women and children as human shields. When the Israelis fight back to stop terrorist and rocket attacks, their military operates under the kind of restraints that place their soldiers at risk, just as our military does.

Syria and Iran sponsor terrorists with arms, money and training, and actively seek nuclear weapons, weapons they will surely use. Iran makes no pretense about its genocidal intentions and routinely declares its hatred for and hostile intentions toward America with fervor and venom second only to that it reserves for Israel. Both have helped Hezbollah stockpile huge numbers of rockets and other weapons in Southern Lebanon, a nation they’ve ruined and brutalized over many years in their insane, anti-Semitic hatred.

The North Koreans have been actively helping Iran and Syria in their nuclear and missile programs. Turkey is becoming much less secular and more actively Islamist, and is overtly backing away from any friendly relationship with Israel.

Egypt is now on the verge of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover. The Muslim Brotherhood is the foundation of the modern Islamist movement. They will surely abrogate the long-standing peace treaty with Israel, greatly increasing the danger of a catastrophic war in the region.

Against this backdrop, against this undeniable state of affairs and the danger it presents not only to Israel, but to the peace and stability of the world, Barack Obama sees only moral equivalency. His teleprompter generated rhetoric indicates clearly that he sees Israel as the foundational regional problem and that he simplistically believes that if only Israel makes whatever concessions the Palestinians wish, peace will be realized and all of the blood-soaked grievances that have washed over that part of the world for millennia will be healed. He is incapable of understanding that it is not possible to make peace with a people who not only live to kill you, who not only raise their children to kill you, but who never fail to take every opportunity to declare their genocidal intentions. With all of this, and more, incontrovertible evidence available to him, Mr. Obama demands that Israel carve up the nation so as to ensure its doom.

On May 24, speaking before the Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu demonstrated real statesmanship. Instead of tailoring his rhetoric to meet the political needs of the moment, he spoke from unshakeable moral conviction, and even the jaded denizens of Congress recognized the genuine article when they saw it. Mr. Netanyahu was unfailingly gracious to Mr. Obama, the man who has often insulted and tried to humiliate Mr. Netanyahu. He demonstrated, naturally and with grace, the kind of strength, conviction, moral fiber and class that Mr. Obama so often lacks. Mr. Obama fails in foreign affairs because he reflexively sympathizes with our enemies and disparages our friends. In this and in much more, he does not truly represent the interests of the United States. The same certainly cannot be said about Mr. Netanyahu. Israel is the better for it; America is not.

Perhaps the best way to sum up the reality of the Middle East, a reality that Mr. Obama refuses to acknowledge, or is perhaps unable to recognize is to understand that if Israel’s many enemies gave up their genocidal hopes and lay down their weapons, there would be peace. If Israel lay down her weapons, there would be genocide.

In pursuing such a stubborn, arrogant, petulant posture toward our vital regional ally, the only established democracy in the region, a people and nation to whom civilization owes a great debt, Mr. Obama actually makes war far more likely. Weakness never establishes peace, and the enemies of Israel and America have surely seen little but weakness from Mr. Obama. Understanding this, and experiencing Mr. Obama’s most recent teleprompter readings, what Israeli can now reasonably believe that Israel can rely upon America under Mr. Obama?

Mr. Netanyahu said it best: “Israel is not what’s wrong about the Middle East; Israel is what’s right about the Middle East.” That it is virtually impossible to imagine Mr. Obama speaking such a simple truth speaks volumes. Mr. Netanyahu is truly a leader and a statesman. The President of the United States, to our disappointment and peril, is not.

Posted by MikeM at 09:44 PM | Comments (2)

Fonda Suggests He's Teaching His Grandkids to Snipe Obama

The man who became a legend for playing a counter-culture biker nicknamed "Captain America" might be getting a visit from the Secret Service for comments made in France some may interpret as an assassination threat:

Peter Fonda, the star of Easy Rider, suggested to Mandrake that he was encouraging his grandchildren to shoot President Barack Obama.

"I'm training my grandchildren to use long-range rifles," said the actor, 71. "For what purpose? Well, I'm not going to say the words 'Barack Obama', but …"

He added, enigmatically: "It's more of a thought process than an actuality, but we are heading for a major conflict between the haves and the have nots. I came here many years ago with a biker movie and we stopped a war. Now, it's about starting the world."

I hope the irony isn't lost on the political left. The actor who helped personify their 1960s counter-cultural movement has now rebelled against it's failures to the point he is encouraging taking up arms against it.

Sadly, there is some merit to Fonda's observation that Obama and his Marxist-Socialist allies are running the Cloward-Piven strategy to perfection. Obama's wrecking of the economy is intentional, as are his machinations to dramatically increase energy prices and roil ties with our traditional allies.

The intent is to isolate America, and make it impossible for Americans to survive without capitalism being overthrown for the Marxist-Socialism fantasy Obama has been mentored to favor his entire useless life.

Fonda should not have mentioned assassinating Obama. That was stupid. Training his grandchildren in the use of arms, however, is a very prudent decision considering the path we are being forced down by would-be authoritarians.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:27 PM | Comments (1)

May 23, 2011

BREAKING NEWS: Squishy Massachusetts RINO Acts Like Squishy Massachusetts RINO

I'm sorry if I don't get bent out of shape to hear that Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts is going to side with the Democrats and vote against the Ryan Plan.

Why can't I go along with the Ryan Medicare plan?

First, I fear that as health inflation rises, the cost of private plans will outgrow the government premium support— and the elderly will be forced to pay ever higher deductibles and co-pays. Protecting those who have been counting on the current system their entire adult lives should be the key principle of reform.

Second, Medicare has already taken significant cuts to help pay for Obama's health care plan. The president and Congress cut a half trillion dollars to the private side of Medicare — meaning seniors are at risk of losing their Medicare Advantage coverage.

Another key principle is that seniors should not have to bear a disproportionate burden. But that doesn’t mean we do nothing. If Medicare is to survive for current beneficiaries and future generations, we must act. The sooner Congress addresses this, the less painful it is likely to be — but more difficult adjustments will be required if we delay.

We should start by making improvements to the traditional Medicare plan.

Of course, like most politicians, Brown doesn't actually suggest any meaningful improvements to the "traditional Medicare plan," because that would mean addressing the fiscal issues, which would lead back to the Ryan plan being the most viable option anyone has offered to date.

Brown does the "traditional politicians plan" instead, and kicks the can down the road so that he doesn't have to deal with it today. This of course insures that when it finally must be addressed in a few short years that the trauma to society will be far more drastic.

The House and Senate game of "kick the can" is little different than someone with cancer refusing to acknowledge they need treatment. It is going to be unpleasant no matter how you choose to deal with it, but the consequences of waiting makes the prognosis ever more dire, and limits treatment options to dangerous and high risk-methods.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2011

Travel Site to Ideological Lapdogs: Get Bent

Felon-funded Media Matters has been trying to undermine Fox News, and launched a campaign against the network's advertisers. One of those targeted advertisers, the travel site Orbitz, said they aren't going to be drawn in to that nakedly partisan game.

The effort by liberal media watchdog group Media Matters to convince half a dozen leading national advertisers to pull their dollars from the Fox News Channel got a high-profile snub Thursday when Orbitz, the travel company, not only declined to participate, but fired back at Media Matters, calling the "Drop Fox" campaign a "smear effort."

...

But Orbitz shot back, describing Media Matters as “\"a political organization that has been funded pretty extensively to go after one network, and we aren't going to engage in that fight," Orbitz spokesman Brian Hoyt told The Hollywood Reporter.

Eric Boehlert and the rest of Podesta's team of angry misfits are paid extremely generously to do one thing, and that is attack conservatives. They are nakedly biased with the clearest of one-sided agendas, and it is good to see that there are companies out there who won't be bullied by their partisan attempts to stifle dissenting voices.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:29 PM | Comments (1)

May 19, 2011

Tales From The Republican Foot-Shooting Race

The Republican campaign for 2012 is going great guns--if you’re a Democrat. Once again, prominent Republicans seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of possible victory by not merely shooting themselves in the foot, but by emptying multiple magazines into their own feet. Yes, it’s early, but let’s have a brief review of the most recent Bizarro-World Republican behaviors.

The I Hate It/I Love It Candidate: Mitt Romney recently addressed long-standing conservative concerns (here) about RomneyCare by absolutely praising and standing by RomneyCare! Not only is RomneyCare a clone of ObamaCare which is performing more or less exactly as ObamaCare will certainly perform (not delivering on its promises, not improving things, and costing huge amounts of supposedly unforeseen money), but it makes Romney seem like the dictionary definition of hypocrite when he swears that he’ll repeal ObamaCare while praising its smaller brother. Despite his demonstrated ability to raise loads of money, he is not endearing himself to the conservative base.

The "Republicans Are Every Bit as Bad as Democrats" Candidate: For an educated man who served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich makes almost unbelievable mistakes (here). Only a few days after declaring his candidacy, Gingrich blew himself and his candidacy up by violating Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment never to speak ill of fellow Republicans. Gingrich claimed that there is such a thing as “right wing social engineering” in the same way that such policies exist on the left. He also said that he supported a “variation” of the ObamaCare Individual mandate, and attacked Paul Ryan’s economic proposal as it relates to Medicare.

Let’s count the ways that Mr. Gingrich stepped on his tongue. Paul Ryan is arguably the only member of Congress who has proposed a comprehensive, serious, well thought out proposal that can actually stave off and improve our looming national economic disaster. Ryan is one man that every rational Republican will want to have on his side in the 2012 campaign. Ryan responded: “with allies like that, who needs the left?” “Right wing social engineering?” Restoring fiscal sanity, adherence to the Constitution and the law and reducing the size of government constitute right wing social engineering? Conservatives don’t think that way; leftists do. Gingrich supports a “variation” of the individual mandate, the single most egregiously unconstitutional and destructive part of ObamaCare, the part without which the entire Rube Goldberg contraption collapses? Mr. Gingrich has apologized to Rep. Ryan, and he and his publicity staff have been feverishly backpedaling in recent days, but the conservative base does not seem in the least impressed. Thanks for the shortest presidential campaign in American history, Mr. Gingrich, and thanks for writing highly effective Democrat campaign commercials for the Dems. As a historian, I’m sure you can appreciate the inherent irony.

The Smart Diplomacy Candidate: Jon Huntsman, former Utah Governor and current Ambassador to China is making considerable noise about running for president. Some conservative and many pseudo-conservative figures have been saying that when the public starts hearing from Huntsman directly, they’ll be very impressed. He recently announced that he firmly believes in global warming because “90% of scientists” believe in it (here). It is that kind of comment that makes one wonder if Huntsman can actually read, and if so, whether he actually reads. Not only is that statistic ludicrously incorrect, all of the best evidence since the inception of Climategate indicates clearly that the Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Chaos house of cards has almost entirely collapsed because it is one of the largest and most costly frauds every perpetrated. Huntsman did allow, however, that he now believes that Cap and Trade (Tax) is no longer viable. This means, of course, that at one time, apparently recently, he thought that one of the most egregiously stupid and economically destructive leftist power grabs in history was a good idea! And this is a Republican candidate? Has he no idea of mainstream conservative thinking on this issue?

At this stage, one is tempted to wonder which party’s nomination these guys are seeking. Again, it’s early, but it’s a shame--and a potential tragedy--that prominent, ostensibly Republican figures, are behaving and sounding anything but Republican. It would be ironic and bizarre indeed if Conservatives had to hold their collective noses to vote for the eventual Republican nominee running against, of all people, Barack Obama. It is not outside the realm of possibility that a significant number of conservatives might simply stay home rather than vote for anyone who is so obviously far afield of genuinely Conservative values and principles.

Agreement with Mr. Obama is not, under the present state of American decline and danger, a sign of bipartisan cooperation, but a glaringly obvious indicator of a lack of understanding of the nature of Democrats and of the dangers we face. The Democrats care nothing for the Constitution and will do anything necessary to win. Republicans must not abandon fealty to the Constitution, but adopting Obamian policies as their own is a sure path to electoral defeat and national disaster. We can do better. We must do better.


Posted by MikeM at 10:06 PM | Comments (4)

Cornell West No Longer Digging "Hope and Change"

The former cheerleader for Barack Obama now considers the President a "black mascot" and "black puppet."

Cornel West, a Princeton University professor and leading black intellectual, is harshly criticizing President Obama, a candidate he once supported but now calls "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats."

Don't start getting a warm and fuzzy feeling about Professor West, however. His biggest problem with Obama isn't that he's a egotistical radical destroying the nation, it is that he's an egotistical radical that isn't destroying the nation to benefit blacks. And that the President is a racist.

"I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men," West said. "It's understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white…When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening."

I can hardly wait to see how Eric Boehlert and the drones at Media Matters are going to address this. Their default complaint against any criticism of the President is always that the criticism is always caused by racism.

Now that a prominent black liberal academic is effectively making the argument that Obama himself is too white and can't relate to black Americans because he was never part of their shared cultural experience, how can the race-baiters respond?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:35 AM | Comments (6)

May 18, 2011

Newt Gingrich Nukes His Campaign

The most politically-connected candidate from either party is trying to claim outsider status.

He is first-class academic and a very bright guy, but Gingrich is also ideologically unreliable and morally bankrupt. Luckily he's chosen to remind everyone of his ego and many foibles, including those that don't remember his last stint in power.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)

Good News! The False Profit False Prophet Still Believes in Us

The man some already regard as the worst President in America just part of the way through his term reveals that he still has faith in us, and gives us his blessing.

I'm sure it makes your day to know that.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)

May 14, 2011

Rhetorical Drilling For Votes

At Yahoo News (here) we learn:

“Amid growing public unhappiness over gas prices, President Barack Obama is directing his administration to ramp up U.S. oil production by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coast and holding more frequent lease sales in a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska. But the moves won't calm spiraling prices at the pump any time soon.”

Isn’t that wonderful? Mr. Obama has finally seen the light and is actually taking steps that might actually reduce energy prices for Americans! Hold on there buckaroos. What is far more likely is that he is feeling the heat and is taking rhetorical steps only. There is immediate and long term evidence that supports this contention. From the good folks at Hot Air (here), we discover a bit more clarity:

“His announcement followed passage in the Republican-controlled House of three bills--including two this week--that would expand and speed up offshore oil and gas drilling...The White House had announced its opposition to all three bills, which are unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, saying the measures would undercut safety reviews and open environmentally sensitive areas to new drilling...But Obama is adopting some of the bills’ provisions.”

The immediate reality of what looks like a real concession to reality, common sense and lower gas prices is that Mr. Obama is talking about nothing more than approving extension for existing leases, and will--possibly--finally allow a lease sale for oil production in the Gulf of Mexico that was supposed to take place last year. This is nothing more than a piecemeal, tiny step toward eventually getting back up to past production levels, not opening additional, new avenues of production.

There is every reason to believe that this is nothing more than a cynical attempt at conning the American public with slippery rhetoric. For what he seems to give with his right hand, he takes away with his left:

“Obama on Saturday also reiterated his call on Democrats and Republicans to vote to eliminate $4.4 billion in taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies. Industry advocates, including most Republicans in Congress, have argued that doing away with the tax breaks will raise companies' cost of doing business, crimp their investment in exploration and production and lead to higher gas prices.”

Let’s not forget that what Mr. Obama has said is that he is “directing his administration,” to do something. He did not specify how or when. This is not a niggling concern. Mr. Obama has established a pattern of saying a very great deal but doing very little. He is likely making this statement for its potential political effect while simultaneously winking at those in his administration who will have to carry it out. Six months from now, I suspect that we’ll see virtually no movement toward actually authorizing oil production. Mr. Obama’s multitude of bureaucrats will see to that.

Remember too Mr. Obama’s--and the Democrat’s--frequent claims that drilling for oil is futile because it would take years for it to yield any benefits at the gas pumps. Of course, had they not taken that approach in 2008, we might very well be experiencing much lower costs at the gas pumps today. Two years will pass very quickly and we will have no less need of affordable energy in two years than we do now. Consider too that Democrat claims of years and years before benefits are manifested are almost certainly false; it would almost certainly take substantially less time than they claim.

And even if Obamian czars and their functionaries began issuing new leases and permits today, leases and permits that would open up the new, vast fields about which we know, in good faith and with great speed and efficiency, Mr. Obama knows that a multitude of environmental groups--including James Hansen of NASA--will tie up any increased production in red tape and lawsuits far into the future. Mr. Obama won’t even have to wink at them. They’ll do it anyway, and as long as Democrats control the Senate, any attempt to interfere with harassing and frivolous environmentalist lawsuits will be dead on arrival.

As with virtually everything Mr. Obama has said and done, rhetoric read from his teleprompter is cheap and easy. Actually doing anything positive for the American people, anything that won’t bankrupt the nation, anything that would actually benefit America and Americans, is quite another story. We have a president who claims to be all about jobs, yet one might be tempted to think that virtually everything he does is calculated to destroy jobs in the American oil and gas industries. Brazil, that’s another story...

Posted by MikeM at 06:03 PM | Comments (2)

May 12, 2011

The Horror Of Public Sector Unemployment?

Mr. Obama appeared at a CBS News-sponsored “town hall” at the Newseum in Washington DC on May 12 (CBS story here). Unsurprisingly, jobs was a major focus of the event as Mr. Obama is continuing his fiction of being all about jobs during a “jobless recovery” for which he is directly responsible. Mr. Obama said:

"The reason the unemployment rate is still as high as it is, in part, is because there have been huge layoffs of government workers at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level...Teachers, police officers, firefighters, social workers-- they have really taken it in the chin over the last several months. And so, what we're trying to do is to see if we can stabilize the budget."

I have long marveled at Mr. Obama, according to his sycophants and the media (is there any difference?), the most intelligent man to ever occupy the Oval Office. Yet there exists virtually no tangible evidence or accomplishment to support that contention. He graduated from Harvard Law School and was President of the Harvard Law Review, yet wrote not a single scholarly legal article. He is the supposed author of two (?!) autobiographies before reaching the age of 50, yet there is compelling evidence that he didn’t write either. He served in the Illinois and U.S. Senates, yet there is no record of any significant legislative accomplishment. His grades and other college records have apparently been sealed in a vault in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings or shot into space.

What I suppose I’m saying is I don’t get it. Any other person renowned for intellect can invariably point to a long line of educational and work accomplishments, mileposts on the road to the attainment of a high level of acumen and experience. For such people, there are legions of friends and colleagues spanning decades who can produce concrete examples of their brilliance and accomplishment. Yet Barack Obama, the President of the United States remains an intellectual cypher, his intellect apparent only to his supporters and the Lamestream media (again, I repeat myself), apparently for his ability to read a teleprompter with some small degree of alacrity.

What I find particularly amazing is not only his tendency to spout glaring gaffes, but his propensity to regularly spout blatant lies, lies so obviously false to the reasonably well informed, and so easily disproved, as to make one wonder if he really did lie so openly and unashamedly. Among Mr. Obama’s more famous gaffes (go here for more):

(1) His campaign contention that “I’ve been in 57 states--I think one left to go.”

(2) His Freudian slip: “You’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith.”

(3) His comment about a Navy corpse-man.

(4) His apparently belief in the non-existent “Austrian” language.

(5) “The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.”

(6) “Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s...”

(7) “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes--and I see many of them in the audience here today...”

(8) “In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died...” (12 actually died).

(9) “The reforms we seek would bring greater competition choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system.”

(10) His recent suggestion that Texas has always been Republican. This would have been a substantial surprise to LBJ, Ann Richards and many other Democrat Texas leaders.

It is, however, his lies that are most disturbing. The most recent example is his quote about the “ huge layoffs of government workers at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level.” As Jim Geraghty of National Review Online (here) notes, this is an amazing, not even remotely correct, absolute lie. The facts are simple and easy to find: We are eight million jobs below the most recent peak private sector employment level, and not only has federal, state and local public sector employment not declined, it has actually increased. So Mr. Obama is not slightly wrong, he’s not merely mistaken, he has not misread or misquoted, he has propounded a bald-faced lie.

Is Mr. Obama so used to saying anything that he finds convenient on any occasion, secure in the knowledge that the press will never call him on it (about how many of the gaffes were you aware?) that he takes no pains to be accurate? In other words, is he simply careless? Is he knowingly and cynically lying in the sure knowledge that the press will not only fail to expose his mendacity but will surely cover for it if necessary? Does he hold the public in such low regard that he believes he can say anything he wants because they’ll believe it? Or is he so narcissistic, so delusional that he actually feels that anything he says is true simply because he says it? Which option would be more disturbing and more destructive to America?

One final suggestion: Mr. Obama actually believes what he said. He actually believes that despite his successful, Herculean efforts to dramatically expand the roster of government employees, their numbers have been, instead, dramatically declining. If so, this speaks to a delusional mind, a mind disengaged from economic reality, a mind unable to understand the basics of economics. It speaks of a man who is utterly incapable, intellectually or philosophically, to do anything other than to spend us into oblivion.

Should we expect less--or more--from a man who sees leading from behind as a virtue? To honorable Americans, lying is a sign of weak, defective character. To Mr. Obama and the press, it would seem to be a personal and political necessity. More’s the pity for us all.

Posted by MikeM at 11:02 PM | Comments (8)

Americans Idled

The Obama Administration is continuing its "harsh reality show" known as the US economy, and the President himself has stepped off the golf course and campaign trail long enough to float the absurd claim that layoffs of government workers is to blame for unemployment.

Jim Geraghty calls him on his lie:

CBS' Mark Knoller, covering a town hall on the economy with the president this morning, reports: "President Obama blames high unemployment rate on 'huge layoffs of government workers' at federal, state and local levels."

This is completely wrong. Extremely and mind-bogglingly wrong. Epically wrong.

Hit the link for the details, which confirms the private sector is shedding jobs under Obama, while the government employment is actually growing at every level.

Every word a lie. Including "and" and "the."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2011

Typical White Person: President's Cousin Rips Obamacare

But what does he know. He's only a doctor.

It’s not often that a president's most vocal critic comes from his own family, but I believe the inviolable oath I took to my patients demands that I oppose ObamaCare.

Today, ObamaCare is on the ropes—in the courts, and in terms of public opinion. While the Supreme Court denied Virginia's petition to hear its ObamaCare lawsuit on an expedited basis earlier this month, this case will soon be heard by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a more high-profile case, Judge Roger Vinson ruled the individual mandate unconstitutional. This lawsuit, which was filed by more than half the states in the union and led by Florida, will be heard in the U.S. appeals court in Atlanta in June. And in poll after poll, it has become clear that more than one year after ObamaCare's passage, the American people strongly reject it. The fundamental flaw at the core of ObamaCare is the mistaken belief that the government can spend your dollars more effectively than you can. This tragically pessimistic belief views all Americans with suspicion as either incompetent or unrighteous but either way in need of big-government control.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 AM | Comments (3)

May 02, 2011

The Shame of Success

Osama Bin Laden is dead. While there has been some celebration, the rejoicing has been somewhat muted, tinged with the sad realization that more than 3000 Americans at Ground Zero and thousands more thereafter have been lost to us, lost forever. Yes, we’re glad that justice has been done, but Bin Laden’s death seems to have, if anything, less importance than it once might have had. It may be nothing more than another milepost passed on a very long road, a road whose eventual end we can barely imagine.

Let us give credit where credit is due, primarily to the CIA and Navy SEAL assets who did the work, one imagines, with great and well-deserved satisfaction. Credit for President Obama? Certainly, but it must be tempered with the knowledge of the reality that with very few exceptions, his policies, ideals and beliefs have hampered rather than helped our war to preserve civilization.

When one considers what is good for America, Mr. Obama is all too often standing on the opposite side. Yes, he has continued, even stepped up drone attacks on terrorists, but that, like the killing of Bin Laden, is virtually inescapable. It is a politically inexpensive way to appear to be doing something to combat terror while simultaneously pandering to a very anti-American, anti-war base. Could any president, handed the opportunity to get Bin Laden as Mr. Obama was, refuse? Certainly not--there would be no way to keep it under wraps--and Mr. Obama did not. This is the absolute minimum that any president could and should do, not a heroic, steadfast effort pursued with indomitable courage and a belief in American exceptionalism.

Consider that Bin Ladin’s remains are said, by a “senior administration official” to have been handled “in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition.” Even as our military kills one of America’s worst and most dedicated enemies, we must absolutely observe the lunatic political correctness that has marked Mr. Obama’s approach to fighting the war for the future of civilization and his reflexive support for and deference toward all things Islamic.

So greatly has Mr. Obama lowered our expectations that he routinely garners praise for doing even less than the minimum any sane, rational POTUS should do. As senator and candidate, he vehemently opposed the policies and actions that have protected America, and as president, he only grudgingly accepted many of them because to do otherwise would have been immediate political suicide. He had to do it, but he certainly didn’t have to like it. Remember that only a few short weeks ago, a petulant, angry Obama--and his AG Holder-- lectured Americans on their lack of nuance and wisdom for opposing civilian show trials in New York City for terrorist masterminds captured on the battlefield, many of whom are minions of the now deceased Bin Laden. Imagine the circus if Bin Ladin had been captured alive. Is there any doubt that Mr. Obama--the president who demands that terrorists captured on the battlefield be given Miranda warnings-- would argue the fierce moral urgency of a NYC civilian show trial?

Yet now Mr. Obama seeks to put on the mantle of the hardened terror warrior. He may benefit from some PR bounce, but it is unlikely to be lasting, for Mr. Obama does not believe in America, nor does he represent American interests, for he finds America perpetually at fault. More and more Americans are coming to understand this. They understand that he believes in and represents only himself, and that, more than anything else, is why he fails so miserably, particularly in foreign affairs. The President of the United States is a formidable, even terrible, symbol of the collective will and moral force of the greatest, most charitable, most powerful nation ever to exist. Barack Obama is an unaccomplished, inexperienced fast talker, a teleprompter reader, a Chicago machine politician, a man no nation need respect or fear.

Without doubt, our enemies fear our military might, but their calculations are more complex and realistic. A military, no matter how effective, is effective only if it is properly used by a President who is willing and able to tell the difference between our friends and enemies. To date, Mr. Obama has shown little but ambivalence. A President who will not swiftly and surely destroy those who would gleefully destroy us all only encourages and strengthens them, for they care nothing for nuance or outreach, and they care even less for the politically correct gestures of infidels.

Allow Mr. Obama to bask in the spotlight of the resolute warrior--a sensation completely new and foreign to him--for the moment, but remember his record on these matters, a record that does not do him, or the nation, credit. Remember above all that if he had his way, if his unswerving opposition to the polices of Mr. Bush prevailed, if inescapable political reality did not force him to at least partially abandon his true principles, this day would almost certainly never have arrived. In a very real sense, whatever success he can claim was achieved not because of his beliefs and polices, but in spite of them. That is the lingering shame, and danger, facing America.

Posted by MikeM at 06:21 PM | Comments (1)

April 29, 2011

Obama: Lost In Thoughtlessness

Among the most fundamental differences between Progressives and Conservatives is the tendency of Progressives to be distinctly uncomfortable with everyday reliable principles, values and obviously common-sense solutions. So “war” becomes a “kinetic military action.” The Second Amendment means precisely the opposite of what it says. Terrorists captured on the battlefield should be given show trials in New York City rather than far less expensive, secure justice at Gitmo. An out of control budget deficit can only be fixed by even more borrowing and spending, and economic hardship brought on by rapidly rising gas prices can best be healed by proper tire inflation, high speed rail, and buying Chevy Volts at $41,000+.

Before continuing, it’s important to understand that when I use the term “Conservative,” I’m referring to every day Americans, people who have to live and work in the real world, where honesty, industry, reliability and day to day performance matter. They tend to care a great deal less for paper credentials than for demonstrated ability. They know stupid and they know smart. They know what works and what doesn’t, and they don’t have much patience with people who don’t, particularly when such people are pretending to be smarter than they are. So in effect, I’m including conservatives, probably most independents, and even some Democrats under the “Conservative” umbrella.

Perhaps the most inexplicable manifestation of this tendency is the need of Progressives to call weakness and indecision a sort of calm strength and reflection, or to call a complete and obvious lack of accomplishment and practical intelligence signs of unimaginable ability and prodigious intellectual depth. A case in point is a recent April 26 Washington Post article by Dana Milbank, titled “Obama, Lost in Thought.

Mr. Milbank begins, of course, with a gratuitous swipe at George W. Bush, bewailing his lot at now having to cover such a brilliant, enigmatic man as Barack Obama, compared to the ease of covering the simpleton Bush. It’s tempting to suspect that Milbank is engaging in parody. Surely he must be making fun of stereotypically befuddled Progressive thinking, but alas, too many of the common markers of that thinking are present. Milbank is serious:

“The political right is befuddled as it tries to explain him: First, Obama was a tyrant and a socialist; now he’s a weakling who refuses to lead. The political left is almost as confused, demanding to know why Obama gave away so much on health care and in budget negotiations. Nearly everybody puzzles over Obama’s ad hoc responses to Egypt, Libya and now Syria, grasping for a still-elusive Obama Doctrine.”

For the conservative, there is little head scratching. Socialism is a form of tyranny and it’s entirely possible for socialists to be weaklings and poor leaders. Communism has proved that over the bodies of untold millions. In truth, Mr. Obama has given away relatively little in health care and budget negotiations, but what he has given away is due to a complete lack of consistent principles and forethought. No Conservative is puzzling over his lack of leadership regarding Egypt, Libya and Syria, and no conservative is looking for a “still-elusive Obama Doctrine.” Conservatives know that Mr. Obama has no real principles, is not representing America’s interests, is an inexperienced weakling, and in fact has recently developed the brilliant mantra of “leading from behind” in foreign affairs. Mr Obama and his advisors apparently think that to be a brilliant strategy. Conservatives know it to be the very opposite of leadership.

To help the unenlightened (Conservatives) understand Mr. Obama, Mr. Milbank enlisted the aid of “three leading academics in the fields of psychology and behavior.” With their help, Mr. Milbank has explained it all for us: “There’s too much going on in the poor guy’s head.”

“What distinguishes Obama particularly is the depth and carefulness of his thinking, which renders him somewhat unfit for politics,” said Jonathan Haidt, a professor of social psychology at the University of Virginia. “He is a brilliant social and political analyst, which makes it harder for him to play hardball or to bluff.”

Obama’s strengths and weaknesses come from his high degree of “integrative complexity” — his ability to keep multiple variables and trade-offs in mind simultaneously. The integratively simple thinker — say, George W. Bush — has one universal organizing principle that dominates all others, while the integratively complex thinker — Obama — balances many competing goals.

“Philip Tetlock, a professor of psychology with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, found that politicians on the center-left (where Obama dwells) tend to have the highest degree of integrative complexity...”

From this, Mr. Milbank extrapolates that Mr. Obama “would seem to be the very model of the complex thinker.” Mr. Milbank allows that simple thinkers, like Winston Churchill, have their occasional uses. His summation continues the theme:

“In an ideal world, complex and rational thought would be virtues. But in politics, these attributes can make Obama seem ambiguous, without toughness or principles. ‘It isn’t because he lacks a moral compass — it’s because he understands there are a lot of moral forces at play,’ U-Va.’s Haidt says. ‘This is why people get frustrated with him. The more of a partisan you are, the more simple-minded you are.’

What’s a complex guy to do? Simple. ‘It is important,’ Haidt says, “’for the president not to be rational and fully honest.’”

Ah! So that’s the problem! Mr. Obama has been too rational and “fully honest!” If only he would be more irrational and dishonest to the simple thinkers out there in flyover country, he wouldn’t so confuse them. Perhaps if we apply a bit of every day, Conservative analysis to the “problem” of Mr. Obama’s abilities and intellect, a better understanding can emerge.

Conservatives tend to judge people’s character, ability and intelligence on tangible, rather than supposed or assumed, accomplishments, past and present. Let’s begin with Mr. Obama’s term as President of the Harvard Law Review. This is a prestigious post indeed. Many Presidents of the Law Review have gone on to distinguished legal careers, but all have had one thing in common: A real record of legal scholarship and writing. There is substantial evidence that Mr. Obama was chosen for his status as a minority under an alternate procedure for filling the post, the more usual procedure considering only candidates of the highest academic rank and ability. But there is no doubt about one thing: Barack Obama produced not a single scholarly legal article for the the Harvard Law Review. This is most unusual--every other known Law Review President has contributed significant publications--and certainly does not indicate any degree of intelligence or ability as a writer, scholar or thinker.

Mr. Obama’s tenure teaching law at the University of Chicago is equally unrevealing of intellect and ability. Mr. Obama and his supporters have been less than precise in describing his time there, alluding to various formulations that would lead people to believe that he was a “constitutional law professor.” However, respected scholar Richard Epstein says otherwise:

“Obama applied for a position as an adjunct and wasn’t even considered. A few weeks later the law school got a phone call from the Board of Trustees telling them to find him an office, put him on the payroll, and give him a class to teach. The Board told him he didn’t have to be a member of the faculty, but they needed to give him a temporary position. He was never a professor and was hardly an adjunct.”

In academia, teaching rank is important and is taken seriously indeed. Unless one is a full professor, one does not, for a moment, claim that they are or allow anyone to believe that they are. Adjunct faculty are teachers who are hired, on a contractual per-class basis, to teach a limited number of classes. They may be fine teachers, but they have no benefits, little pay, no tenure and no tenure track. They commonly aren’t afforded so much as an office. So it appears clear that the “constitutional law professor, wasn’t actually a fully-fledged adjunct. Again, intellect, responsibility and ability are not present.

But what about Mr. Obama’s years as a “community organizer,” a vocation--if it can be called that--that has no apparent job description or qualifications. Legend has it that Mr. Obama selflessly labored for the good of the people of Chicago who were apparently in need of “organization.” There is no known record of actual accomplishment during those years, but there is one very interesting, and carefully concealed, matter: Mr. Obama’s only executive experience, his tenure as the Chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Stanley Kurtz has been instrumental in exposing this issue. Hired by unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, with whom he worked closely despite his statements to the contrary, Mr. Obama led the CAC from 1995 to 1999 and remained on the board until 2001, shortly before it became defunct. Funded by the Annenberg Foundation, Mr. Obama was responsible for the finances of the CAC, whose declared purpose was to improve education in Chicago. During his tenure, Mr. Obama burned through $100 million dollars, handing it out in grants to other community organizers and radical education activists, and accomplished exactly nothing. Annenberg Foundation internal audits revealed not the slightest evidence of improvement in Chicago education for all of Mr. Obama’s efforts.

All of this has been studiously ignored by the mainstream media, and by Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign--and his administration since--despite persistent questions about his lack of executive experience and accomplishment. Considering the amount of money wasted and the utter lack of accomplishment, that’s hardly surprising. No conservative would consider such utter failure to be anything other than utter failure, and surely would not consider it to be revealing of “integratively complex thinking.”

Mr. Obama’s eight years in the Illinois State Senate where he repeatedly voted “present” in an apparent attempt to leave no political fingerprints, and his very brief term in the US Senate (which time he nearly entirely spent running for president), are commonly known for their utter lack of real legislative accomplishment. His 20 years as a parishioner in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church, a church steeped in black liberation theology and all of its trappings of Marxism, racism, paranoid conspiracy theories and outright hatred do not speak to intelligence or integrity, particularly when Mr. Obama admitted to attending hundreds of services, yet claimed to know nothing of Rev. Wright’s true beliefs.

Mr. Obama’s teleprompter readings have become the stuff of legend among the media and progressives, yet without his teleprompter, without a script to read, Mr. Obama is commonly halting and tongue-tied, and particularly mistake prone, as when he claimed to have visited 57 states, or more recently claimed that Texas has always been Republican controlled. Mr. Obama’s liberties with history are the stuff of legend, and again, tend not to convince Conservatives that he is, as he has been breathlessly billed, the most intelligent man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

As the inevitable burdens of the office have manifested themselves, Mr. Obama has proved unequal to the task. In foreign affairs, he insults America’s friends and embraces her enemies. He cannot bring himself to name our enemy in a war over the future of civilization, and while claiming to be Christian--a claim that Conservatives--and most Americans--tend to take at face value--his actions show a highly unusual and unconcealed support for all things Islamic. Take, for example, his complete snubbing of Easter in 2011. Take also his meddling in the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and Israel where even Mr. Abbas has admitted that Mr. Obama’s intervention has been destructive to, rather than supportive of, peace. His statements and actions in the most recent Middle Eastern/African upheavals have been not only directly contradictory, but fundamentally incoherent.

It is on the domestic front that the fundamental difference in the Progressive and Conservative approaches to problem solving and significant issues are most clearly seen and most keenly felt. Gasoline prices--and everything related to them--are skyrocketing, as candidate Obama hoped, and Mr. Obama’s response has been to blame George W. Bush, Republicans, to wage class warfare, and to relentlessly push “green” technologies that don’t exist and/or cannot possibly replace oil. Despite sitting on the largest energy reserves in the world, Mr. Obama chooses to repeat the lie that we have only a fraction of the reserves, and his bureaucrats are constantly frustrating exploration and development of those reserves while helping Brazil produce oil--so American can buy it from them--and loaning billions to Columbia to upgrade a petroleum refinery while no American refinery has been built since the 1980s.

While America faces an unprecedented budget crisis, a crisis in large part brought on by Mr. Obama’s incredibly profligate spending, he implements a health care entitlement that was unsustainable before he signed it, and wants only to implement even greater taxes, more borrowing and more spending.

So we are left with a fundamental conflict. Progressives see all that I have outlined here--and far more--and see a man possessed of great intellect, a careful, deliberative thinker whose intellectual processes are so advanced, so unfathomably complex that he cannot be adequately understood and appreciated by lesser beings. His entire lack of conventional accomplishments, the fact that the common, routine records of so much of his past, records that can be easily found for anyone else, are essentially invisible and impossible to find or access is, for the Progressive, compelling evidence of Mr. Obama’s unique, extra-human status.

Conservatives, as Progressives commonly assert, are much more simple, less nuanced beings. They look at Mr. Obama’s lack of accomplishment, his almost non-existent grasp of the facts and lessons of history, his dithering, his pouring of gasoline on our national financial fire, and his utter failure in foreign affairs as clear evidence of inability, a lack of experience, an inability--indeed an unwillingness--to learn from experience, and simplistically foolish rather than complex thinking.

“It is important,” Haidt says, “for the president not to be rational and fully honest.” Few conservatives would argue with the proposition that Mr. Obama has taken Professor Haidt’s advice. Even so, Progressives will still tend to be uncomfortable with reality and rational solutions to problems. If they win in 2012, and one of the visions I’ve presented will win, Americans will almost certainly be introduced to discomfort few can truly imagine. One need not be an “integratively complex thinker” to understand that simple truth.

Posted by MikeM at 09:57 PM | Comments (1)

Think Progress: Those Hicks Deserved to Die

Despite the "COEXIST" bumper stickers on their cars, Obama's water-carriers at Think Progress are awfully eliminationist when it comes to their fellow man.

Storms Kill Over 250 Americans In States Represented By Climate Pollution Deniers

Today, news agencies are still tallying reports of deaths from the most devastating storm system in the United States in decades:

Dozens of massive tornadoes tore a town-flattening streak across the South, killing at least 250 people in six states and forcing rescuers to carry some survivors out on makeshift stretchers of splintered debris. Two of Alabama's major cities were among the places devastated by the deadliest twister outbreak in nearly 40 years.


"Given that global warming is unequivocal," climate scientist Kevin Trenberth cautioned the American Meteorological Society in January of this year, "the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of 'of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.'"

The congressional delegations of these states — Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky — overwhelmingly voted to reject the science that polluting the climate is dangerous. They are deliberately ignoring the warnings from scientists.

An interesting perspective, isn't it? According to Think Progress, hundreds of Americans deserved to die because the majority of voters in their congressional districts elected what Think Progress supposes are the wrong representatives.

The thousands of quake fatalities in Japan and the hundreds of thousands of dead from the Boxing Day tsunami of several years ago are also obviously the fault of these rubes from Tuscaloosa according to Think Progress' logic.

They still haven't come up with an explanation for Detroit, but they're working on it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:19 AM | Comments (3)

April 27, 2011

Obama's Long-Form Birth Certificate

It's a trap!

Update: I adjusted the title because as William Jacobson points out, this looks like it may be an original of Obama's short-form birth certificate, not a long-form certificate.

And no, I don't know the difference. Nor do I care.

What I do find amusing is Jacobson's observation that the media pundits and so-called news organizations that claimed Obama couldn't get his long-form birth certificate are full of crap, if this does indeed happen to be the long-form document.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:28 AM | Comments (11)

April 26, 2011

An Explosive Automotive Debut

As regular readers know, I have been writing on the Chevy Volt for some time. Site search under “Chevy Volt” if you’re interested in reading my previous scribblings. I’ve been accused of being a modern Luddite, but in truth, I have nothing at all against electric or hybrid vehicles, unless my taxes are building and subsidizing them, as is the case with General Motors. Any private corporation that wants to build such vehicles (Nissan with their Leaf, for example), to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket. That said, it is one of the missions of CY to expose foolishness and waste, particularly where government is involved. But before I continue, visit here for an explosive tale of the Volt in the real world. More on that later.

The Chevy Volt is, for those requiring a quick review, a soap opera parody of government inefficiency. It’s a brilliant, pseudo-advanced technology solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. A $41,000 dollar MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) compact car selling for as much as $65,000, the Volt will travel in the real world only about 25 miles on a single charge, after which its weak gasoline engine--which requires premium fuel--takes over, providing no better mileage than a great many conventional vehicles.

And speaking of soap opera parodies, at the 2011 New York Auto Show, the Volt was named the 2011 “World Green Car.” Beating out the Volt for 2011 “World Car Of The Year” honors was the Nissan Leaf, a truly all-electric, let the juice run out and you have a wheeled weight set, car. Apparently some 66 “jurors” make such decisions. All of this just goes to show you that, as Lilly Tomlin said, no matter how cynical you get, it’s impossible to keep up.

Chevy originally billed the vehicle as a sort of super-electric car with a 50 mile range, and claimed that the wheels would never be driven by anything as crude as the onboard gasoline engine, which would only be used to generate electrical power--though this process was never clearly explained--to somehow propel the vehicle electrically. As early Volts were allowed out for independent tests, Chevy had to admit that the Volt is really nothing more than a needlessly complex hybrid, but a hybrid costing a great deal more than other hybrids on the market. When the charge level drops too low, the gasoline engine does indeed directly drive the wheels, as it was designed to do from the very beginning. In other words, Chevy was engaging in what the common folk often refer to as “lying.” Chevy also revised its all-electric mileage figure down to 40 miles, but neglected to mention that was the high end, under-ideal-conditions only estimate.

Current owners and longer-term testers are discovering that in the real world, where drivers do blatantly extravagant things like carry passengers and cargo, use lights, air conditioning, turn signals, the radio and frivolous accessories like that, all-electric range is much closer to 25 miles. Another major problem that Chevy has glossed over is the indisputable fact that batteries, even enormous, expensive (somewhere either side of $8000) hi-tech batteries like that of the Volt, lose power and capacity in cold climates. If it’s cold enough, and substantial portions of the US are at least part of the year, batteries are rendered virtually useless. Standard car batteries are not a good comparison because they need retain only enough charge to spin a starter motor while the Volt’s battery must propel a multi-thousand pound vehicle and everyone and everything in it down the road. In the cold, all-electric range dips below 25 miles, often far below, and it is the promise of cheap electrically driven miles that provides the hopelessly optimistic combined mileage figures that Chevy and the EPA have trumpeted. Even with an all-electric range of 40 miles, the Volt is still nothing to write home about, particularly when the purchase price is considered, but more about that later too.

But this is not the only cold weather problem. Owner reports indicate that the Volt’s cabin heater is quite weak. Considering that electric heaters draw considerable current, this is hardly surprising--the Volt uses a specially developed low-current draw Bose stereo system--but again, Chevy, like the Government, tends not to trumpet its bugs unless it is calling them features.

The potentially worst part of the Volt is the battery itself. Lithium-ion batteries contain chemicals that, if allowed to combine through even a pinhole, have the distressing tendency to violently burst into flame. A quick visit to Google will provide a great many articles and entertaining videos of lithium-ion battery fires and explosions(!). In addition, to develop enough power to propel the Volt, its battery contains substantial electrical power, more than enough to seriously injure or kill unwary paramedics or mechanics who do not have the knowledge and proper safety equipment and tools to deal with a wounded Volt.

The link at the beginning of this article tells the sad story of a Volt immolating itself. In Barkhamsted, Connecticut, Storm and Dee Connors were awakened by a smoke alarm one recent morning at 0400. Firefighters put out the blaze and a firewall between the house and garage saved the Connors’ home. The insurance company and state fire marshalls believe that the Volt was responsible for the blaze. A few days later, the fire department had to return; the Volt had again caught fire, apparently in its battery.
At the moment, what’s know is that Connors had another electric vehicle, a self-converted Suzuki Samurai, in the garage with the Volt, and both were charging. Apparently the Samurai had been operated for some two years without difficulties until the arrival of the Volt. GM personnel have examined the Volt and their initial statements suggest--not surprisingly--that the Volt was not to blame, but local fire officials have yet to make a final pronouncement on the cause.

Is this absolute proof that Volts are going to regularly spontaneously combust? Certainly not, and the investigation into the cause of both fires is ongoing. However, understanding the technology of the Volt’s battery, it is entirely possible that the Volt is the cause. It’s not known if the Connors had the optional. $2000 dollar, 220V “fast” charger installed in their garage. That charger cuts the 110V wall outlet charging from 10-12 hours down to 4-6 hours. Oh, Chevy didn’t mention the cost of that charger in its promotional materials? Imagine that.

So what we have is a ridiculously expensive compact car with not-ready-for-prime-time technology, technology which may never work as it is intended, and with no identifiable market, being built by a taxpayer supported company that the government had to bail out of bankruptcy. But wait, there’s more! If you buy a Volt, the Federal government will give you a $7500 tax credit (there goes more of my money)! And the Feds are in the process of eliminating the bother of the tax credit; they’re just going to have Chevy dealers hand out the cash at the point of sale. Isn’t that nice?

So the Volt is a very expensive product in search of a market. But praise the Lord and pass the charging cable, there is a market after all! General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt has pledged that GE will buy somewhere between 12,000 and 50,000 Volts. By the way, Immelt is also one of Mr. Obama’s primary economic advisors, and GE also manufactures the charging stations that will have to crop up like crabgrass across the nation if electric vehicles are ever to be even remotely viable. And all of this marvelous technological advancement, gentle readers, is coming out of your pockets.

So call me anti-technology, call me anti-government, say I’m trying to kill children, women, the elderly, and adorable puppies and kittens, but at least admit that the Volt might not be the brightest idea an American auto company ever foisted on the public, and for many good reasons. Perhaps the best reason is the cost. Putting aside the high initial purchase price, it’s almost impossible for the Volt to make fiscal sense by means of saving gas.

For most people, the MSRP of $41,000 places the Volt well out of consideration. To better understand why the Volt is priced out of any reasonable market, let’s compare two vehicles designed with high mileage in mind, the Ford Fiesta, and of course, the Volt. A well-equipped Fiesta will retail for $20,000, and just to be as fair as possible, let’s compare it with a Volt at the MSRP of $41,000. Subtract the government subsidy of $7500, but add the cost of a fast charger at $2000, and the difference between the two vehicles is $15,500. It’s reasonable to add in the fast charger cost as very few people will be satisfied with a 12 hour recharge time, and if you can afford the Volt in the first place, an extra couple of thousand likely won’t be an issue. Also notice that I have not added in the installation costs of the charger, which could run from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

As it happens, I am the satisfied, proud owner of a Ford Fiesta (Dear Ford Motor Company: Please feel free to provide me with lifetime service and repair, free of charge. I’m in your database. Thank you.), which gets 31 MPG in everyday driving (40 highway). Please keep in mind that I was born without the math gene. I aced my college math courses on basic scholarship ability, but I do not look at equations and see the inherent beauty and wonder of the universe, so if I make any math mistakes, please, gentle readers, help me out. Just for ease of calculation, and to be as fair as possible to the Volt, let’s assume that the Fiesta will get 30 MPG. Figure that each vehicle will travel 10,000 miles in a year, and that the cost of gas will be $3.80 per gallon. Why $3.80? That’s about what it is as this is being written, and again, that’s fair to the Volt. As fuel costs rise, things do not get better for Chevy, as you’ll see.

So, 10,000 miles divided by 30 MPG equals 333 gallons of gas, times $3.80, and the fuel cost for driving that distance in a year for the Fiesta is $1265. To be ridiculously fair to the Volt, let’s assume that it’s combined electric/premium gasoline range yields the equivalent of 90 MPG, three times that of the Fiesta. So 10,000 miles divided by 90 MPG equals 111 gallons, times $3.80, and the fuel cost for the Volt is $422. Subtract $422 from $1265 and the Volt saves $843 per year in fuel compared to the the Fiesta! Pretty impressive, right? Maybe Ford had better hold off on that lifetime service and repair support.

Now let’s see how long it will take the Volt driver to break even in terms of money saved in fuel costs. Remember that the up-front cost difference between the Ford and Chevy is $15,500. Divide that by $843, and it will take 18 years(?!) to break even. Just to be ridiculously fair to the Volt, let’s assume that it gets 120 MPG, four times better mileage than the Ford. By that calculation, the Volt’s per year fuel cost is a miserly $315, a $950 per year savings, but again, that $15,500 difference is pretty stubborn, and it would still take 16 years to break even. Remember, that’s to break even, not to save a single penny on fuel. Just for fun, let’s give the Volt a combined MPG figure of 200 MPG. It would still take 14 years to break even.

Keep in mind that I’m not considering the cost of electricity which would only make the Volt more expensive to operate and add time to the break-even period. And of course, it’s not possible to calculate such things as pride of ownership or whatever reduction in overall emissions a Volt might provide, even if we ignore that extra pollution produced by the power plants making the electricity that will drive the Volt, the pollution caused by the manufacturing process, the dangerous chemicals in the Volt’s lithium-ion battery making special, expensive disposal procedures necessary, etc.

One of the biggest problems in making such calculations is there is no practical experience with a vehicle like the Volt. We have no real idea how to calculate a reasonably accurate MPG equivalency, rendering the EPA’s window sticker unicorn horns and fairy dust. Electricity and fuel prices vary over time, which makes things even more difficult, and because its gas engine requires premium fuel, driving the Volt with that engine is, mile for mile, more expensive. Even if an owner is careful to never drive the Volt with gas power, that presents its own set of problems such as deteriorating gasoline and corrosion of parts and seals, and very few people could afford such an inflexible vehicle, particularly if they could not afford a second, conventional vehicle to make up for the obvious shortcomings of the Volt. But as you can see, even with figures that in every way favor the Volt, it makes no fiscal sense for most people, but that’s not the only related problem.

Relatively few people keep a car for even ten years. Let’s assume that our Volt owner trades his Volt for a new car after eight years. At that point, even if we assume that the dealer will price the Volt to sell as a conventional used vehicle that is eight years old, rather than a high-priced curiosity, the Volt’s battery will be nearing or at the end of its life. Who is going to buy a used Volt when they’ll likely have to pay more to replace its battery any day than they paid to buy the entire car? Chevy is claiming that Volt batteries will last a decade and cost only about $8000 to replace, but any battery wears out more quickly with more frequent charge/discharge cycles, so in effect, the more you use the all-electric capability of the Volt, the more quickly you’ll need to replace its very expensive battery. Even as a used car, the Volt has unique, insurmountable problems.

But ah, you say, a Volt will never travel 10,000 miles in a year! It’s not designed for that. You may very well be correct, but if so, you’re admitting that the Volt is not a practical car, a car capable of anything from commuting to work, taking a short trip, to driving across the nation on the spur of the moment. If it’s not capable of all of this, it truly is nothing more than a political exercise, and/or a novelty car for those who can afford its hefty price tag and lack of daily practicality while still maintaining a sufficient number of conventional vehicles for the real business of daily driving.

Any bets as to how long the Volt production line will operate if Mr. Obama loses the White House in 2012? They’ll probably have to open Yucca Mountain after all. Not to store nuclear waste, but to store expended Volt batteries, which have the very real potential to, over time, deteriorate, catch fire and even explode. That sort of thing just might pick your pocket or break your leg.

Posted by MikeM at 11:01 PM | Comments (2)

April 22, 2011

Messaging Republican Racism

“There you go again,” Ronald Reagan famously said to Jimmy Carter during a 1980 debate. The quip, which generated many laughs, quickly became part of American political lore as a witty response to tired, often recycled political boilerplate. It is in that spirit that I respond to an April 17 article by Mr. Ruben Navarrette Jr. posted at Pajamas Media (here) titled “A Roadmap on Immigration for 2012.”

Ruben Navarrette, for readers not familiar with his work, is very much a pro-immigration writer who can’t seem to stop accusing Republicans of racism for daring to suggest that immigration laws already on the books ought to be enforced. I’ve earlier responded to one of his articles (here) wherein he claimed that anyone who opposed illegal immigration must necessarily also oppose legal immigration and therefore, hate foreigners, and particularly “brown” people.

Mr. Navarrette’s theme, on first glance, would appear to be the relatively innocuous idea that Republicans ought to adopt “messaging” more pleasing to Latino ears for the 2012 election. Quoting Meg Whitman, who was defeated by Democrat Jerry “Governor Moonbeam” Brown in the recent race for California governor, Navarrette put forth the idea that Republicans should think and speak differently about immigration, taking credit for having championed that idea for years.

Put aside the lack of wisdom and honesty inherent in adopting the Obamian calculus of substituting “messaging” for truth, steadfast principles and effective public policy. Such is the worst and most deceptive form or pandering. The deeper themes of Mr. Navarette’s essay are easy to detect and are of a piece with much of his writing on immigration, particularly his stereotypical portrayal of Republicans, and even of Latinos. The most prominent themes here seem to be:

(1) All Latinos think alike on immigration-related issues and should therefore be approached as a monolithic class/voting block aligned with and beholden to the progressive left.

(2) Republicans are inherently anti-immigrant and particularly hostile toward Latinos. They just can’t help themselves.

(3) Republicans are irredeemably racist and nativist; it’s in their DNA.

(4) Republicans are dishonest and lack candor in dealing with immigration issues.

(5) The interests of labor unions and Latinos are inextricably intertwined.

Said Mr. Navarette:

"I think that Republicans have to figure out how to even talk about immigration without sounding like one of the characters from The Wizard of Oz. Most of the time, on this issue, Republicans either come across like the Scarecrow (no brain), the Tin Man (no heart), or the Cowardly Lion (no courage)."

Mr. Navarrette’s choice of the Scarecrow is particularly apt as he erects many Republican straw men to flail. But let’s allow Mr. Navarrette to extend his argument:

"No brain: Rather than think deeply about illegal immigration and how to control it, as well as how to fix the immigration system so more people can come to the United States legally, some Republicans merely recite bumper sticker slogans like 'Deport all illegals' or 'Seal the border.'"

The construction “some Republicans” is a rather lazy way to indict all for the unspecified and unsupported statements of a few, or the none. Presumably those Republicans who have suggested that our borders must first be effectively controlled before reasoned debate can take place are incapable of “deep” thought. While bumper stickers don’t allow much room for florid prose, they can express profound, even “deep” ideas. The bumper sticker sentiments obviously unappreciated by Mr. Navarrette are merely, for a substantial number of Americans--Latinos included--reflections of rational reality rather than expressions of racist animosity.

"No heart: Rather than see the current debate as simply an extension of a conversation that has been going on since the late 1770s when Benjamin Franklin warned that German immigrants would ruin the young nation, some Republicans still portray the immigrants of today as inferior or dangerous."

No doubt some Democrats wear tinfoil hats because they believe that George W. Bush is beaming mysterious Halliburton rays into their brains, but making that allegation is no more useful to the current debate than observing that Ben Franklin was somehow concerned about German immigrants in the 1700s. I’ve little doubt that some of the Founding Fathers made kindly statements about slavery, but referencing them does not establish an unbroken line of pro-slavery sentiment to contemporary Americans of any political party.

"No courage: Rather than admit the obvious – that illegal immigrants only come to the United States because there are U.S. employers here who hire them, some Republicans steer clear of proposing employer sanctions for fear of angering their supporters and benefactors in the business community."

I suspect it might be hard to find any Republican who fails to understand or who is unwilling to acknowledge the connection between US jobs and illegal immigration. And while Mr. Navarrette’s point that some Republicans don’t ardently advocate employer sanctions is likely true, a great many do, and more think controlling the border a necessary first step before any other facets of a potentially comprehensive immigration policy can be meaningfully discussed or enacted. Taking such issues out of logical order takes no courage, rather, it demonstrates a remarkable lack of logic and the ability to prioritize.

Mr. Navarrette’s concern for Republican fortunes might be touching were he not so apparently a doctrinaire man of the left. He raises many of the familiar tropes, suggesting that Republicans want to do away with the 14th Amendment to eliminate birthright citizenship (an issue ripe for sincere and reasoned debate), that they care about the security of only the southern border, and that they hate American workers, which hatred they demonstrate by “trying to weaken labor unions in states like Wisconsin,” labor union primacy being apparently a self-evident and undeniable good. I have obviously been laboring under the apparently false impression that working Americans who choose not be union members are also “American workers.” If Mr. Navarrette is to be believed, I am wrong.

His pre-summation could have been written by cutting and pasting from past columns. He can’t resist casting all Republicans in the worst possible--to a progressive--light:

"...Republicans can’t seem to talk about the immigration issue in a candid and honest way that eschews racism, acknowledges labor needs, and holds everyone accountable. The message is bad, and the tone is worse. It’s always us vs them, with Latinos on the “them” side."

Such statements are essentially self-refuting, but the only dichotomy most Republicans concerned with immigration issues see with reasonable unanimity is Americans--native born or naturalized--vs those illegally in the country. In other words, people whose mere presence on US soil renders them, by definition, in violation of American law. Race doesn’t enter into it. There is no racial component to a violation of immigration law. You’re either here legally or not. It is Mr. Navarrette who reflexively projects racial animus on those who do not agree with his policy wishes.

Helpfully, Mr. Navarette offers his suggestions for the 2012 Republican candidate’s pro-Latino messaging. However, his suggestions seem to indicate that he has been in suspended animation for decades, unaware of what Republicans--and others--have been doing and saying. One is almost tempted to think some of his suggestions something of a parody.

"(1) talk about how it’s unfair for illegal immigrants to jump the line when others have had to play by the rules and wait their turn;"

Where has Mr. Navarrette been? Any fair-minded American who supports the rule of law has been making this point for decades.

"(2) admit that Americans won’t do the jobs that illegal immigrants do at any price, and explain that this is why we need a guest worker program;"

Particularly considering the current state of the economy, this assertion may be just a bit suspect, but Republicans--John McCain comes to mind--have been proposing various guest work programs for years. It is no doubt true that many Republicans would oppose Senator McCain in this, but their opposition tends to be far more about details than the concept.

"(3) stress that some of the estimated 10.3 million illegal immigrants in the United States should have a pathway to earned legal status if they meet conditions, including returning to their home country to be processed for legal reentry;"

Again, this has been an integral part of many Republican, and Democrat, immigration proposals for many years.

"(4) call for harsh penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and make sure they’re enforced since we’ll never fix this problem unless we attack it at the roots;"

Mr. Navarrette doesn’t know that this too has been repeatedly proposed?

"(5) promise a complete overhaul of the system by which immigrants can legally migrate to the United States so we can bring in more of them through the front door and do it a lot quicker than we do now; and"

Mr. Navarrette’s true agenda surfaces. Many Republicans would have a bit of a problem with this one, for no other reason than that without a positively controlled border, an overhaul of any kind is doomed to failure. There is also the small matter of debating how much legal immigration is a good thing. Bringing in more people much more quickly is not exactly a winning scheme, nor is it sane immigration policy for any political party. Americans do, after all, have the responsibility and authority to regulate immigration for the welfare of all Americans. No nation is morally required to admit anyone who violates the law by illegally crossing a border, southern or otherwise. To expect and allow less is to surrender national identity and sovereignty. Surely Mr. Navarrette doesn’t intend this?

"(6) condemn in no uncertain terms the racism and nativism that poison this debate and threaten to make the Republican Party obsolete before the end of the century."

Racism? Nativism? For thinking the rule of law a good thing? For expecting that the law should be fairly and uniformly enforced? For believing that American citizenship is valuable, something to be earned and cherished?

Mr. Navarrette concludes:

"This is the only roadmap for 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls to survive the pitfalls of the immigration debate. Every other path leads to the political margins and to eventual defeat."

Mr. Navarrette is correct, but only if all of his assumptions are correct. Only if all Latinos think and vote entirely alike and have little or no respect for national sovereignty. Only if all Latinos believe approximately half of Americans to be racist and nativist, dishonest and devoid of candor, and only if Mr. Navarrette’s straw man portrait of Republicans is entirely accurate.

In his essay “Ronald Reagan at 100,” Mr. Reagan’s former speechwriter Clark Judge writes:

"Former Reagan aide and speechwriter, now California congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, tells of a campaign stop involving a grade school class of blind children. After reporters had left for their bus, Reagan stayed behind and asked the teacher if the children would like to feel his face. The teacher said they would be thrilled. So for a few minutes, without publicity, the children got to "see" him in the only way they could."

Mr. Reagan didn’t care about the children’s race, and they didn’t care about his. Mr. Reagan was a success, a man who led American to success, not because he pandered to “activists” who would call him racist and nativist, not because he saw people as monolithic classes and voting blocks, but because he saw them as individuals and took the time to care for individuals, even blind children in a single classroom. He stood for the rule of law, American sovereignty and exceptionalism, and he believed in the inherent goodness of the American people. Mr. Reagan remains, in death as in life, the face of Republicans, of Americans. That, not Mr. Navarette’s prescription, is the path to the hearts of Latinos, to the hearts of all Americans and all those who sincerely wish to become Americans. It is these that all people of good will support and welcome. Many of them might even be Republicans.

Immigrants don’t come to America because of all of the faults Mr. Navarrette ascribes to its people, do they? If so, buying his prescription for Republican success will be America’s eventual dissolution.

Posted by MikeM at 10:34 PM | Comments (2)

Obama's Energy Lunacy

Go here to read my latest post that the good folks at Pajama Media have been kind enough to print (so to speak). It's about how Mr. Obama is using the Chevy Volt as a part of his policy of economic debilitation for America.

Posted by MikeM at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2011

Building A Badly Maintained Bridge To Winning The Future

And so it begins, not with a bang, but with more lies than can be easily counted. Mr. Obama was on the campaign trail on April 18, jetting about the nation to perform in contrived “town hall” events. Go here to see a clip from the “town hall” At Northern Virginia Community College in Annendale, VA that includes some of his most blatantly false and offensive comments.

It was classic Obama: transparent claims to understand the lives of the little people and their economic woes, class warfare, the kind of smug superiority that is his trademark, and a glib ease with telling the most obvious and easily disproved lies. Its hard to know why Mr. Obama flings such falsehoods. Does he truly believe that because he’s Barack Obama, anything he says is, by the mere fact that he utters it, true? Is he really so ignorant of so much? Does he believe that, as always, others, including the media, will cover for him? Or perhaps he’s so arrogant that he doesn’t care what’s true and what isn’t because he believes he’s untouchable. Perhaps it’s an “all of the above” situation.

Mr. Obama’s theme was that Republican budget cutting would reduce America to third world status by destroying infrastructure denied maintenance. His most egregiously false example was the collapse of the Minneapolis St. Anthony Falls bridge in August of 2007. Mr. Obama used it as an example of a lack of maintenance, implying that much worse would come if Republicans had their way.

But facts are stubborn things. The NTSB concluded that the bridge collapsed due to a design defect. In fact, major maintenance was being done on the bridge when it collapsed, killing 13. Short of blaming the collapse of the bridge on George W. Bush--I assume that’s next--Mr. Obama could not have told a more outrageous lie, a lie dancing on the graves of those killed in the collapse of the bridge. Presidents normally have fact checkers for their speeches. Mr. Obama, not so much.

It was only a week ago during his budget speech that wasn’t really a budget speech that Mr. Obama proclaimed that the wealthy are more than happy to fork over a great deal more of their wealth to the Government, but they just haven’t been asked yet. I’m certain that, unlike most of his promises, Mr. Obama fully intends to keep his implied promise to ask. Yet, at the “town hall,” Mr. Obama said, “nobody volunteers and says ‘I’m just wild to pay more taxes.’” So which is it Mr. Obama? Are people wild to pay more or not wild to pay more? Perhaps it all depends on who is asking--or not--or something.

To be absolutely fair to the President, he had just finished telling the common folk that even he was taken aback after reviewing his own tax return. No doubt, he was merely showing the crowd that he was truly one of them before getting around to asking them for more tax revenue, contradictions be damned.

The bridge was only a warmup, as Mr. Obama observed that “our roads, our bridges, our sewer systems are all deteriorating.” Mr. Obama went on to produce a vision of America as a land of potholes from seas to shining sea. Fortunately, bits of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, sewers and potholes are almost entirely maintained locally rather than through the federal bureaucracy. Were the opposite true, there really would be potholes from coast to coast.

Perhaps the most faux-touching moment occurred when Mr. Obama, with a tone of self-evident shame and disgust, observed that “we don’t even have a serious high speed rail infrastructure in this country.” Too true. We also don’t have an infrastructure of the kinds of air-driven capsules you see in bank drive-ups to transport folks around the nation, but then again, it--like high speed rail--would make no practical or fiscal sense, and Americans don’t want either.

Fortunately, Mr. Obama cannot help but to reveal himself from time to time, as he did with the unfortunate Joe the Plumber when he revealed his core belief in wealth redistribution. At the faux town hall, he did it again: “I want to live in a society that’s fair...because it improves my life.”

Most Americans want government to keep the peace, enforce the law, provide for the common defense, and stay out of their way so that they have the opportunity to improve their life. They know that not everything is fair. Even Jimmy Carter admitted that, and he was attacked by a rabbit in a rowboat. The freedom to overcome diversity, the reality that success is, with hard work and determination, possible, is truly the American way.

Mr. Obama, however, envisions a “fair” society, a society that improves his life. Notice the passive voice. This is not merely lazy grammar. Like all statists, Mr. Obama really does believe that it is the job of government to provide. Of course, such provision will have to be rationed and apportioned according to the dictates of the elite who alone are fit to make such decisions, all in the name of fairness, of course.

Well. Society has certainly “improved” Mr. Obama’s life. I fact, I think it’s the patriotic duty of all Americans, as Vice President Biden might say, to improve it even more. After all, Mr. Obama has done so much to us. Let’s help him live his true calling: golf. Let’s ensure that society is truly fair for Mr. Obama and see that in January of 2013, he has the opportunity to be all that he can be. It’s the American way.

Posted by MikeM at 05:41 PM | Comments (3)

April 20, 2011

Quick Takes, April 20, 2011

ITEM: Is This Cool Or What? Department. From Hot Air (here) comes the news of the first successful test of an anti-ballistic missile system using an integrated systems approach. A missile was tracked from great range by a variety of integrated systems, including the Aegis Destroyer “USS O’Kane,” which fired the interceptor missile that shot down the target. Extra credit points for anyone who know for whom the O’Kane was named (no fair googling!) Answer at the end of the QTs.

ITEM: Is This Cool or What Too? Department: Go here for a short video of a test-firing of a practical, ship-mounted railgun in which General Atomics fired an aerodynamic sabot projectile for seven kilometers--after it punched through a steel plate at Mach 5! Propelled by powerful electromagnets, such projectiles destroy through kinetic energy rather than any application of explosives. Functional systems could be installed on US warships in less than a decade.

ITEM: By now, most Americans have seen a photograph (here) of crack TSA agents at the new Orleans airport frisking a blonde terrorist—a blonde, six year old, little girl terrorist who, if a photograph is sufficiently revealing, could scarcely have successfully concealed a piece of paper under her clothing. Regular readers know of my police background. I cannot conceive of any situation under which this particular child, or any such child, could be suspected of being a terrorist threat. Fortunately, I was not there. I fear that the child molester in government uniform would have experienced a rather more intense form of touching. When Ronald Reagan said “The most terrifying words in the English language are” ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help,’” he was more prescient than he could have possibly imagined.

ITEM: Cosmic Irony Department: A bill that would require all presidential candidates to prove their US citizenship has been sent to the desk of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (here). If the bill is signed, Arizona would be among the first states to make proof of citizenship a requirement for placement on the ballot. Considering Mr. Obama’s war on Arizona for the shocking offense of daring to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, there is a certain delicious irony in this. Discuss. UPDATE: The bill was vetoed by Governor Brewer; no news on a potential override as this is posted.

ITEM: Birther Redux: At Pajamas Media (here) David Solway explains why we should all just quit worrying about Mr. Obama’s birth bona fides and go with the spiritual flow. Hallelujah brothers!

ITEM: Continuing Tales Of The Religion of Peace: According to the AP via Fox News (here), the brutally beaten body of Vittorio Arragoni, 36, an Italian “pro-Palestinian activist” was found, hanged, in an abandoned Gaza Strip apartment a few hours after he was kidnapped by an Islamist group. Hamas, of course, blamed Israel: “Such an awful crime cannot take place without arrangements between all the parties to keep the blockade imposed on Gaza, said a Hamas “leader” Mahmoud Zahar. Remember, gentle readers, that it is these people with whom Mr. Obama reflexively sympathizes and whom he supports against our ally, Israel. Imagine what such peaceful people would do to someone who was not a pro-Palestinian activist.

ITEM: Political cartoons can be either stale political partisanship or brilliantly satirical and devoid of partisanship. A fine example of the latter by Nate Beeler of the Washington Examiner (Via Hot Air, here) is worthy of mention. By the way, what Sir Barack is holding is the scalpel he has sworn to use to brilliantly dissect the budget dragon.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award of the Week: Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, the much-coveted Louis Renault Award goes to Sen. Harry Reid (D-State of Perpetual Nastiness and Confusion), who in 2006 said: “Why is it right to increase our nation's dependence on foreign creditors? Democrats won't be making an argument to support this legalization [raising the budget ceiling], which will weaken our country.” According to ABC News (here), Mr. Reid is now “embarrassed” that he said that, calling it a “political” statement designed to oppose Mr. Bush. Hmm. “Political statement?” I believe the common folk would refer to that sort of thing as a “lie.” I’m shocked, shocked! to discover that a United States Senator would lie about such a thing, truly! OK, OK, so I’m lying…

NOTE: For those not familiar with Louis Renault, he is a police captain in the classic Humphrey Bogart film, “Casa Blanca.” He confronts Bogart’s Rick, saying that he is shocked, shocked! to discover that gambling is occurring at Rick’s Place. The words are no sooner out of his mouth than one of Rick’s employees hands Renault a stack of cash saying “Here are your winnings, Captain.” Renault thanks him, pockets the cash and continues with his faux outrage without missing a beat.

Item: Louise Renault Award Honorable Mention: The Washington Examiner (here) reports that on April 14, every Senate Democrat rejected killing ObamaCare funding. The vote was 47 to 53, and was strictly party-line. I was shocked, shocked! to learn this. The Examiner notes that Sen. Joe Manchin (D. WV) won a special election last year by portraying himself as an independent, even saying he would vote for repeal of ObamaCare. Hmm. It would appear that Mr. Manchin and the other Senate Dems learned even less than seems humanly possible from the last Congressional election. Even Pavlov’s dogs would seem to be more capable of learning, and they drool just as well as Dems when given the proper stimulus. The 2012 election will be interesting on more levels than most previously thought. Discuss.

ITEM: In light of Mr. Obama’s recent suggestion that wealthy people are just aching to give more of their money to the government, but have not done so because Mr. Obama hasn’t asked them, it may be time to revisit a simple concept: Charity. For the benefit of our readers, charity occurs when a citizen willingly and altruistically gives of their assets to help another. When the government demands it, that’s taxation. The IRS doesn’t “ask.” Discuss.

ITEM: Democrats Are All About The New Civility: And lying, don’t forget lying! At the Daily Caller (here) we find a charming little story about Keith Olbermann, who tweeted (Twittered? Twitted? Tweetyed?) about smart and lovely conservative pundit S.E. Cupp: “On so many levels she’s a perfect demonstration of the necessity of the work Planned Parenthood does .” Check out the brief story to see Olbermann’s pathetic attempts to backpedal and claim that he was talking about Planned Parenthood’s voluminous services other than abortion. So he meant that she’s a perfect demonstration of the necessity of pap smears? Of pre-birth counseling? Of sonograms? Of proper breast-feeding techniques? This is very confusing. Obviously, a superior intellect like Mr. Olbermann’s must be involved to make sense of it all.

ITEM: Judging Future Behavior By Past Performance Department: Investors .com has a lovely little story (here) about the reality of Mr. Obama’s conviction, expressed during his historic budget deficit teleprompter reading of April 13. He has actually promised (when running for president) to implement a system that would allow “40 million Americans” to “do their taxes in less than five minutes.” I’m not sure who the 40 million are, particularly considering that some 47% of Americans--who are reportedly very happy with the current tax system--pay no taxes at all, but apparently the other 260+ million have benefitted little under Mr. Obama. On his watch, it now takes 23 hours to fill out a 1040. It was 21 hours last year. And it now takes seven hours to fill out form 1040 EZ! I’m with Ronald Reagan: Please Mr. Obama, no more help, please!

ITEM: Flee! Flee As From A Pestilence! Department: The Obama Commerce Department (here) announced its new internet initiative that would provide a supposedly secure, individual identity/password for those who “choose” to participate. There is substantial hard and software development yet to be done. I don’t know about you, but the idea of the federal government having that information, and thus, unfettered access to my computer life—so to speak—does not give me chills of joy and warm-fuzzy security feelings, particularly not the present administration. Discuss.

ITEM: Those Evil Republicans! Department: From Hot Air (here) comes news of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s evil actions. He has beaten the unions at every turn, and now the state budget office predicts that his economic actions have essentially eliminated the budget deficit and will hold the growth of property taxes to no more than 1% per year for the next two years. Those cruel, heartless Republicans, killing children and old people and kicking puppies! How dare the Wisconsin public elect adults, and expect them to do what they were elected to do!

ITEM: With a margin of some 7300 votes, incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser has been declared the winner of the election over challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. Kloppenburg, who all but affirmed that she would be a reliable liberal/union vote, initially held a margin of approximately 200 votes, but a mistake in reporting more than 10,000 votes overturned her slim margin. While it is possible that Kloppenburg will demand a recount, it is unlikely, considering the margin, that she will overturn the result. Recounts in such elections commonly change fewer than 200 votes.

What is remarkable is the way the results have been reported. Kloppenburg’s 200 vote margin of victory was proclaimed as a righteous vindication for union solidarity and a stunning repudiation of Republican Governor Scott Walker’s budget-cutting agenda. Prosser’s reelection to a ten-year term is seen as a narrow, highly suspect win meaning virtually nothing at all. In this case, the unions poured men and money into a state judicial race and accomplished nothing, except the continued gratuitous squandering of member dues. On the other hand, that’s what they do best.

ITEM: No Man Is Above The Law! Department: Unless, that is, you’re the Obama Attorney General (here). It seems that Eric Holder was recently caught in the act of failing to pay property taxes. That makes how many members of the Obama Administration? Is anyone surprised? After all, when the Treasury Secretary cheats on his taxes, anyone else is something of an anti-climax for the most transparent administration in history. Discuss.

ITEM: Tax The Rich! Department: From Powerline (here) comes an interesting exposition on the futility of taxing the rich as a means of cutting budget deficits. It has been often observed that even if we confiscated 100% of the income of the most wealthy Americans, it would amount to a teardrop in the ocean of our staggering debt. This article makes that point in a convincing way.

ITEM: Ah, Cuba! Land of sunshine and opportunity! The favorite place for vapid Hollywood celebrities and assorted American Marxists to visit and praise as a model of enlightened, humane governance! And that Fidel Castro! The very model of the modern leader! Yeah. Not so much. Go here to examine the reality of one of the last, horribly failed Marxist states. This, gentle readers, is what Mr. Obama and his most ardent followers want us to emulate. I mean, I like 1950s cars as much as the next guy, but...

ITEM: Nothing Succeeds Like, Um, Success? Department: Go here, for a short story on the grassroots success of the “Coffee Party,” which is billing itself as a “non-partisan alternative to the Tea Party.” It’s spreading like wildfire! Well, OK, not so much… Could this be why liberal talk radio is so overwhelmingly popular, even threatening to eclipse Rush Limbaugh in ratings…what? It’s not? It’s an enormous failure? It always has been? Oh.

ITEM: Global Warming Is True! Really! Why Won’t Anyone Listen To Me?! Department: From the Daily Caller (here) comes news of more climate shenanigans from the UN. It seems that in 2005 the UN Climate Program boldly predicted that Global Warming would create 50 million “climate refugees” by 2010. Hmm. Not so much; in fact, not at all. The UN is now predicting 50 million climate refugees by 2020. Visit the article to see the UN’s hilarious coverup hijinks! We must immediately surrender American sovereignty to the UN!

ITEM: The Most Neglected Aspect of National Defense Department: Go here for an article about the dangers of an electromagnetic pulse weapon. A nuclear bomb exploded high over a target produces an enormous EMP which destroys electronics, computers, cars, electric grids, anything that relies on electronic circuitry. Iran, for example, is very much aware of this and would be very likely to use it against us. Visit the article to more fully appreciate the potential consequences of smart diplomacy, cutting the defense budget, and outreach to those who would see us dead.

ITEM: I’ve always been fond of Dick Cavett, who wrote in his autobiography about his undergraduate days at Yale. As the only student on campus from Nebraska, he was a curiosity. Other students actually sought him out to have their photos taken with him as though he was an alien. To the upper crust, I suppose someone from the far-away mystical land of Nebraska was an alien. He wrote that he never joined a fraternity because he could “get nude, drink beer and throw up,” perfectly well alone. Go here for his article on why offending people is a good thing, you %##((**^$&&!!!

MANDATORY PC DISCLAIMER: I was not actually swearing at anyone. It was a joke. You know, a joke? Oh never mind...

ITEM: Shrinking The Deficit! Department: Go here for an account of the report by the Treasury Department’s Inspector General who discovered that the IRS allowed some $500 million in first time homebuyer tax credits to people who were ineligible to receive them, including 128 IRS employees. Hey! I have an idea for deficit reduction…

ITEM: Oh Goody! Department: Standard & Poor’s ratings service (here) has officially downgraded America’s sovereign debt rating from “stable” to “negative” due to political inability to get the deficit under control. S&P’s has warned that it might further lower America’s rating if positive steps are not taken soon. Unsurprisingly, the stock market tumbled on this news. So let’s see, our credit rating is nearing the bottom of the barrel and some countries are calling for the replacement of the dollar as the international reserve currency. We’re obviously in the best of hands. Now if the Republicans will only quit trying to kill children, women, old people, adorable kittens, puppies and baby ducks, we can make some progress. Somehow, this must all be George W. Bush’s fault.

UPDATE: It now appears that the Obama Administration tried to talk S & P's into not announcing the downgrade. I can't imagine that. I'm shocked, shocked!

ITEM: Learning From Past Mistakes Department: USA Today (here) has an article wherein Mr. Obama argues that it’s appropriate to try foreign terrorists captured on the battlefield in civilian court in New York City. “I think it's very important for us not to elevate folks who are murderers and thugs into something special. Our criminal justice system is -- and our trial system is capable of prosecuting terrorists,” said Mr. Obama.

Let me see if I have this straight: Holding a show trial in NYC, a trial that would cost hundreds of millions, disrupt the city for years, give terrorist scum a world stage on which to spread their ideology, give them access to defense and intelligence secrets, and paint targets on the backs of untold thousands of New Yorkers would not constitute elevating “folks who are murderers and thugs into something special,” while trying them in isolation at Gitmo would. With that kind of logic, it’s little wonder we’re in such trouble.

ITEM: Attack of the Death Panel! If you do nothing else this week, read this article by Stanley Kurtz (here) at National Review Online about the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), the actual death panel established by ObamaCare. Kurtz suggests that if Republicans fail to fully publicize this thoroughly evil creation and to use it against its maker—Mr. Obama—they’ll lose in 2012. I agree. Do read it.

ITEM: In a past QT, we reported on Arizona border sheriff Larry Dever who has claimed that Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to do their jobs. Not surprisingly, government officials have called Dever a liar and DHA Secretary Janet Napolitano has claimed that the situation on the border is better than ever. Now comes Fox News (here) with information from current and former Border Patrol officers and others in a position to know who fully support what Dever has said. Apparently, Border Patrol Supervisors have even been heard ordering officers—by radio—to “TBS” illegals sneaking into to America, to make them “turn back south,” which only causes most to sneak across later. It’s an article well worth visiting if you want to know the truth about the Obama’s Administration’s border policies. Be sure to have your blood pressure medication close at hand. If you don’t need any, you probably will after reading this.

ITEM: Man, I’m Glad I Don’t Live in New York State! Department. From Fox News (here), comes the bizarre news that the legislature has enacted safety regulations to protect our children from some of life’s most treacherous dangers, dangers such as: Capture the flag, dodgeball, flag tag, flag football, kickball, red rover and tag. Any summer camp that wants children to engage in such dangerous games must pay a $200 registration fee and have medical staff on hand. No. This is not an Onion satire.

UPDATE: Due to immense public ridicule, the NY Health Department has allowed that perhaps they’ll sort of, you know, kind of, reconsider the whole thing. As Emily Litella would have said: “Never mind!”

ITEM: What’s going to become of grandma and grandpa if the evil Republicans have their way? That’s right! Grandpa will have to resort to stripping for sorority parties! See the shocking truth right here!

And on that “stimulating” note, it’s time, once again, to thank you for stopping by, and to look forward to seeing you again next Thursday!

EXTRA CREDIT ANSWER: The USS O’Kane is named for Rear Admiral Dick O’Kane who commanded one of America’s most famous and effective WWII submarines, the “USS Tang.” His memoir of that command, “Clear the Bridge” is justly famous as well. The Tang was ultimately sunk due to a circular run by one of it’s own faulty torpedoes.

Posted by MikeM at 08:41 PM | Comments (4)

April 19, 2011

Presophile

Once again, Barack Obama turns to the reliably left-leaning sensibilities of a college campus to continue his perpetual campaign.

It's creepy how the President continually hides behind the pseudo-intellectual ignorance of adolescents and young adults who lack real-world experience. They seem utterly unaware that the platitudes he offers and the monstrous debit he champions are shackles constricting their opportunities, resigning them to a bleak future.

It is in some respects pedophilistic watching the President gloat among the young. Let us make no mistake; the Obama agenda is child abuse of generations of Americans just starting to make their way in this world, and of generations to come. He rapes their futures with a smile and a wave and a lie, and didn't even offer them candy.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:03 AM | Comments (1)

April 18, 2011

E.J. Dionne: Fugitive From Reality

Washington Post opinion writer displays for us one again why he is past-due for replacement with his latest dim analysis.

An enlightened ruling class understands that it can get richer and its riches will be more secure if prosperity is broadly shared, if government is investing in productive projects that lift the whole society and if social mobility allows some circulation of the elites. A ruling class closed to new talent doesn't remain a ruling class for long.

Dionne obviously knows nothing of the business world, something he seems to share with others wedded to his peculiar political philosophy.

Business is never static, and not just thrives upon, but demands new ideas and new talent. In the business world, stagnation leads to death, and innovation can lead to nearly limitless prosperity. In the right political climate, businesses can create wealth out of thin air. Almost all wealth starts out as small businesses with big ideas. They drive our entire economy and way of life, when government doesn't get in the way.

There is this thing called a "Facebook," and something else called a "Google," that Dionne may want to read about, and these new software programs called "apps" that have made many of yesterday's nerds into today's millionaires and billionaires. Many of our most accomplished employers found success for themselves and their employees by innovating in fields that didn't even exist as few as a handful of years ago.

On the other end of the scale are protectionist industries that have sought to curry favor with Dionne's ruling class in order to protect the near monopolies they have, and which seek to use regulation to choke out both innovation and competition. One need look no further than the auto industry, manufacturing, and finance industries to find dinosaurs that use generous political contributions to thwart those with newer, better products. Simply look at President Obama's list of top campaign donors to find a list of companies using money to buy favor and defends the status woe.

The only question about Dionne's column worth asking is whether the aging writer is conscious of his hackery in support of the entrenched elites, or if he really is a naif who does not understand the ramifications of what he advocates. I have to think that Dionne's support is a conscious effort to placate those which have lent him relevance in their own self-interests.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:29 PM | Comments (7)

April 14, 2011

Obama Doubles Down On The Budget

Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, is truly amazing. Whenever I am certain that he has sunk to the absolute depths of mendacity and rank partisanship, whenever I have no doubt that his socialistic urges have sunk to the lowest measurable level, he digs a hole--nay, hires a dredge (with taxpayer dollars, of course)--and sinks even lower. I speak, of course, of his April 13 teleprompter reading on fixing America’s burgeoning debt.

All of the usual elements of an Obama TP reading were present: halting delivery, left-right-left head-waggling reminiscent of a fan at a tennis match, blaming nearly everything on Bush, blaming everything else on Republicans, class warfare, attacking the evil, greedy wealthy, “facts” and figures plucked wholesale from the ether, economic assumptions based on projected income or events that no sentient being believes will be forthcoming, the economic miracle that is ObamaCare, winning the future, and vision but no real, concrete details. As usual, Mr. Obama is leaving the little, niggling details to the little people.

False choices and moral hectoring, as usual, played a prominent role. Attacking Republicans, Mr. Obama said “Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the social compact in America.” Wasn’t it Mr. Obama who has consistently promised (threatened?) to “fundamentally change America?” Ah, but those evil Republicans are attacking “children with autism or Down’s syndrome,” favoring instead “every millionaire and billionaire in our society.”

Wasn’t it Mr. Obama who swept into office promising to change the tone in Washington and to bridge the partisan divide? There is nothing quite like accusing political opponents of intending to savage handicapped children to win friends and influence people. “You’ve just accused me of the most craven and base moral degeneracy? Why of course I’ll be happy to work with you on a bipartisan basis, Mr. Obama!”


NOTE: Sources for this article may be found here, here, here, here, here and here.

Perhaps the most lunatic assertion of the TP reading was Mr. Obama’s suggestion that the wealthy are, in reality, more than willing to pay much higher taxes. They really want to “give back” to the nation that gave them so much. Really? Why aren’t they simply writing checks to the IRS over and above their already considerable tax burdens? Surely they’re free to do that; why do they fail? Why, it’s merely because the government hasn’t asked them yet! Who knew it was that easy?! No wonder we made him president.

I can see it now:

Mr. Obama: “Mr. Wealthy American, I’m asking you to pay a bunch more of your income in taxes. As Vice President Biden, who slept through my economic speech, would say [he actually did, and he wasn’t alone], it’s your patriotic duty! I know you’ve just been waiting for me to ask, so I’m asking.”

Mr. Wealthy American: “Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha! Administrative Assistant, book me a flight to Switzerland, close all the factories, furlough all the workers and transfer all my assets to off shore accounts immediately!”

To be fair to the President, I suspect that a great many Americans would be willing to pay a bit more in taxes, but only if they could be certain that the money would be used solely for paying down the debt. Finding evidence of that in the Obama Administration would be akin to looking for mermaids.

If there was anyone left in America who had the slightest doubt that Mr. Obama has no idea whatever how wealth is created, or who doubted that he firmly believes that every dime anyone makes belongs to the government, this TP reading surely must have disabused them of those foolish notions. And to confirm that understanding, we now have a new economic term: “spending reductions in the tax code.” Mr. Obama means what the simple folks would call “tax cuts.” Tax cuts are no such thing. They are nothing more than money--which belongs to individual citizens--that the government will not get. Such things are, of course, anathema to Mr. Obama and all good socialists everywhere, who alone are fit to decide how much--if any--of the money individuals earn they will be allowed to keep.

And who are the wealthy? Any single person making $200,000 per year, or any married couple making $250,000. Where I live and work, that’s a pretty heady income, but in many places in America, that’s middle class. Many economists have crunched the numbers, and even if we confiscated all of the wealth of the truly wealthy people in America, that amount, that one time amount taken from people who know how to create wealth, would pay off less than one-half of the current, not the ever-increasing, debt. And it would be a one time amount, because most of those wealthy Americans would almost certainly become other than Americans as soon as they could fly out of the socialistic dictatorship capable of confiscating all of their wealth (the IRS doesn’t “ask”), leaving behind everyone they ever employed to join the ever-increasing ranks of the unemployed.

Mr. Obama’s “vision”--it surely doesn’t rise to the level of a plan, or even of an idle, passing fancy--rests on several broad sort-of themes. Following are quotes from his published speech, accompanied by translations in actual American English as opposed to socialist stealth-speak.

Mr. Obama: “The first step in our approach is to keep annual domestic spending low by building on the savings that both parties agreed to last week – a step that will save us about $750 billion over twelve years. We will make the tough cuts necessary to achieve these savings, including in programs I care about, but I will not sacrifice the core investments we need to grow and create jobs. We’ll invest in medical research and clean energy technology. We’ll invest in new roads and airports and broadband access. We will invest in education and job training. We will do what we need to compete and we will win the future.”

TRANSLATION: “We is me, and “we” only “saved” about $352 million for this year. We sure put one over on the Republicans! We borrowed that much and more while I’m giving this speech. If you think I’m going to cut any program I care about, you’re an idiot. I’m going to continue to spend as much as I like, and I’m going to send everybody to college on the public dime while training new legions of government employees, who will compete and win the future by draining ever-decreasing taxpayer dollars to pay for jobs that create no wealth at all.

Mr. Obama: “The second step in our approach is to find additional savings in our defense budget. As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than protecting our national security, and I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America’s interests around the world. But as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has said, the greatest long-term threat to America’s national security is America’s debt.

Just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense. Over the last two years, Secretary Gates has courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending. I believe we can do that again. We need to not only eliminate waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness, but conduct a fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world. I intend to work with Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs on this review, and I will make specific decisions about spending after it’s complete.”

TRANSLATION: “I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America’s interests around the world.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Whew! I can’t believe they bought that! Would the President who believes that America is responsible for all of the world’s problems, who won’t defend her borders, whose ambassadors denigrate their nation in foreign capitals, who won’t even identify the enemy that wants to destroy America do anything to harm national defense? Of course not!

Somebody should have told Defense Secretary Gates and the Pentagon about all of this. Only minutes after the TP reading, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said that Secretary Gates “has been clear that further significant defense cuts cannot be accomplished without reducing force structure and military capability.” Ooops! Somebody didn’t get the memo!

Mr. Obama: “The third step in our approach is to further reduce health care spending in our budget. Here, the difference with the House Republican plan could not be clearer: their plan lowers the government’s health care bills by asking seniors and poor families to pay them instead. Our approach lowers the government’s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself.

Already, the reforms we passed in the health care law will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion. My approach would build on these reforms. We will reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments. We will cut spending on prescription drugs by using Medicare’s purchasing power to drive greater efficiency and speed generic brands of medicine onto the market. We will work with governors of both parties to demand more efficiency and accountability from Medicaid. We will change the way we pay for health care – not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results. And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.

Now, we believe the reforms we’ve proposed to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid will enable us to keep these commitments to our citizens while saving us $500 billion by 2023, and an additional one trillion dollars in the decade after that. And if we’re wrong, and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect, this approach will give the independent commission the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.

But let me be absolutely clear: I will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in this society. I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves. We will reform these programs, but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment this country has kept for generations.”

TRANSLATION: “We” are absolutely not going to do anything to cut ObamaCare, which will proceed as planned. I’ll just lie--as usual--about the Republican’s proposals, scare the seniors, and get right to rationing health care. Those stupid seniors won’t know what hit them after the death panels get busy. After all, they’re the biggest health care expense. Ration them off the table and I’ll have loads more money to spend on high speed rail, green energy, energy development in Brazil, unions, and my other favorite boondoggles. Save $1.5 trillion by 2033? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I won’t even save a billion this year! But at least I’ll have another omnipotent commission controlling everyone’s lives. Sure “we’ll reform” programs! ObamaCare is the ultimate reform, and I care soooo much about keeping promises.

Mr. Obama: “That includes, by the way, our commitment to Social Security. While Social Security is not the cause of our deficit, it faces real long-term challenges in a country that is growing older. As I said in the State of the Union, both parties should work together now to strengthen Social Security for future generations. But we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans’ guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.”

TRANSLATION: I know that Social Security is in far less trouble than Medicare or Medicaid, but I also know that seniors are stupid, so I’ll just pander to them a bit more. If they complain, one of my supporters will probably call them racist. Hell, I don’t know anything about Social Security, and I could care less, but I do know that it’s going to go bust, and by the time it does, I’ll be long gone, happily enriched for life by my supporters. I’ll never have to depend on it, so screw them all!

Mr. Obama: “The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code. In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again. Beyond that, the tax code is also loaded up with spending on things like itemized deductions. And while I agree with the goals of many of these deductions, like homeownership or charitable giving, we cannot ignore the fact that they provide millionaires an average tax break of $75,000 while doing nothing for the typical middle-class family that doesn’t itemize.

My budget calls for limiting itemized deductions for the wealthiest 2% of Americans – a reform that would reduce the deficit by $320 billion over ten years. But to reduce the deficit, I believe we should go further. That’s why I’m calling on Congress to reform our individual tax code so that it is fair and simple – so that the amount of taxes you pay isn’t determined by what kind of accountant you can afford. I believe reform should protect the middle class, promote economic growth, and build on the Fiscal Commission’s model of reducing tax expenditures so that there is enough savings to both lower rates and lower the deficit. And as I called for in the State of the Union, we should reform our corporate tax code as well, to make our businesses and our economy more competitive.”

TRANSLATION: Sure, I took credit for extending the Bush tax cuts just a few months ago, but I lied! I’m going to do away with all kinds of deductions, like the mortgage deduction. Sure, that’ll brutally depress the real estate market and slaughter the economy, but I don’t control the entire economy yet, and you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs! And, yeah, I know that calling for reforming the corporate tax code while simultaneously calling for raising taxes on the people who form and own corporations makes no real sense, but again, I’m all about me, and me is all about control. And power. And golf. Let those nitwits in Congress deal with the details. I’m gonna go play golf. Somewhere overseas I haven’t visited yet. I’ll ask Michelle; she’s got a list...

So Mr. Obama intends to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion dollars over the next 12 years. He says he’ll do it by $2 trillion in spending cuts, and that will lower interest payments by a trillion, and tax reform will cut “$1 trillion in spending from the tax code.” Nonsense. It’s unicorn horns and fairy dust.

REALITY: The Treasury Department recently reported that the deficit increased 15.7% from October to March, the first six months of fiscal 2011. It reached $829 billion compared with $717 billion of the same period during the previous year. This, despite the fact that revenue for the same period increased 6.9%.

Mr. Obama wants to cut spending by $2 trillion, but is continually proposing new spending programs that would require entirely new permanent federal bureaucracies. In addition, he is unleashing bureaucrats to further burden the economy with regulations, and is all but obliterating our domestic energy production. ObamaCare alone, the biggest, most wasteful and costly entitlement program ever devised by man, would cost at least that much and more, and even the Congressional Budget Office and many Democrats are now admitting it. And even if he kept his word on spending cuts he obviously has no intention of making, interest payments on a debt which Mr. Obama is dramatically increasing daily will never come close to being reduced $1 trillion dollars. The more you borrow and the longer the term of the loan, the more interest you pay. It’s called “compound interest,” yet another economic reality with which Mr. Obama seems unacquainted.

The best part is the idea that tax reform will cut a trillion in spending from the tax code. What spending?! The tax code is all about revenues owed the government by individuals and corporations. It spends nothing, except the money required to operate the IRS and everything associated with it. There is no “spending” to be cut there, not a dime, let alone a trillion dollars. There is either less tax revenue or more. Is Mr. Obama so economically illiterate that he doesn’t realize this, or does he just have so little respect for the intelligence of the public that he’s willing to run any con whenever he feels he can get away with it?

True reform of the tax code would require greatly reducing regulations and simplifying everything. It would require laying off an army of IRS bureaucrats. It would actually--if properly done--reduce taxes across the board, while simultaneously and genuinely stimulating the economy. People who have more money spend more, invest more, save more, build more businesses, employ more people and create more wealth, all of which equals substantially increased tax revenue garnered at lower cost to the taxpayers. Mr. Obama has shown absolutely no inclination to do any of this as it would decrease the size of government and limit its power, concepts utterly distasteful and foreign to him.

How do we know that Mr. Obama is not being forthcoming? Michael Tanner, at National Review Online, provides perspective:

“ Just a month after he took office, President Obama hosted a fiscal summit at the White House. The president invited more than 100 lawmakers, economists, policy specialists, and special-interest groups to a daylong meeting designed to ‘launch a national conversation on how to put the nation on sounder financial footing.’

‘We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences,’ the president declared, promising to cut the deficit, then $1.3 trillion, in half before the end of his first term. Having made that promise, the president instead went out and increased the budget deficit to $1.4 trillion. He also pushed through a $2.7 trillion health-care bill that adds $833 billion to the deficit over its first decade of full implementation.

Roughly a year later, he appointed a bipartisan deficit commission, warning that ’these are tough times and [the federal government] can’t keep spending like they’re not.’

In December, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform issued its report calling for spending cuts, tax reform, and changes to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The president ignored it. The deficit reached $1.65 trillion.

In this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama again said we have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in. ‘That is not sustainable,’ he said.

He then proposed a 2012 budget that adds $13 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

One begins to detect a pattern.”

One does indeed begin to detect a pattern. Let’s not forget that Mr. Obama already proposed a budget for 2012, only two months ago. That “budget” set a new low for adult seriousness, a low that Mr. Obama has, historically surpassed with his April 13 TP reading, a performance that threw his own ridiculous budget under the bus. So adept is Mr. Obama at conning the public, at diverting our attention from the furiously lever-pulling man behind the curtain, that we tend to forget the basis of all economic reality: Spend no more than you make. If you do, quit spending and pay off debts until that balance is restored. No amount of nuance, no amount of faux-eloquent teleprompter reading can alter that simple formula for individual and national success.

The speech was obviously intended to be a refutation and response to Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, a convincing alternative. In that it neither refuted nor responded to Ryan’s proposal, except to insult its author, it was a complete failure. Likewise, it lacked any coherent details or figures that could be tested or measured, so it cannot serve as an alternative. If it was intended to convince the public that Mr. Obama is knowledgeable about and fully engaged in economic issues, it again failed and abysmally so.

It was a small, mean-spirited, partisan speech. It was not the speech of a confident, engaged, serious leader, but of the perpetual campaigner who knows only how to bask in the glory of his own press releases. It can no longer be denied that Mr. Obama is not only incompetent, but a clear and present danger to the short and long term security of America. The alternative is that he actually seeks our economic downfall. We ignore his utter lack of adult seriousness and competence--or his intentional hostility to our continuing national existence--at our own, very real, peril.

Posted by MikeM at 06:07 PM | Comments (1)

April 13, 2011

Quick Takes, April 13, 2011

ITEM: Is This Cool Or What? Department: From Fox News (here) comes news of a GPS guided mortar round already entering service in Afghanistan. This innovation promises much greater precision at the lower levels of our order of battle, giving our ground troops a much greater margin of effectiveness and safety. Greatest nation in the history of the world? Discuss.

ITEM: Is This Cool Or What II? Department: We’ve previously reported on US Navy research into a practical ship-bourn laser weapon, but the first practical test has been completed. Go here for a video and story. For the first time, a lower powered laser fired at a moving target, a mile distant, in four-foot seas set the engines ablaze within seconds. Very cool indeed. Work is underway on a massively more powerful free electron laser that promises to be able to more or less instantly swat missiles from the sky in all weather conditions. As you watch the video, remember that lasers do not produce a visible beam, ala Star Trek and Star Wars.

ITEM: In the Same Old, Same Old, Department, Instapundit (here) reports on a trip by Mr. Obama to a wind turbine plant where he said there is nothing he can do in the short term to effect gasoline prices. When someone in the audience complained about high gas prices, Mr. Obama suggested that he trade in his car for one that gets better mileage. Uh, Mr. Obama? Saying that drilling for oil is useless because it will take several years to get production up to speed doesn’t work anymore. It’s several years later and gas is climbing rapidly to $5.00 a gallon. Oh yes, and because of your economic debacle, most folks can’t afford new cars, especially if they cost $41,000 like your Chevy Volt wonder greeniemobile. The best part is that the story by the AP, which originally reported on this issue has since been sanitized and rewritten to squelch Mr. Obama’s haughtily offensive suggestion to his questioner. Good to know our mainstream media is looking out for the interests of the public by not worrying their pretty little heads with Mr. Obama’s condescension and economic cluelessness.

ITEM: Well, it’s final. The United States Congress and Mr. Obama have agreed to cut: Wait for it...$38.5 billions dollars! That’s right, almost nothing at all. Visit John Hinderaker’s piece at Powerline (here) for his take on this non-event which staved off a government shutdown. I’m still not sure why that would be a bad thing. Anyway, Hinderaker has a balanced, rational outlook on this issue, and the Ramirez cartoon, like so much of his work, is a classic, though sure to provoke cries of “RACIST!” All the more reason to view it like the good little racists all those who disagree with Mr. Obama are.

ITEM: According to the LA Times (here), the White House is worried that rising gas prices could derail Mr. Obama’s reelection hopes. Ya think? What to do? They’re arranging a series of opportunities for Mr. Obama to give teleprompter readings! They’re going to give him the opportunity to reassure the public that he has a plan to lower prices, which have risen 30% in the last year. Ah! That explains why he’s telling people worried about high gas prices to buy more fuel efficient cars! That’ll convince folks, won’t it? Discuss.

ITEM: Continuing Tales Of The Religion Of Peace Department: Peaceful Palestinians hit an Israeli school bus with a peaceful anti-tank missile on April 7, seriously wounding a 16 year old boy and the bus driver. Fortunately. Most of the kids got off the bus only minutes earlier. And these are the people with whom President Obama reflexively sides? Sigh. Yes, they are. Go here for the whole story.

ITEM: Blasts From The Past! Department: Go here for an interesting—and sobering—analysis of our fiscal problem by former Reagan budget guru David Stockman. Yes, it is as bad as you think it is, and worse.

ITEM: In the bad old days of the Cold War, and even today, Communist regimes always talk about “The People’s” this and “The People’s” that. It is part of the inherent propaganda of communism, and an essential part of the big lie that communist governments care for their people. Mao cared so much that he killed, arguably, 100 million of his “the people.” Congressional Democrats have produced their own budget outline, and the most amazing coincidence! They’re calling it “The People’s Budget.” Anyone who is not offended—and deeply concerned—by this, knows nothing of history or of communism, or worse, is very well aware. Go here to read the whole thing. Notice that they are not afraid to tell “the people” that they intend to reduce our strategic capabilities—to greatly decrease our ability to defend ourselves and others. To what has Barack Obama—The One--brought us?

ITEM: Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-State of Incoherence) recently delivered a speech (here) wherein she observed that in 1994 Republicans were elected to defund the National Endowment of the Arts, but in 2010, they were elected to “kill women.” Uh…what?! Ladies and Gentlemen: Your Democrat representatives! (cue laugh track and rim shot)

ITEM: Louis Renault Award of the Millennium: Yes, those peaceful humanitarians of Iran are at it again. The world was recently shocked, shocked! to discover yet another previously unknown nuclear facility where the Iranians were producing centrifuge parts--according to them--for purely peaceful purposes, of course. Read the whole thing here. I’m shocked, shocked! that Mr. Obama’s smart diplomacy and serious sanctions don’t appear to be having any effect on the peaceful theocratic lunatics who run Iran and export peaceful terror around the globe. Perhaps if Mr. Obama gives another teleprompter reading to the Muslim world?

ITEM: Uh, Who Are The Children Here? Via Fox News (here), a football coach in San Diego attacked and seriously injured a man when he thought he overheard the man trying to recruit one of his players. The players were 9, 10 and 11 years old. “Get a life” comes to mind...

ITEM: Drinkin’ Good In the Neighborhood! A 15 month old toddler in a Michigan Applebee’s began to act strangely. His mother found that what she thought was apple juice was actually margarita mix. The manager of the Applebee’s called it “unacceptable.” Well, yeah. Go here for the story. LATE UPDATE: Apparently the kiddie was served booze due to a labeling mixup. Applebees plans to dispense all juices in sealed, individual containers from now on. Good idea.

ITEM: At Hot Air (here) Jazz Shaw has an article on the incredible self-delusion of progressives who cannot imagine why the Tea Party and it’s obviously stupid, horribly flawed ideals is, well, kicking their butts. Shaw takes a bit of vicarious pleasure in their misery. It’s worth reading to provide a bit of insight into what passes for thinking in progressive circles, but do not, gentle reader, begin your victory dance just yet. Thus far, we have only saved or slightly hindered a tiny portion of an ever-expanding and still out of control budget and bureaucracy. We’ve successfully fired the first signal flare in what will certainly be a very long and bitterly fought war. The live ammunition has not yet begun to fly.

ITEM: The “We’re Doing WHAT?!” Department: The Obama Administration, mired in the worst debt crisis in American, nay, in world history, is going to spend $20 million to: Wait for it...remake Sesame Street in Pakistan! There just aren’t words... Some are apparently saying, “hey, it’s only $20 million...” I dunno. Seems like a lot of money to me regardless of what it’s for. Why, I’d bet that if you started saving 20 million here and 20 million there, eventually, it would add up to some real money! Go here if you have the stomach.

ITEM: Newsmax (here) has a story on the never-ending fun in Wisconsin. As you may recall, Wisconsin Supreme Court hopeful JoAnn Kloppenburg, who all but promised to be a partisan progressive rubber stamp, declared victory with a 200+ vote margin. Then, miracle of miracles, some 15,00 uncounted votes were discovered and incumbent Justice David Prosser was suddenly up by 7500 votes, which will most likely hold and be outside the trigger for a state-paid recount. How do we know this is likely an honest mistake rather than criminal vote fraud? Easy: It benefited a Republican. Gov. Scott Walker is vowing that unions won’t be able to cheat their way to victory. Wisconsin is becoming an endless source of entertainment, and I thought that all it had to recommend it was cheese hats.

ITEM: Say, wasn’t there some sort of trouble in one of those foreign places, like last week or so. You know, like, Venezlulu, or Nobukistan, or Libya maybe? Wasn’t it Libya or something like that? Go here for Mark Steyn’s take. Apparently the non-war with a non-battle plan for non-victory is going non-well under the non-inspired non-guidance of our non-Commander-In-Chief. What a non-relief!

ITEM: Remember the multiple injunctions issued by Judge Sumi in Wisconsin on behalf of the unions? Go here to find out, specifically, why everything she did was illegal under Wisconsin law. But hey, what’s a little thing like breaking the law when public sector union pocketbooks are at risk? It’s all about the money. It always was.

ITEM: Are you a state laboring under oppressive DOJ interference? Want to take on the Holder DOJ and not only win, but kick its nether regions a considerable distance down the road? Visit here to find out how. There may be justice in the world after all.

ITEM: Even in the People’s Democrat Republic of Illinois, it seems, some sanity may yet exist. State Attorney General Lisa Madigan, determined to release the names of law-abiding gun owners to the press, has been temporarily restrained by the Illinois House which passed a bill to keep those names—remind me again why any state should be collecting the names of gun owners?—private. Go here for the whole mess.

ITEM: Signs of the Apocalypse Department: From Fox News (here) comes the tale of a man and woman who robbed a lemonade stand, taking $150 that three girls had raised for charity. The woman was arrested but the man is still at large. What, I wonder, besides lengthy prison terms, would be an appropriate punishment? Mandatory lemon sucking for life?

ITEM: Harry Reid Follies Redux: In this space, we’ve criticized Sen. Harry Reid (D-State of Delusion) for weeping over the coming cowboy poetry apocalypse. The New York Times (here), of all places (Yeeeha! Git along, little urban doggies!) has a sympathetic article on the topic. Paul Zarzyski, a cowboy poet said:

“A lot of art forms at first brush might sound peculiar,” he said. “After you learn a little bit about them and the people who perform them, you find out that they are as significant as any kind of art forms. Cowboy poetry comes out of a culture that most people don’t understand. Most of that criticism is urban and uninformed.”

Not really, Paul. We suburban, informed types just don’t believe that money falls out of the back of chuck wagons, and if it’s a choice between, for example, ammunition for our troops or, well, cowboy poetry, we’ll go for the most bang for the buck anytime.

ITEM: And You Wonder Why Public Education Get A Bad Reputation? Department: From Michelle Malkin (here) comes the story of a Chicago elementary school where the principal has decided she knows better than parents and has enacted a nanny-state policy to protect them from themselves. The policy? Kids can’t bring lunch from home; they have to eat cafeteria food. Unsurprisingly, a great many kids choose to eat nothing at all rather than the wonderfully nutritious and tasty choices provided on the school menu. Isn’t forcing kids to eat school food a violation of the Geneva Conventions? Perhaps a violation of the Constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment? Where are the human rights types when you need them? Oh, the humanity!

ITEM: Cruzin! Department: I’ve been taking General (Government) Motors to task of late for wasting taxpayer dollars, primarily with the Chevy Volt. Now, from the Wall Street Journal (here), comes news of some minor difficulties with another Chevy offering: The Cruze, which is the new small car on which Chevy is basing a significant part of its post-bailout fortunes. Apparently the proud owner of a new Cruze was making a turn and the steering wheel broke off in their hands. Boy, that’s winning the future! Chevy has issued a recall (good idea!) and said that they will fix the problem for free (that’s big of them). Hmm. Have they asked Mr. Obama about that? He’ll probably want a repair tax added. Your taxpayer dollars at work!

ITEM: Do you remember when Mr. Obama was a senator way back in 2008, a senator taking gratuitous shots at Mr. Bush for high gas prices and for having the unbelievably high unemployment rate of 5.5%? Yeah, well, Mr. Obama would like you to forget that. After all, 10% functional unemployment and gas prices shooting toward $5.00 per gallon aren’t his fault and he can’t do anything about it anyway! That’s right, the man who could stop the rise of the seas and heal the planet is helpless! Read more at Powerline, here.

ITEM: Libya Update: Kaddafi is still in power, the war continues, our planes are still withdrawn, the French say that NATO isn’t enough, and Mr. Obama—like any semblance of American leadership or resolve—is absent. Hmm. Doesn’t demonstrated weakness and irresolution encourage tribal, Islamist barbarians? But hey, we’re winning the future! Or something...

ITEM: Further News From The Religion Of Peace Department: According to Reuters, as reported in the Jerusalem Post (here), Iran has announced plans to build “four our five” new nuclear reactors “in the next few years.” Iran plans to use these reactors for research and to produce medical radioisotopes. Suuuuuuure they do. One wonders what kind of sanctions Mr. Obama will want to impose when the first Iranian nuc goes off in Israel or America. No doubt it is only smart diplomacy that has prevented Iran for already having a bomb—maybe.

ITEM: And speaking of energy, the Washington Examiner (here) reports that America has the largest reserves of untapped energy on the entire planet. Exploiting those resources would greatly increase energy supplies while greatly lowering costs, and none of this exploitation would cost a single taxpayer dollar. So let’s see if I have this straight: We have the means, at no cost to the taxpayer, to immediately stimulate the economy, greatly increase the number of solid, long-term jobs, reduce our dependence on energy from hostile foreign suppliers, increase our national security, lower prices on just about everything, and to help to pay down the budget deficit. So of course, Mr. Obama is vehemently opposed, despite his rhetoric to the contrary. Is that about it? Thought so.

ITEM: So what does the hard Left think about budget cuts? Visit a column by Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post (here) to get a glimpse into the cobwebbed recesses of the liberal brain. An example: “There’s no question who won last week’s showdown. The outcome — nearly $40 billion in painful cuts — goes well beyond the GOP’s initial demands.” To Robinson, $40 billion cut from a multi-trillion dollar deficit is painful and unreasonable. Basically, liberals actually appear to believe that the Federal Government is not nearly large enough and that it is not possible to cut even a penny from the budget, unless, of course, it comes directly out of the defense budget. That we can cut, no problem. The article is certainly informative, but probably not as Mr. Robinson intended.

ITEM: From Fox News (here) comes news of The California Federation of Teachers which has passed a resolution renewing its support for convicted Philadelphia cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal has long been a liberal icon, despite overwhelmingly conclusive evidence of his guilt, including multiple eye witnesses, his possession of the gun used to kill the officer, and a bullet fired by the officer he killed recovered from his own personal body. Despite all of this, he has become a liberal symbol of the racism and injustice of the system. Power to the people, right on! One might be forgiven for wondering what business a teacher’s union might have dealing with an issue like this—particularly where the object of their affections is so utterly loathsome--but then again, what business does a teacher’s union have being a subsidiary of and fund raiser for the Democrat party?

ITEM: Louis Renault Award for March: Remember all the mainstream media news stories about the Iranian cargo plane forced to land in Turkey by Turkish fighters in March? Remember the international outrage when it was discovered that the plane carried 600 kilos of explosives, mortars, assault rifles, rocket launchers and about $560 million in cash, all bound for Hezbollah through Syria? You don’t? I’m shocked, shocked! that you didn’t. Well, maybe not so much. Google the event and you’ll discover much Israeli and internet coverage, but otherwise? After all, all of those goodies were only destined to kill Israelis, you know, Jews. It only had the potential to inflame an entire region of strategic interest to the United States. Why would that be news? Oh, right! It would embarrass Mr. Obama. Go here for the rest.

ITEM: Remember how Obamites postulated that once ObamaCare was a fait accompli, everyone would find out what was in it and just love it up one side and down the other? Reality, fortunately, is not quite so sanguine. According to a recent AP poll (here), only 35% support ObamaCare, which is almost tied with the low of 34% during the season of entertaining town hall meetings, during which many Democrats were nearly tarred, feathered and run out of town on rails. How’s that hope and change workin’ out for yah?

ITEM: In the “Oh Goody” Department, comes the news (here) that the Magma pocket under Yellowstone National Park’s super volcano is likely far larger than had been previously suspected. The last eruption, which was about 600,000 years ago, blanketed much of North American was a thick blanket of ash. According to scientists, a super eruption occurs about once every 600,000 years…uh-oh…

ITEM: Continuing with the unceasing tradition of public employee labor union altruism and civic-mindedness, the California Teacher’s association (here) has budgeted one million dollars for protests against upcoming cuts to education in a state that is about ready, economically speaking, to slide off the map into the Pacific any day now. Among the tactics they’ve posted on their website:

“Follow targeted legislators for the entire day.”

“Have students and parents camp in front of schools all night.’

And my personal favorite:

“Work with organization[sic] like Ben & Jerry to have them create a labor-union flavored ice cream that can be sold at the rallies and in stores.”

Like what, exactly, would mouth-watering “labor-union flavored ice cream” taste? Would that be anything like “environmental-activist flavored ice cream?” The mind boggles. Discuss.

Mark Twain was right: Truth is stranger than fiction. And on that somewhat disquieting note, thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you next Thursday!

Posted by MikeM at 08:20 PM | Comments (5)

April 11, 2011

Obama Recants?

And so it begins. In 2006, Senator Barack Obama voted against raising the debt limit, a vote his various spokesmen now characterize as a “mistake.” Accordingly, Mr. Obama is set to present yet another historic teleprompter reading on Wednesday wherein, on the heels of The Ryan budget proposal, he will lay out his own bold initiative. The public would be well advised to recall that for Mr. Obama, rhetoric is exceedingly cheap, and action, particularly that which would in any way displease the most ardent socialist, exceedingly hard to find.

What is Mr. Obama expected to say? According to various advisors and spokespeople:

(1) The debt limit must be raised or the effect would be “Armageddon-like” for the economy.

(2) Taxes must be substantially raised on the evil, greedy, rich, those making more than $250,000--or so, more or less--per year.

I’ll go out on a limb and predict:

(1) Taxes won’t be raised on the nearly 50% of Americans who pay nothing at all in taxes.

(2) Spending cuts, what spending cuts?

(3) Even more entitlement spending.

(4) High-sounding promises to win the future--or something.

(5) Increased spending on green energy boondoggles, high speed rail, education, anything that will waste huge amounts of money for no good purpose.

We can be absolutely sure that whatever he proposes will require far more government spending, a much larger government, and will further degrade a very shaky economy. There is, to date, no sign that Mr. Obama has changed his view that economic distress can only be addressed by means of much higher taxes and unfathomably greater spending. More after the historic teleprompter reading. Stay tuned.

Posted by MikeM at 06:14 PM | Comments (3)

April 09, 2011

Obama and Energy

The nice folks at Pajamas Media have been kind enough to publish an essay on Mr. Obama and the falsity of his energy policy. It's called Obama's New Energy Policy: A Lesson In Stealth Socialism. I explore Mr. Obama's true political philosophy and how he has applied it in ObamaCare, and how he is applying it in domestic energy policy. To read it, go here.

Posted by MikeM at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2011

Quick Takes, April 07, 2011

ITEM: It is a mark of the character of the American people that this kind of story will touch their hearts and bring a tear to their eyes. Go here, and see what I mean.

ITEM: A Trip Down Memory Lane. Why are we currently at a budget impasse? Is it those evil Republicans who want to kill children and old people with their “radical” spending cuts? Not quite. Rewind to October, 2010 when the budget for this fiscal year was due. Ah, those heady days of absolute Democrat control of the White House and both houses of Congress, yet they refused to pass a budget for this fiscal year. Why? Because they were sufficiently aware of their debilitating spending addiction to know that any budget they passed would elect even more Republicans in November. Thus they set the stage for continuing resolution after continuing resolution and the government shutdown (tell me again why that’s a bad thing?) looming at midnight Friday. Keep this in mind the next time a Democrat tells you that they are protecting the public against the evils of rational spending and avoiding a global economic shutdown.

ITEM: Is This Cool Or What? Department: ABC News (here) reports on the XM-25, a weapon currently being field tested in Afghanistan. The weapon—troops call it “The Punisher”—is a programmable, semi-automatic 25mm grenade launcher. Equipped with a combination day/night/laser ranging sight, soldiers can set the smart round it fires to explode at a predetermined distance. Terrorists hiding behind a thick mortar wall? Lase the distance, set the round to explode at that distance + three feet, aim above the wall and fire. The round will travel directly to that point and explode directly above the terrorists. The weapon is still under development and all of the types of ammunition are not yet perfected and widely available, but the troops who have used it in combat reportedly do not want to give it up. It is this kind of American ingenuity some despise. The tragedy is that many of them are American politicians.

ITEM: Perhaps the best advertising strategy for the 2012 presidential election is to let Mr. Obama indict himself. Use his actions, his words, his stated intentions and their results to convince people that he must be a one-term president. It should be ridiculously easy as there has never been a president who has talked at the American people in such shallow depth, yet with such clock-like regularity and such tsunami-like volume. For a good look at what just might work, at least for people who have not had Obama implants secreted under their skin on the Obama mothership, go here.

ITEM: Tales Of The Religion Of Peace, Department: From Fox News (here) comes the story of Muslim riots in Afghanistan that in two days (April 1 and 2) have left 13 dead, including seven foreign UN employees. In addition more than 50 have been injured. Yes, once again, the most peaceful religion on Earth has murdered many innocents, including fellow Muslims. Why? Because Afghan president Hamid Karzai announced and condemned the actions of one, small Florida church in burning a copy of the Koran on March 20. And Mr. Obama thinks it’s possible to negotiate with such people because...? I guess that historic Muslim outreach speech in Cairo didn’t go as far as Afghanistan--or Egypt--or Syria--or Iran--or Libya, or, well, anywhere else in the Muslim world, but that’s hope and change for ya!

ITEM: In The Throw Away The Key! Department, from Fox News (here) we learn of two parents in Michigan who sicced their seven year old son on another boy. When a 73 year old crossing guard tried to stop the attack, the parents attacked him. They’ve been arrested and charged with assault and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Well, yeah...

ITEM: In the “He Did WHAT?! Department comes news (here) that Mr. Obama, in a stunning display of the kind of military acumen that has made him the Commander-In-Chief that he is, has withdrawn American attack planes, more or less, sort of so that NATO--which is actually, really us--can kind of take over. This military move, worthy of Sun Tzu’s much dumber brother Dim Duk, has occurred at the same time that Qaddafi’s forces have begun a serious push to eradicate the rebel forces, and have begun to run up a significant casualty toll. Senators on the Armed Services Committee characterized the move as “odd,” “troubling” and “unnerving,” and Senator John McCain told Defense Secretary Robert Gates “your timing is exquisite.” He was not delivering a compliment. Gates allowed that the situation was “unfortunate,” but said that our grounded aircraft could be recalled if things became so bad for the rebels that it was necessary. Senator Lindsay Graham said: "The idea that the AC-130s and the A-10s and American air power is grounded unless the place goes to hell is just so unnerving that I can't express it adequately.” And critics have called Mr. Obama’s Libya not-war policy “incoherent.” What were they thinking? It’s perfectly coherent in an utter lack of coherence sort of way.

ITEM: The Everything is Under Control! Department (here): "There is a perception that the border is worse now than it ever has been," DHS Secretary Napolitano said at the El Paso border crossing last week. "That is wrong. The border is better now than it ever has been." Unfortunately for Napolitano, and incidentally, the entire nation, Arizona’s Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever has a differing opinion. “The senior supervisor agent is telling me about how their mission is now to scare people back. He said, ‘I had to go back to my guys and tell them not to catch anybody, that their job is to chase people away. … They were not to catch anyone, arrest anyone. Their job was to set up posture, to intimidate people, to get them to go back.”

Jeffery Self, commander of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Joint Field Command in Arizona, said in a written statement. “The claim that Border Patrol supervisors have been instructed to underreport or manipulate our statistics is unequivocally false,” Hmm. Wait a minute. Mr. Self didn’t actually address what Sheriff Dever said, did he? I’m sure everything is completely under control. After all, Janet Napolitano said so!

ITEM: The Government Is Using Your Tax Dollars With the Greatest Care! Department: From Hot Air (here) comes news of the enormous sculpture of a fairy on the back of a toad which lights up and “gurgles sounds of nature.” The sculpture, to be placed at the Defense Department’s Mark Center in Alexandria, Virginia to open this fall, costs a mere $600,000, pocket change to the Federal Government. Army Corps of Engineers officials, responding to charges of waste and, well, idiocy, have noted that the decision to build the enormous toad and fairy, which is due on April 1 (talk about irony), can’t be put off because it would “impact completion” of the project. I don’t know what all the fuss is about. After all, it’s not even a million bucks, and I can’t think of anything more inspiring to people working to help defend America than the kind of patriotic symbolism embodied by a ten foot fairy riding an enormous toad. After all, wasn’t it just such a vision that inspired George Washington to cross the Potomac in a wooden shoe while chopping down a cherry tree and lying to his father? It wasn’t? Oh. This is an April Fool's joke, right? Even the Feds couldn't be this dopey? Right? Right?

ITEM: And in the “So Ironic It Hurts!” Department, comes this story from Hot Air (here) about Mr. Obama recently receiving an award for—wait for it…transparency! And the best part is that he locked all reporters out of the secret White House ceremony where the award was bestowed! You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

ITEM: So Now The Republicans Want to Kill Children, Eh? Rajiv, Shas, USAID Administrator told a House subcommittee:

“… the budget plan, which would cut $61 billion in federal spending, would lead to the deaths of 30,000 kids in a malaria control program that would have to be scaled back, 24,000 from a lack of immunizations and 16,000 from a lack of skilled attendants at birth.” "’There's a way to do this that does not have to cost lives and we're very focused and very much want to work with the committee to identify a path forward that can allow us to be effective at doing so,’ he said. Shah is seeking $59.5 billion in funding for his agency, up 22 percent, or $10.7 billion, from the current level.”

Well, when you put it that way… Perhaps the Dems can come up with how many children will be killed per dollar of budget cuts. Any bets? One? 2.37? 18.82? Go here for the entire sad story and contact your Republican legislator and tell them to kill as many children as possible.

NOTE TO THE IRONY CHALLENGED/MANDATORY POLITICAL CORRECTNESS DISCLAIMER: That last comment was satirical. I am not, in fact, in favor of killing children and I am not, in fact, actually telling you to tell legislators to kill children. However, I am fond of Jonathan Swift’s modest proposal about eating them.

ITEM: We’re so far underwater in national debt that we can’t see sunlight, so one wonders on which pressing, absolutely vital national priority does Mr. Obama want to spend even more money? Buying more land for parks and conservation. The federal government already owns about 1/3 of all American lands, and Mr. Obama (here) wants to double spending next year to $900 million dollars. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has pointed out that the Feds cannot afford to maintain the land they already own, and would have to sell, rather than buy, land to properly maintain it. Hmm. If I was broke and owned property I couldn’t afford to maintain, wouldn’t I sell that property? But then again, I’m not Barack Obama, am I?

Another thought: How does this square with Mr. Obama’s recent speech claiming to be all about expanding American energy production? Does he want more land to open it to exploration and energy production? Isn’t private land already open to exploration and energy production? Something doesn’t smell quite right, and I’m sure it doesn’t smell remotely like oil.

ITEM: Epic Fail Department: Remember all of Mr. Obama’s bold outreach initiatives? Remember the way he was going to utterly transform not only America, but make the world love us? Remember how having a black, sort-of-Muslim-when-it’s-convenient-and-don’t-you-dare-call-me-Muslim-even-though-my-middle-name-is-about-as-muslim-as-it-gets President would change the way every nation dealt with America? How’s all of that working out? Go here for John Hannah’s take. My take? Mr. Obama couldn’t have made a worse hash of the world if he tried, and I’m not entirely sure he didn’t--and isn’t.

ITEM: Read the article here to discover one of the greatest tragedies of modern times. Oh, the humanity! Yes, California state legislators, in a state that is about to, economically and perhaps not metaphorically speaking, slide into the Pacific Ocean, may actually—gasp!—lose—wailing and gnashing of teeth—their taxpayer paid luxury automobiles! I may eat some organic vegetables in protest of the obvious violation of universal human rights such cruel deprivation would constitute. And yes, CA is the only state that provides state-subsidized rides for state legislators. And it's bankrupt. And it just elected a man it fondly (?!) calls "Governor Moonbeam" again(?!). Perhaps there’s a lesson in there somewhere? Discuss.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award of the Week: From Fox News (here) comes the tragic tale of Attorney General Eric Holder, a man who works tirelessly for his people, making a petulant April 4 appearance to announce that some of the most vile terrorists of the century will not be allowed to have star-studded media-circus trials in the Big Apple. No, NYC will be denied the world-wide attention, astronomical expense, disruption and terrorist targeting that is—according to Mr. Holder and Mr. Obama--its natural right. And it’s all the more tragic, according to Mr. Holder, because he guarantees they’d be convicted, so let’s get on with the fair, impartial trials and show the world how fair our justice system really is. But that’s not what makes me shocked, shocked!, no. I know you won’t be able to believe it either. It’s the fault of Congress and those darned American people that Mr. Holder won’t get his way. Awwww. Once again, the people--the bastards--have spoken.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award of the Week #II: I am shocked, shocked! to learn that the Nevada chapter of ACORN has pleaded guilty to one count of violating election laws in Las Vegas, NV during the 2008 campaign. ACORN, which is now defunct (I really can’t get tired of writing that!), is almost certainly operating under other names. The mainstream media might figure that out sometime after the next presidential election--or not. Go to Fox News (here) for the rest of the story. Hope. Change. Nation-wide election fraud. Community Organizing.

ITEM: From Hot Air (here) comes the news that Former Speaker of the House (I absolutely never get tired of writing that!) Nancy Pelosi is now saying that some budget bill or something or other that Republicans may or may not be proposing will make six million seniors starve to death. Sigh. On the April 5th O’Reilly Factor, John Stossel reported that his staff called Pelosi’s office and they had no idea what bill Pelosi was talking about or where she was getting her figures. Imagine that. This woman was third in line for the presidency. Contact your Republican legislators immediately and ask that they make eating old people legal. Starting with Nancy Pelosi. For the required disclaimer, see the “ So Now The Republicans Want to Kill Children, Eh?” item above and substitute “old people” for “children.” Thanks.

ITEM: I’m All For Free Speech, But…: From Hot Air (here) comes the predictably erratic Senator Lindsay Graham who says: “I wish we could hold people accountable for their actions, but under free speech, you can’t.” He speaks, of course of the killing of UN workers and fellow Afghani Muslims by Afghan adherents of the religion of peace following the burning of a Koran by an obscure Florida minister. Graham, who is actually a military (reserve) lawyer(?!), thinks that the fact that he, and apparently General David Petraeus--according to Graham--would like to ban Koran burning overrides the First Amendment because without people like the general, there would be no First Amendment. Well, I’m a teacher, and without people like me, there would be no writ…

ITEM: Delicious Irony Department: From Rob over at PACNW Righty (here) we discover that in the very heart of leftist, Global Warming, tree-hugging territory, California, The Sierra Nevada Mountains have near-record snowfalls, with some 61 feet of snow. But of course, 61 feet of snow is obvious evidence of global warming. So is rain, hail, night, day, too-tight jeans, Victoria’s Secret, little yappy dogs, Koran burning and Nancy Pelosi. Discuss.

ITEM: Who Says There Are No Happy Endings? Department: If you’d like a smile on your face and a tear in your eye, go here. Oh yes, and be glad you’re an American, one of hundreds of millions of people who would care about something so simple, so common, yet so touching.

And on that touching note, thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you again next Thursday, same bat-time, same bat-channel!

Posted by MikeM at 10:17 PM | Comments (2)

April 05, 2011

Fiscal Malpractice

In recent weeks, America’s fiscal crisis has, day by day, worsened and the stark realities we face have been made more and more clear. Yet in the face of disaster, Congressional Democrats scream about cutting a few billions, accusing Republicans of wanting to kill 70,000 children when we are facing deficits in the tens of trillions. President Obama has been essentially absent, apparently adopting the childish tactic of ignoring the deficit in the hope that it will simply go away and stop bothering him. If that was all that he did--or didn’t do--it would be bad enough, but of late, he has taken a number of policy steps that clearly indicate that he has no idea of economics, or simply could care less.

Mr. Obama has announced (here) his executive order to replace all 600,000 federal vehicles with “advanced technology” vehicles by 2015. “Advanced technology,” of course, means hybrids and electric vehicles such as the Chevy Volt, which is essentially a needly complex plug-in pseudo hybrid retailing for $41,000, but costing as much as $65,000. The costs of this bit of economic lunacy are staggering. Every Volt purchased will cost more than double the price of a comparable sedan and will also require a huge investment in charging stations at federal installations across the nation. Even hybrids commonly cost thousands more than comparable conventional vehicles.

Mr. Obama has also announced his intention (here) to double--to $900 million dollars--the Federal Government’s budget for purchasing privately owned land, ostensibly for conservation. The Feds already own 1/3 of all land in America and, according to Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, cannot come close to properly maintaining it, an assertion many Americans who have recently visited a national park can confirm. In fact, the only way the Government can possibly afford to properly maintain the land it now owns would be to sell large portions of it to raise the money necessary to maintain the rest.

There are a great many additional examples of Mr. Obama’s utter lack of adult seriousness regarding debt reduction, but these are illustrative. Certainly, there are political motivations in these two situations. Mr. Obama clearly intends to buy large numbers of Chevy Volts, in effect, to create a market where one could not otherwise exist. In doing this, he continues to put money in union coffers, and in turn, his 2012 campaign chest. It is no coincidence that Mr. Obama’s crony and advisor, Jeffery Immelt, president of General Electric, has committed GE to buying 12,000 Volts. It is likewise an amazing non-coincidence that GE manufactures the charging stations that will be necessary to support fleets of electric vehicles with limited utility and even more limited range (about 25 miles in real world experience). Mr. Obama has also recently expressed his support for an all-of-the-above energy strategy, but everything he has done to date indicates just the opposite. Putting more land under direct government control almost certainly means that much more land closed to coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas development and production.

Any rational adult serious about cutting spending would actually cut spending. Mr. Obama is manifestly not rational or serious in his non-pursuit of fiscal sobriety. But for a man who non-fights non-wars, we should be non-surprised. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama’s lack of attention to American’s welfare will result, and sooner rather than later, in all too real consequences.

Posted by MikeM at 06:03 PM | Comments (5)

March 31, 2011

Quick Takes, March 31, 2011

ITEM: In Maine, a major international crisis is brewing. From Hot Air (here) we discover that Governor Paul LePage has ordered that the state’s Department of Labor building be redecorated after receiving” feedback” that that building isn’t 
“perceived as equally receptive to both businesses and workers.” The remodeling, has been removing a 36-foot mural of the state’s labor history and renaming conference rooms which have to date been named for Cesar Chavez (picking fruit in Maine?) and other big labor icons. As one might expect, the usual suspects have proclaimed this provocative, immoral brutality by governor LePage to be, well, provocative and immoral. Even Robert Reich, Clinton Labor Secretary weighed in on the Christian Science Monitor site (here), asking “Are we still in America?” Hmm. So let me see if I have this straight: Anything relating to labor must not only be laudatory toward unions, must not only be displayed and celebrated, but it must remain in place forever, even if potential changes will be essentially neutral. Seems reasonable. But as for Mr. Reich: “The Horror; the horror!” (Repeat in Elmer Fudd voice until everyone in sight is laughing themselves silly)

ITEM: In the SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE? Department comes news from the Telegraph of London (here and here) that in an ABC News and People Magazine poll, Forrest Gump was rated the greatest film character of all time. James Bond came in second, followed by Scarlett O’Hara, Hannibal Lecter (?!) and Indiana Jones. The comedy was “Airplane!, followed by “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
Check the links for additional categories. “Airplane!” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” but of course, but Forrest Gump?

ITEM: What do you do with a person who was a key advisor to AG Janet Reno during the Branch Davidian disaster in Waco, TX, who was singlehandedly responsible for keeping our intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies from communicating, directly leading to 9-11, who served on the 9-11 commission investigating herself, who also worked at Fannie Mae, making 26 million in just seven years, also earning a $800,000+ bonus based on falsified data from its management in 1998, who also received preferred a rate loan from the discredited Countrywide Mortgage? If you’re the Obama administration, you put her--Jamie Gorelick--on the short list for FBI director! Oh, by the way, she has no actual law enforcement experience whatever--unless you count helping to immolate innocent men, women and children--obviously making her the perfect candidate for the Obamites. More here.

ITEM: In the Flying The Sleepy Skies Department, we learn (here) that Reagan National Airport’s control tower went off the air early March 23rd when the sole Air Traffic Controller on duty went to sleep. Despite repeated radio, phone and alarm calls, the ATC remained in sleepy land and two passenger jets had to land without any direction or clearance. FAA officials had no idea that the tower was apparently regularly manned with only a single controller. Of course, it’s all the fault of George W. Bush (here), who when last I checked has not been president for more than two years. Reliable sources indicate that it is unlikely that he will be president again at anytime in the near future. But that’s OK, because the nation is in the very best of hands.

ITEM: In the “You’re Kidding, Right? Nobody’s That Politically Correct! Department, we travel (here) to Pottawattamie County and Treynor High School where a terrorism scenario drill will take place. The scenario? Two teenage white supremacist/ “firearms enthusiasts” shoot up the school because they’re upset about illegal immigration, of course! Those Californians! What would you expect from such...what’s that? It’s not in California? It’s where?! IOWA?! Iowa. According to the DesMoines Register, Doug Reed, “lead exercise planner” for the County emergency management agency said “the exercise is not intended to be political and shouldn’t be interpreted as criticizing gun owners or opponents of illegal immigration.” Reed, whose obfuscatory rhetorical skills obviously belong in the White House, also noted “This is purely the backdrop and the setup, if you will, to help create a perception of reality for the responders.”

Ah yes, a perception of reality! So let’s see, how many school shootings have been perpetrated by anti-immigrant firearms enthusiasts? None, so obviously this scenario represents the most currently realistic threat of attack on a school in a town with a population of 919 people. Here’s my scenario: An attack by federal bureaucrats who sue the school for violations of the ADA, the Clean Air Act and an obscure treaty protecting a rare ant. That’s arguably more realistic. Discuss.

ITEM: And This Week’s Louis Renault Award goes to: Anyone who ever thought a progressive’s brain could contain a rational, economic thought. I’m shocked, shocked! As I’m sure the ridiculously smart and lovely Michelle Malkin (here) is, and from whom comes news of Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Chris Matthews--our national leg tingler’s--Hardball show presenting his solution to the nation’s economic woes. To wit: “You don’t want government to hold back, you want government right now, yes, the deficit’s a long-term problem, but right not you don’t want to cut government spending, yet Eric Cantor and the Republicans are indulging, you hear it over and over.” You just can’t make this stuff up, folks.

ITEM: Regular readers know that I’ve been following the dubious fortunes of the Government Motors Chevy Volt. Now, from autobloggreen (here) comes news that Washington, Texas and Oregon are considering levying a special tax on electric vehicles! Why? They don’t generate gasoline taxes yet use the same roads as those who do. There is justice in the world after all. And irony, loads and loads of irony. This is just electric (ar, ar) with irony!

ITEM: I think the headline of this article says all you need to know about Joe Biden and the Democrats: “Biden Aide Apologizes After Reporter Kept In Storage Closet During Fundraiser.” According to Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander, the closet wasn’t really a closet, it was a “hold room.” Yeah. Sure. Hope. Change. Transparency. Tell me again why reporters have to wear drool buckets whenever they’re around Obama or his lackeys? Imagine the media outrage if this had been done by a Republican? And no, I’m not making this one up, honest.

ITEM: You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up: In a Media Myth Alert (here) we find this actual correction from the paper of record, the New York Times:

“An article in The Times Magazine last Sunday about Ivana Trump and her spending habits misstated the number of bras she buys. It is two dozen black, two dozen white, not two thousand of each.” Uh, don’t they actually employ any editors at that paper? To normal folks with a normal number of breasts, 2000 is just a bit larger than 24, and a bit more obvious.

ITEM: This headline says it all too: “US: most energy resources in the world and most incoherent energy policy.” Well yeah...read the whole thing from Hot Air (here). Oh well. At least we’re helping Brazil with their oil industry...hey!

ITEM: I know you’ve asked yourself this question: Why are Russians so unsmiling? Find the answer at Pravda, (here). Well, if you’d lived under Communism for a century--just a guess, mind you...

ITEM: Mr. Obama failed to get a poll bounce after his Libya attack that wasn’t an attack with clear goals that weren’t and with a victory plan that wasn’t clearly led by America but not really led by anyone... From the New Republic, via The Daily Caller (here), we discover that the reason for this lack of bounce is (drum roll please, Maestro!) John Boehner didn’t praise it! That’s right, the Republican Speaker of the House’s praise is apparently responsible for the popularity of Democrat presidents. And I thought it was just because Mr. Obama was late and incoherent, but what do I know?

ITEM: Something To Think About Department: What happens to American unity when enough major companies and businesses move to states that actually recognize that businesses and productive citizens are preferable to boarded up storefronts and non-productive entitlement takers? Explore one of the indicators of this potential future divide in a post by Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin’s blog (here). Caterpillar is currently telling the government of the Democrat People’s Republic of Illinois that if they don’t get business friendly in a hurry, Caterpillar is going to move elsewhere. Will the Dem. machine pols that run Illinois listen? Will they listen in other Dem-controlled states? What happens to a state when everyone is taking and there is no one left around to produce?

ITEM: Doesn’t Work and Play Well with Others! Department: At Michelle Malkin (the blog, not the charming Michelle), Doug Powers (here) notes a dust up between Secretary of Defense Gates and Secretary of State Clinton. More evidence of the utter incoherence and disarray of Obama foreign policy, as if you needed any more. Interesting and telling nonetheless.

ITEM: Sharia Goes To School! At National Review Online (here), the highly competent Mona Charen has a nice article about a Muslim teacher who demanded three weeks off in the middle of a school year to perform the Hajj, which is a pilgrimage to Mecca all observant Muslims are expected to make--if possible--once in a lifetime. Why is this noteworthy? Because the school reasonably refused, the teacher resigned and did it anyway, but she also contacted the Justice Department, and guess what, Holder’s boys and girls are suing the school district! By the way, I covered this issue for Pajamas Media back in December. Go here for that article.

ITEM: When someone gets shot by a shotgun in the movies, they fly backwards 20 feet. That’s the way it really is, right? To find out about some great movie/gun myths, go here. And no, getting shot by a shotgun doesn’t fling people any distance. Basic physics: Any firearm that could, from the energy delivered by its projectile, fling someone 20 feet would have the same reaction on the shooter. People fall down and/or backwards when shot out of surprise, shock, and the “Oh s**t! I’ve been shot!” reaction.

ITEM: LOUIS RENAULT AWARD OF THE MONTH! We are shocked, shocked! to learn (here and here) that in a letter to Congress delivered on March 19, Eric Holder’s Department of Justice noted that it had diligently investigated Eric Holder’s DOJ and concluded that Eric Holder’s DOJ is absolutely blameless, blameless! in dismissing the infamous voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party, one of the leaders of which has been immortalized on video exhorting fellow blacks to kill white babies. C’mon, what’d you expect? Eric Holder knows were all cowards because we don’t obsess sufficiently about race, so his DOJ and he are filling the race gap all by themselves. Hope. Change. Race-baiting.

ITEM: President Obama has spent substantial time bragging about his “coalition” of which we’re not really a leader, no, that NATO, sort of, maybe is the leader, and how we’re protecting Libyan lives, except maybe they could be virulent terrorists, and it’s the right thing to do and all, and Qaddafi has to go, except we’re not going to do anything to make that happen, except he knows he has to go, and he didn’t talk to Congress, but if they, you now, want to talk about this, that’s OK with him, and Hillary Clinton is talking to just bunches of people, you know, just bunches. Hmm. Let’s see if I have this straight: Both Bushes had much, much bigger coalitions for their wars--which they actually called wars--and both got Congressional resolutions for their wars. If it’s so morally right, why do we need a coalition to act in the first place? Aren’t we the good guys anymore? And what the hell is Mr. Obama talking about anyway? And don’t get me started on Hillary Clinton. Discuss.

ITEM: Black Flight! No, I’m not talking about levitating black people, but about blacks moving, in record numbers, out of the blue states where decades of social experimentation have devastated the black family. Read this article by Walter Russell Mead. A significant shift in political reality may well be underway. Guess where most are moving? The South. Hope. Change. Cosmic irony.

ITEM: GREAT MOMENTS IN SMART DIPLOMACY! Department. Visit NewsBusters (here) to see the post-Obama Libya speech reaction by Libyans as reported by NBC. In a nutshell: They’re enormously relieved and emboldened. But wait a minute, shouldn’t a speech by the POTUS in wartime make our enemies quake with trepidation and fear instead of making them want to party? I’m sure, being one of those cloddish God and gun clingers, that I’m just too dense to appreciate the nuance inherent in Mr. Obama’s foreign policy. No doubt Sen. John Kerry (D, John Kerry) could explain it in an appropriately nuanced fashion.

ITEM: We’re All Disabled Now! From Fox News (here) comes the news that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, following the Obama Administration’s practice of getting through regulation what it can’t through legitimate means, has redefined “disability” under the Americans With Disability Act. If Congress doesn’t act, the new regulations, which could actually result in most Americans being able to claim disabled status, will take effect in May. More disabled Americans equals more demands on business, equals less profit, equals fewer jobs, equals less business, equals higher unemployment, equals less tax revenue, equals greater reliance on the all-powerful government, equals our continuing descent into third world status. Hope. Change. Obama domestic policy.

ITEM: Just A Thought: Pundit after pundit is writing that Mr. Obama’s Libya speech was “eloquent,” but contradictory, confusing, and/or made little or no sense. Hmm. If a speech is contradictory, confusing and made little or no sense, is it really eloquent, or was it, at best, a reasonably competent teleprompter reading? Can saying essentially “blah, blah, blah, and more blah” be eloquent?

ITEM: Cash For Clunkers II: This Time It’s Personal! Yes, gentle readers, Cash For Clunkers was so successful the first time around, it wasted $3 billion dollars, depressed the numbers of vehicles available on the used car market and increased the cost of those remaining so much that it only makes sense the Obamites would try it again--sort of. And as you suspected, it’s tied into the ridiculously unpopular Chevy Volt. According to The Blaze (here) the Obamites are planning to change the current $7500 tax credit for green cars--the only two currently available are the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf--to a rebate immediately available at the point of sale. Who is excited about this--apart from the Obama Administration? General Motors, another subsidiary of the Democrat party. So let’s see, Volts are currently selling for as much as $65,000, so with the rebate, that’s only $57,500! Buy one for each day of the week! Meanwhile, Nissan’s Leaf sales are, to put it mildly, uninspiring, perhaps even more uninspiring than Volt sales.

ITEM: Here’s a delightful bit of history about the Slinky! Yes, as you always suspected, it was originally intended to be a tension spring in the engine horsepower meters of battleships! Go here.

ITEM: Yes, Once Again, I’ve Read Your Minds! I Know Exactly What You Want to See! Go here for a video on a slingshot/crossbow hybrid that shoots--wait for it--machetes! The video reveals that no piece of cardboard within two feet is safe. Nor is the maker’s arm.

And with that bit of whimsy, I’ll bid you adieu for this week. Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you again next Thursday!.

Posted by MikeM at 12:16 AM | Comments (1)

March 28, 2011

Courting Armageddon

I've been warning of the apocalyptic Hojjatieh sect that rules Iran for the better part of four years now. They believe that the end of the world is imminent, which isn't too dissimilar to factions and cults within religions dating from the beginning of time until now. What separates the Hojjatieh from all other cults is that they believe they have a duty to help bring about the end of the world, and they very nearly have the capacity to do so.

The Hojjatieh are a sect within Shia "Twelver" Islam in Iran that rules the terrorist state, which either has nuclear weapons capability, or are on the edge of developing that capability.

The cult has not been shy about its beliefs, nor has it sought to hide its presence. Its most fierce advocate is none other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, acting on the orders of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Now the world's only nuclear cult has released a film alerting Muslims to the imminent return of the Madhi and the end of life on Earth.

One of the most important keys to securing the reappearance of the last messiah — as called for in the Hadith — is the annihilation of Israel, and the conquering of Beitol Moghadas (Jerusalem). They state with conviction that Islam will soon conquer the world, and that all infidels will be destroyed.

The pursuit of nuclear bombs by the radicals ruling Iran is directly connected to this belief: war, chaos, and lawlessness must engulf the world to pave the way for Imam Mahdi's reappearance.

This movie has been produced in Iran by an organization called Conductors of The Coming, in collaboration with the Iranian president's office and the Basij (Iranian paramilitary force). Also, reports indicate that Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, President Ahmadinejad's top adviser and chief of staff, was directly involved with this project. The movie was completed a few months ago and was recently screened for the high clerics by the Iranian president’s office, with one of its high-ranking official analyzing it.

For the past few years, Ahmadinejad has been telling everyone who would listen that Iran intends to wipe Israel off the map. If Iran launches such an attack, the resulting retaliatory strike—the so-called Samson Option—would destroy the Muslim Middle East that has attempted time and again to destroy the Jewish state. Tens of millions will die in the carnage. The region will be uninhabitable, and the fallout will circle the globe and affect us all.

The Iranian leaders are preparing their followers for this end of days that they plan to initiate. Our leftist Western leaders stand silent, unwilling to believe that madmen with the means to destroy the world intend to do just that if they feel the time is right.

Watch the film for yourself.

With the creation of The Coming, the Iranian leadership indicates that they are in the final preparatory stages prior to launching an attack on Israel in hopes of triggering the cleansing fire their Madhi's return demands.

Our leaders will beg forgiveness if the world burns, but they will do nothing to prevent it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:10 AM | Comments (4)

March 25, 2011

Armed Extortion in Wisconsin?

As the Delegates were leaving Independence Hall for the final time, a woman approached Benjamin Franklin and asked:

Dr. Franklin, what kind of government have you given us?

Franklin replied:

A republic, if you can keep it.

Brilliant as he was, Franklin was more prescient than he could have imagined.

Democracy is at once robust and fragile. Among its greatest strengths is that it is voluntary. A people choose to participate because the benefits of democracy are more than worth its duties and responsibilities. Yet this strength is also among its greatest weaknesses. When a sufficient number of citizens no longer believe that the duties and responsibilities of democracy are worth its benefits, the keeping of that republic, that Democracy, becomes an open question, a question much discussed over the last two years.

If, for example, one third of the public, some 100 million Americans, decided that government was so corrupt that the only way to curtail its unrestrained spending was to refuse to pay income taxes, the system would quickly break down. Imagine too that the people lose confidence in the police. Imagine that they believe that the police will play favorites, and that those they favor are immune from arrest, that the police will stand idly by and ignore the crimes of those they support. How can the people know who the police might favor and when? Who would not hesitate to call them?

One of the primary factors causing Americans to question the continuing existence of the republic is the corrupting effect of public sector unions. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is certainly not remembered as a conservative, yet even he recognized the dangers inherent in public sector unions, considering government union strikes against taxpayers:

“unthinkable and intolerable.”

Even George Meaney, President of the AFL-CIO in 1955 said:

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

FDR was such a giant of early progressivism that Time Magazine photoshopped Mr. Obama’s face onto an iconic image of FDR for its November 28, 2008 cover. In truth, FDR and BHO do have one thing in common: Both spent truly awesome amounts of money. It has been said that money is the root of all evil. At the moment, it is, at least, the motivational force that threatens to dissolve our republic.

I have, for several years, read and enjoyed the writings of “Jack Dunphy,” the pen name of a serving LAPD officer. Because of our similar backgrounds and experiences, I recognize the importance of helping the public to learn the realities of law enforcement from those who actually do it, but his most recent post on Pajamas Media, “Not All Public Sector Unions Are Made Equal,” on March 17 has given me pause.

But before I address that article, let us first travel across the nation from Los Angeles to that pastoral, Progressive land of dairy farms and cheese hats: Wisconsin. Wisconsin has become infamous of late for armed extortion and blatant betrayal of the public trust. I speak, tragically, of Wisconsin’s police.

Many reports have mentioned officers of various police forces appearing to stand by and do nothing as union lawbreaking and violence ran rampant under their watchful gaze. This might, under some circumstances, be wise and necessary, but there is reason to believe that less professional and rational motivations have been at work, for many Wisconsin police forces are unionized.

On more than one occasion, police officers in uniform have joined union forces occupying the Capitol building to express their solidarity. Others have threatened to disobey the orders of their superiors to remove protestors. Perhaps some have actually refused. One uniformed officer went so far as to wield a bullhorn from the Rotunda floor to exhort the Capitol-occupying crowd to greater heights of glorious, socialist struggle.

Interestingly, Wisconsin has a “Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights” which specifically allows political activism by police officers and prevents reprisals for such activity. It reads, in part:

164.015 Engaging in political activity. No law enforcement officer may be prohibited from engaging in political activity when not on duty or not otherwise acting in an official capacity, or be denied the right to refrain from engaging in political activity.

164.03 Recrimination. No law enforcement officer may be discharged, disciplined, demoted or denied promotion, transfer or reassignment, or otherwise discriminated against in regard to employment, or threatened with any such treatment, by reason of the exercise of the rights under this chapter.

Notice that the statute requires that officers be off duty and not acting in their official capacity, but does not specifically address the wearing of uniforms.

Most police agencies reasonably consider that any officer engaging in such activity in uniform will be universally seen by the public to be on duty and acting under color of their office. For this reason, most agencies prohibit the wearing of the uniform for any purpose other than official duties, and even officers stopping by a quick shop on the way home from work commonly cover their uniform with a jacket. Officers usually take great pains to do nothing that might diminish respect for, or the authority of, the uniform, or which might cause the public to doubt police fairness and impartiality. Professional, non-corrupt police officers know that they need the voluntary, whole-hearted support and respect of the public, the public they are sworn to serve and protect, not extort.

The police are committing extortion? Indeed they are, at least in Wisconsin, where during the first week in March, the “Wisconsin Professional Police Association” sent out letters and faxes to a great many Wisconsin businesses--particularly those that supported Gov. Scott Walker-- demanding that they toe the union line or face a boycott of their businesses. The letter/fax was signed by the following:

James L. Palmer, Executive Director
Wisconsin Professional Police Association

Mahlon Mitchell, President
Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin

Joe Conway, President
International Fire Firefighters of Wisconsin

John Matthews, Executive Director
Madison Teachers, Inc.

Keith Patt, Executive Director
Green Bay Education Association

Bob Richardson, President
Dane County Deputy Sheriff’s Association

Dan Frei, President
Madison Professional Police Officer’s Association

Most police officers around the nation would be shocked by this crude, extortion-like attempt. While this act is likely not specifically illegal in Wisconsin, it smells of extortion, and any such communication would tend to destroy public faith in law enforcement. Truly professional officers would never contemplate or allow such a thing. As bad as it is, worse is the greater, much more destructive, implied threat: Do as we demand or police (and fire) services and protection will be selectively provided, perhaps entirely withheld. Someone is ripping up your store? We’ll get to it when we have time, maybe. Your business is on fire? Aw, made the wrong turn! Who has that map? The co-signers of this thinly veiled attempt at extortion may claim that they intend no such thing, but what rational business owner could think otherwise?

Our system of law works because most people voluntarily obey most laws most of the time, but when they can no longer count on the impartiality and honor of the police (or the devotion to duty of their firefighters), their respect for the law, and their willingness to obey it, is greatly diminished. Businesses are particularly sensitive and vulnerable to this kind of threat. The average citizen might never have personal contact with the police, but businesses have frequent need of police protection and services. Criminals exploit the vulnerabilities of their victims. In Wisconsin, so do the police.

Surely this must be hyperbole! Surely the police would not fail to enforce obvious violations of the law occurring under their noses? On March 16th, at a Merill, WI rally to recall one of the fourteen Democrats who fled Wisconsin, a female protestor, pretending to sign a recall petition, wrote “f**k you” on it and ripped up others to the cheers of other protestors. The event took place on the courthouse grounds because of threats of violence at the originally designated private location. Police officers were present and witnessed the crime, but did nothing and told eyewitnesses that there was nothing they could do about it. Not quite. Consider this Wisconsin Statute:

12.13 Election fraud. (1) ELECTORS. Whoever intentionally does any of the following violates this chapter:

(3) PROHIBITED ACTS. No person may:
(a) Falsify any information in respect to or fraudulently deface or destroy a certificate of nomination, nomination paper, declaration of candidacy or petition for an election, including a recall petition or PETITION FOR A REFERENDUM [emphasis mine]; or file or receive for filing a certificate of nomination, nomination paper, declaration of candidacy or any such petition, knowing any part is falsely made.

12.60 Penalties. (1) (a) Whoever violates s. 12.09, 12.11 or 12.13 (1), (2) (b) 1. to 7. or (3) (a), (e), (f), (j), (k), (L), (m), (y) or (z) is guilty of a Class I felony.

Notice that the act that rendered the police helpless is a felony in Wisconsin, likely a separate felony count for each document defaced or destroyed. The legislature no doubt made this act a felony because destroying such political documents strikes at the heart of democracy, and in Wisconsin, apparently so do Democrat legislators and at least some of the police. Even if the officers were unaware of this statute, the protestor was easily guilty of disturbing the peace, destruction of property or both. Even neophyte police officers know those.

Returning to Mr. Dunphy, I’ll not engage in a point-by-point refutation of his arguments. The more than 300 PJM readers responding to his article have done that quite well. Like those Wisconsin officers, Mr. Dunphy seeks to claim his place as a member of a class of untouchable masters of the public whose dollars elect Democrat politicians and expect those indentured legislators to shower them with even more taxpayer dollars in return.

I am, however, sympathetic to one of Mr. Dunphy’s concerns. The police are uniquely vulnerable to trivial and false charges of misconduct, and are sometimes mistreated by politicians. Even so, this is not an argument for unions whose only true interests are power and money, both illegitimately and involuntarily seized from the public.

Sufficient due process protections can be legislated. The Congress could also pass legislation addressing pension and experience portability between state and cities. Of course, with such legislation comes the risk that experienced officers could price themselves out of many police markets. There is, after all, real competition among professional police agencies for professional officers.

When Democrat legislators refuse to voluntarily abide by the results of elections and flee their states to thwart the will of the people, when they claim that their anarchy is the true expression of democracy, our republic stands in jeopardy. When unions import professional agitators, occupy and trash a state capitol, trespass, destroy property, commit assault, and make death threats against Republican legislators and their innocent families, the republic stands in jeopardy. When the police abandon their duty, make extortion-like threats, turn a blind eye to crime and elevate their own economic interests above their oath, the republic stands in jeopardy. And when the public can no longer depend upon the voluntary fidelity of the executive and legislative branches of government to do the jobs for which they are elected and hired, the republic stands in jeopardy.

This too is why it’s not necessary to respond in detail to Officer Dunphy. The proximate cause of Wisconsin’s recent domestic strife is public sector unionism, motivated by its primary reason for being: The pursuit and retention of money and power at the expense of the public, and at the expense of responsibility, discipline, truth, and the kind of sacred honor our Founding Fathers volunteered to risk. No reason, no justification, no matter how sympathetically portrayed, can erase this stark reality or justify Mr. Dunphy's arguments.

Posted by MikeM at 01:10 AM | Comments (9)

March 23, 2011

It's Not A Major Military Action?

In the opinion pages of the Washington Post Tuesday (here), Dana Milbank penned an article enchantingly titled: Obama’s Quick Trip From Tyrant to Weakling. Surprisingly, Milbank takes Mr. Obama to task (sort of), but of course, cannot resist taking a cheap shot at Mr. Bush, who at last check, has not been President for more than two years, a situation which is not expected to change. Milbank snarkily wrote:

“It was perilously close to George W. Bush’s My-Pet-Goat moment, when then-President Bush continued reading a storybook with children on Sept. 11, 2001, after he was told that the second World Trade Center tower had been hit. Bush later said he was trying to maintain calm; likewise, White House officials tell me the decision to proceed with the South America trip was made in part to convey that the Libya bombardment was not a major military action.”

Milbank’s thesis begins:

“After two years of being called a tyrant and a dictator, President Obama returns to Washington from a five-day overseas trip to find that he has become a weakling.

Would-be opponents such as Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Sarah Palin had been trying out this somewhat contradictory line of attack for more than a month, as Obama gave mixed signals about events in Egypt and Libya. But the “weak leader” charge gained traction over the weekend, as Obama chose to launch the attack on Gaddafi’s forces while on an excellent adventure in South America with his family.”

Milbank suggests that Mr. Obama’s trip to Brazil was not so much a matter of weakness but of stubbornness. Mr. Obama, you see, has always been determined not to respond to small, insignificant issues of the day, but to maintain his omnipotent, omniscient focus on much broader, all-encompassing issues. As proof, Milbank cited Mr. Obama’s USA-Today op-ed. Milbank wrote:

“Obama wrote that while the Middle East is important, he was going to Latin America because ‘our top priority has to be creating and sustaining new jobs and new opportunities.’ Not only did the president proceed with his tour, but Vice President Biden went ahead with a reception for Democratic donors.”

Milbank also paraphrased unnamed Obama Administration officials who argued that this was, in fact, a sign of strong leadership. Milbank ends by lamenting the unfairness of it all, and by attacking--sort of--the tyrannical media:

“But it doesn’t matter if the criticism is fair. Obama left a vacuum, and his opponents filled it. For a president suddenly called “weak,” such is the tyranny of the news cycle.”

Well. First to Mr. Bush, who did not immediately leap up and flee in panic while reading to elementary school children. This, gentle reader, is a sign of self-control and the ability to multi-task. Rather than frighten a room full of kids, Mr. Bush read a bit longer while simultaneously preparing for what came next. He knew that he had the time to do that, and that it was the right thing to do. True leaders know this sort of thing. Remember that he was criticized for not immediately returning to Washington, despite the fact that he was very much exercising leadership from the most capable mobile command post the world has ever seen: Air Force One.

Remember too that he was criticized for not immediately flying to New York to stand on smoking rubble to act the role of comforter-in-chief to which the press had become accustomed under Bill Clinton. Fortunately, Mr. Bush wisely preferred to feel the pain of others in private, and to be actually with them, as he did countless times in private visits to our wounded warriors and their families, and with the families of warriors who gave the last, full measure of devotion. It never was all about him. Yet post 9-11, Mr. Bush was reflexively criticized for being.

Point to ponder: A “bombardment” comprising, thus far, more than 130 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a million dollars per bang, plus a wide variety of less expensive munitions, plus the involvement of at least one carrier task force, augmented by an international coalition of military forces is not “a major military action?” One shudders to think what, in Mr. Obama’s estimation, a major military action might be and whether even that might stay him from vacationing or golfing.

Mixed signals over Libya? Indeed, from the beginning until this very day as the media is reporting directly contradictory statements from Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton over the removal/non-removal of Qadaffi, and as a deal is in the works to set up a sort of “political steering committee”--such things, whatever they are, apparently make sense to the French and to Mr. Obama--to run the war that isn’t really a war in Libya, a committee that Americans will not head, and of which NATO will certainly be a part, or maybe not. Mr. Obama seems prepared to be the first American president willing to place American troops under the command of--a steering committee? A committee of foreigners who care little for American soldiers, assets or American interests? Good thing this isn’t a major military action.

Ah yes! It’s all because Mr. Obama is stubborn, but not in a bad way, no! Mr. Obama is stubborn over principle; he is stubborn in avoiding dealing with trivialities. So noble and awesome is The One that even intractable stubbornness is a virtue rather than a vice. An alternate suggestion is that Mr. Obama is utterly unable to deal with the demands, large and small, of the job, and so he ignores whatever he can, hoping it will go away and stop bothering him. This is unsurprising for a man with absolutely no business experience, and a man whose legislative experience was, at best, utterly unremarkable to the degree that many might call it virtually nonexistent.

It is unfair to say that Mr. Obama had no executive experience. He did, leading the Chicago Annenberg Challenge for some six years, with the able assistance and collusion of domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. You remember Mr. Ayers? The man Mr. Obama knew only as some guy who happened to live in the same neighborhood who Obama knew only because their kids went to the same school--many years apart? Ayers hired Obama, a community organizer--whatever that is--with no executive experience, to run the CAC to greatly improve the educational outcomes of Chicago students who were failing. Mr. Obama lead by stubbornly and very efficiently burning through tens of millions of dollars, accomplishing exactly nothing, according to a postmortem accounting by the Annenberg Foundation which financed his Titanic-like experiment in executive leadership. Who knew that even then, he was practicing the necessary Democrat presidential skill of burning the money of others at an incredible rate?

Milbank is correct in asserting that Mr. Obama’s frequent, lavish vacations--and the Latin American trip is smelling suspiciously like just that--do tend to lend support to the charge of weak leadership. But even more telling is Mr. Obama’s incredible narcissism and almost exclusive reliance on rhetoric. Mr. Obama really does seem to believe that such is the power of his personality, of his very being--a being he recently observed we must never take for granted--that all he need do to transform anything or anyone is to conduct yet another teleprompter reading. Then will Jihadists reject Islam and truly practice a religion of peace. Then will Iran abandon its nuclear ambitions and its support for terrorism. Then will Palestinians suddenly understand that it is wrong to decapitate three month old babies. Then will peoples living a 7th century tribal existence with its accompanying mindset be suddenly thrust into an enlightened world of self-sacrifice and utopian peace and social justice. Then will despots immediately see the errors of their ways and step down, establishing universal respect for “universal human rights.” As Sarah Palin would say, “how’s that workin’ out for ya?”

However, Milbank is correct in that Mr. Obama is absolutely all about “creating and sustaining new jobs and new opportunities.” Even while enjoying his current vacation, he is doing just that, particularly in the oil industry. Unfortunately, all of those new jobs and opportunities will be for Brazilians, not Americans. Mr. Obama is stubbornly choosing not to create or sustain new jobs and opportunities in the American oil industry, but has pledged to buy simply loads of Brazilian oil for American use. This is rather an odd economic policy for a President who frequently reads from his teleprompter words that suggest that he is all about American jobs and economic growth.

It is an interesting coincidence, for surely it could be nothing else, that George Soros owns a substantial stake in Brazil’s national oil company, Petrobras. I suspect that Mr. Obama’s dedication to Brazilian jobs and opportunities has nothing whatever to do with enriching Mr. Soros. It certainly has nothing whatever to do with enriching Americans.

And as to Mr. Biden--oh, who cares about Mr. Biden? Maybe the Brazilians will name a train station after him as soon as the Obama Administration begins construction on a high speed rail line from Miami to Rio, which makes precisely as much sense as the other high speed rail boondoggles they have proposed.

But Milbank redeems himself by being ultimately correct: Mr. Obama has left a vacuum. It is a vacuum of leadership and policy, both domestic and foreign, that is only just beginning to have disastrous consequences for America and the world. By making everything all about him, Mr. Obama stubbornly overlooks the realities of human nature. There are, around the world, a great many despots and peoples who not only can smell fear and weakness, but will surely exploit it. The vacuum of leadership left by Mr. Obama will be filled, with the bodies of innocent millions, millions Mr. Obama will doubtless stubbornly ignore as his all-seeing gaze takes in only the bigger, more important issues. No doubt his spokesmen will brand this strong leadership as well, leadership that will be dutifully lauded by the lamestream media whose rapidly diminishing credibility is inextricably entwined with Mr. Obama’s fortunes.

Other than than, Milbank is right on the money. What do they call their currency in Brazil again? Golf, anyone?

Posted by MikeM at 12:19 PM | Comments (3)

Quick Takes, March 23, 2011

ITEM: In the Is This Cool Or What? Department, comes news from the Daily Mail Online (here) about a gunfire locator miniaturized to fit on contemporary rifles. Using a version of sonar, it will allow troops to locate the firing positions of enemy soldiers within 1.3 seconds and return accurate fire on them. The device is currently being tested by the British in Afghanistan. Compact and lightweight, the device has the promise of giving troops a real edge in combat. Very cool indeed. Perhaps Mr. Obama might want to see about restoring the “special relationship” between America and England he has worked so hard and long to denigrate.

ITEM: From The Hill (here) comes the news that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and other liberal Democrats have introduced a bill that would require a 2/3 majority in each house of Congress to pass any cuts to Social Security benefits. While Social Security is in real fiscal trouble, its problems are overshadowed by Medicare and Medicaid. But as always, it’s good to know that the Democrats are so serious about preventing our impending national bankruptcy and the collapse of the world’s economy that they’re willing to make it impossible to prevent our impending national bankruptcy and the collapse of the world’s economy. Wait a minute...I think I’m missing something here...

ITEM: From Sarah Palin Via Powerline (here) we learn that since Mr. Obama first took office, gas prices have increased 67% and continue to rise. During the same 26 month period of George W. Bush’s presidency, gas prices rose only 7%. Mr. Obama has said that if he gets his preferred polices, energy prices will “necessarily skyrocket.” He has also said that his only concern about skyrocketing gasoline prices is that he would prefer that they skyrocket more gradually. He has, of course, simultaneously all but shut down the production of new oil wells in America, and in the Gulf Coast, has issued only one drilling permit, and that for a well that was already nearly completed before the BP disaster. If a Manchurian Candidate had become president, how would his polices for the destruction of America differ from Mr. Obama’s? Discuss.

ITEM: And This Week’s Louis Renault Award Goes To: The Obama Administration (cue applause)! Fox News (here) reports that the Congressional Budget Office has examined Mr. Obama’s budget and his concluded that budget deficits until 2021 would be at least $2.3 trillion dollars more than the $7.2 trillion dollars the Obama budget projected. This disparity was due primarily to wildly optimistic economic assumptions on the part of the Obama Administration, and on at least some magical thinking. I’m shocked, shocked! But, oh what the heck? What’s two trillion or so among friends when you’re already throwing more than seven trillion down the rat hole? It’s all borrowed money anyway.

ITEM: Oh, so you’re calling me a rapist?! Sure, come on in, sit down, let’s negotiate in good faith! From Hot Air (here) come news of Vice President Joe--”The Sheriff”--Biden who recently compared Republicans who are trying to cut the federal budget to rapists. He also blamed them of creating the current deficit. Hmm. Wasn’t it Barack Obama who, in less than two years, has created the largest budget deficit in history, all by himself? And wasn’t it Barack Obama who, in his current budget, wants to increase that deficit to nearly $10 trillion dollars by 2021? If Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama get their way, the only people being raped will be taxpaying Americans. Joe Biden isn’t really the Vice President--is he?
It’s a parody, right?

ITEM: And in the “C’mon; This Has To Be A Parody, Right?” Department, comes Ed Morrissey from Hot Air (here) who informs us that Harry Reid has announced the most compelling reason for continuing to pour taxpayer dollars into the liberal sewer that is NPR yet, I mean, even more compelling than ensuring Nevada cowboy poetry (yeee-haw!) unto eternity. What could be more compelling than cowboy poetry? Why, ensuring that Harry Reid continues to be informed on the true origins of Alaskan dog-sled races! But wait, it gets better! Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-sort of--Alaska) wants continued NPR funding because of the “Mukluk Telegraph.” Accordingto Murkowski, NPR allows hunters to communicate that they returned to camp safely. It does? How would NPR go about that sort of thing, exactly? “And next on All Blubber Chewed, Bubba Jones and his hunting buddies are coming back to Anchorage from their annual Alaskan mosquito hunt...” Apparently NPR has a monopoly on all Alaskan radio frequencies. I know that Senator Reid is reality challenged, but now it seems that the frigid north has affected Senator Murkowski more than we realized.

ITEM: And in the “C’mon; This Really Has To Be A Parody, Right?” Department, against comes Ed Morrissey of Hot Air (here) who explains that many Congressional Democrats are grasping to understand why out of control spending that will--sooner rather than later--bankrupt the country, is so unpopular. They think they have the answer: It’s a failure of messaging! That’s right ladies and gentlemen, if only the Dems can trot out a few more Sesame Street puppets and get a bit more mileage out of sob stories about cowboy poetry and poor Harry Reid who might, in the future, be denied vital information on the origins of Alaskan dog-sled racing, why, they can convince everyone to march to their collective economic doom with smiles on their brainless faces! Read my messaging: WE DON’T HAVE THE MONEY! WE’RE BROKE! NO MONEY! NO...oh, never mind...

ITEM: Via Powerline (here) we learn that a recent Rasmussen survey revealed that only 20% of the public is willing to pay higher taxes to reduce the deficit, while 71% would not be willing. Interestingly, 83% believe that the size of the deficit is a result of politician’s unwillingness to cut spending rather than reluctant taxpayer’s unwillingness to part with more of their money. You know, it’s almost as if the American public suspects that if we give the fiscally handicapped in DC more tax revenue, they’ll just blow it on more boondoggles rather than paying down the debt and balancing the budget. If you think about it, you can almost believe it.

ITEM: From greenautoblog.com (here) comes news of a study by the American Public Transportation Association (I had no idea such a thing existed, you?) that surmises that when gasoline leaps to $5.00 per gallon, Americans will turn to public transportation in record numbers. They also suggest that said public transportation would be overwhelmed. Well, yeah. What they apparently do not realize is that most of America--you know, that part of America that is not actually a major city?-- has no public transportation. Some people really think that everyone lives in New York City, don’t they?

ITEM: In The Continuing Saga of the Religion of Peace Department: From Patrick Poole at The Tatler (here) comes the New York Times Magazine which ran a recent profile on a prominent “moderate” Muslim, one Yasir Qadhi, presenting him “as the new face of ‘moderate’ American Islam.” A Houston Imam, Qadhi would seem an odd choice to present as a moderate as he is an unapologetic Holocaust denier. Among his other moderate credentials are four of his former moderate students who have been arrested on moderate terror charges, including moderate underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Qadhi claims they must have misunderstood his message of moderation and peace. Uh, doesn’t the NYT have what they used to call “editors?” You know, people who would read something like this and say to the eager cub reporter trying to publish it something like “What the hell is wrong with you? This guy’s no moderate! If you can’t even get that fact right, what good are you! Get out of my office, you wet behind the ears whiner, and don’t come back until you have a factual story!” Ah, one can dream, can’t one?

ITEM: Anyone remember Barack Obama promising that he would make America loved and respected again throughout the world? Yeah. Not so much. For an across-the-pond perspective, read this article by Anna Pukas of the Express. Content Warning: You’ll have to ignore some of the left wing certitude, but the piece is all the more remarkable for it. You’ll see what I mean.

ITEM: And in the Man Up Department: Via Fox News (here), following the UN resolution to actually, you know, do something about Libya, military air strikes have begun. “Our planes are blocking the air attacks on the city [of Benghazi]” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy. French president?! French President. After weeks of dithering, weeks of allowing Qaddafi to murder thousands of his people, Mr. Obama has once again lived up to his reputation as a miracle worker: He has made the French look like the dominant, capable military power in the world. In the meantime, President Obama returned from his 5-day Latin America tour. His first diplomatic triumph of the trip was an announced press questioning opportunity that turned into a “we’ll talk at the media” opportunity when the Brazilians decided they didn’t want to take questions, yet more evidence of the transformative power of Obama international magic. There’s more, but it’s just too depressing.

ITEM: He said What?! From the invaluable Mark Steyn we learn of Mr. Obama’s comments at a gathering of major Dem. contributors last week in Washington. He was referencing his favorite topic: Himself. “As time passes, you start taking it for granted that a guy named Barack Hussein Obama is president of the United States. But we should never take it for granted. I hope that all of you still feel that sense of excitement and that sense of possibility.” Uh, I’m nearly--speechless. No, actually I’m not, which is a good thing as I’m the one writing this. I hereby offer a signed photograph of Barack Hussein Obama dropping a nickel in a piggy bank, payable as soon as I can get him to sign one (a photo, a nickel or a piggy bank), to anyone who can produce a more egregious example of entitlement, arrogance and narcissism. In this, at least, there is no question that our president leads the world.

ITEM: Cosmic Irony Department: From the bright and beautiful Michelle Malkin comes the news of the renaming of a Wilmington, Delaware train station on March 19. The station was renamed for VP Joe Biden in honor, apparently, of his gracing trains with his posterior in that vicinity over the years. The best part is that the Amtrack CEO who was officiating had a bit of a problem. The train on which he was to symbolically and historically arrive broke down, so he had to drive. And in the second bit of cosmic irony in a single item--we give you your money’s worth here--Mr. Biden admitted that he didn’t deserve the honor, but following in the footsteps of Mr. Obama who also said that he didn’t deserve a Nobel Peace Prize, accepted it anyway. Oh, and in the third bit of irony, the new station came in $5.3 million dollars over budget. And the fourth bit of irony? Guess who is responsible for seeing that all stimulus projects come in on budget and on time? Joe “The Sheriff,” “Mr. Gafftastic” Biden. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?

ITEM: And in the “Well, That Guy’s Career Is Over,” department, comes news of Rene Jaquez, the second ARF agent to go public with information about the ATF’s infamous operation “Fast and Furious.” During this botched operation, apparently sanctioned by the highest levels in the ATF, agents were ordered to allow thousands of guns to flow into mexico under threat of firing. Several of these weapons were used to kill Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in Arizona in December. Go here for additional information. The country is in the very best of hands.

ITEM: And in even more news from the Religion of Peace, Fox News (here) reports that “Palestinian militants” fired a rocket into southern Israel on March 20, this following a recent firing of about 50 mortar rounds into Israel. Several Israelis were wounded and Israel retaliated. Darned touchy those Israelis. After all, I’m sure those were peaceful mortar rounds and a peaceful rocket aimed only at establishing a sort of explosive yet peaceful dialogue and understanding.

ITEM: American Exceptionalism On Parade! From the Washington Examiner (here) comes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commenting on the attack on Libya: “We did not lead this. We did not engage in unilateral actions in any way...” Hmm. So if it’s worth doing at all, if it’s the morally right thing to do, America can’t act unilaterally? Aren’t we supposed to be the good guys? Whatever happened to truth, justice and the American way? Golf, anyone?

ITEM: Let Them Eat iPads! To read a very satisfying account of an elite government economist getting his comeuppance from some of the little people, visit The Wall Street Journal Online here.

ITEM: Oh Goodie! Department: President Jimmy Carter is scheduled to visit North Korea to do--something or other. Its a virtual certainty that he’ll denigrate America and kowtow to the Nork’s lunatic leadership. Perhaps he’ll even negotiate a brilliant diplomatic breakthrough like so many others negotiated by Democrats, you know, something like we provide money, fuel and food that will prop up the regime for a few more years while they make meaningless promises that they simultaneously promise to break before the ink is dry on the agreement. It’s that kind of smart diplomacy that has made Mr. Carter what he is today. Mr. Obama is hot on his heels in the race to the bottom to surpass him. Go here for the full story, if you have the stomach for it.

ITEM: NEWSFLASH: Mr. Obama has recently announced his absolute support for the development and retrieval of the nation’s oil resources. Unfortunately, the nation happens to be Brazil. George Soros has a significant ownership stake in Petrobras, Brazil’s national oil company. I’m sure this is just a coincidence. In the meantime, Energy Secretary Salazar, speaking to unemployed oil field workers on the Gulf Coast, put his thumbs in his ears, stuck out his tongue and said: “PHHBBBBBT! OK, so I made that last part up, but you know he’d like to say it. It’s what he’s doing anyway.

ITEM: Have you always suspected that jihadist terrorists have been crossing our southern Border into America? They have indeed. At PJM, here is the proof. Nothing truly new for those who keep themselves well-informed, but oh deary dear. For serious people, there can be no doubt that Democrats can never again be allowed to be anywhere near national security. Or finances. Or domestic policy. Or foreign policy. Or (fill in favorite topic here).

ITEM: There Really Are Heroes! Department: Who’s tougher than Hideaki Akaiwa? Only Hideaki Akaiwa. To read about a man who is a genuine hero, go here.

And on that hopeful note for mankind, thanks for dropping by, and I’ll see you next Thursday!

Posted by MikeM at 12:24 AM | Comments (3)

March 22, 2011

So What Are We Doing In Libya Exactly?

So what are we doing in Libya, exactly? President Obama tells us that it’s his policy to removed Qaddafi from power, yet that it’s also US policy not to try to kill Qaddafi. Mr. Obama also tells us that these “policies” aren’t in the least contradictory. American military commanders, obviously uncomfortable, tell us that given the mission parameters and restraints imposed by our political non-leadership, it is entirely possible that they can and will successfully accomplish the mission they have been given, yet leave Qaddafi comfortably in power in Libya.

I’m tempted to ask whether this state of affairs is an Onion satire, or whether we have merely taken leave of our national senses. The saving grace is that, more and more, Mr. Obama has separated himself from America; he represents himself. That he has taken leave of his senses--to the extent that he ever had any in terms of foreign policy--can scarcely be denied.

The invaluable Caroline Glick, writing at Real Clear Politics (here) advances several convincing theories: (1) Mr. Obama has, as a fundamental understanding of American prestige and power, the unshakable belief that America is an evil, imperialistic power that is primarily responsible for all the trouble in the world. (2) Any nation aligned with America, any of our allies, must therefore be complicit in America’s evil. (3) The UN is the ultimate and only legitimate actor on the world stage and as such, a perfect vehicle to restrain and diminish American power and prestige.

To these theories, given credence not only by Mr. Obama’s words, but by his actions, I would add: (1) Mr. Obama has a real and abiding hatred for America and her people, a large percentage of whom he has called “enemies,” and insulted with implications of racism. (2) He has demonstrated reflexive support for communists and their allies around the world and in America. (3) He has a complete lack of respect for democracy and the Constitution, which he obviously regards as an anachronistic impediment to his socialistic goals. (4) He has a fundamental belief that America is a racist, evil society and is willing to implement racism in reverse as a means of settling the score. (5) As a man who is at odds with American ideals and democracy’s imperatives, and as a man with no interest in foreign policy, and with no experience, he has no core foreign policy principles except those that will be harmful to America. (6) He reflexively caters to, supports and boosts Muslim interests.

Ms. Glick asserts that America’s traditional interests in the Middle east have been: (1) Guaranteeing the free flow of low cost oil to America and the global market. (2) Supporting regional governments that will assist in the first goal at the expense of American enemies. (3) Suppressing jihadists and others hostile to America.

With these ideas in mind, what, exactly are we doing in Libya? If these theories are correct, and I suggest that they are, everything Mr. Obama has been doing since taking office is easily understood. A man with no core principles aligned with American interests would be expected to dither interminably when presented with foreign policy crises which he would consider an annoying distraction from his Socialistic remaking of American society. And so he has dithered interminably. Such a man would be expected to be anything but a leader, and so he has not lead. Such a man would be expected to seek the permission and the cover of the UN, and so he has. And in a nation with dramatically rising fuel costs, he would be expected to shut off domestic production and to pursue policies on the world stage that would further threaten affordable energy supplies, and so he has.

Do we know who these “rebels” in Libya are? No. Do we know their ultimate agenda? No. Can we be reasonably assured that if Qaddafi is deposed, that Libya will be friendly to America and her allies? No. Do we have any idea what will constitute victory in Libya? In fact, are our currently policies aimed at achieving anything there that might remotely resemble victory? No and no.

Under the right circumstances, when American vital interests are implicated, the expense of military action is not a concern. But under the present circumstances, where we are in real fiscal danger, where we are protecting no legitimate American interests, we continue to pour Tomahawk missiles into Libya at, arguably, a million dollars per bang.

By all means, read Ms. Glick’s article and ask, so what are we doing in Libya, exactly?

Posted by MikeM at 12:03 PM | Comments (6)

March 20, 2011

The Brave New World of Mr. Chu

The Obama Administration’s Novel Prize-winning physicist, Energy Secretary Dr. Stephen Chu appeared on Fox News Sunday (here) on March 20th and had a number of very disturbing--though completely unsurprising--things to say about energy development. But let’s go back in time to September, 2008, to an interview the Wall Street Journal (here) conducted with Mr. Chu. Also, go here to read an article with links to our past articles on the Chevy Volt.

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Mr. Chu said.

Gasoline prices in Europe are currently about $10 per gallon ($200 to fill a 20 gallon fuel tank). Mr. Chu believes that artificially increasing gas prices will force Americans into smaller cars, public transportation and other situations more in line with the thinking of environmentalists. According to the WSJ:

Mr. Chu has called for gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work.”

Fast forward to March 20, 2011. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace brought up Sec. Chu’s 2008 WSJ comments, but oddly did not ask if he still favored raising the price of fuel to force Americans to do his bidding. Chu responded that he was working on:

“developing methods to take the pain out of high gas prices.” He added: “The recent spike in gasoline prices following that huge spike in 2007, 2008 is a reminder to Americans that the price of gasoline over the long haul should be expected to go up just because of supply and demand issues. And so we see this in the buying habits of Americans as they make choices for the next car they buy.”

But how to take the “pain out of high gas prices?” Chu said that the Obama administration wants to increase mileage standards and “support the development” of electric cars. He said that he expected batteries capable of a 200-300 mile range on a single charge in the near future.

Wallace also noted that not a single permit for a new nuclear power plant has been issued in America since 1978. He asked Chu if this has made our 100+ nuclear power plants less safe, and Chu mostly danced around the question. Again, oddly, Wallace did not ask Chu why, since Mr. Obama claims to support nuclear energy, no permits have been issued under the Obama Administration.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, on ABC’s This Week, had a substantially different view:

“...reactionary responses to crises -- like the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP oil spill -- will only harm America's attempts to develop mindful energy policies. He said a broader and comprehensive policy is needed. ‘You know, at the end of the day, if we don't use coal, oil, natural gas or nuclear, we're going to be sitting around the fire trying to warm ourselves like we did eons ago," Chertoff said. ‘So we're going to have to manage risk. That doesn't mean guaranteeing against any. It means having in place ways to mitigate problems.’"

And there, gentle readers, we see our energy future for at least the next two, and God Forbid, six years. It should be no surprise that Mr. Obama has chosen an environmentalist, utopian zealot as Secretary of Energy, but Sec. Chu, short of saying with wild, crazy eyes while maniacally cackling, “I’m going to make you pay $10 a gallon for gas if it’s the last thing I do!” makes no pretense about caring about, or making any effort to reduce high gasoline prices.

His answer to high gas prices is to try to remove the pain? One might hope that government officials would grow in office, that the realities of dealing with the world would have some positive effect on their theoretical, impractical viewpoints, but Sec. Chu seems to have only doubled down on his beliefs of 2008. Remember that in 2008 Mr. Obama also said that if he got his way, energy prices would “necessarily skyrocket.” We elected him anyway. Silly us.

Consider Sec. Chu’s 2008 comments and their implications: Gas at $10 a gallon, forcing Americans to buy “more-efficient” (small) cars, forcing Americans to live closer to work. These are the ideas of an Ivy-tower, self-styled elite who have never lived or worked in the real world, a world where only a small portion of the population can live within electric car range of work. Public transportation, by the way, is commonly available only in major metropolitan areas.

The cost of living in major urban areas is far greater than in much of the rest of the nation, and even if Americans were forced to move to urban areas in large numbers, there could not possibly be sufficient available jobs, to say nothing of decent, affordable housing. On the day this post was written, Mr. Obama was visiting the slums of Rio de Janeiro. If Sec. Chu had his way, such slums would surround all American cities and 10% unemployment would be looked upon with fond longing for the good old days. There are very good reasons why every American doesn’t live in an urban setting. For all of his education and apparent intellect, Sec. Chu seems unaware of this--or doesn’t care.

When gas reaches $5.00 per gallon, as it is expected to do this summer--it’s already that high in a few places--the effect on the economy will be very negative indeed. At $10 it would be catastrophic. Many Americans simply would not be able to afford to buy gas to drive to work and carry out the daily functions necessary to support life. Even a great many middle class Americans would find themselves in financial trouble, and such people are certainly not going to be in any condition to buy shiny new fuel-efficient green cars at any price. Oh yes, and don’t forget that each new arbitrary mileage mandate adds additional cost to new cars. Fuel prices not only effect the cost of gas, but the cost of food and every product produced or imported, and this effect is consistent across the economy. Strangely, Sec. Chu seems unaware of this, or doesn’t care.

Fuel efficient cars are, in most ways, good things, but the kinds of cars Sec. Chu wants to mandate through stratospheric energy prices are impractical for much of the public. For example, I recently bought a 2011 Ford Fiesta. It’s fun to drive, gets more than 30 MPH around town, a bit over 40 MPG on the highway, and is quite roomy--for two adults. It would be large enough for a family with one infant in a car seat, and perhaps until that infant reached 9 or 10, but beyond that, it would be entirely unsuitable for a larger family, unless both adults were only 5’4” tall or so. The problem is that millions of Americans have larger families, millions need pickup trucks for their work and a variety of other legitimate reasons, and millions of Americans simply like larger cars. They tend not to see their choices as illegitimate. No doubt, Sec. Chu would not share their opinion, if he cared at all.

Sec. Chu obviously takes it for granted that gas prices will rise dramatically, and rather than work, as the Secretary of Energy, to produce more oil and other natural resources to lower the costs of energy, he focuses only on wasting taxpayer and borrowed money on green boondoggles to ensure that energy prices will “necessarily skyrocket.” The pain of high gas prices comes from their high cost. This takes money out of the pockets of families, which lowers their standard of living, sometimes painfully indeed. More efficient cars will not lessen that pain. It’s a sick irony that the price level of gas necessary to force sufficient Americans to buy the kind of cars Mr. Chu favors would also so wreck the economy that they could not afford such vehicles and would be reduced to something resembling a third world standard of living. Sec. Chu is also apparently unaware of this, or perhaps he is.

As to electric cars, regular readers will recall that I’ve been keeping up with the Three Stooges Film Festival that is the Chevy Volt (take the link in the first paragraph to ready my previous posts). At the moment, real world experience for this $41,000 MSRP wonder car delivers 25-40 miles per charge, and with 110V house current, it takes 8-12 hours to charge a depleted battery. For an additional $2000, not including installation, one can buy a 220V fast charger that shortens charging time to 4-6 hours, but that’s only at home. At last check, Volts were selling for as much as $65,000. That’s not exactly a car for the masses.

As a physicist, one might be tempted to think that Sec. Chu would know that scientists and engineers would be delighted to develop batteries that would get from 50-80 miles on a charge. That would be a 100% improvement over the best currently available technology. The kind of improvement Sec. Chu is suggesting is, to put it mildly, unlikely absent a breakthrough of unimaginable proportions, or unless the government has the secret already in hand from reverse-engineering a captured alien spacecraft. Even the aliens probably have to recharge every light year or so. Yet Sec. Chu sees millions of happy little electric cars plying the highways and byways in the very near future.

But wait a minute, the Obama Administration isn’t authorizing any nuclear plants, they’re destroying the coal industry (Mr. Obama and Mr. Chu are on record hoping to do just that), which is the industry that powers most of our electric generating plants, and even solar and wind projects are being delayed by federal bureaucrats and failing that, shut down by environmentalist lawsuits. Hydro-electric facilities, as the British would say, are right out. Even a substantial solar project in the Mojave Desert has been stymied by environmentalists. Something about the project annoying toads, I believe. But even if it is eventually constructed, it will produce only a tiny amount of electricity, and only when the sun shines. Our electric grid and power generating capability is aging and we’re not building any new plants. From where, exactly, will all of the electricity to power these marvelous electric cars come? One would think that as a physicist, Sec. Chu would be aware of this as well, or perhaps he just doesn’t care.

It’s clear that our President and his Secretary of Energy are not, in fact, working for the benefit of Americans, but are working to establish their socialistic vision of utopia, a utopia where Americans will have far less freedom, mobility, wealth and opportunity, except for a self-styled elite who must have such perks to successfully keep us on the utopian path. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Something about Marx or communism? But I’d have to look that stuff up. Maybe another time.

Perhaps the only thing amazing about all of this is that within a scant two years, our expectations have been so drastically lowered, we’ve come to expect so little, that this is almost unremarkable. Isn’t it interesting that Mr. Chertoff, no longer a member of the Obama Administration, now has apparently rational views on these issues? Oh that’s right! He’s not one of the elite anymore. He’d be living with the rest of us.

But it’s not all bad news. Every Chevy Volt comes with a $7500 tax credit! That’s right, your taxes, gentle reader, are being spent to subsidize $65,000 motorized toys for the wealthy, the wealthy the Obamites claim to despise. But hey, with that $7500 tax credit, a Volt, if you can find one, will cost only $57,500! Maybe the dim new world of Sec. Chu isn’t so bad after all.

Posted by MikeM at 11:32 PM | Comments (13)

March 18, 2011

Bully For Obama?

Teddy Roosevelt’s favorite aphorism was arguably, “speak softly and carry a big stick.” He used the phrase to describe his bullying at the hands of NY state party bosses while he served as Governor. Adhering to that philosophy, he won that particular battle through courage and perseverance.

Comes now Barack Hussein Obama, teleprompter reader to the world, to deal with one of the most vital matters facing the republic and the international community: Bullying. That’s right, bullying. The President of the United States, facing crises in Libya, throughout the rest of the Arab world, Japan, North and South Korea, Iran, an economy speeding toward the edge of a bottomless abyss and an existential threat from Islamic lunatics lead by Iran, who seek the destruction of western civilization, and Mr. Obama devotes a recent address to the nation on bullying, a annoyance that has traditionally been handled on the local level, often with a retaliatory punch to the bully’s nose by a former victim.

Many members of the Clinton Administration--Janet Reno comes to mind--were often criticized for their inability to focus on issues on the national and world stages. They ran their agencies as though they were still responsible for local, or at the most, state-wide jurisdictions, leading to insane micro-management in domestic affairs, and absolute neglect of international issues. Mr. Obama threatens to make them look like omniscient titans on the world stage. Do visit here and here for additional information on this post.

From Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, we discover that in furtherance of the federalization of every aspect of American life, Rep. Jackie Speier (D, CA),

“will introduce a bill that would require schools to report incidents of bullying against children diagnosed with conditions like Down syndrome and Aspergers to the federal government. It would also mandate that any federal dollars that promote anti-bullying programs focus partially on that group.

‘There is [currently] no requirement that as part of the anti-bullying curriculum, that there be made specific reference to children with special needs. That’s particularly dumb,” Speier said during a briefing on school bullying on Capitol Hill Wednesday. ‘What I want to do is create an environment where there is zero tolerance. I think that starts first with education and awareness. Then, when behavior is egregious, then people have to be called out on that.’"

There is, of course, no area of American thought and life that Obamites consider out of bounds to federal intervention and control. Even passing the legislation Speier favors would require the establishment of an entirely new federal bureaucracy to oversee data collection, which would inevitably lead to another bureau (unionized, of course) to enforce the ever-expanding anti-bullying laws, which would inevitably lead to federal anti-bullying agents dragging that rotten little Smith kid down the block off to a federal lock up. This would admittedly handle an annoying problem for that particular neighborhood, unless of course that rotten little Smith kid was a member of a favored racial or ethic victim group, in which case the feds would subsidize his bullying and obtain federal court orders enjoining his victims and local authorities from restraining such a priceless national treasure.

And in the meantime, at the Washington Post, David Agnatius informs us that Mr. Obama plans to roll out his most fearsome weapon: Rhetoric. Mr. Obama is planning on talking to--wait for it--the Taliban and Hezbollah! Barack Obama is considering chatting with two groups of the most genocidal, unhinged, homicidal, barbaric bullies extant. Ignatius writes:

“One model for the administration, as it thinks about engagement of enemies, is the British process of dialogue during the 1990s with Sinn Fein, the legal political wing of the terrorist Irish Republican Army. That outreach led to breakthrough peace talks and settlement of a conflict that had been raging for more than a century.”

Hmm. Could there be any differences between that situation and the current situation? The IRA had political issues with the British Government, yet shared a common history, culture and religious beliefs. The Taliban and Hezbollah are Islamist murderers who share no historical, cultural or religious background with western civilization. In fact, they believe that Allah has put them on Earth to destroy all non-Muslims--particularly those pesky Jews (and we’re next on their list)-- and to subjugate the planet in the name of Allah. In fact, their faith teaches them to lie and dissemble in negotiations, the better to achieve their ultimate goal. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal to talk about, does there? What do we negotiate? Whether they’ll use sharp or dull knifes to saw off our heads for later video posting on You Tube?

What does this have to do with Mr. Obama’s apparent fixation on bullying, you ask? We have in the Oval Office a man who is unable to face reality. Like a child, he ignores problems that are too difficult for him to handle, preferring instead those that require only a bit of soaring rhetoric. Thus does Mr. Obama wish to throw the full might of the federal government at that rotten little Smith kid down the block, while the homicidal hordes of the Middle East plot our destruction. He thinks he can talk them into working and playing well with others. Who, after all, can stand against the persuasive rhetoric of Barack Obama? Who can fail to be awed by his teleprompter technology?

But perhaps the Feds can do something worthwhile after all. Maybe we can send all those rotten little Smith kids to the Middle East?

Posted by MikeM at 12:26 PM | Comments (4)

Corruption at BATF-Greensboro

I just confirmed that the Greensboro, North Carolina office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) has decided to stall the investigation of a convicted felon linked to hundreds of weapons. They have evidence—enough to put the primary suspect and others in prison for a very long time—but have decided to stonewall the investigation.

Why?

Pursuing the prosecution will also likely reveal evidence that BATF auditors and agents have failed to do their jobs correctly and will force their termination.

You would think that BATF headquarters in Washington, DC would want an easy bust after the "Operation: Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal left at least one U.S. Border Patrol agent and an unknown number of Mexican nationals murdered.

Instead, the BATF in the Carolinas seems far more intent on letting a convicted kidnapper with outstanding warrants for other crimes continue walking the streets, even though he is considered unstable, and likely to seek weapons again.

All to cover their own asses.

No matter who dies.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:24 PM | Comments (2)

March 17, 2011

The Volt That Wouldn't Die!

It may be worth your while to visit Patrick Michaels' relatively brief article on the Chevy Volt at Forbes (here), if for no other reason than to reinforce what you've already learned, and in much greater detail, on this scruffy little blog. You're ahead of the curve on this one!

Michaels reinforces the fact that the Volt makes no fiscal sense for GM or for potential driver/owners. One interesting bit is that a GM representative apparently told Michaels that cold would not effect a Volt's battery operating range. Apparently GM has discovered how to sidestep the laws of physics, so I'm anxiously awaiting the brand new, warp drive 2012 Volt, with optional transporter and replicator. I wonder how much of a tax credit that will wring from the Feds? And of course, you'll probably only get 1.5 light years on the battery before the warp drive kicks in. I'd definitely check the power reserves before trying to transport at warp though. It's not good to scatter your atoms all over the universe.

Michaels also makes an interesting point about GE preparing to buy many Volts from GM. GE President Jeffrey Imelt, you may remember from my past Volt posts, is now serving as an Obama economic advisor honcho. Could there be any collusion or conflict of interest in the head of GE buying up unsellable cars with heaters that don't work in order to shore up bull-goose looney Obama fiscal policies? Surely this would be impossible in the most transparent administration in history!

Actually, the Volt and everything and everyone remotely associated with it represent the very worst of feckless government meddling in the economy. Oh, and don't call me Shirley.

My previous posts on the Volt may be found here, here, here and here.

Posted by MikeM at 01:42 PM | Comments (1)

Quick Takes, March 17, 2011

ITEM: I’ll start this edition of Quick Takes with a sobering, but uplifting, story (here). Consider it a bit of penance for Mr. Obama’s serial insults of our British cousins. British Army Lance Cpl. Liam Tasker, and his bomb-sniffing dog, Theo, were inseparable--in life and in death. Don’t read this one unless you have Kleenex in hand, and be sure to pet your dog tonight.

ITEM: Mr. Obama has written an editorial promoting better background checks for gun purchasers (here). Several of his comments: “...my administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners - it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.” And “I know that every time we try to talk about guns, it can reinforce stark divides. People shout at one another, which makes it impossible to listen.” He also repeatedly talks about “common sense” measures.

Hmm, he’s expanded gun rights? Like he’s expanded American oil production? Might want to chat with the folks on the Gulf Coast and Alaska about that one. “People shout at one another?” No, we keep calmly bringing up the Constitution and actual common sense; it’s the other side that does the shouting. And as to “common sense gun control” measures, we know what Mr. Obama and his side thinks those are. Visit my recent article on Mr. Obama’s gun control views--here--to see just how believable he is.

ITEM: I know that you’ve often asked yourself this question: What happens when a proton beam traveling at nearly the speed of light pierces your head? The answer may be found here. Yeoow!

ITEM: The Hell Has Frozen Over and Pigs Are Doing Barrel Rolls Overhead! Department: From Hot Air (here), Bill Clinton, speaking on a panel with George W. Bush, said that there are “ridiculous delays in permitting when our economy doesn’t need it.” That’s right, Bill Clinton believes that we ought to be drilling for oil and natural gas! Actually, it’s hardly surprising. Clinton was certainly a liberal, but more than willing to race to the center when necessary. And if Hillary decides to take another run at Mr. Obama, his comments make more and more sense. A frightening thought: Have things truly become so bad under Barack Obama that even Bill Clinton seems like a wise, elder statesman by comparison?

ITEM: Louis Renault Award of the Week: The Captain Louis Renault Award this week goes to ABC, CBS. MSNBC, NPR The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times. We here at Confederate Yankee are shocked, shocked! that these news outlets have not, as of March 13, reported on the death threats made against Republicans in Wisconsin. Anyone depending on these “news” outlets would think the entire situation in Wisconsin was about oppressed workers fighting over crusts of bread denied them by the evil Governor of the state. Read the whole story here.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award II: At Jammie Wearing Fool (here), we learn that Geoffrey Eaton, Charlie Rangel’s Deputy Chief of Staff (a Congressman needs a Deputy Chief of Staff?!) had a rather bad day at the diner. Drunk and incensed that he couldn’t find his umbrella, he screamed obscenities at everyone in the restaurant where he was dining on March 10th. When a customer tried to calm him, he screamed “bleep you and mind your own bleeping business...you’re a disgrace to our race.” After fifteen minutes of trying to calm Eaton, the restaurant staff had to have him removed by the police. I’m shocked, shocked! that a race-baiting minion of a race-baiting, entitled congressman would behave this way!

ITEM: I know you’ve often asked yourself this question: Do redheads have a higher tolerance for pain? Find the shocking answer here. Double yeoow!

ITEM: Well, At Least He Has His Priorities Straight. With legislators in both parties wondering where in the world is Barack Obama on the budget, with the Arab world dissolving in conflict, with the deficit increasing with each passing day, Mr. Obama has chosen to swing dramatically into action! He has taped his NCAA picks to be revealed to an anxious and grateful public on March 16. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing for Mr. Obama to play so much golf after all; that way he can do less damage.

ITEM: Credit Where Credit Is Due, Department: At the Weekly Standard (here), Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich comments on the Wisconsin Democrats: “The absurdity of the Democrats’ outing was too much. They weren’t merely wrong on a procedural point. They were accusing Republicans of ‘making a mockery of democracy.’ operating like a ‘banana republic,’ and conducting a ‘coup d’etat.’ All the while, Democrats were hiding in another state trying to prevent a newly inaugurated senate from holding a vote on vital state business.’” Well, yeah...

ITEM: In the National Review Online (here) David French asks “Why Is It So Easy for Lila Rose and James O’Keffe?” His thesis is that organizations like NPR, ACORN and Planned Parenthood have never had any significant vetting, not from the news media, not from the government. Indeed. And that has bred an institutional arrogance that leads them to believe they are beyond reproach and rebuke. If they believe they’re with like-minded people, they have no fear of revealing their souls, and empty souls they are. Taxpayer dollars must not fund such folly, even if we have the money--and we don’t.

ITEM: “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” Barack Obama, January 25, 2010. Isn’t it our civic duty to help Mr. Obama realize his dream? After all, he’s done so much to us...

ITEM: Former Speaker of the House (oh, it feels soooo good to write that!) Nancy Pelosi recently took to the House floor to proclaim that “Democrats have long fought for fiscal responsibility...” Uh...is that the same Democrats who have spent us into a pit so deep we may never climb out? The same Democrats who refused to pass a budget to hid their obscene spending binges? The same Democrats who think that cutting a few billion from a trillion-plus deficit is morally wrong? And isn’t Nancy Pelosi the same Speaker of the House who wasted millions commandeering military aircraft to fly her back and forth from San Francisco to DC despite the fact that she is independently wealthy? Thought so. It’s things like this that make me worry that irony may, in the near future, no longer be ironic enough. To get anyone’s attention, we may have to resort to super irony, perhaps even mega irony. And as long as we’re on that topic, Obama and the Dems are also quickly rendering a single exclamation mark insufficient. That’s super, mega, cosmic ironic!!!!!!!!

ITEM: Are you a brutal, repressive dictator? Are the peasants revolting (they certainly are, nyuk, nyuk!)? Is Barack Obama threatening to uphold universal human rights and to bear witness? Then you’d better read Rick Richman’s advice for dictators at Commentary (here).

ITEM: A Few Quick Thoughts On Energy: As Japanese nuclear plants continue to have “difficulties,” Mr. Obama has affirmed his commitment to building new nuclear plants, a commitment that has not yet resulted in the beginning of a single plant. Mr. Obama is, as always, trying to have it both ways. He can read his teleprompter to give lip service to nuclear energy all he likes, knowing that his bureaucrats will throw up an impenetrable wall of red tape to prevent the construction of a single plant. And even if a particularly determined utility was capable of surmounting such obstacles, Mr. Obama’s many environmentalist allies are certain to file lawsuit after lawsuit, but at a distance sufficient to provide Mr, Obama plausible deniability. And of course, federal bureaucrats will be watching any project like hawks, ready to revoke permits at the drop of a progressive hat. It’s win-win for Mr. Obama and his allies and lose-lose for America. As usual.

ITEM: Maybe America Has A Future After All...A recent Rasmussen poll (here) has revealed that only 3% of Americans think that an Ivy League education produces a better worker. A whopping 79% thinks otherwise. It’s good to see that Americans retain their essential common sense and practicality. You don’t suppose these poll results were influenced by the current occupant of the Oval Office and all of his various czars, sub czars, assistant deputy secretaries to the assistant deputy undersecretaries, etc., many of whom have Ivy League pedigrees, do you? Nah.

ITEM: We’re All About The New Civility: New Time magazine cover: “Wisconsin’s Governor Wins But Is He Still Dead Man Walker?” Oh dear. Wasn’t the lamestream media in a lather of late over the Gabrielle Giffords shooting? You know, the shooting by the rabid conservative, who turned out not to be a conservative, but plenty rabid? Weren’t we all supposed to avoid provocative language in discussing politicians? Apparently not so much, particularly if they’re republicans.

ITEM: So that’s The Cause of All the Economic Distress! Speaking at the National League of Cities Conference (here), First Lady Michelle Obama said: “You all know better than anyone that childhood obesity is already affecting your communities. It’s already weighing down your budgets. It’s already hampering economic growth.” And we all thought it had to do with lunatic federal economic policies, out of control entitlements and unrestrained spending on vital national programs like cowboy poetry. Who knew fixing it all was as easy as keeping Twinkies away from the kiddies? Those Obamas! What a shame there’s no Nobel Prize for sheer awesomeness.

ITEM: From the Associated Press (here): “Wholesale prices jumped last month by the most in nearly two years due to higher energy costs and the steepest rise in food prices in 36 years. Excluding those volatile categories, inflation was tame.” The AP also noted that “There was little sign of inflationary pressures outside of food and energy.” What good news! Outside of two of the three necessities of mere existence--food, housing and affordable energy--everything is great! As Dr. Pangloss used to say, we live in the best of all possible worlds. But wait a minute! Maybe you ought to read the next item...

ITEM: More Economic Good News: From Ed Morrissey at Hot Air (here), HUD has reported that housing starts for February dropped 22.5%, the lowest level in 27 years--that’s more than a quarter century, folks. But wait a minute! What about the Summer of Recovery? What about Mr. Obama who has “broken the back” of the recession? What about government statistics showing that unemployment is going down? Mark Twain said: “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.” Is it possible, just vaguely possible, that people who are under-employed or unemployed don’t buy new houses, and that if there is less demand, fewer new homes will be built? So it’s actually three for three for the Obama Administration! We’re number one! we’re number one!

ITEM: At a recent White House presser, Obama Administration press secretary Jay Carney fielded questions about the wisdom of Mr. Obama’s upcoming trip to Latin America in light of the rest of the world, you know, more or less, well, falling apart. Said Mr. Carney: “Obviously, the trip is on, and the president will be going to Latin America, and he's looking forward to having discussions with leaders in the region about our bilateral relationship.” Ah! So Mr. Obama will continue the strategy that has worked so well for the first two years of his administration: Talking. And when they’re done talking, they’ll talk about how the talking went, and about how to talk better in the future, about a new talk to the American people, and about how to set new deadlines for new, more forceful talking, and they’ll talk about talking about more talking about talking, and ...

ITEM: This Pretty Much Says It All: From Fox News via the excellent urgentagenda.com, we discover Mr. Obama’s priorities from his last weekend radio address: “Amid chaos around the world and on Capitol Hill, Obama’s Saturday radio address was devoted to Women’s History Month and a call to pass the Paycheck Fairness, Act, a proposal meant to address the income gap between men and women. Then, the president went golfing at Andrews Air Force Base [rimshot, and cue applause].”

ITEM: And in the continuing news from the religion of peace department, early on March 15th (here), the Israeli Navy boarded and seized a Liberian flagged German tanker loaded with peaceful Iranian weapons--such as peaceful mortar rounds, peaceful land to sea missiles, and other peaceful munitions--bound for Hamas in the Gaza strip, no doubt for completely peaceful purposes, such as peacefully murdering sleeping Israeli children. The weapons were recently transported through the Suez canal on peaceful Iranian war, er, peaceships. Newsflash: George Bush said that you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists. Indeed. For a satiric and satisfying look at what Jihadists have to look forward to, visit this classic bit from the Onion (here).

ITEM: ObamaCare Isn’t A Government Takeover Of Health Care, Honest! Department: From CNS News via Hot Air (here) comes Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan), speaking at the National Press Club on March 14th. Conyers confirmed that ObamaCare has, from the start, been intended as a vehicle to establish absolute government control over health care. Said Conyers: “Well it’s a platform. I don’t think they flow smoothly but without it, if we didn’t have this then health care, universal health care would be an even more difficult legislative objective.” Whoda thunk it?

ITEM: I Knew It! Department: Visit here for an article that explains it all, everything you didn’t know you needed to know about the Age of Obama.

And on that informative and uplifting note, thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you next Thursday!!

Posted by MikeM at 02:15 AM | Comments (7)

March 16, 2011

Teaching and Sacrifice II

On February 20, I posted an article title “Teaching and Sacrifice” (here) about those Wisconsin teachers who had betrayed the sacred trust given them by the citizens of that state, preferring instead their own interests and the greater interests of the unions. The article garnered some interest in the blogosphere, and I was pleased because it illustrated at least some of the reasons why some Americans think so poorly of some who inhabit my chosen profession, and perhaps why they should think well of those who embody the highest values of teaching. When I wrote that article, I did not think that those teachers could have sunken lower, could have more completely betrayed their calling, duty and charges. I was wrong.

From Wisconsin Law Professor and blogger Ann Althouse (here) comes a March 14th post with video from the state Capitol building in Madison. According to Althouse, who also recently appeared on Megyn Kelly’s show on Fox, the people in the video in orange shirts emblazoned with “Proud To Be A Teacher,” are apparently teachers (she spoke with them). There are several other adults present who may be parents, but that’s not known with any certainty. The day the video was shot was, according to Althouse, a day that students and teachers were not in school. It is what the teachers are doing there that I find even more disturbing than abandoning the classroom or obtaining fake medical excuses to lie, to cover for their improper absence.

The teachers are engaging in organized chanting with a group of school children, anti-Walker (the Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker) chanting. The children, numbering about 20, are holding signs that they clearly did not make, and are chanting, with their adult role-models and in a call-response mode, as well. Clearly, the kids have no idea what they are chanting. They have no idea that they’re chanting kiddie versions of stock union propaganda, or even what unions and propaganda are.

How do I know this? The children appear to be of first or second grade age. The skills necessary to make the signs that appear in the video are beyond them. They likely have some idea what the words they are chanting mean, but children of that age certainly do not have any idea of the philosophical and political implications of what they are saying. They chant to please the adults who are important to them, no more, no less. That’s the problem.

Teachers operate under the legal doctrine of “in loco parentis.” It’s Latin and means “in place of the parents.” Parents entrust their children to teachers, who may act in place of the parents when the children are with them. They may regulate children’s behavior and dispense discipline as necessary, just as parents would. Of course, in these days of political correctness, few teachers would dare touch a child lest they be sued up one side and down the other, but the doctrine is in place nonetheless.

Perhaps more important is the tacit understanding between parents and teachers. If parents cannot be reasonably certain that teachers will actually teach, why should they entrust their children to any teacher’s care? Teachers must confine themselves to teaching their disciplines, which includes the best currently available knowledge in that discipline. I’m not referring to fads, theories and other silliness, but cold, hard facts, things that work and that we know work because they’ve worked for hundreds of years.

For example, as a teacher of high school English, I stick primarily to reading and writing (a great deal of writing of all kinds), and teaching students how to think, how to analyze literature and speech, why words mean what they mean and their importance. Where I teach, state standards require that we teach children “media literacy,” so each year I prepare--and continually update--a unit on how the media shapes public opinion though what they write, through what they choose not to cover, through polls, through photographs, and every other aspect of the media. The unit requires a great deal of writing and analysis, and, as thoughtful readers might imagine, covers media bias in detail. In doing this unit, I am careful to present both sides of issues--where it’s necessary to present both sides--and again, I teach the kids how to develop higher level thinking skills, not what to think. To do otherwise would be unprofessional and improper.

Even in studying Shakespeare, high school students have to be taught about human nature and politics. They simply can’t understand “Julius Caesar” and Shakespeare’s other works without at least a rudimentary understanding of those concepts. But if I chose a particular political orientation and presented all of my materials through that lens, I would be telling them what to think. I would be guilty of professional malpractice. But worse, I would be breaching the vital understanding between teachers and parents. I would be treading on ground reserved only for parents. Any teacher who does this is inviting the righteous and justified wrath of parents, and is crossing boundaries they should never cross.

Simply put, no teacher should ever engage in political indoctrination with their students. It’s not their place, it’s not their business, it takes precious class time away from what they’re supposed to be doing, and it destroys the trust between parents and teachers that is absolutely vital to the continuance of public education. When the public can no longer trust public schools with their children, we’re in real trouble.

Yes, I know that some people already distrust the public schools, and as a result home school or place their children in private schools. Some parents have good cause to do this, others do not, but that’s a post for another day. As it is, most parents have good reason to trust their schools, and any teacher that does anything to breach that trust is a fool; they’re figuratively cutting their own throat and the throats of every other teacher as well. Union benefits mean nothing if there is no job to which they may be applied.

I suppose that considering what far too many Wisconsin teachers have already done, I should not be surprised. This is merely a part of the logical progression. Once you abandon your classroom for political purposes, once you lie to cover your improper absence, once you’ve co-opted others such as doctors, willing or not, into your offenses, once you’ve damaged property, threatened the lives of your political opponents and their innocent families, why not bring uncomprehending children into the great, socialist fold?

It’s bad enough to do it with high school aged kids, kids who at least are old enough, whose brains have sufficient development to begin to understand the abstractions of politics and political issues, but to bring little children into adult political battles is nothing short of reprehensible. It reveals in those adults manipulating the children a lack of adult responsibility, judgement and moral fiber that should give the real adults in their respective schools reason to reconsider whether such people should be in charge of children. Teachers, remember, also assist in molding the character of their charges.

What they are doing is not child abuse. Such charges are hyperbolic, but it is a clear boundary violation, a violation that can and will break down the trust between parents and teachers that is absolutely vital, for without it, every teacher’s job is in jeopardy, and most importantly, students are not receiving the education their parents have every right to expect they should receive. After all, if teachers are not all about teaching as well as they can, every minute they have, what's their argument for their continuing relevance and employment?

In my original post, I wrote of a protesting teacher who displayed a sign identifying herself as one of the teachers of one of Gov. Walker’s children. I explained in some detail why that act alone endangered not only Gov. Walker’s child, but every other child in her school, indeed, why it endangered her. She simply wasn’t capable of seeing the unintended consequences of her actions. These teachers may also be incapable of seeing the unintended consequences of their actions. The difference is that they have no business using children in this way, as walking, talking props in a political play, a play in which such young children cannot be interested and which they cannot possibly care about or understand.

If I was one of those teachers, I wouldn’t be worried about Gov. Walker. I’d be worried about the kid’s parents. I’d be worried because I would have no legitimate explanation, no defense for my misuse of innocent children. If the parents were actually involved in this theater of the thuggish, well, their children never really had a chance, did they?

Posted by MikeM at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)

March 15, 2011

He's So Tired

In Mel Brooks’ classic Blazing Saddles, Madeline Kahn brilliantly plays saloon singer and lady of loose morals, Lily VonSchtupp, “The Teutonic Titwilllow.” One of her most arresting bits is a song titled “I’m So Tired,” where she complains about the inevitable and entirely foreseeable effects of her chosen profession, quite obviously the oldest profession.

Much less humorous is the President of the United States, Barack Obama, who, according to the New York Times on March 11 (here), “...has told people that it would be so much easier to be president of China. As one official put it, ‘No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.’” No I imagine they’re not, not in a country where dissidents can be shot in the back of the head for such things and their families forced to pay for the cartridge.

Such longings for easier days and less complicated times are nothing new for Mr. Obama. His golf outings (more than 60 to date), command performance parties in the White House, and globe spanning vacations and “date nights” are the stuff of legend--at least in his own mind. But there are many previous indicators of Mr. Obama’s lack of preparation and fortitude, dating back to the beginning of his term in office. Several illustrative examples, by no means an exhaustive list, follow.

March 7, 2009: According to The Telegraph (here):

“Sources close to the White House say Mr. Obama and his staff have been ‘overwhelmed’ by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.”

The article was written following the first visit of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to the White House, a visit that marked the beginning of Mr. Obama’s serial insults of the British.

“Allies of Mr. Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr. Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president’s surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk. A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr. Obama’s inner circle, expressed concern that Mr. Obama had failed so far to ‘even fake an interest in foreign policy.’”

A “Democratic Strategist” observed that:

“People say he looks more tired than they’re used to...He’s still calm, but there have been flashes of irritation when he thinks he’s being pushing to make a decision sooner than he wants to make it. He looks like he needs a cigarette.”

November 3, 2009: CBS News (here) observed:

“In the 12 months since his election a year ago tomorrow, President Obama has learned first hand it’s easier to run for president than to be president.”

Mr. Obama’s then press secretary, Robert Gibbs, weighed in:

“As one who gets to observe the president as a member of his inner circle, Gibbs says the job has proven to be harder and more exhausting than Mr. Obama expected.”

December 29, 2009: I Hate The Media (here) had this to say:

“After a sleepless, overnight flight to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month, President Barack Obama made a not altogether surprising admission. He was tired.”

IHTM also made an interesting, helpful suggestion:

“Might we humbly offer a suggestion, Mr. President? If you’re really as tired as you say, take a nap every afternoon. Lay off the golf. And the photo shoots for all those magazine covers. And the appearance on all those TV shows. And the bowing to foreign dignitaries. Especially the bowing to foreign dignitaries.”

January 1, 2010: The Telegraph (here) weighed in on Mr. Obama’s appearance following his Hawaiian vacation:

“His care-free children Sasha and Malia were spotted smiling and playing with friends as they took to the water. But in sharp contrast, Mr Obama looked weary, as if the repeated interruptions to his family holiday had taken their toll.

He has had to address criticism over national security after it appeared that a lack of communication between government agencies allowed the Nigerian syringe bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab to attempt to blow up an airliner as it prepared to land in Detroit. He also faced the grim news that seven CIA operatives had been killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan.”

Hmm. Didn’t Mr. Obama, you know, want the job in the first place? Did he expect it would all be hosannas to his glory and majesty, nothing but photographs with superimposed halos?

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, whose bust Mr. Obama unceremoniously dispatched back to English, a great man Mr. Obama would no doubt find “nothing special” in the same way that his administration described America’s “special relationship” with England, “never have so few whined so much to so many.” Yet, anyone familiar with Mr. Obama’s past should not be in the least surprised.

The most demanding work Mr. Obama has ever done in his life has been producing rhetoric. Rhetoric is the toolbox, the raw materials and the finished product of the community organizer, the hustler and the politician. As President, the production of rhetoric has been greatly simplified and reduced to mere teleprompter reading.

Even Mr. Obama has admitted that he could not tell close friends what he actually did as a community organizer, yet he did not do it for years, and apparently made sufficient money doing nothing to afford a very expensive home in one of Chicago’s most expensive neighborhoods. In fact, the only executive experience Mr. Obama ever had is known by few, yet it comprised six years of his life in Chicago. His only executive job was not mentioned by his presidential campaign, and with good reason.

In 1995, Bill Ayers, the unrepentant domestic terrorist, the University of Illinois at Chicago education professor, and a guy Mr. Obama--according to his PR flacks--knew only as some guy who lived in the same neighborhood, hired Barack Obama to be the Chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and worked closely with him for six years. The challenge was essentially a leftist organization established to spend money to implement radical socialist educational theories in the Chicago schools, ostensibly to better serve students who were being poorly served. Mr. Obama was the chairman until 1999, but remained a member of the board until the CAC became defunct through its own incompetence and ineffectiveness in 2001.

The funding for the venture came from the Annenberg Foundation, a major funding source for leftist social and political initiatives. In six years, according to the Annenberg Foundation’s postmortem audit, the CAC did not improve education, did not assist underserved children, and accomplished virtually nothing except burning through at least $50 million dollars. Little wonder the Obama campaign didn’t want Mr. Obama’s tenure there to be public knowledge. Long before he became president, he was already adept at wasting huge amounts of other people's money.

Even as the editor of the Harvard Law Review and during his tenure as a “law professor” at the University of Chicago, Mr. Obama produced no legal scholarship. In fact, he was never a professor, an academic distinction earned after many years of effort, but merely an occasional lecturer in a job created especially for him, a job for which he drew a salary, but apparently did little or nothing.

In his eight years as an Illinois state senator, Mr. Obama voted “present” 129 times, even on bills that passed nearly unanimously. He even voted present on bills he supported, and at least once, on a bill he actually sponsored! And during his approximately two years as a US Senator, Mr. Obama wrote no legislation of note, yet while running for the presidency virtually the entire time, managed to earn the title of the most liberal senator, a man to the left even of the only avowed Socialist in the Senate.

But he wrote two books, autobiographies (?!) for which he was handsomely paid! Not quite. His several autobiographers inadvertently included several inconvenient truths indicating that he did not, in fact, write either book, and Jack Cashill has convincingly argued that it was William Ayers who wrote his first book, “Dreams From My Father.” And by the way, who, as a young man of little documentable accomplishment, writes a single autobiography--which he didn’t actually write--let alone two?

To be absolutely fair, I’ve little doubt that few men can appreciate the demands of the presidency without having experienced them, yet in my 57 years, I cannot recall another president publicly complaining about the burdens of the office even once, an office each and every occupant--with the probable exception of George Washington--desperately wanted to win. Such complaining is not only bad manners, it is a sign of a lack of gratitude, a lack of appreciation of the efforts and support of others, it is a sign of debilitating narcissism, of a man for whom everything is all about him. It is excuse making in a man to whom the country and the world looks for guidance and results.

Is it any wonder that America is in such dire straits domestically and internationally? Mr. Obama knows only the discipline of rhetoric, and when any crisis arises, responds with his only tool: More rhetoric, for which he believes the American public and the world are breathlessly waiting. Should anyone be surprised when a man with no experience running anything other than a political campaign is unable to set priorities, formulate coherent policies and make decisions?

The facade is now being stripped away, stripped away by events, failed policies and fiscal and international realities. Mr. Obama isn’t failing to make decisions, to act because he’s so brilliant that he over thinks things, or because he sees nuance that mere mortals can’t hope to understand. He’s failing--and we’re all suffering for it--because he’s not up to the job, and he never was.

Being a politician is, I believe, the second oldest profession, and shares many things in common with the oldest. But the most important thing to remember is, that like Lily VonSchtupp, he’s so tired. We all ought to respect that and the reasons therefore, God and gun clinging ingrates that we are, and two years hence, help Mr. Obama have the time for the rest he so richly deserves.

Posted by MikeM at 10:51 PM | Comments (6)

March 13, 2011

Do Pro-Enforcement Advocates Also Wish to Restrict Legal Immigration? A response to a recent PJM article on "immigration restrictionists" by Ruben Navarette.

The good folks at Pajamas Media have published my latest article fisking Ruben Navarrette's attempt to claim that those who want to stop illegal immigration must also wish to stop legal immigration. Oh yes, and they're racists too. Go here for the fun and frolic!

Posted by MikeM at 05:28 PM | Comments (1)

March 10, 2011

Obama/Unions Sow Discord, Create Fertile Ground For Terrorist Threats

I warned weeks ago that President Barack Obama's bid to stir civil unrest in Wisconsin in support of his union allies by directing his campaign organization (Organizing for America) to interfere in the process was dangerous to representative democracy, and potentially dangerous to those legislators attempting to do their jobs.

That chicken has come home to roost, as we've seen video after video of leftist violence and death threats by the radical left that forms Obama's base.

Here is just the latest example, obtained by Charlie Sykes.

From: XXXX Sent: Wed 3/9/2011 9:18 PM To: Sen.Kapanke; Sen.Darling; Sen.Cowles; Sen.Ellis; Sen.Fitzgerald; Sen.Galloway; Sen.Grothman; Sen.Harsdorf; Sen.Hopper; Sen.Kedzie; Sen.Lasee; Sen.Lazich; Sen.Leibham; Sen.Moulton; Sen.Olsen Subject: Atten: Death threat!!!! Bomb!!!!

Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your familes
will also be killed due to your actions in the last 8 weeks. Please explain
to them that this is because if we get rid of you and your families then it
will save the rights of 300,000 people and also be able to close the deficit
that you have created. I hope you have a good time in hell. Read below for
more information on possible scenarios in which you will die.

WE want to make this perfectly clear. Because of your actions today and in
the past couple of weeks I and the group of people that are working with me
have decided that we've had enough. We feel that you and the people that
support the dictator have to die. We have tried many other ways of dealing
with your corruption but you have taken things too far and we will not stand
for it any longer. So, this is how it's going to happen: I as well as many
others know where you and your family live, it's a matter of public records.
We have all planned to assult you by arriving at your house and putting a
nice little bullet in your head. However, we decided that we wouldn't leave
it there. We also have decided that this may not be enough to send the
message to you since you are so "high" on Koch and have decided that you are
now going to single handedly make this a dictatorship instead of a
demorcratic process. So we have also built several bombs that we have placed
in various locations around the areas in which we know that you frequent.
This includes, your house, your car, the state capitol, and well I won't
tell you all of them because that's just no fun. Since we know that you are
not smart enough to figure out why this is happening to you we have decided
to make it perfectly clear to you. If you and your goonies feel that it's
necessary to strip the rights of 300,000 people and ruin their lives, making
them unable to feed, clothe, and provide the necessities to their families
and themselves then We Will "get rid of" (in which I mean kill) you. Please
understand that this does not include the heroic Rep. Senator that risked
everything to go aganist what you and your goonies wanted him to do. We feel
that it's worth our lives to do this, because we would be saving the lives
of 300,000 people. Please make your peace with God as soon as possible and
say goodbye to your loved ones we will not wait any longer. YOU WILL DIE!!!!

Barack Obama, let me make this clear: should any harm come to these duly elected legislators as a result of the violence that you have encouraged, there will be a groundswell of support for your impeachment for directly violating your Presidential Oath of Office, which reads:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Encouraging revolt and empowering union thugs has been Obama's goal since the beginning of this standoff, and his actions both direct and behind the scenes amount to a war on democracy.

Elections have consequences, Mr. President.

Undermine those elections at your own political and legal peril.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

Radical Leftist to Followers: Wisconsin Collective Bargaining Vote Was "Your 9/11"

I guess the difference between @Shoq and I is that I think 9/11 was 9/11, and he thinks losing collective bargaining killed 3,000 innocent people.

prog911

The different "-ists" are raving made about the vote, but it s quite simple: if you refuse to take part in representative democracy, and in fact encourage your representatives to abdicate their roles as your representatives within the government, don't cry foul when the elected officials doing their jobs find a way to pass the legislation before them.

Radical leftists are spoiled children without a sense of propriety or perspective.

I'm hardly surprised they responded in such an absurd manner.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:33 AM | Comments (3)

Quick Takes, March 10, 2011

ITEM: Thomas Jakobsson of Naval Guards, a private security firm, announced (here) that six of his operatives boarded and retook the yacht belonging to a Dutch couple which had been seized by Somali pirates. Apparently the family locked themselves in a safe room and the security operatives engaged in a brief firefight with the pirates during which no one was injured. This is not the same Dutch yacht recently seized by Somali pirates; that hostage situation remains in play. Hmm. Don’t we have a world-renowned force of naval commandos who do something like that? I believe they’re called “Navy SEALs” or something. Why don’t we turn them loose to wreak the kind of constructive havoc for which they are famous? Given adequate freedom and assets, I suspect they would happily see that the pirate menace was eliminated in short order. Mr. Obama?

ITEM: I’ve Been Telling My Wife About This For Years! According to Fox Boston (here), a five-year German study has produce uplifting, prominent results. In a study of 500 men, half were told to refrain from looking at breasts for five years, and the other half were told to “”ogle them daily.” The study found that the men who stared at breasts “more often showed lower rates of heart problems, a lower resting heart rate and lower blood pressure.” “Stare at breasts for 10 minutes a day,” recommended the researchers. This may be an urban legend, but I don’t know. Just to be safe, I may try to double, even triple the recommendation. Can’t be too careful these days.

ITEM: He Said What?! Remember the old Hee Haw line? Patient: “Doc, it hurts when I do this.” Doc: “Then don’t do that.” Comes now Treasure Secretary Timothy Geithner, who, according to Powerline (here), testified before the Senate Budget Committee on Feb. 17 about Mr. Obama’s budget. His budget, you may recall, will increase Federal spending 65% by decade’s end, racking up another $12 trillion and interest payments on the debt costing $844 billion per year by 2021. Give him credit for honesty; Mr. Geithner admitted that the costs of the budget are “unsustainable” and “excessively high.” Well why, Mr. Secretary, if you know that, why are you proposing and--sort of--defending the darned thing?

Item: Louis Renault Rides Again! Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood testified before the Senate Budget Committee on March 3 (here) in support of the Obama Administration’s plan to increase the budget of the Transportation Department by 62%. You read correctly: 62%. Unlike Mr. Geithner, who apparently has at least some sense of shame and honesty, Secretary LaHood shocked, shocked! the senators by claiming that the Obama budget would pay down the national debt. Even if every hopenchangey assumption on which that budget is based was true (and if so, I’m investing in that Nigerian unicorn ranch that keeps sending me e-mails), the budget will run at least a $600 billion deficit each and every year. This is, in the DOT, apparently what passes for rational thought and fiscal responsibility. But then again, they’re all about high-speed rail too...

ITEM: Shouldn’t America’s Ambassador to the United Nations represent...America? Not so much these days. When George Schultz was Secretary of State, he often invited new foreign service officers to his office and asked them to point out, on a map, the country they would be representing. They would invariably point to the nation to which they had been posted. Mr. Schultz would then point to America and tell them that it was the nation they represented. According to Fox News (here) British Prime Minister David Cameron is defunding four U.N agencies at the end of next year. They are: The UN International Development Organization, UN-Habitat, The International Labor Organization, and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. Mr. Cameron, faced with his own budget crunch, has concluded that the agencies don’t accomplish squat, and don’t accomplish it at a very high cost indeed, so England is no longer playing. In the meantime, American Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice has been criss-crossing the nation trying to raise money for the UN. Uh, wasn’t she supposed to represent American interests at the UN, not fundraise for it? I get so confused by these high-level issues. Rather a shame we don’t have a Secretary of State like Mr. Schultz anymore, isn’t it? Discuss.

ITEM: But shouldn’t the Attorney General represent all Americans? Not so much. Via Politico (here) Attorney General Eric Holder, testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee, denied that the DOJ is enforcing voting laws--particularly the now infamous New Black Panther case--unequally. Responding to civil rights attorney Bartle Bull, who witnessed the Black Panthers intimidating voters outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008, and who called it the most serious act of voter intimidation he had witnessed in his career, Holder said: “when you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s...I think it does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people.” Hmmm. “...for my people.” Take a moment, if you will, to see what the indispensable Michelle Malkin has to say about her people (here). The people of the United States, people of every color, are your people Mr. Attorney General. Why don’t you know that?

ITEM: Uh, shouldn’t the Secretary of Labor represent all American workers? Not so much, if you’re Barack Obama’s SOL. Speaking at the winter meeting of the Democrat National Committee in Washington last weekend (here). Solis promised aid to union workers who are “under assault” in Wisconsin and elsewhere. “Our brothers and sisters in public employee unions,” she intoned, also throwing red meat to a ravenous crowd by exclaiming “the fight is on!” Hmm. Would that mean the Federal government is fighting the government of Wisconsin? The taxpayers? All non-union workers in America (the overwhelming majority)? Discuss.

ITEM: This Says It All: On March 6, Tea Party Members converged on the Wisconsin Capital building in Madison to stage a counter protest? Not quite: To clean up the swinish mess left by two weeks of union protests. What? Those racist, evil, nasty, violent Tea Partiers? The same, taking out other people’s garbage, as usual.

ITEM: It’s Already Happened. This week, gas spiked in Orlando, Florida at $5.29 per gallon. The national average is, for the moment, $3.38 per gallon, but Mr. Obama’s illegal refusal to issue permits for Gulf oil drilling alone--with the sole exception of one permit to allow a well that was already near completion to start up again--has cut US production by 13%. That’s a 13% cut, on top of no new production being allowed virtually anywhere in America. Hope. Change. Had enough?

ITEM: You’re Joking, Right? Afraid not. In the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, State Senator Andrew Petruccelli has re-introduced legislation establishing a commission to study GPS tracking for firearms. Jim Wallace of the Mass. Gun Owner’s Action League (here) notes that “Twelve years ago we had 1.5 million gun owners. Today that’s down to about 230 thousand. Gun crime has risen 200 percent. What else do you need to know?” What indeed.

ITEM: From the Washington Post via the indispensable Powerline (here), we learn that Mr. Obama is “preparing for the prospect that Islamist governments will take hold in North Africa and Middle East.” Mr. Obama and his sycophants also apparently believe that there are big differences between the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda. Indeed. The MB prefers to use sharp knives when sawing off the heads of live infidels, while al-Qaeda prefers dull knives. The idiocy of the Obama administration is truly stunning. They would do well--and potentially save untold American lives--to remember that most venerable of Middle Eastern aphorisms: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

ITEM: Weren’t These Guys Supposed To Explore Space Or Something? For the second time in two years (here), a NASA rocket carrying a satellite intended to study global warming has “failed to reach orbit” as NASA has termed it. The average man-in-the-street would say something like “sucker crashed in the ocean! Whap!” The cost this time? A bit under half a billion dollars. Does anyone else think that cosmic irony is at play when every satellite our space agency sends up to engage in non-space research augers in?

ITEM: So That’s How You Do It! From Popular Mechanics (here) comes the story of two enterprising MIT students, Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh who sent a camera package into space on a five hour flight, reaching 93,000 feet, for $150. By all means, take the link. I understand NASA is out of the space business and all about the Muslim self-esteem business. Anyone needing space services might consider getting in touch with Justin and Oliver. With a budget of, say, $1000, perhaps a return trip to the moon?

ITEM: Do yourself a favor and visit Powerline (here) for Scott’s essay on Barack Obama and Israel. “We wouldn’t say the same of Barack Obama. His obtuseness regarding Israel forms part of a larger pattern of arrogance matched with wrongheadedness. Monumental self-regard matched with rank stupidity.” It only gets better from there. Do visit.

ITEM: And at the Daily Beast (here), Hell has frozen over and pigs are doing barrel rolls overhead. Liberal commentator Kristin Powers retracted a column she wrote in support of continued federal funding for Planned Parenthood. She discovered that PP published false statistics, and came to a rational, honorable conclusion: “Whatever you think of abortion rights, this is not the kind of organization that taxpayers should be funding.” Well done Ms. Powers. Please continue with your second step to independence of thought and toward liberty. We’ll we waiting to welcome you.

ITEM: We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1! At $223 billion, the federal government set a new for the deficit in a single month in February. Recall, if you will, Democrats excoriating President Bush for a similar yearly budget deficit. And now? They’re serious about budget cutting, offering as much as $6 billion in cuts--which would represent only a tiny fraction of a single percent of February’s budget, to say nothing about our trillion dollar+ yearly budget deficit. We’re not going to be number one much longer, particularly if Barack Obama is a two-term president.

ITEM: Aw! It’s Almost Like A Cute, Sick Puppy Or Something: From Hot Air (here) comes the news of an internal White House memo that fell into the hands of CBS News. Apparently there has been a national contest for high schools with a fabulous prize: A graduation teleprompter reading by Barack Obama! Apparently the memo noted that by the deadline of Feb. 25, only 14 applications had been received. Aw! Poor Barack! (Sung, preferably by small school children in creepy, hypnotic cadence): “MM, MM, MM, Barack Hussein Obama! Don’t no one want Obama! MM, MM, MM!”

ITEM: And in Wisconsin, Republicans finally showed some backbone and voted to strip state workers of collective bargaining privileges. Of course, unions and Democrat senators still hiding out in Illinois were not amused. Let’s review: Collective bargaining is a privilege, not a right, and can be granted or taken away at will. The Democrat Senators have been gone three weeks, and refuse to do their jobs. They lost what they were most trying to avoid anyway. Gov. Walker even offered concessions, but the Democrats refused. Now Wisconsin can actually be effective in dealing with budgetary issues. And Democrat supporters are screeching “This is not Democracy!” Oh, and running away to keep a legislature from functioning for three weeks is? Some people have no sense of shame.

ITEM: Speaking on the floor of the Congress March 2, Jesse Jackson Jr. proposed an innovative solution to unemployment: Add a bunch of new rights to the Constitution! Talk about an epiphany! His ideas: Every family will have a right to a “decent home.” Everyone will have a right to medical care. Everyone will have a right to a “decent education,” which will include an iPod and laptop computer for every student. Of course, he didn’t bother to mention how these “rights” would be funded, but in the same expansive (as in government expansion) spirit, here’s my initial list of new rights: I’d like a right to the handgun, “assault weapon” and unlimited ammunition of my choice. The right to my own personal jet aircraft with unlimited fuel would be pretty neat. Oh yes, and the right to periodically slap congress critters upside their heads to knock a little sense into them might be a good idea as well. Note to the satirically challenged: I am not, in fact, advocating actually assaulting any member of Congress or anyone else. It’s a joke. You see, by making outlandish comparisons, the joke is ridiculing Jackson’s equally outlandish comparisons by...oh never mind. Some people just can’t take a joke.

ITEM: I Swear I’m Not Making This Up! Department: Via Hot Air (here), Senate Minority Leader (ah, it feels so good to say that!) Harry Reid took to the floor of the Senate recently to castigate the heartless brutes who want to eliminate subsidies to public broadcasting and the National Endowments of the Arts and Humanities. Senator Reid was particularly concerned that without taxpayer largess, an annual cowboy poetry festival in Nevada might be headed for the last roundup, it might end up in that big corral in the sky, it might get shot first and asked questions later, it might...OK, OK, I’m back. I’m better now. At least I’m glad to see that the Dems are taking this whole budget thing seriously. I mean, revamping Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are serious matters, but they pale in comparison to the possibility of defunding something as important to national and world security and fiscal stability as Nevada cowboy poetry. So here’s my contribution to this vital genre:

A Cowboy’s Lament

It was raining the day I got off the bus,
and met my ma, who ain’t no fuss.
Prison was hard, but I did my time,
fer eatin’ too much salt, and makin’ bad rhyme.

Sally Sue run off with my dog on a whim,
LordaMighty how I miss him.
Now they’re defundin’ cowboy poetry; that makes be blue,
But if I had it to do all over again, I’d do it all over you.

Thank the Good Lord we have intellectual giants such as Senator Reid doing the people’s business!

And with that thought in mind, get along little poetic doggies, and I’ll see yuh next Thursday! Yeeeeeeeeee-hah!

Posted by MikeM at 01:01 AM | Comments (4)

March 09, 2011

Obama Defeated Again; Collective Bargaining Crushed In Wisconsin

Wisconsin's cowardly Senate Democrats fled the state nearly three weeks ago in hopes that a procedural trick—not having having enough senators present for a quorum—could keep the Republican majority from passing a budget bill that would cripple the corrupting power of public sector unions.

Wisconsin's Senate Republicans used a procedural trick of their own, and have now passed the part of the bill the Democrats most wanted to block.

Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate voted Wednesday night to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers after discovering a way to bypass the chamber's missing Democrats.

All 14 Senate Democrats fled to Illinois nearly three weeks ago, preventing the chamber from having enough members present to consider Gov. Scott Walker's so-called "budget repair bill" - a proposal introduced to plug a $137 million budget shortfall.

The Senate requires a quorum to take up any measures that spend money. But Republicans on Wednesday split from the legislation the proposal to curtail union rights, which spends no money, and a special conference committee of state lawmakers approved the bill a short time later.

The lone Democrat on the Senate floor howled that the vote was unfair. I'd have a bit more sympathy for him if his allies hadn't spent the last three weeks trying to screw overburdened taxpayers out of their money in order to keep union coffers flush with cash to fund Democratic campaigns.

The vote was also a clear defeat for President Barack Obama, who had agitated against Gov. Walker and had his campaign organization, Organizing for America, at the forefront of trying to defeat the measure.

Perhaps the Democratic Party will learn tonight that you cannot claim to be taking part in a democracy by running away from your responsibilities.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:07 PM | Comments (2)

A Message To Public Sector Unions From a Real Person

Jeff Soyer lives in the real world, and he could care less about your fake hardships. He has real problems, and doesn't want to listen to people complain while clearing close to $100K/year in salary and benefits.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:44 AM | Comments (1)

March 08, 2011

Another Day, Another Union Death threat You Won't See On The News

They just keep getting more unhinged. It doesn't help that they are being encouraged by President Obama and his campaign organization.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)

SPLC to Add NPR To Hate Group List After Executive's Rant

Tolerance:


On the tapes, Schiller wastes little time before attacking conservatives. The Republican Party, Schiller says, has been "hijacked by this group." The man posing as Malik finishes the sentence by adding, "the radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people." Schiller agrees and intensifies the criticism, saying that the Tea Party people aren't "just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it's scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people."

Schiller goes on to describe liberals as more intelligent and informed than conservatives. "In my personal opinion, liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives," he said.

I look forward to Southern Poverty Law Center "hate group expert" Mark Potok listing NPR as a hate group. After all, Potok declared that Pamela Gellar and Robert Spencer constitute a hate group for far, far less inflammatory speech.

UPDATE, 03-08-11, 2100 (From Mike): Where does one start with such an irony and target-rich environment? By now, a great many worthy blogs have covered the factual situation in detail. Bob has already linked to several of those, and I’ll add a few observations and a bit of updated information, including an explanation of what entrapment really is. Additional links here, here, here and here.

SPREADIN’ ON THE IRONY WITH A TROWEL! DEPARTMENT: On March 7, NPR Chief Vivian Schiller (no relation to Ron Schiller) spoke at the National Press Club and denied that NPR spins the news in a liberal direction. Schiller claimed that NPR works hard to offer “journalism that presents no particular bias,” and that NPR gets “a tremendous amount of criticism for being too conservative.” Remember that this was the day before the release of the new O’Keefe video.

WHO YOU GONNA BELIEVE? ME OR YER OWN LYIN’ EYES? DEPARTMENT: As reported by the Daily Caller, NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm tried valiantly to distance NPR from Ron Schiller, the President of the NPR Foundation and NPR Senior VP for Development.

“The fraudulent organization represented in this video repeatedly pressed us to accept a $5 million check, with no strings attached, which we repeatedly refused to accept,” Davis Rehm said in an e-mail to The Daily Caller. “We are appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for.” Rehm also said that “Mr. Schiller announced last week that he is leaving NPR for another job.” Apparently Mr. Schiller will be working for the Aspen (Colorado) Institute. This was followed by a tweet from NPR Media Reporter David Folkenflik: “Therefore, according to NPR, departure of fundraising exec. Ron Schiller for Aspen Inst. was unrelated to the sting by James O’Keefe.” However, later in the day NPR announced that Schiller, who was scheduled to depart NPR in May has been, in some way, suspended pending some sort of review. Gotta get the story straight, folks!

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, GOT THE T-SHIRT! DEPARTMENT: Former NPR Commentator, Juan Williams, who was also the recipient of some abuse from Mr. Schiller (and much from NPR not long ago) in the O’Keefe tape, appeared on Hannity on March 8th. Williams was not surprised by, but was disgusted with Schiller’s comments, calling them “so rude and condescending.” In an earlier interview he noted that the comments of Schiller reflected the nature of NPR. “‘This is how they talk in boardrooms and editorial meetings,’ explained Williams. ‘This is how they really feel.’” On Hannity, he also noted that “they attack anyone who disagrees with their elitist NPR point of view.” Other Williams comments:

“This is finally a window into how they really think.”

“They’re locked into their liberal orthodoxy. They think they’re better.”

“These people are just destroying NPR.”

ANALYSIS: Two of the highest ranking NPR officers are dining with two potential Muslim donors, donors who have identified themselves as affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a well known sponsor of terrorism. Odd behavior for an organization trying to virtuously avoid forcibly accepting $5 million dollars. In the course of the meeting, the NPR officers engage in racism, anti-semitism, elitist condescension, and denigration of about 50% of the American public in that at least that percentage does not share orthodox liberal views.

To be absolutely fair, one might allow a certain amount of obsequiousness for a fund raiser trying to please a potential donor, however, the video would seem to suggest that Shiller and his companion were not merely responding neutrally and carefully to the crude and disgusting viewpoints of potentially wealth donors, but were ardently presenting what they clearly believe are the institutional values of NPR as features, not bugs, in the hope of realizing a substantial payday.

The comments of the NPR executives speak clearly for themselves, and no matter how far Vivian Schiller and other NPR PR flacks try to distance themselves from them, one need only google the situation revolving around Juan Williams to discover exactly the same smug liberal superiority, condescension and disdain so clearly on display on the video. This is obviously not an isolated incident, and virtually any sentient being who spends more than an hour or two listening to NPR’s flagship programs--I am and I have--will certainly understand that NPR is an ardently liberal organization. To be absolutely fair, NPR, particularly in its news coverage, is not obviously biased 100% of the time, but when they are, they are always biased to the left, and often, very far to the left indeed.

As is usual in such cases, many have already begun to attack O’Keefe, accusing him of underhanded tactics, and even of entrapment. Many have brought up the recent prank played on Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, claiming a sort of similarity. They are entirely wrong. Governor Walker, as revealed by the secretly recorded conversation, is an honorable man who did not denigrate anyone, and whose public and private views are identical. He disavowed nothing because he did not need to disavow anything. Con men all know the saying “You can’t con an honest man.” NPR, faced with the public exposure of its fundamental but carefully concealed and often lied about private views, during a time when the Congress is debating entirely pulling their taxpayer funding, has disavowed Mr. Schiller and is backpedaling as fast as it can.

Those who are crying “entrapment!” have no idea what they’re talking about. Entrapment is a legal term that has currency only when the acts of government operatives--the police or those directly acting as their agents--are involved. Entrapment is a potential defense, a defense which may be invoked only when someone has been arrested and is charged with a crime or crimes.

Entrapment is often claimed by defense attorneys, but is a defense much less frequently bought by the courts. In order to entrap, the police must entice someone who is not disposed to commit a criminal act into committing a criminal act. A classic case might be police officers who approach a citizen on the street, and with no real cause to believe that they might be a criminal or that they might be involved in the kind of crime being investigated, offer that person sufficient money or other things of value to convince them to commit a crime. On the other hand, when the police approach, for example, a known drug dealer and offer to buy drugs from him, they are certainly not committing entrapment. Engaging someone to do what they normally do, even if the police provide them with assistance of various kinds to do it, is not entrapment.

In this case, O’Keefe and his associates, not in any way acting as agents of the police, engaged two of the highest level NPR fundraisers to make a fundraising pitch, the kind of pitch they do as part of their jobs at NPR. The problems began when the NPR executives revealed, without being placed under duress, their true, institutional and personal stripes, and did so in crude and shameful ways. Their behavior was particularly reprehensible in that they, such self-regarded highly intelligent, uber-sophisticated urbanites, believed that the men they were soliciting were agents of a Muslim terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of many Americans, an organization which constantly works toward a universal caliphate.

This is one of the most remarkable parts of the story. Why would Americans, particularly those with the social, political views of NPR executives, so willingly seek to ingratiate themselves with men who, by their religion and relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, violently oppose virtually everything they believe?

Andrew McCarthy, writing in National Review Online, answers that question convincingly in a recent article (take the last link at the beginning of this update). I agree with his assertion, which might be summed up by the old Middle Eastern aphorism: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Islamists and leftists both seek a pure, perfected world characterized by their own distinct visions of social justice, and both, having as a common enemy, conservatives, democracies and the free market, are natural allies.

Even understanding this, what still amazes is the mental weakness of progressives who apparently cannot accept the reality that should they, in their alliance, be successful, should American democracy fail, should the free market collapse, should Sharia become the law, not of the land but of the planet, everything in which they believe would be swept away: Homosexuality, environmentalism, women’s rights, higher education “studies” programs, redistribution of wealth, political correctness of every kind, the arts and intellectualism. You name it, Islam not only opposes, but would obliterate it. Islam would obliterate them. Yes, I know that not every contemporary Muslim believes this way, yet if the Progressives and Islamists ever won, what Muslim would be able to resist?

That progressives apparently consider themselves to be such superior beings as to render them immune from the consequences of their beliefs, behaviors and policies is, perhaps, the most telling indictment. Pride really doth go before a fall.

If Congress does not entirely defund public broadcasting of every kind, it bodes poorly indeed for the future of the Republic. If they cannot agree on this, if they cannot save what is a pittance compared to the totality of the national debt, and a pittance wasted on an entirely unnecessary and now, obviously indefensible enterprise, is there truly any hope for the kind of immediate change necessary to save America? We’ll know soon enough, and if we’re very fortunate, we’ll have NPR, at least in small part, to thank for it. That’s irony sufficient to last a lifetime.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:39 AM | Comments (4)

March 07, 2011

Rhetorical Bomb-Thrower Palin Incites More Gun Violence

That Sarah Palin is at it again, convincing people to take up arms and threaten the lives of politicians. As a result the FBI has now arrested Shawn Christy.

I hope she's happy.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:58 AM | Comments (4)

March 06, 2011

Democrat Hate Group Lawyer Called Obama "The Beast Spoken of In the Revelation."

I try to never link the Soros-paid stooges at Think Progress unless the goal is mocking them, and well, this time is no different.

The group funded by Nazi collaborator/billionaire George Soros howled because Fox interviewed Margie Phelps, daughter of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps, after the cult won a First Amendment case 8-1 before the Supreme Court.

This part was hilarious:

QUESTION: Are the nine justices going to Hell?

PHELPS: I have no objective indicator otherwise. The default for mankind is Hell. [...]

QUESTION: So the justices are going to Hell? The President is going to Hell?

PHELPS: Absolutely on the President. That’s a big ten-four. I already answered on the justices. The President is going to be king of the world before this is all said and done and he is most likely the Beast spoken of in the Revelation.

My own personal opinion is that Obama would be a very disappointing anti-Christ, but I do love rubbing it in the noses of these goons that he is a fellow Democrat who has run for elected office as a Democrat five times.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:35 PM | Comments (4)

March 05, 2011

The EV Saga Charges On

As regular readers know, I’ve been following the dubious fortunes of the Chevy Volt, and by extension, the other electric vehicles already on the market or in the design and production pipelines. In a recent “Quick Takes” (here--scroll to the bottom), I noted several interesting trends and unexpected consequences, including very low sales volume, Consumer Reports panning the very existence of the Volt, and the fondness of rats for warm Volt battery packs and tasty, expensive wiring. Yum.

For an additional bit of interesting information from the Pacific NW, visit Rob at PACNW Righty, who is doing a fine job operating behind opposition lines, so to speak, as he outlines some of the EV silliness in that neck of the woods (here).

Now, from “The Truth About Cars” (here) comes the news that Ford CEO William Ford, speaking at a recent Wall Street Journal Economics Conference in Santa Barbara, CA, is less than, well, charged up (sorry; couldn’t resist), about the viability of electric vehicles:

“Prior to the Model T, a third of all vehicles in this country were electric...this isn’t a new technology. The reason it died away was the ubiquity of charging. Today, we have the same issue.”

The Wall Street Journal also reported that Ford:

“...has no certainty that an electric grid will be developed that is capable of supporting droves of electric vehicles on the roads.”

In my several forays into the often magical realm of contemporary electric cars, I’ve been accused of hating technology, being somehow racist toward EVs, and even of wanting to give away the store to the Japanese, as one commenter felt that America should not surrender what he apparently saw as a burgeoning EV market to the Japanese. I’m inclined to think that the Japanese, in honor of the Kamikazes of the past, are welcome to it.

There are a number of problems regarding EVs, but I’ll summarize the current state of affairs by speaking to only a few of the most daunting, each by itself sufficient to render the entire enterprise an exercise in futility:

(1) The technology has not caught up to reality.

(2) There is essentially no infrastructure and no reasonable possibility of building it in the foreseeable future.

(3) There is insufficient demand.

THE TECHNOLOGY HAS NOT CAUGHT UP TO REALITY. Current technology cannot produce batteries of sufficient power, capacity, light weight, small size and low manufacturing cost. The Volt’s battery, for example, weighs hundreds of pounds and is very large. With a full charge, its range is only approximately 40 miles, and the early experience of very few owners reveals it’s as low as 25 miles, particularly in cold weather, but more on that later. Replacements costs are, at best, uncertain. Spinning furiously, Chevy has claimed that the batteries will last at least ten years--or so--and would cost no more than $8000 dollars to replace (this is one of several spins), but of course, there is no real world, practical experience upon which to draw, so it’s not unreasonable to expect a shorter lifespan and higher replacement cost.

A serious related issue is charging time. With 110V house current, Volts take from 8-12 hours to fully recharge. With an optional 220V “fast” charger, the recharge time is, according to Chevy, reduced to 4-5 hours. Did anyone mention that the “fast” charger costs $2000, not including installation? Chevy addresses range and charging issues by also installing a gasoline engine, but this is nothing less than a tacit admission of the severe limitations of the technology, the concept, and the vehicle itself. Remember that Chevy at first tried to suggest that the wheels would never be directly driven by burning fossil fuels. Only recently has Chevy admitted that when the battery reserve drops to a certain level, the gasoline engine will, in fact, directly drive the vehicle, making it a ridiculously expensive, overly complex pseudo hybrid which pretends to be something new. Oh yes, and the gasoline engine accepts only premium fuel.

Another limiting factor, particularly anywhere in the world exposed to winter weather, is just that: Cold. Cold rapidly diminishes battery power and capacity, slowing charge times, and weakening the battery. Early experience indicates that Volts are limited to a 25 mile range or less on battery power in even moderate winter weather. Trying to address this fundamental issue by using heated garages or additional heaters to keep batteries warm is self defeating--if the point is saving energy and environmental purity--and yet another admission of the fundamental flaws in technology and concept. One method of increasing range is by substantially lightening the vehicle, but again, current technology would require greatly reducing the size and utility of such vehicles to the point of making them impractical for most of the public, as well as stunningly unsafe for their occupants in collisions. In short, absent breakthroughs in battery technology that no one can foresee, the technology just isn’t there to allow EVs to successfully compete with conventional vehicles.

THERE IS ESSENTIALLY NO INFRASTRUCTURE AND NO REASONABLE POSSIBILITY OF BUILDING IT IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. Even for the well-heeled willing and able to install a home fast charger, the problem of charging away from home remains daunting indeed. Few employers or businesses will be anxious to provide free electricity, particularly at 220V rates, to owners of EVs. And for true EVs, this is a serious matter. Even if a business or employer did provide outlets for EVs, charge time remains a significant issue. Few owners will be willing to abide 4-12 hours for a charge when a 5-10 minute stop at a gas station is the alternative. Yes, the Volt runs on gas too, but that is, again, a tacit admission of the problem, not a real solution to it.

Other than good will, there is no economic incentive to install charging stations, which themselves cost many thousands of dollars. Lacking that incentive, there is no realistic possibility of building the kind of massive, far-flung infrastructure necessary to make EVs a viable choice for most Americans, unless, that is, government takes a hand, but more about that later.

Even if one makes the unwarranted assumption that EVs will at some point be, say, 10% of the vehicles on the road, from where will the extra electricity necessary to charge those vehicles at all hours of the day and night come? Our power grid is already aging and strained, and in some states, brownouts, even brief blackouts, are becoming more and more common. Rather than supporting the building of new power plants of every type, the Obama Administration has all but prohibited them, and should any enterprising capitalist attempt to go ahead anyway, there are legions of greenie groups willing and able to stop such projects with years of lawsuits.

THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DEMAND. And considering the realities I’ve briefly outlined here, why should this be surprising to anyone? The auto business is not difficult to understand. Manufacturers are willing to spend the several years and hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to bring an entirely new design to market because they can have a reasonable expectation of not only recouping their design and development costs, but of making a reasonable profit through a sufficient volume of sales. While Chevy isn’t publicizing this kind of information, there is reason to believe that in this instance, market reality has been suspended for the Volt.

It is highly likely--and please, GM, correct me if I’m wrong--that the Volt costs more to manufacture than can be offset by the price GM charges dealers for the vehicle. The Volt is, after all, a Honda Civic-sized car with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $41,000, a wheelbarrow full of dollars that could purchase two Honda Civics. Unfortunately, dealers are charging as much as $65,000 for the vehicle, and some people--as can be expected--are actually paying it. Of course, if one can afford to pay $65,000 for a vehicle with no practical advantage over vehicles costing a fraction as much, an additional $2000+ for a fast charger isn’t likely to be much of a burden.

As it is, GM is on track to sell less than 4000 Volts in its initial model year. GM and the Federal Government recognize that without a $7500 tax incentive, virtually no Volts would be sold, and even with it, the sales volume is plainly awful. GM must be losing substantial money--likely many thousands--on each and every Volt.

Why aren’t people flocking to the car of the future here today? As Consumer Reports is discovering, it’s a mediocre EV, and it’s a mediocre gasoline powered vehicle. Conventional vehicles and existing hybrids are far more flexible, and in many circumstances, as fuel efficient or even more fuel efficient than the Volt, and those vehicles cost tens of thousands of dollars less. Even if the hopelessly optimistic projections for Volt energy efficiency ever came to fruition--and that’s unlikely--it would take a decade or more to break even on the purchase price of the vehicle, even considering the tax credit. Most people don’t keep a vehicle for a decade, and on the used car market, a Volt would likely be even less attractive than on the new car market, particularly for those of modest economic means who primarily populate that market. After all, who would buy a Volt if its battery pack might need to be replaced in a year or two at a cost that exceeds what they paid for the entire car on the used car market?

Ultimately, the Volt is a political creation, from a company rescued--sort of--from bankruptcy by a 61% infusion of taxpayer money. What rational businessman would sink untold millions into a product that few want, that would cost far too much to manufacture and sell, and which has no real advantages over much cheaper products? The Volt is the product of environmentalist wishes and intentions, wishes and intentions that conflict with reality. But as with high-speed rail, another mega-buck boondoggle the public neither wants nor needs, Mr. Obama intends to spend mega millions installing charging stations in several amenable locations such as the Berkeley of the South, Austin, TX.

Absent multiple miracles, the Volt will be nothing more than the plaything of the wealthy who can afford a toy car while still maintaining a fleet of conventionally powered vehicles for every day reality. Certainly, some will pay the ridiculously high entry price for the environmentally sensitive cachet an EV will provide in certain circles, but their numbers aren’t sufficiently large to turn a profit for GM, even if GM wasn’t losing money on every Volt before it left the assembly line. How long will the taxpayers subsidize such owners? It is cold comfort that the money lost will be, due to low demand, relatively low, but in our current budget crunch, why should any taxpayer funds be spent to maintain the wages and benefits of unions? After all, unless a product is actually making a profit, it is the taxpayers, not private businesses making rational economic decisions, that are paying GM’s autoworker’s wages and benefits.

It hardly requires a Nostradamus to predict that when Mr. Obama leaves office, the Volt will be quietly withdrawn from GM’s product lineup. That’s when the fun begins as the EPA spools up to deal with the disposal of the toxic elements in the Volt’s battery packs. Oh, I didn’t mention that EVs contain many toxic chemicals and their batteries can fry unwary first responders and mechanics unless they use special equipment and procedures? Now that I think of it, GM hasn’t been publicizing this either. I wonder why?

But wait a minute! Isn’t GE’s CEO Jeffrey Imelt now a part of the Obama administration as the head of Mr. Obama’s panel on job creation? And isn’t GE the primary, hopeful, domestic manufacturer of EV charging stations? Surely there couldn’t be any collusion, any conflict of interest? Yes, there is, and don’t call me Shirley.

But wait another minute! Aren’t Mr. Obama himself, and others in his Administration, such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu, anxious to see energy prices “necessarily skyrocket” as Mr. Obama said, in order to better force Americans to abandon modern conveniences such as automobiles and to force them to accept such concepts as EVs and public transportation? Indeed they are.

But wait yet another minute! Why isn’t Ford anxious to jump on the EV bandwagon? Oh, that’s right: Unlike Gm and Chrysler, Ford is a privately owned company and can’t spend unlimited taxpayer dollars on unprofitable ventures. You know, if you think about it, that almost makes sense.

Posted by MikeM at 09:47 PM | Comments (2)

March 04, 2011

More Union Violence Ignored

Union thugs rushed a restaurant when lawmakers were eating and had to be restrained by restaurant staff and the police as a police helicopter hovered overhead.

Don't expect the national media to report it.

I stand by the prediction I made last month. A leftist will assassinate a conservative politician or activist before August 1. Violence is inherent to leftist ideologies, and the ultimate expression of that violence—murder—is only a matter of time.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:08 AM | Comments (3)

Everybody's a Racist Now

I have, from time to time, written about the nature of Socialism. It is a non-falsifiable belief system. No socialist policy can possible be wrong, therefore whenever any problem crops up--and they do--it cannot possibly be a fault in the policy. Such problems are the result of the existence of conservatives who oppose the self-evidently flawless policies of socialists. Therefore the only solution is the elimination of all conservative opposition, or failing that--probably even accompanying that--even more, and more fervent, socialism.

The inestimable Roger Simon, writing at Pajamas Media, where Bob and I are fortunate and pleased to publish from time to time, has written an interesting article (here) that touches on socialist reality in the form of racism. Simon writes:

“In an an excerpt (linked in red on Drudge) from his new book, ‘Family and Freedom: Presidents and African Americans in the White House,’ US News journalist Kenneth T. Walsh writes:

But Obama, in his most candid moments, acknowledged that race was still a problem. In May 2010, he told guests at a private White House dinner that race was probably a key component in the rising opposition to his presidency from conservatives, especially right-wing activists in the anti-incumbent ‘Tea Party’ movement that was then surging across the country. Many middle-class and working-class whites felt aggrieved and resentful that the federal government was helping other groups, including bankers, automakers, irresponsible people who had defaulted on their mortgages, and the poor, but wasn’t helping them nearly enough, he said.

A guest suggested that when Tea Party activists said they wanted to ‘take back’ their country, their real motivation was to stir up anger and anxiety at having a black president, and Obama didn’t dispute the idea. He agreed that there was a ‘subterranean agenda’ in the anti-Obama movement—a racially biased one—that was unfortunate. But he sadly conceded that there was little he could do about it.”

Well. This is of a piece with standard socialist, class and race warfare doctrine, and is, with a great many other examples--they are legion--additional evidence that Mr. Obama is himself a socialist. In the same way that socialist doctrine and policy cannot possibly be in error, those holding such beliefs and making such policies cannot be in error. This is particularly true for maximum socialist leaders who are commonly worshipped in cults of personality not unlike those of North Korean Communists. Doubt me? Google “Obama halos” if you have the stomach for it.

Mr. Obama cannot, therefore, be in error. His policies must be flawless and none of the premises upon which they are based can possibly be falsified. Therefore, any opposition to Mr. Obama cannot be well-intentioned, cannot be pursued in good faith by honorable people, because no well-intentioned, honorable person acting in good faith would ever think to oppose Mr. Obama’s policies, let alone actually oppose them.

But Mr. Obama is the most brilliant human being alive, is he not? One need not look farther than his own advisor, Valerie Jarret. Ed Driscoll writes at Pajamas Media (here):

“While I was away last week, Jonathan Last’s brilliant essay, ‘American Narcissus’ appeared at the ‘Weekly Standard’. Last assembles an extensive catalog of the two sides of Obama: extreme narcissism — and its flipside, extreme boredom with every aspect of life that doesn’t immediately advance the career of Barack Obama.
Let’s look at a few instances of the latter:

David Remnick delivers a number of insights about Obama in his book The Bridge. For instance, Valerie Jarrett—think of her as the president’s Karen Hughes—tells Remnick that Obama is often bored with the world around him. ‘I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually,’ Jarrett says. “So what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that they had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy.’ Jarrett concludes, ‘He’s been bored to death his whole life.’”

Anyone in opposition to the policies of Barack Obama therefore, cannot be actually opposed to his polices, which are perfect, having been established by a perfect maximum leader. Their opposition cannot be based on policy, it must be personal. And because Mr. Obama is black (by self-identified choice), any opposition must be racist. As unhinged as this sort of thinking may seem to rational Americans, it is one of two inescapable alternatives. The other is that Mr. Obama--and a great many of his supporters--actually believe that at least half of America is irredeemably racist.

That the very fact of Barack Obama’s election as President of the United States is the most compelling possible evidence of America’s lack of racism matters not to the faithful. That even those who voted against Mr. Obama observed at least a moment of pride in the election of a black man, matters even less. That the Civil Rights Movement won, that anyone displaying racist tendencies is, and has for decades been, beyond the pale, shunned in polite society, matters not at all. To the elect, the mere existence of the Tea Party Movement is proof positive of racism, all evidence to the contrary.

As Mr. Simon’s essay notes, Mr. Obama and his sycophants are careful to keep his real beliefs and attitudes under wraps, bringing them out only among friends. More’s the pity. It’s hard to make informed choices in a representative democracy when candidates conceal their true nature and deranged beliefs.

One additional possibility exists: Mr. Obama is playing the race card--and have no doubt that it will be prominently and publicly played in the next two years, particularly if he is lagging in the polls--as a matter of cynical political calculation, a sort of political reverse psychology. Branding as racist people and movements that are manifestly not racist may tend to make them want to prove that they are not racist, particularly by voting for Mr. Obama. But it may also tend to enrage such people and movements and inspire them to redouble their efforts to eject lunatic socialists and race hustlers from Washington.

Americans concerned about liberty, democracy, the Constitution, national security, financial security and the rule of law may well have to silently bear the racist label and vote for America instead of a President narcissistic and clueless enough to brand half and more of America with a contemporary scarlet letter. It is a sign of how far Mr. Obama has lowered our expectations that it is hardly distressing to observe that voting for virtually any Republican would be an order of magnitude improvement. And that, dear reader, is also a great pity, brought to you by the most brilliant, bored, racist man on the planet.

Posted by MikeM at 12:41 AM | Comments (19)

March 03, 2011

Yes, Kids. The Left Supports Terrorism

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—one of the powerful unions with regular and frequent contacts with the Obama White House—has been raided because of suspected material and financial support of Hamas (Islamic terrorists) and FARC (Columbian Marxist Terrorists).

I wonder if Bill Ayers disciple Barack Obama is proud of the "community organizing" that the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force is now investigating:

Representing some 30,000 public service employees in Illinois and Northwest Indiana, the union is one of the largest labor organizations in the Midwest. Like any union, it seeks to maximize the interests of its members. But its leaders are also intensely political. Delivering good contracts is part of what leaders see as a far larger challenge: eliminating capitalist injustices against workers and "people of color" everywhere. And as the United States presumably is the de facto leader of global capitalism, racism and colonialism, they see the pursuit of social justice as requiring alignment with armed anti-American "liberation" movements.

"Liberation" movements. Chicago. Where have I heard that before?

Oh, yes. The Marxist, racist Black Liberation Theology that was Barack Obama's creed for more than two decades.

As former TUCC pastor and Obama mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright might say, "the chickens are coming home to roost."

As R.S. McCain notes, maybe Glenn Beck was right.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)

Quick Takes, March 03, 2011

ITEM: The long-argued USAF tanker contract has finally been awarded to Boeing rather than the European EADS. Expected to comprise 179 aircraft, the contract will be worth more than $30 billion. According to Boeing, the contract will provide more than 20, 000 continuing jobs in the Seattle area. Good news--of a sort. Remember that the contract is not producing wealth as it is being paid with taxpayer funds. And while these jobs are better than jobs in a governmental bureaucracy, they still don’t create wealth, thus, they’re not truly helpful in healing the economy. But yes, US companies building aircraft for our Air Force is also a good thing.

ITEM: If anyone wanted to know pretty much anything about your past, could they find that information? Could they get your college grades? Your birth certificate? Would college teachers and classmates be willing to speak with you? With a little work, could anyone discover your entire work history, virtually to the day? Of course. Yet the past of our President is virtually a black hole; no meaningful, accurate information can escape. For a glimpse into Mr. Obama’s college past, visit this article by John Drew (here) who knew Mr. Obama back in his youth when life was free, gay, pre-revolutionary and decidedly Marxist. I know: You’re shocked, shocked!

ITEM: Culture Corner: Consider, if you will, the strange--yet all-too-familiar case of Charlie Sheen. A man of some talent and charisma, making $1.8 million per episode of the top TV comedy (that’s $43.2 million per 24-episode season), and he throws it all away with unhinged, drug-addled rants at his employers and the world in general. Daily, it seems, he continues to pour additional gasoline on his already blazing head. Question: Putting aside the nature and virtue of the free market, do we pay entertainers and sports figures too much? In essence, I’m asking whether we esteem them far too highly, for it is that high esteem that allows them to reap stratospheric salaries, and to fall from dizzying heights. Discuss.

ITEM: So there was a “Day of Rage” in the Arab/Muslim world last week? People killed, beaten, the usual? Wait a minute... Isn’t pretty much every day a day of rage in that part of the world? Discuss.

ITEM: So, you thought Teddy Kennedy was a pretty bad actor? You were wrong. He was worse, much, much worse than you could have possibly imagined. According to FBI files obtained by Judicial Watch through a FOIA lawsuit (here), the “Liberal Lion of the Senate,” was among the most reprehensible of men. While on a 1961 tour of Latin American countries, Kennedy conferred with virtually every prominent communist in sight, including a known Russian spy. He wanted to use the Mexican Embassy for his meetings, but the Ambassador refused. Kennedy also reserved an entire brothel for the night in Santiago, Chile. At the time, he was a local assistant district attorney, which raises the interesting question of why a local assistant DA would want to confer with prominent communists and known Russian spies--and why they’d want to confer with him. He entered the US Senate a year after his excellent Latin American Adventure.

For Kennedy, this was only prelude. In 1983, Kennedy sent California State Senator John Tunney to Moscow to speak with the KGB Chief (http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/kennedy-reagan-soviet/2009/08/29/id/334686). He offered to help the Soviets work against Reagan if they would help the Democrats fight Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. Remember that he was a sitting US Senator at the time. There is no hard evidence that Andropov took him up on the offer, but the overture is recorded in secret Soviet archives opened in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet empire.

ITEM: Sarah Palin Was Right About This Too: According to The Telegraph (here), after a government promise to end the scandal of covert blacklists which restricted treatments to save money, the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE--talk about irony...), denied more than 80 desperately sick and dying cancer patients the drugs their doctors prescribed because they cost too much. This, dear reader, is the model that Dr. Donald Berwick (here), recess appointed by Barack Obama to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, so admires and wants to emulate. Pray that Obamacare is struck down and/or repealed. Barring that, pray that you remain completely healthy for the rest of your life. If not, it’s going to be a short, painfully bumpy ride.

ITEM: As more and more governors turn down Federal high-speed rail money, George Will reminds us why they’re right and Progressives are, as usual, lunatics (here). I don't understand what the big deal is. After all, no one really wants it, it wouldn't be even remotely self-sustaining, would be a drain on state and federal budgets forever, wouldn't reduce pollution or highway congestion and would cost hundreds of billions we don't have. How could anyone be against something like that?

ITEM: Is That Cool Or What? Department: Archaeologists (here) have found what they believe to be cannons from the Satisfaction, the ship of Privateer Captain Henry Morgan, off a Panama reef. Is the real thing better than Disney? Discuss.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award of the Week: The Government Accountability Office’s report (here) on duplicative annual federal spending was out March 1. I was shocked, shocked! to learn, for example, that 82 federal programs have a hand in improving teacher quality, 56 help people to understand finances (apparently none help Mr. Obama with that...) and it goes on and on to the tune of $100-200 billon per year. What frightens me most is that in the brave new world of Obama’s trillions, $100 billion no longer seems like much money.

ITEM: And On The Floor of The Wisconsin Legislature...See for yourself...

ITEM: Let Them Eat Cake! Department: Comes now the news that Cornell McClellan, Mr. Obma’s personal trainer from Chicago flies to DC from 2-4 times per week to train Mr. and Mrs. Obama. Let me see if I have this straight: It’s a recession; America is broke; gasoline prices are rising; the president is every greenie’s environmental-hectoring dream; Mr. Obama is constantly harassing people about the environment, and he flies in his personal trainer 2-4 times per week?! But of course! That Obama, he’s just like us; he feels our pain. I mean, who doesn’t have their personal trainer fly in 2-4 times a week from Chicago? Golf, anyone?

ITEM: Mr. Obama’s Epistle To the Governors: At a meeting of the National Governor’s Association on February 28, Mr. Obama again came down on the side of his union masters (here): “But let me also say this: I don’t think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon.” Oh dear. I knew Mr. Obama was famous for mendacity, but let’s fact check this single sentence. Fact: Governor Walker of Wisconsin has been very careful to continually express his respect for those Wisconsin Union employees who have lived up to their responsibilities and come to work, and his comments about those who have not have been confined to encouraging them to live up to their responsibilities. No doubt, someone, somewhere might have a discouraging word to say about public employees, but other than that... Fact: There is no such thing as a right to form a union or to collectively bargain. These are privileges granted, and rescinded, at will by the citizens of every state through their elected representatives. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, no “rights” are involved.

ITEM: APOCALYPTIC TRAGEDY STRIKES! WOMEN, MINORITIES , ANYONE BREATHING HARDEST HIT: The Congress has agreed on a two week temporary extension of the budget. The Federal Government will continue to function for two more weeks. AAAHHHH!

ITEM: Coming To A Gas Station Near You!: In the People’s Taxation Republic of Massachusetts, the Boston Herald (here) reports that gas is likely to reach $5.00 per gallon within a few weeks. Let’s see: For a 20 gallon gas tank, that’s $100 per visit to the pumps. Consider that this is the case without the Middle East falling even more completely apart while Mr. Obama wants energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket, and will be certain to “bear witness” to any resulting carnage. You might be tempted to think that electric cars like the Chevy Volt are looking better and better, but...

ITEM: I’ve written several articles on the Chevy Volt (here and here), and it now appears that Consumer Reports shares my views (here). To wit: “When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it [the Volt] doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn’t particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it’s not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy.” The article also notes one of the most predictable, but under-reported EV failings: Dramatically decreased battery power and range in the cold. But wait; there’s more! Popular Science (here) reports one of the more gnarly unintended consequences of the Chevy Volt: Its battery pack produces heat when charging, which attracts rats, which chew wiring, which costs at least $600.00, which, as an act of God (Rats?) is not covered under warranty. Micky Mouse was not available for comment. And finally, from autobloggreen (here), comes the news that Chevy sold only 281 Volts in January, and the Nissan Leaf, only 67. If the Volt retains that brisk sales pace, it’s on track to sell 3372 vehicle in a year. For a vehicle that, even with a $41,000 MSRP, is likely losing significant money for Chevy, this is nothing less than a disaster. Of course, the question is how any company can afford to manufacture a product that not only loses money-and likely lots of it--before it rolls off the factory floor, but also has abysmal sales volume. The answer is that no sane company can possibly afford such foolishness, not, that is, unless it can expect government bailouts or is being directed by the whims of greenie zealots rather than responsible businessmen. Onward socialist workers! Onward to winning the brave, all-electric future!

ITEM: Feel Good QT of The Week: I can’t end this week’s Quick Takes any better than referring you to a video (here) of 84 year old WWII sniper Ted Gundy who shoots a 5” group at 1000 yards. Be prepared to have your heart swell with patriotic pride, and to cry like a baby at the humility and decency of the man. Maybe they really were the greatest generation. I guess I’m getting to be an old softy after all...

And on that nostalgic note, thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you next Thursday!

Posted by MikeM at 01:15 AM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2011

Media Engages In Efforts To Defeat Taxpayers

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has issued an ultimatum to the Democratic state senators that fled the state rather than do their duty: come back today, or the state would lose an additional $165 million and he'd be forced to start layoffs of teachers.

Time, the law, and public opinion is on Walker's side. And so it was imperative that the left find some means of shoring up their crumbling support for increasingly unpopular unions, and that has come in the form of several polls with shall we say, interesting timing.

The New York Times is claiming the public supports the public sector unions, which is a claim that seems to run directly counter to the weak support for unions in solidarity protests held over the course of the weekend.

Public Policy Polling is claiming that the citizens of Wisconsin wouldn't elect Scott Walker if the election was held now, which is both utterly irrelevant, and ignores Walker's soaring popularity and raised profile as he stands against the best efforts the Democratic Party can throw against him.

Pew also make s a run at claiming Walker's support is less than that of the unions.

It is no mistake that the pro-union, pro-liberal media so closely aligned with Organizing for America (Obama's campaign organization) is doing all it can to support it's most powerful lobby. These are 11th hour attempts to claim public opinion favors the continuing exploitation of the taxpayer by government workers, despite the obvious falseness of that statement as shown in November's elections.

If the power of government union labor falters and then falls in left-friendly Wisconsin, it signals the beginning of the end of the government unions and the real possibility of scaling back the bloat of government. This terrifies the socialists currently in control of the Democratic Party, including the milquetoast currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

They fear nothing more than a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:35 AM | Comments (3)

February 28, 2011

New Outlet for Trig Trutherism

The Daily Beast is going all Palin gynecology, all the time. You know they don't edit Meggie Mac, and they won't likely edit the much bigger draw in Andrew Sullivan, so the deranged prattling should be epic.

I'm not sure what Tina Brown was thinking when she acquired Newsweek, and I'm less certain what she thinks her payoff will be in bringing aboard another has been more mocked than respected in recent years.

Oh well, it isn't my money being burned here, though if I was invested in this train-wreck, I'd be looking to cash out immediately.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:50 AM | Comments (1)

February 27, 2011

Is Obama Harming America?

On February 14, Michael Medved wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal asserting that Mr. Obama is not, in fact, harming America. He asserted that Mr, Obama wants to be reelected, therefore he could not possibly be intentionally harming America as so doing would render him unelectable.

In my response to Mr. Medved's article, up today at Pajamas Media (here), I explain in some detail why his thesis is incorrect and why Mr. Obama is purposely causing harm to our nation.

Posted by MikeM at 03:31 PM | Comments (1)

February 26, 2011

Wisconsin Unionists Disrespect War Memorial

Because papering over a monument to those that fought for your freedom isn't as important as your whining about having to contribute a miniscule amount to you own pension.

The only thing good about these self-absorbed jerks is that they are not disguising how disgusting they are, and the are going a long way towards making the American people utterly disgusted with public sector unions.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:59 AM | Comments (2)

February 25, 2011

Left Outraged Congressman Didn't Strangle Senior Citizen for Absurd Question/Bad Joke

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun (R) held a townhall meeting Tuesday, and gave the person who drove the longest distance to be at the event the honor of asking the first question. Unfortunately, the questioner asked "Who's going to shoot Obama?," which apparently elicited laughter (nervous, or otherwise?) from other townhall attendees.

Broun responded:

The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.

The writer covering the event says Broun went on to discuss the Republican budget proposal.

The Secret Service interviewed the questioner and says the comment was a bad joke the person regrets making, and says that they consider the matter closed with no action.

Predictably, left wing blogs have attempted to turn Broun's response to such an unexpected question as a condemnation of him. Raw Story blamed Broun for not taking a more forceful approach, while the always-tedious Think Progress conjured up a reason to blame Broun for the question even being asked.

In retrospect, Broun should have reacted quickly and condemned the statement on the fly, but it is understandable that being surprised by the question, he instead chose to respond by deflecting a question even the Secret Service concluded was just a joke made in very poor taste.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:56 PM | Comments (4)

February 24, 2011

Quick Takes, February 24, 2011

ITEM: Jake Tapper of ABC News quizzed new Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney on the debt and Mr. Obama’s apparently lack of understanding of basic economics.
“The president seems to think that borrowing money to pay the interest on the debt is not adding to the debt. I don’t understand that kind of math,” noted Tapper. Carney responded with happy talk about credit cards, families and “investing in the future.” He also observed that “interest payments are a major portion of our long-term debt.” Hopefully, Mr. Carney, on behalf of Mr. Obama, will eventually come to the realization that the Pope is Catholic.

ITEM: Here we go again (still?)! Appearing before a Senate hearing on Feb 16, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper demonstrated, if this is humanly possible, even less knowledge about the Muslim Brotherhood and the Middle East than he displayed when he called the MB a “secular” organization that has “eschewed violence.” “It’s hard at this point to point to a specific agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood as a group,” he observed, according to ynet news.com. Regarding the MB’s position on smuggling weapons to Hamas in Gaza, Clapper noted that he didn’t know the groups declared stance and that a “wait and see” attitude was necessary to determine its position on Iran. Riiiiiiight.

I’m a high school teacher, which gives me a substantial advantage over Mr. Clapper and his analysts in that I, apparently unlike them, can read. And reading the MB’s charter, I have determined, without waiting and seeing, that they want to kill all Jews, all non-Muslims, establish Sharia and a world-wide caliphate, and they are willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish those goals, particularly if it involves rape, mutilation, buckets of blood and all manner of other barbaric violence, which they have, Mr. Clapper’s notions to the contrary, not “eschewed.” Who uses words like that anyway? I’m an English teacher and I don’t, at least not in normal conversation. I can also make an educated guess that they’re pretty much OK with giving weapons to fellow Muslim fanatics and are equally happy to deal with and support Muslim fanatic nations. Can I be the Director of National Intelligence now? I’m as qualified as Mr. Clapper or Mr. Panetta, probably more.

ITEM: Is this revolting enough for you? Reports are coming in around the nation that Chevrolet dealers are charging over $65,000 for the Chevy Volt, which is available in very limited numbers in only a handful of states. The MSRP is $41,000. GM spokesmen have professed GM’s complete lack of ability to do anything about the price gouging. Well, that’s what happens when you build a people’s car. I mean after the $7500 government tax subsidy for which we are all paying, the Volt now costs only $57,500! Could the government subsidized electric vehicle story get any better? Any more egalitarian? Power to the people, right on!

ITEM: Just when you thought Democrats couldn’t be any more self-serving and corrupt, comes news from Madison, Wisconsin of doctors (here)--apparently actual physicians--standing on street corners and writing excuses for teacher/protesters to use in defrauding the public for their illegal and immoral abandonment of their students. Be honest now, would you want your child to be taught by a teacher so bereft of moral fiber that they would illegally skip school and commit fraud to try to avoid punishment for what they know to be illegal, immoral behavior? Better yet, would you seek treatment from a physician with such politically flexible medical ethics? Wouldn’t you eschew them? Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

ITEM: Now that “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” is a thing of the past, America’s self-imagined “elite” universities are anxious to show their good will to the military and to embrace recruiters and ROTC, right? Not so much, at least not at Columbia, home of the journalism school that produces many of the denizens of the Lamestream Media. At a recent open forum at Columbia, 10th Mountain Division veteran and current Columbia student Anthony Maschek dared to challenge his fellow students to welcome the ROTC. He was called a racist--of course he said nothing remotely racist--and was jeered and laughed at. Maschek, after being shot eleven times, spent two years in military hospitals recovering. Those mocking him should be forcibly introduced to the wonders of living in certain people’s republics that share their low opinion of heroes like Maschek. But waaaaiiit a minute? It wasn’t all about the military being mean to gay people after all? Say it ain’t so!

ITEM: This is a rejected “Twilight Zone” script, right? The McDonough 35 High School in New Orleans has been infested with--bats (here). You know, the fly-around-at-night things that make people go “AAAHHHH!” and run headlong into fixed objects? Those bats? Parents and students are not amused, and school system officials are stymied. Can you guess why! Ding! Ding! Ding! That’s right! You win the prize! They’re an endangered species, so they can’t be harmed in any way! Having to carefully capture, relocate and release the little beasties is, to put it mildly, driving school officials batty (I know, I know--I couldn’t resist). Just another example of how the nanny state oversees and enriches and our lives while simultaneously enriching our hair with bat guano. You don’t suppose some Wisconsin doctors would trundle on down to the Big Easy and write some bat excuses?

ITEM: Uh-oh. According to Rasmussen Reports, Mr. Obama’s disapproval ratings are, once again, after a brief upward bump, trending downward. Disapproving of his performance are 55% of likely voters, while 44% at least somewhat approve. Historically, any president below 50% is in trouble. Hope springs eternal, but change wounds all heels. Stop me before I mix metaphors again!

ITEM: “We Are Not Amused” Department: Gold-embossed invitations to Prince William and Kate Middleton’s April 29 wedding were recently mailed. The Queen alone invited 40 heads of state, but not Barack and Michelle Obama. Could it have something to do with Mr. Obama’s crude and ugly serial insults of Great Britain? My guess is that they’re afraid of getting gifts like the iPod full of his speeches Obama gave to the Queen, or the cheap, cheesy movies that wouldn’t play in British DVD players given to the past PM, who is, by the way, and I am not making this up, also legally blind. I wouldn’t be amused either.

ITEM: Following on the raggedy tail-feathers of Wisconsin Democrat legislators who fled to The People’s Republic of Illinois, are the equally raggedy tails of Indiana legislators, also “fleebagging” to Illinois to prevent their respective legislatures from enacting laws they don’t like, which, according to them, is virtually the Word of God or something, so moral, magnificent and un-Republican is their flight to avoid responsibility. Dems across the nation, as well as their union masters, are also gearing up to express “solidarity,” Dems such as Dennis Kuchinich (D-Ohio) who recently appeared in Olympia, WA to rally the faithful. From Rob at PACN Righty (here), Kuchnich said “You cannot have a democracy if you don’t have people in a position to be able to negotiate for their wages, and to have decent benefits.” As a public service, here is a brief primer on republican democracy:

(1) The people electing representatives based on their positions and promises: Good--republican (as in a republic) democracy.
(2) The people’s representatives debating and voting on important issues: Good--republican democracy.
(3) Entire parties fleeing the state to force their will on the state without debate and voting when they know they’ll lose: Bad--despotism (and really childish, stupid behavior. Didn’t any of these people have mothers who taught them anything about working and playing well with others? Were they raised by wolves?).
(4) Entire parties of legislators fleeing the state because they think they know better than the people and are going to prevent the people from making mistakes by means of the democratic process: Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad--raised in test tubes; not mannerly enough to have been raised by wolves.
(5) Doing everything they’re doing to make sure union thugs continue to roll in money, money which will end up in Democrat coffers: Business as usual, and criminal.

Reread and disseminate as necessary.

ITEM: And in related news, Wisconsin Republicans are taking a controversial, outrageous step to entice fleebagger Democrats back to Wisconsin to engage in, you know--voting and democracy and stuff. They’re going to pass a voter ID bill that will require voters to actually provide--gasp!--photo ID when voting. Yes, photo ID! In 2011! Identification with a photo of the voter on it! Do you have any idea how hard it is to obtain such rare documents? Why, minorities, the elderly, and “non-documented visitors” to America, to say nothing of the many, many “previously living,” would be disenfranchised! Why, that’s absurd! It’s unfair! That would almost be like, just to make a completely ridiculous comparison, an entire political party fleeing the state to prevent votes they know they’d lose. Preposterous! Anarchy! The Republicans hate the elderly, the poor, minorities, non-documented visitors, the previously living, cute puppies and kittens, and adorable union members with big, weepy eyes. Sniffle. Snort.

ITEM: And in related, related news, the Wisconsin legislature just passed a measure that suspends direct deposits for legislators playing hooky. They’ll have to collect their checks on the floor of the legislature during a normal business session from now on. Heard as a faint echo from over the Illinois border: “Uh-oh. Quick! Who’s got that union credit card?”

ITEM: And in related, related, related news, via Hot Air (here) AFL-CIO Union Boss Richard Trumka recently boasted that he visits the White House or speaks with someone within at least once each and every day. Hmmm. Does anyone find this...disturbing? You don’t suppose this has anything to do with Mr. Obama being the Union Organizer in Chief, do you? What could they be talking about? Recipes? Discuss.

ITEM: The Louis Renault Award of the Week: Rahm “Dead Fish” Emanuel has been elected Mayor of Chicago with 95% of the vote, no doubt for life. OK, OK, so maybe no one was actually, shocked, shocked! not even the previously living who almost certainly turned out in record numbers as they always do.

ITEM: The REAL Louis Renault Award of the Week: Americans were shocked, shocked! to learn that D.C. Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler, appointed by Bill Clinton, has ruled ObamaCare constitutional. Via Politico (here), here’s the soul of Kessler’s argument:

“First, this Court agrees with the two other district courts which have ruled that the individuals subject to § 1501’s mandate provision are either present or future participants in the national health care market. See Liberty Univ., 2010 WL 4860299, at *15 (“Nearly everyone will require health care services at some point in their lifetimes, and it is not always possible to predict when one will be afflicted by illness or injury and require care.”); Thomas More Law Ctr., 720 F.Supp.2d at 894 (“The health care market is unlike other markets. No one can guarantee his or her health, or ensure that he or she will never participate in the health care market. . . . The plaintiffs have not opted out of the health care services market because, as living, breathing beings . . . they cannot opt out of this market.”). Thus, the vast majority of individuals, if not all individuals, will require some medical care in their lifetime.”
Let’s see if we understand this: Because I’ll probably be sick at some time in my life, I’ll require medical care, so the Federal Government can force me to buy any kind of insurance they prefer at any cost. So, essentially, because I’m human, the Federal government pretty much owns me. Not only that, merely thinking about not buying health insurance constitutes interstate commerce, so the government can force me to buy any consumer product it prefers. Of course! Why couldn’t I see that before? Perfectly reasonable.

ITEM: It’s a Louis Renault Explosion! Via Pajamas Media (here), the world was shocked, shocked! to learn that Venezuela, which recently signed an agreement to allow Iran to build joint ICBM missile bases on its soil, has been violating U.S. Sanctions signed by President Obama by selling high grade gasoline to Iran. Mr. Obama has been too busy with important business, such as ensuring that the nationally vital Union/Democrat money pipeline remains unobstructed, to comment. But when he does, I’m sure he’ll note that the U.S. will “bear witness” to any continuing and/or future violations. That oughta do it.

ITEM: Did You Know? Department: Did you know that Milwaukee teachers demanded benefits for Viagra and similarly “uplifting” drugs, claiming that if the public failed to provide them, it would be a violation of the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act. Oh yes, that’s WFEA 12.2.39(c)2.d: “All male members of public employee unions shall be provided, at public cost, sufficient drugs to maintain a constant state of erection. They shall also be promptly provided matching bathtubs in scenic, rural locations upon request to keep said erection from breaking free and ravaging the countryside. What’s that?! EEEEEE! It sees us! It’s coming this way! Run for your lives!!!!!” Well, that sounds reasonable to me. I mean, if it’s the law and all. I always wondered what the deal with the bathtubs was anyway. I still don’t get the cheese hats.

ITEM: Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, former Libyan Justice Minister, has claimed that Muammar al-Quaddafi personally ordered the destruction of Pan Am 103 at Lockerbie, Scotland. Surely knowing this, it was only today that Mr. Obama finally spoke out about the Libyan violence calling it “outrageous” and “unacceptable.” To be fair, he also said it should stop (that’s encouraging!) and he threatened decisive action: He’s going to send Hillary Clinton to a conference in Geneva on Monday to talk about the violence.

But hey! At least he has priorities. At least he knows who America’s real enemies are, enemies like the governors of Arizona and Wisconsin. Absolutely pathetic. Surely Mr. Obama could at least offer to “bear witness”--as he did during the Iranian uprising-- to military aircraft gun runs on unarmed civilians? After all, if he doesn’t “bear witness,” we’ll have a destructive witness bearing gap.

ITEM: February 24 marks the last flight of the space shuttle program. The shuttle Discovery will have the dubious honor of the final flight. America will no longer have the means to lift human beings into orbit and thanks to Mr. Obama, no plans to do so for the future. But at least NASA will be kept busy making Muslims feel good about Algebra and combatting the threat of Global Warming which really, pretty much--doesn’t exist...

ITEM: But Don’t They Owe The Taxpayers Billions? Department: Chevrolet is going to spend $40 million over the next five years. To pay back taxpayers? New car designs? Brilliant new technology? Nah. Carbon offsets. For those unaware of the scam--er, term--carbon offsets work like this: Let’s say you’re an environmentalist weenie, but you’re just barely rational enough to realize that you need a car to get to work. Still, you feel oh-so-guilty about each and every drive you’re so unfairly and brutally forced to make. What to do? You pay a private company--and this, ladies and gentlemen, is largely how Al Gore made his megabucks--to “offset” your carbon use to expiate your guilt! How do they do that? Why, by promising to plant some trees somewhere, sometime, or by promising to do some research into or encouragement of magical green technology or stuff, you know? And is there any way to be sure the people who took your money and gave you absolution actually do what they promised to do? Nope. Government oversight? Nope; like the Obama Administration would do that anyway! Hahahahaha! Don’t the taxpayers have a 61% share of GM, which, has not, in fact paid back it’s TARP bailout funds? Yup. But at least some execs at Chevy will receive green absolution. What’s more important than that?

ITEM: But He Was Moving To the Center! Department: Not so much. After giving lip service to opposing gay marriage for the last two years, Mr. Obama, in the best Emily Litella tradition, has said “never mind.” An Obama spokesman has noted that Mr. Obama now believes the Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional and has directed the Justice Department to stop defending it. Wails of anguish and outrage were heard coming from Justice Department offices. OK, OK, so I made that last part up.

ITEM: Via Fox News, in Little Rock, AK, McClellan High School algebra teacher Solana Islam has resigned her position after being convicted of prostitution and operating a business without a license. Well. Prostitution is one thing, but operating a business without a license? That’s just over the line!

And on that happy note, thanks for dropping by and I’ll see you next Thursday!

Posted by MikeM at 01:26 AM | Comments (2)

February 23, 2011

Koch Heads on the Left

A Left wing blogger managed to name-drop his way into a conversation with Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. It's amusing to watch other left wing blogs prattle on about what it meant, when what the call really revealed undermines their preferred narrative.

The call between the fake billionaire and the governor revealed:

  • Gov. Walker's staff is not familiar with the Koch name
  • Gov. Walker does not know Koch's phone number, nor the sound of his voice
  • Gov. Walker's positions are the same in public and in private


Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:58 PM | Comments (2)

Abdication of Leadership Demands Resignation of Office

"May you live in interesting times" is a curse ascribed to the Chinese, though it's exact origins have never been revealed. Regardless of where the phrase originated, we do live in "interesting times."

In the last few weeks alone we've seen regimes threatened or overthrown across North Africa and parts of the Middle East. We've seen Americans callously murdered by pirates off the coast of Somalia. We see unrest among nominal allies, and the strengthening of the resolve of our enemies.

Iranian warships have transited the Suez Canal for the first time in decades, and there is every reason to suspect they carry long-range missiles and other weaponry to offload in Syria and turn over to Hezbollah for use against U.S. interests and allies.

Domestically, the Department of Justice and White House seem to be orchestrating a cover-up into a Congressional investigation of why agents apparently allowed gun-runners to traffic weapons over the border in order to provide substance to debunked Administration talking point, in order to build a case for gun control efforts. One of these weapons was used to kill a U.S. Border Patrol Agent, and there is every reason to suspect other weapons the Administration allowed to be smuggled over the border have been used against Mexican law enforcement and civilians. There is no telling how many people stand to be killed and wounded by the guns Eric Holder's Department of Justice knowingly let fall into criminal hands. The Department and the Attorney will not answer questions, perhaps fearing indictment.

This same Justice Department apparently refuses to uphold the law, and instead intends to view all prosecutions through a tainted prism of "social justice."

Obama himself has nominated a politically-motivated anti-gun ideologue to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, that insiders claim simply isn't qualified to be an agency head, after running his own field office with suspect and marginal results.

Homeland Security, the Department of Interior, the Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal agencies are now fronted by directors with a clear interest in collecting and consolidating the power of the federal government and abrogating rights reserved by the states. We have objectively lost freedom.

We've witnessed elected Democratic officials in Wisconsin and Indiana flee their duties in order to subvert democracy and stall legislation needed in order to prevent layoffs of state workers, in order to appease the interests of powerful unions. We've found that the White House and the President's own campaign organization instrumental in attempting to stir up civic unrest in a dozen states, attempting to undermine sitting governors in order to prop-up his base of support.

In each and every one of this instances, Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, has either failed to articulate a position, has issued forth orders directly against the interests of the safety and security of the Republic and the member states of our Union, or has chosen deferential treatment towards this nation's enemies and has weakened our relationships with this nation's allies.

We face a crisis in leadership. We are crippled by an actor who played a magnificent role to attain office, only to find that he lacks the fortitude or temperament for the position. He is a community organizer. He is lost and alone in an Oval Office too big for the small soul of the man that tentatively occupies it.

Barack Obama has shown himself incapable of leadership. Barack Obama has shown himself to be inflexible. He has shown himself to be non-responsive, out-of-touch, aloof, condescending, and ineffective.

Midway through his Presidency, he has proven incapable of being the man we need him to be. He simply is not up to the age, or the task. If he truly loves this nation, his greatest contribution to this nation should be to resign the Office of the Presidency of the United States.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:05 PM | Comments (6)

Tea Party Rep Calls for Violence

Did I say Tea Party? I meant to say pro-union liberal Democrat:

"I'm proud to be here with people who understand that it's more than just sending an email to get you going. Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary," Rep. Mike Capuano (D-Ma.) told a crowd in Boston on Tuesday rallying in solidarity for Wisconsin union members.

I'm pretty sure he isn't calling for a Red Cross blood drive. Instead, he's more overtly calling for the kind of brutality that unions are known for, since their attempts to subvert democracy in Wisconsin seem to be failing.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:44 AM | Comments (3)

February 20, 2011

Teaching and Sacrifice

Regular readers who have accessed the “About the Authors/Contact” tab know that my day job, so to speak, is teaching high school English. Accordingly, I’ve been watching the situation in Wisconsin not only with an eye toward keeping our readers informed, but with grave concern for my chosen profession.

I say “my chosen profession” because it is indeed a profession I chose after a police career, returning to college in early middle age to complete my undergraduate teaching degree. I was always a teacher during my years in law enforcement, but returned to teaching because it’s important and meaningful. It’s an opportunity, each and every day, to truly make a difference, to inspire real improvement and growth in students and to awaken their interest in the wonders of learning. I go to school smiling and happy every day, thankful for the opportunity entrusted to me by my community.

When I seek Wisconsin teachers abandoning their kids, lying about their absence, misusing their influence to trick their uncomprehending students into anti-democratic protests with them, and now, obtaining fraudulent excuses from doctors (here), I find myself very concerned for public education and very angry at those useful idiots in classrooms allowing themselves to be so skillfully, yet crudely played by their unions.

I’ll admit to being surprised when I learned that the average Milwaukee, Wisconsin teacher makes $100,000 per year (here). That’s $56,505 in direct salary and $43,505 in benefits. Let’s just say that I have about 15 years of experience and I’m making more than $10,000 a year less in salary alone--much more. I shudder to think how much less I’m making in benefits. But that doesn’t matter.

The American economy isn’t a zero-sum game, at least not yet. A dollar, or $10,000+, made by a teacher in Wisconsin is not a dollar or $10,000+ that I cannot make. When others make more than me, when others are actually, truly rich, I say good for them, for the mere fact of their good fortune means that similar good fortune is possible for me and for everyone else. Like my fellow teachers, I choose to sacrifice and continue teaching. Besides, envy and coveting the goods and lives of others reveals poor upbringing, bad manners, weak faith, and is always self defeating. If making a great deal more money than I currently make is really that important, I need to get busy and make the necessary changes, not whine about the fact that others make more than do I.

Then I discovered that Wisconsin teachers currently pay nothing--nothing!--toward their own pension plans, and pay only 6% of their salaries toward their health care plans. Yes, I pay more, substantially more, yet, I still don’t begrudge them their relative good fortune. However, when I discovered that Gov. Walker is expecting them to pay 5.8% (instead of 0%) toward their pensions, and 12% (instead of 6%) toward their health insurance, any sympathy I had for them instantly evaporated.

I’m fortunate to live and work in Texas for a fine school district that is fiscally solvent and likely--knock wood--to remain so. In fact, Texas is doing much better than most of the rest of the nation for reasons that are well documented elsewhere. Suffice it to say that a large part of that success is due to the fact that Texas is a right-to-work state where unions do not dictate public policy to their advantage and to the disadvantage of the people. Texas is, therefore, a job creator, a job magnet and is attracting people and businesses from failing states around the nation, including Wisconsin.

But Wisconsin, after decades of Democrat rule and “Progressive” ideology, is not doing well. It, like much of the rest of the nation, is bankrupt, and unless Gov. Walker gets the concessions and reforms he needs, he’ll be forced to lay off more than 5000 teachers and more than 10,000 public employees. Any competent Governor of any party would need to do the same. When I discovered that the entire crisis was caused by unions refusing to even discuss concessions, any tiny residual empathy I had for unions went out the window. Rational people would realize that if the state goes bankrupt, there will be no money to pay state employees, who will also go bankrupt, and no money for union dues. No union dues, no unions. The latter, I must admit, sounds like a very good idea these days.

And then I see the thuggish, stupid and crude behavior of the unions, their members, and even of Mr. Obama, who is encouraging nothing less than civil war against a state trying only to avoid default, trying desperately to be fiscally responsible, and I become determined to do all that I can to defeat those who are determined, because of their short-sighted greed and lust for power, to destroy democracy. So I write in the hope of informing and persuading. You’ll have to let me know how I’m doing.

Teachers are taught, from their earliest days in college, that kids learn best with an effective, dedicated and hard-working teacher in every classroom. Experience convinces us that it's true. No other single element is more important to student success--and please do not think for a moment that success is measured by standardized test scores--they have almost nothing to do with actual learning, but that’s a post for another time. And please don’t think that I’m a touchy-feely, self-esteemy “facilitator” type. In my classes, kids have no choice but to behave, produce and improve, and to have fun doing it. The bottom line is that when the teacher who has worked so hard to build rapport and establish a hard-working but enjoyable classroom environment is gone, learning slows--dramatically.

I hate to be out of my classroom--all good teachers hate to be out of their classrooms--for any reason. I cherish every minute I have with my kids, because I will never have enough, and when I lose precious minutes for any reason, my emotions range from mild frustration to moments of genuine anger. I can count on one hand the number of sick days I’ve taken in a decade. Yes, I should have taken many more, but as long as I’m functional, I choose to be functional in the classroom.

I don’t say this to pat myself on the back, but merely to point out something that many people may not realize: The public schools are full of teachers who think as I do, who absolutely hate to be out of their classrooms. I therefore find myself disgusted with those Wisconsin teachers. I’m disgusted that they’d even think of leaving the classroom--their unions hire lobbyists to deal with legislative issues, spending far more money than most union members will ever know--or approve of. They don’t need to leave school. I’m disgusted that they are lying about why they’re gone. I’m disgusted that they have not only cut off learning for their students, but for all of the students of competent, professional teachers who are not indulging in self-righteous displays of contempt for the public. I’m disgusted that they’d even think about involving students in their unethical, selfish, greedy, fraudulent behavior. I’m disgusted that they would attempt to lie about their actions by obtaining counterfeit doctor’s excuses.

Don’t get me started on the doctors who are handing those excuses out. We need more doctors, but we don’t need morally compromised doctors. If they want to be union organizers, “community organizers” or politicians, they should pursue those pseudo-occupations. I always thought that medicine was more or less a full time job. Apparently not in Wisconsin. One can only hope that Gov. Walker and the State AG will take the steps necessary to introduce them to new kinds of institutions with unique occupational clothing, or at the very least, give them the opportunity to pursue alternative employment in, say, the food service industry. As I understand it, "do you want fries with that?" is a very marketable phrase to know and tell.

Teachers rely on the goodwill of the public. Smart teachers never forget that they are public employees, and that every student, every parent, is justified in expecting that each and every teacher will provide the best educational opportunity possible, given the resources provided by the public. Yes, teachers can only provide the opportunity to learn, students--and parents--must take full advantage of it. We all must work together, yet some Wisconsin teachers are trying to tear society apart.

One of the things that is hard for young teachers to learn is that they cannot be their student’s homeys. They can’t be their friends. They have to be the responsible adult in the room, and every student must understand that and expect them, in everything, to behave as a responsible adult. Another thing that is hard to understand is that students really do look up to teachers. They watch for clues, gross and subtle, that tell them what kind of person a given teacher is, and they accordingly detest or admire those teachers. Teachers truly can never tell where their influence ends. And every day, most kids tell their parents of their impressions, impressions that mold parent’s impressions of those teachers and of their schools. Empty schools, kids losing precious class days, parent’s work disrupted--losing money, parents forced to pay unexpectedly for child care--money they may well not have, watching teachers on TV behaving like self-important fools and anarchists, all of this is terribly destructive and absolutely unnecessary.

A too-large number of Wisconsin teachers have not only thrown away all of the good will and public support earned by hard-working, dedicated teaching professionals working for many, many years, they’ve urinated on it in public and danced gleefully on its corpse for the cameras. Most people watching around the nation will be able, intellectually, to realize that these bad actors do not represent all of Wisconsin’s teachers, nor do they reflect on all American public school teachers, but the negative impression will remain, and it will have an effect, an effect no professional teacher would solicit or welcome.

Pay a bit more for health insurance and pension? Lose some--not all--collective bargaining privileges (There is no such thing as a “right” to form a union or to engage in anything unions do. It’s a privilege extended, and rescinded, by the voters of any state)? Yes and gladly, particularly when the alternative is not only to lose my job, but to bankrupt the entire state! This is not a matter of greedy, venal politicians trying to steal money from teachers to build something entirely stupid, unnecessary and unwanted like high-speed rail. Wisconsin is, without any concealment or doubt, in deep financial trouble, and there is very little sympathy left for those unwilling to realize that, or those more than willing to try to continue to drain the public coffers for their benefit. If the public didn’t know that this is not about ensuring that Mrs. Smith, the kindly teacher, is treated fairly, but is all about Democrat and union power, after watching the week in Wisconsin, they surely do.

If I was one of those Wisconsin teachers, I would be ashamed to return to school. I would be ashamed to face my students. I would be ashamed to face my peers, my supervisors, my student’s parents and my neighbors. But of course, I’m not one of those teachers, and I suspect most of them will feel no shame whatever. That being the case, Wisconsin voters might wish to consider whether people of such low moral character, people who care so little about their sacred public trust, should continue to have the privilege--not the right--to teach in Wisconsin. I know what my answer would be. You?

UPDATE: From NPR, Via National Review Online:

“‘But before the sun set, most Walker supporters went home. And union forces again owned the streets, marching around the Capitol building. On the curb, teacher Leah Gustafson held a sign saying, “Scott, your son is in my class. I teach him, I protect him, I inspire him.’

Gustafson said she teaches Walker’s son in a school outside Milwaukee. Like much of organized labor, she also said she accepts the need for union workers to pay more for their pensions and health care.
‘Absolutely, I get that,’ she said. ‘I understand that, and I am more than willing to do that. But it’s the bargaining rights that really scare me. We have to obtain and retain teachers for the future, or our educational system is going to crumble.’”

No, Ms. Gustafson, you don’t get it; you don’t get it at all. Not only do you not protect and inspire the Governor’s son, you’ve just unwittingly used him as a political weapon, a weapon aimed at the heart of his father. You’ve publicly exposed him, even endangered his life. The Governor’s enemies, the same enemies who have been communicating death threats, death threats considered more than credible by the police, now know where to find at least one of his children any day of the week. And in so doing, you’ve endangered yourself, your students, and every student in your school. After engaging in the lowest form of politics and dragging a child into the pit with you, do you imagine his father will see you as an honest, dedicated teacher who is “protecting” his son? Would any parent feel that way? Do you imagine that Gov. Walker’s son will find you “inspiring,” should you eventually decide to return to the classroom which you have dishonorably abandoned? Have you obtained your fraudulent “doctor’s excuse?” Tell me Ms. Gustafson, what would you do with a student who skipped a week of school and showed up with a forged doctor’s note? If he said he did it for a worthy political purpose, would you excuse him?

To be absolutely fair, I have little doubt that Ms. Gustafson, like so many of her potentially well-meaning colleagues, does not realize the harm she has done. She doesn’t realize the depth and breadth of the public respect and support she has been instrumental in squandering. She doesn’t understand that there are people on her side who have always resorted to intimidation and violence to seize and hold power and who think nothing of manipulating “useful idiots,” kind people like her who can be so easily tricked and sent into the line of fire, never suspecting that those who pretend to support them care nothing for them, only for wealth and power. They hope that people like Ms. Gustafson will be caught up in violence, even bloodied, which looks so good on camera and which can be so easily spun against the public. So convincing are her union masters, that Ms. Gustafson probably actually believes that without union thugs controlling her and the schools and looting the public treasury, teachers will not be retained for the future and the education system will crumble.

Ms. Gustafson, there are many states where unions have no say in pay and benefits, yet the free market ensures that teachers are paid fair wages and given fair benefits. I certainly am, as are all my colleagues, colleagues like me who are careful to earn and keep the respect and good will of the public, not because we expect to benefit financially, but because we owe it, and our best efforts, to them. Our education system is not crumbling. We have little turnover, and we turn away far, far more teachers than we hire. And we do it all without unions.

Pray, Ms. Gustafson, that no harm comes to Gov. Walker’s children or any of your students. Perhaps you’ll even find it in your heart to pray for those you’ve been conned into believing are your enemies. And please reflect on the fact that there are those in your union and leading your union who would be delighted to see you or your students come to harm to further their ambitions and to satisfy their lust for power. Then consider whether these are the kind of people with whom you truly want to associate. Perhaps then you’ll return to doing what professional teachers do: Teaching. Oh yes, and please leave the fake note behind, if, that is, you truly are an honorable person, as I’m hoping you are. It’s rather hard to convince students to own up to their mistakes when you’re unwilling to do it yourself.

Posted by MikeM at 06:08 PM | Comments (28)

Obama's Allies Calling for Unionists to "Bloody" Tea Party Protesters?

It's a screen shot of a Craigslist listing and could have been posted by anyone for a number of reasons, so I'd advise taking it with a huge degree of skepticism for now.

That allowed, there is a considerable degree of consistency between the rhetoric in this ad and the rhetoric and actions we've seen issued from the Obama Administration. Organizing for America, Obama's campaign organization, is said to be deeply involved in organizing and bussing in union protestors to cause unrest in roughly a dozen states that seek to crack down on the power of public sector unions in attempts to balance state budgets. The nation's most powerful unions, the SEIU and AFL-CIO, are also very active in attempting to block reforms and co-ordinating with the Democratic Party and OFA.

Obama himself triumphantly declared that "elections have consequences" after he was elected. Now that the 2010 midterms saw many of his tax-and-spend leftist allies unceremoniously tossed out of office at the federal, state, and local level, Obama seems intent on using a combination of blatant fraud, old-fashioned union strong-arm tactics and his political muscle to thwart democratic reforms.

Leftists seem intent on turning the protests in Madison into a physical brawl, with the President himself and high-ranking Democrats escalating the rhetoric to the point violence seems not just possible, but sanctioned by the President himself and the Democratic Party.

Barack Obama seems perilously close to violating the trust of the American people. Let us hope he has the good sense to deescalate the tensions he is now heightening, before citizens are hurt as a result of his dangerous rhetoric.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:08 PM | Comments (2)

February 19, 2011

Wisconsin Observations

Did you know that the Wisconsin Constitution requires a balanced budget? Did you know that the alternative to public sector unions giving concessions is firing more than 5000 of them? Did you know that it was the refusal of the unions even to discuss potential concessions that lead to the current impasse? The recent hi-spirited hi-jinks in Wisconsin have revealed that there is more to Wisconsin than lunatic liberalism, dairy products, cheese hats and football. A number of interesting lessons are already evident and more are becoming ever more clear. Consider:

DEMOCRACY: Used to tyrannical, one party rule, Wisconsin Democrats suddenly find themselves in the minority. It was Barack Obama who observed that “elections have consequences.” Swept out of the majority in November, local Dems find themselves unable to cope with genuine democracy where their whims no longer rule, where they might actually--gasp!--lose. So they flee to the People’s Republic of Illinois to bask in the glow of a Scottish Hooter’s to avoid votes they know they will lose. No doubt they believe that their cause is so important that it cannot be submitted to the people’s representatives for a vote because they would vote the wrong way! The Dems know better than the people--the bastards--who recently ran them out, and they’re not going to let a little thing like the complete repudiation of their persons and policies get in the way of doing what they know is best for the people--the bastards. Democrats obviously believe in democracy only when they can dictate terms and force their inferiors to do their will. Discussion question: Should legislators who refuse to do their sworn duties be immediately impeached?

UNIONS: Unions exist only so long as they can reasonably claim that they are necessary to prevent abuses in the workplace, and only so long as they can reasonably claim a sort of moral high ground that in some way represents the American way and common American people and values. That said, there is no such thing as a right to form a union. There is no such thing as a right to collectively bargain. Unions exist in every state only as long as the people--through their representatives--extend the privilege of existence, which they have the full power and duty to shape and regulate as suits them.

In Wisconsin, and elsewhere, the public is quickly realizing that public unions are a very, very bad idea, and that if they are not brought under control, they will happily bankrupt not only the states, but the nation. By behaving as witless thugs, union members throw away what little claim to ethical purity they have left. More and more people are beginning to realize that giving public sector unions the power to strike against the public peace, to shut down government, to throw children out of school, to harm and inconvenience the public for their own selfish purposes, is an idiotic idea--it always was--that we cannot afford, morally or financially.

More and more people understand that unions are not, in fact, for the common man, but only for themselves, for the accumulation and wielding of power. When Jesse Jackson shows up to agitate--as he already has in Wisconsin--rational people know that the game is up, for the public decided long ago that people like Jackson are only for themselves. The economic largess that allowed America to abide the greed, corruption and sloth of unions for so many years is no more. Except for a few blue states, unions will lose more and more of their power--which is what this is really about--and membership. Wisconsin is the first test case. They will not go gracefully or peacefully, unless we give them no choice.

BARACK OBAMA: Mr. Obama is becoming increasingly irrelevant, not only in international affairs, but within America’s borders. Like a two-bit local rabble rouser, he continues to involve himself in local issues about which he knows nothing. He has diminished the office of the President so much that it’s hard to imagine there’s anything left to diminish, but Mr. Obama continues to plumb new depths of stupidity and irrelevance. One would think that Mr. Obama would actually have issues of some concern that need his attention in DC. Obviously, they would be wrong. Perhaps the less he actually does, the better off the nation is. Discuss. Golf anyone?

THE RULE OF LAW: It must be enforced, fairly and uniformly. If hundreds of union thugs refuse to leave legislative chambers, they must be told they are trespassing, given a reasonable time to leave, and arrested, each and every man, woman and child, if they refuse. To do less allows anarchy to reign. If the National Guard is required to provide sufficient numbers to assist the police in processing, so be it. If union thugs trespass at the homes of legislators, arrest them, each and every time they violate the law. If teachers call in sick, if they lie about absences, they must be disciplined, up to and including being fired if appropriate in a given case. There is no right to strike against the public. There is no right to deprive children of their education. But they’re our neighbors, our friends, our teachers, our relatives. They’re our neighbors, friends, teachers and relatives who are breaking the law and squandering the money our tax dollars pay them. They’re being paid tax dollars not to do their jobs and to break the law in the process. They lie to our children, bringing them to protests with the goal of continuing the bankrupting of their state, and their teachers don’t have the common decency to admit to them that their goal is nothing less than saddling them with debt that they will never pay off should they live to 150. We are not like them; those who would bankrupt us and our children are not our friends.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: By behaving as they are behaving, the Democrat legislators are ensuring that even more of them will be run out of office at the next election. There is no justification and no explanation for what they are doing. They are not protecting democracy, but subverting it. This is, of course, what good socialists do. This is, of course, why Mr. Obama not only supports them, but has sent his minions to organize and assist in the breaking of the law and the destruction of the democratic process in Wisconsin.

By threatening Republican legislators and their families, by coming to their homes by the busload and behaving like subhuman thugs, these dimwitted socialists are changing minds and hearts for far greater support of the Second Amendment than they can possibly imagine. There is little doubt that concealed carry will be instituted in Wisconsin, but I would venture to guess that a strong castle doctrine law is now a certainty, and soon. There’s nothing like violent mobs and death threats to focus one’s attention on essentials, essentials like being able to shoot those who break into your home with blessed immunity from lawsuits if you are forced to shoot someone under those conditions. Imagine the plight of a poor Democrat who sees how the political wind is blowing and who dares to vote for fiscal responsibility with Republicans. As is virtually always the case, they’ll be amazed and stunned at how quickly and vehemently their former “friends” and “colleagues” turn on them, and they too will see the wisdom of the Second Amendment as if the scales fell from their eyes.

After spending substantial ink, bandwidth and air time, decrying incivility, particularly comparing people with Hitler, superimposing crosshairs over their faces and making a variety of threats, Democrats find themselves in the interesting position of doing all of that and more. While the lamestream media won’t cover it, the Web will. Combining stupidity, greed, selfishness, irrationality, and law-breaking with blatant hypocrisy tends to be noticed by the public, who tend not to be amused. And actually trashing the scenes of protests is not winning friends for the unions.

Because of our universal, intimate relationships with teachers, their unions have for many years enjoyed, if not public good wishes and support, a grudging willingness to put up with their excesses. By themselves, Wisconsin teachers are squandering what little public forbearance remains. They are manifestly not “doing it for the children.” While no one wants to give up any portion of their current salary, when the money that pays that salary is running out--and fast--when millions can’t find any work, when the economy is failing and state and federal governments want to continue spending and consequences be damned, rational people adopt rational priorities, which include giving up some benefits and salary if it means keeping their job. This is not a matter of “union-busting”--though under current circumstances, that term holds substantial appeal--but a matter of financial rationality and survival. Even if the unions can’t seem to understand that if the state that pays them goes bankrupt, there will be no pay and no union dues and they go bankrupt, the rest of the public understands it very well and they’re going to see that unions get the message.

THE BOTTOM LINE: One would expect a Democrat president to reflexively support unions at the expense of the public, and in this, Mr. Obama does not disappoint. However, he goes far beyond mere political affiliation. He accuses the Governor and people of Wisconsin of “assaulting” unions. He tells us of the “sacrifice” of union employees. He understands and cares about only power, and in Wisconsin, he and his sycophants see the beginning of the end of Democrat power, and it frightens them.

If teachers really do sacrifice to serve something greater than themselves, surely it is greater than wages and benefits. Surely it is more than class warfare and hatred. Surely it is more than a President who sees half or more of America as his enemy. Is it this for which Wisconsin teachers stand?

Wisconsin’s Governor and its responsible, democracy and rule-of-law supporting legislators deserve our encouragement, thanks and support. As goes Wisconsin, so may go the rest of America. At the moment, it appears that Democracy and sanity have a fighting chance.

Posted by MikeM at 03:57 AM | Comments (10)

February 18, 2011

Havana, Wisconsin

Leftists have decided to try to intimidate the families of lawmakers:

In Wisconsin, the schoolteachers and other "public employee" beauties are going to the homes of Republican lawmakers, screaming, denouncing, etc. The situation has gotten very bad. We know where you live. Yesterday, I had a talk with Sen. Randy Hopper, recorded here. Republican lawmakers have received threats, and credible ones: threats to their physical well-being. They are not disclosing their movements, whether they are sleeping in their own homes. They are working with law enforcement on how best to protect themselves and their families.

If we allow acts of intimidation and threats of violence to influence public policy, we cease to be a Republic of laws, and are far closer to civil unrest than I would have had any reason to believe.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:11 PM | Comments (6)

Lefty Rhetoric, Violence Heats Up

President Obama has once again acted stupidly, escalating the rhetoric and the stakes of the duel between Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker and spoiled public sector unions in that state.

Walker and the Republican-controlled state senate are looking to end collective bargaining rights for public sectors unions and increase the amount that public sector employees must contribute to their health care and pensions (which would still be below equivalent private sector contributions). Wisconsin teachers Average more than $52,000 in salary and more than $40,000 in benefits every year, a compensation package approaching $100K/year.

Yesterday outnumbered Senate Democrats fled the state rather than do their duty, and were found hiding out at the Clock Tower Resort in Illinois.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin teachers abandoned their students to march on Madison (a dereliction of duty continuing today) and engage in bomb-throwing that has thus far only been rhetorical.

I made a prediction on Twitter yesterday that the continuing escalation of rhetoric, combined with tactics of vandalism, intimidation, and violence encouraged by the Obama Administration will lead to a leftist (or leftists) committing political-motivated murder of a Republican or Tea Party figure by August 1. It is a prediction that I hope doesn't come true, but one that I suspect will prove to be sadly correct.

Obama and his thuggish union allies have bet everything on the escalating growth of government and the power of union labor. The Justice Department will look the other way, Obama himself will offer up words of encouragement for the unions (as he did yesterday) showing his support, and the thugs will continue their dirty work.

It's going to be a tumultuous spring and a bloody hot summer. The Democrats will not surrender without a fight, and there is every reason to believe they are willing to make that fight literal.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:20 AM | Comments (6)

February 16, 2011

Rhetorical Idiocy

The good folks at Pajamas Media have been kind enough to publish my essay on Mr. Obama's exclusive reliance on rhetoric. It may be read here.

Posted by MikeM at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)

Quick Takes, February 17, 2011

ITEM: “Favorite Bedtime Stories From the Religion of Peace” department: The High Court of Bangladesh recently ordered district officials (here) to explain why they allowed a 14 year old rape victim to be whipped to death. Hena was raped by Mahbub, her 40-year-old relative. A day later, at a village arbitration, a fatwa (religious decree) for 100 lashes was issued. She lapsed into unconsciousness at 80 lashes and was rushed to a hospital where she died. Lord, grant Hena the mercy and peace she never found here and visit your justice on those who killed her.

ITEM: Peace In Our Time! During a meeting of the House Intelligence Committee on February 10, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that the Muslim Brotherhood is “...a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence...” For those not up to date on the players of the Global Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt are the intellectual and spiritual heirs of Sayyid Qutb, arguably the father of the modern Islamist movement. Suggesting that the MB is largely secular and non-violent is akin to suggesting that Fidel Castro is one of the foremost proponents of democracy and free market capitalism in the world. Have I mentioned that Mr. Clapper is Mr. Obama’s primary source of intelligence?

UPDATE! A few hours after his dog and pony show, Mr. Clapper’s underlings more or less, sort of attempted to walk back his comments, a little, saying that he is “well aware that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a secular organization.” Have I mentioned that Mr. Clapper is the Director of National Intelligence of the United States of America? Our country? Feeling safer?

ITEM: CIA director Leon Panetta announced that he obtained the information on Egypt he provided at the February 10 House Intelligence Committee hearing from media accounts. Media accounts? Like the NYT? CNN? The Daily Kos? Yup. Have I mentioned that Mr. Panetta is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency? Of the United States of America? Our country? Only the best and brightest are in charge.

ITEM: From Claudia Rosett writing at Pajamas Media (here). United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice was, at the same time things were exploding in Egypt, touring the West Coast to deliver a February 11th speech to the World Affairs Council (the what?!) in Portland. OR on “Why America Needs the United Nations.” Uh, isn’t Ms. Rice supposed to be representing America at the UN rather than representing the UN to America? And shouldn’t she be at the UN, doing, you know, like, diplomacy or something when the entire Middle East is in danger of more or less blowing up in our faces? Have I mentioned that Ms. Rice is the American Ambassador to the United Nations? The Ambassador of the United States of America? Our country? Ever feel like running into the nearest woods screaming “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”?

NOTE: To see how an American Ambassador to the UN who actually represents, you know, America, behaves, go here.

ITEM: During his State of The State Address, Texas Governor Rick Perry advocated that Texas Universities establish a $10,000, texts included, four-year college degree program (here). Cruelly taunting educrats, Perry said “It’s time for a bold, Texas-style solution to their challenge that I’m sure the brightest minds in their universities can devise.” Perry suggested that it might be done by means of online courses and “innovative teaching techniques.” That Perry! Academics offering an affordable, useful college education! What a jokester!

ITEM: Many years ago there was a commercial that urged people to lock their cars with a tag line something like “don’t help a good boy to go bad.” The public demanded that it be pulled, and it was. Why? Old fashioned as they were, the public back in the 1400’s realized that the issue was personal responsibility, the personal responsibility to resist temptation. Stealing cars wasn’t the fault of the car owner, but of the criminal who, you know, stole the car. Comes now Brenda Speaks, a Washington DC Ward 4 “Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner” (just what the heck is that?!), who opposes the construction of four WalMart stores in the area. Why does she oppose them? She feels that young people will be unable to resist shoplifting and will get criminal records that they otherwise would be able to avoid--due to the evil, impossible-to-resist tempting influence of WalMart, which will provide jobs, low cost goods and food, job training and insurance. Should anyone in DC be allowed to wear clothing? After all, young people might steal it and get criminal records! And we wonder why so many Democrat-controlled urban areas are third world snake pits. Actually, we really don’t, but if you’re reading this site, you know what I mean.

ITEM: President Obama submitted his 2013 budget on Monday, saying that it contains “tough choices and sacrifices.” Among its features are a claimed $1.1 trillion dollar savings over ten years. Unfortunately, over the same period, it would add at least $9 trillion to the debt while adding $1.65 trillion in the current fiscal year. It would also spend at least $3.73 trillion in the 2012 budget year. I would observe that spending far more than you save isn’t really saving at all, but when you’re in the land of fiscal unicorns and fairy dust, reality is--flexible. But wait! as they say on late night TV; there’s more! The bill also “saves” money and “cuts spending” by massively raising taxes! And more good news: absolutely vital programs such as high speed rail are fully funded! Act now and you’ll get not only a stratospherically higher deficit but obscenely higher taxes! Call 1-800-screwu! Bankruptcies limited to one per customer per day! Even some normally shameless Democrats are beginning to look a little red in the face over this one.

ITEM: Despite still owing the American people megabucks, General Motors is planning to pay some $189 million in profit-sharing to 48,000 hourly workers. This amounts to about $4000 each, which is far more than the then-record 1999 payout of $1,775 each at the height of the pickup and SUV boom, and this was paid out of GM’s profits, not the taxpayer’s pockets. Add some $200 million for salaried workers, most of which make more than $100,000 per year, for a total of nearly $400 million dollars--of taxpayer money. We still own 61% of GM, folks. So the new American mantra should be, work very little, drive your company into the ground, suck up to Marxist politicians, and you’ll be able to screw the public and benefit. It’s the new American way! Hope ! Change! Winning the future through screwing the present! Buy a Chevy Volt! We’ll even give you $7500 to do it! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

ITEM: IN NYC, a 23 year old man--he would like his name to be mentioned here--was arrested in a subway after a rampage during which he allegedly murdered four people and wounded several others--with a knife. The accused killer is said to have been enraged by his stepfather’s refusal to allow him to drive a Lexus. His response was to stab his stepfather to death, which apparently began the rampage. I’m confused. No gun? No “large capacity magazine?” No “assault weapon?” How was this possible? Was it an “assault knife?”

ITEM: A multitude of talking heads and politicians have expressed confusion over Mr. Obama’s foreign affairs behavior, most recently his utterly feckless and contradictory statements regarding Egypt, pronouncements that have not only been universally wrong, but damaging in every possible way. “But he’s the smartest man in any room! How can this be?” If he really is the smartest man in any room, if he really is the most magnificent POTUS in history, it can’t. If however, he is a small time, grossly overrated, thuggish, race-hustling, class-warfare provoking, narcissistic, socialist, wealth-redistributing, America-loathing community organizer then all manner of things make perfect sense. Discuss.

ITEM: As the story goes, on the eve of WWII a German General, conversing with a Swiss General, asked the Swiss what his 500,000 man militia would do if invaded by a 1,000,000 man German army. The Swiss General is reported to have calmly replied: “Shoot twice.” History records that Germany wisely chose to respect Swiss neutrality. No doubt Swiss terrain also played a role, but the Swiss General wasn’t kidding. Now comes the result of an emotional national debate over gun control in Switzerland, where fully automatic military weapons and ammunition are kept in most homes, and entire families frequently trot off for local weekend marksmanship competitions. Exit polls indicate the measure, which would have removed military weapons from homes, was rejected by at least 57% of the populace. And what about America? Shoot once? Discuss.

ITEM: According to Debra J. Saunders (here), on February 8th, the “Peace and Justice Commission” of Berkeley, CA recommended a resolution to the Berkeley City Council to invite “one or two cleared” Guantanamo Bay detainees to resettle in Berkeley. P & J Commissioner Rita Maran expressed the Commission’s intention was to invite “the kind of people you’d like to have living next door to you or dating your cousin.” Indeed. Particularly if you’d like the people next door beheaded or your cousin blown up. They don’t call it “Berzerkeley” for nothing, folks. Can you imagine a “Peace and Justice Commission” in your community, perhaps instead of a department of wastewater treatment or a street department? Discuss.

UPDATE: With four of its members voting an Obamian “present,” the Berzerkley Council declined to approve the resolution. Apparently the fact that federal law expressly prohibits any Gitmo inmates from ever entering the US was something of a sobering factor...

ITEM: From the Wall Street Journal, Via Doug Powers (here), who is reportedly not nearly as delightful, lovely or charming as Michelle Malkin, on whose site he posts, Al Gore’s recent pronouncements blaming recent fierce winter storms on global warming amount to so many moose droppings in the wilderness. The Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project, which is apparently staffed by competent, honest scientists, has been reexamining climate data from 1871 to the present to find out if more extreme weather patterns are--as climate alarmists and their computer models have repeatedly warned--increasing. Results thus far? No evidence of more-extreme weather patterns, in direct contradiction of alarmist computer models. Reportedly, some of the scientists involved are surprised by the results. Reportedly, the public is primarily surprised that a climate scientist would honestly report any result not approved for public consumption by the Goracle.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award! CBO Director Doug Elmendorf, during a hearing of the House Budget Committee, admitted to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) that ObamaCare will wipe out 800,000 jobs by 2021. The CBO is also now admitting that ObamaCare will not only not reduce the deficit, but worsen it. I’m shocked, shocked! to learn this. Mr. Obama promised that ObamaCare would not only dramatically reduce the deficit and create or save a multitude of (green) jobs, but would cure cancer, remove pimples, serve as a one-pill-per-lifetime form of Viagra, produce warp drive, time travel, a Star Trek transporter, and establish world peace. What gives?

ITEM: At the 2004 Democrat National Convention. Barack Obama delivered the speech that, in the language of Chicago, “made his (political) bones.” But, via Real Clear Politics (here), even then, Mr. Obama was a serious, sober, international statesman, focusing like a laser on matters of the greatest gravity. From Mr. Obama: “The most challenging problem was what tie to wear. And this went up to the very last minute. I mean, 10 minutes before we were about to go onstage, we were still having an argument about ties. I had brought five, six ties, and Michelle didn’t like any of them...And then somebody..turned and said, ‘you know what? What about Gibbs’ tie? That might look good.’ And frankly, Robert didn’t want to give it up because he thought he looked really good in the ties. But eventually he was willing to take one for the Gipper, and so he took off his tie, and I put it on, and that’s the tie I wore at the national convention.”

In fairness, this was apparently intended to be humorous, but let me just say, “Mr. Obama, I knew the Gipper. The Gipper was a friend of America. You’re no Gipper. And you’re still an empty suit no matter which tie you wear.”

ITEM: According to Gallup, unemployment now stands at 10.3%. “Official” government numbers put it at 9.7%. The recession seems to be pretty spry, particularly considering that its corner has been rounded, it had its back broken and it spent the entire summer of 2010 being “recovered.”

ITEM: Via The Telegraph (here)--and this is not a parody--the British police are warning citizens in an area stricken by burglaries of tool and garden sheds not to reinforce shed windows with wire mesh lest burglars hurt themselves and get compensation against homeowners from the British courts. In fact, this sort of thing has been happening in England for many years. No doubt, some politicians any of us could name would find this state of affairs to be desirable here. Britain was once one of the bright lights of civilization. Mr. Obama finds much to emulate in Britain, even as the British are finally realizing and admitting what a mess they’ve made of things.

iTEM: Subsidizing the Chevy Volt to the tune of $7,500 each, the Obama Administration is now going to subsidize the installation of charging stations (about $3000 each) in nine cities, including Austin, TX. Remember, please dear readers, that taxpayers own 61% of GM, so not only are we paying for other people’s cars, we’re going to pay for the hardware necessary to charge them! For my take on the Volt in particular and electric vehicles in general, go here and here. Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute noted “If they [the auto and power industries] could easily make money from it [electric vehicles] without a federal subsidy, they would be there. Obviously they don’t think there’s a big demand.” Considering electric vehicles cost much more than conventional vehicles, have a ridiculously short range and take as many as 12 hours to recharge, I simply can’t imagine why the demand isn’t stratospheric, but Obama knows best!

ITEM: Who says the Dems aren’t paying strict attention to the budget deficit? Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) are delivering substantial pressure to a pivotal figure to manifest an earth-shaking public good. That’s right, they’re pressuring Bud Selig, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, to ban smokeless tobacco in the game. No doubt this will not only create green jobs, but save the environment, reduce the deficit, and increase overall neatness and tidiness. I’m still not quite sure how high-speed rail fits in, but I’m Senator Durbin will get around to that eventually. Maybe the trains can burn chew?

ITEM: It occurred to me the other day, while reading about the Obama budget, that my mother taught me everything I ever needed to know about economics. Her wisdom, final and terrible in its application, is encapsulated in four words: “We can’t afford it.” Could it be as simple as merely applying these words to our economic issues? High-speed rail? We can’t afford it. ObamaCare? We can’t afford it; next item on the agenda? No oil drilling permits? We can’t afford it; start issuing them immediately. See? It works, just as it always did when Mom said it. Discuss.

ITEM: Thank God None Of Them Are Really Criminal Masterminds! Department: According to Metro.co.uk, a 16 year old burglar in Arlington Heights, Chicago killed all of the goldfish in the home of his victims because he didn’t want to leave any witnesses. Prosecutor: “Do you see the man who burglarized your home in the courtroom today?” Goldfish: “Glurg.” Prosecutor: “May the record reflect that the witness has identified the defendant, your honor?” Judge: “So ordered.” Defendant, leaping to his feet: “You dirty squealer! You’re gonna sleep with the fishes!” Judge: “You’re out of order!” Prosecutor: “Your Honor, he’s threatening the witness!” Defense Attorney: “Your honor, may the record reflect that the witness already sleeps with the fishes?” Goldfish: “Glurg.”

And on that encouraging note on the intellectual capacity of criminals, thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you next Thursday!

Posted by MikeM at 11:35 PM | Comments (2)

Che-Loving Leftists Sending Death Threats to Republicans

Something called the United Front for Immigration Reform has sent death threats to a pair of Utah legislators. They seem to be an offshoot of the Reconquista movement.

I suspect they're all talk, but you can never be too careful.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:58 PM | Comments (1)

Alternet Doubles Down on Bigoted Accusation that Black Conservatives are Race Traitors

The entire concept of a group owing fealty to a specific political party due to their genetic makeup is entirely offensive to any thinking person, but that is precisely the argument Chauncey DeVega made earlier this week, and one that leftist web site AlterNet and its writer continue to support.

In my original post, I referred to Herman Cain and other black conservatives as "race minstrels" and "mascots" for the White conservative imagination. I stand by this observation.

DeVega's vivid bigotry is his own cross to bear. what is less clear is why Alternet is tolerant of such myopic rhetoric.

Clearly, "diversity" in the liberal lexicon means a superficial diversity of image, while demanding a lock-step ideological conformity. DeVega is a racist, and Alternet enables racism by standing behind him.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:50 PM | Comments (8)

February 15, 2011

Lefty Bloggers Freak Over Deceptive Mother Jones Claim

It has been a tough 2011 for infanticide supporters. Serial killer Kermit Gosnell and his accomplices were indicted for a fraction of the hundreds of murders of infants they committed, and separately, Planned Parenthood has been caught in multiple locations supporting underage prostitution of foreign nationals... child sex slavery.

Battered and bruised, these advocates of minority genocide have been looking for a way to counter-punch, and have made a desperate bid to right their sinking ship by claiming that a South Dakota law would justify murdering abortion providers.

The only problem with their argument is that like most wild claims, it is entirely made up.

"This has nothing to do with abortion because abortion is a legal act," Jensen told the TownHall reporter. "This only deals with protecting against illegal acts. We're trying to bring some continuity to South Dakota code. Making unborn children a protected class under the law is consistent with the rest of our state code."

Instead, the bill could allow those who stop violence against pregnant women to have a defense.

"If someone walks up to a pregnant woman and starts punching her abdomen to abort her pregnancy, that woman, or her husband, could use justifiable force to save that child's life," the legislator said

The law is hardly controversial, and merely provides parents with the legal coverage to protect their unborn children and wives against assailants.

Of course, that claim comes from the state legislator that is sponsoring the legislation, not a Mother Jones activist, so you'll have to decide on your own which claim is more credible.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:55 PM | Comments (5)

A Monument for the Ages

Congressmen and Senators come and go, and most leave no lasting impression upon the nation. Certainly they manage to affix their names to an edifice here or there within their districts, or find it adorned on a sign marking a section of highway we barrel past at 70 MPH, but few actually have the chance to see their individual efforts change the nation.

This Congress has that opportunity. This Congress has that responsibility. You could even argue that they have that fate. That opportunity, that responsibility, that fate, is to determine whether they have the fortitude to make a stand against the tyranny of excess and save a nation, or see their names cast to history as the Congress that lost the Republic.

Barack Obama's budget is one of abject cowardice; an abdication of a Presidency.

The opportunity now falls to John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and a Republican-controlled House of Representatives to make the painful but Republic-saving cuts in the federal budget. "Austerity" and "hardship" does not begin to convey the hardship they must visit upon their fellow Americans, but it is a sentence they must carry out because of the incompetence of generations of Democrats and Republicans before them.

This Congress has the opportunity to be remembered as the Congress That Saved America. It will not be easy. Gratitude will not come immediately, and perhaps not even of this generation. But if this nation survives, it will be because a group of citizen-legislators had the fortitude to do what what right for the country, and made the unpopular cuts that needed to be made in a time of hardship.

Courage and commitment to First Principles could be their proud legacy in an nation that last another 200 years. It remains to be seen whether they are up to the challenge. If they are not, we will soon become a fleeting memory.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)

Enjoying Slapping the Blacks Around, Chauncey?

Scratch a liberal, reveal a Klansman underneath. Of course, this is nothing new.

As long as blacks do exactly what liberals want them to do—abort their children, give up hope of finding success based upon their own merits, and vote Democrat—then liberals like those that read Alternet are all about diversity.

Of course, we're talking diversity of pigmentation. Diversity of thought, however, is a hate crime.

Herman Cain is guilty of the misdemeanor crime of being an independently successful black businessman (which is forgivable if you donate money and time to the "right" political causes... look at Oprah), and the capitol offense of being a black conservative.

Liberals like Chauncey DeVega are terrified of black conservatives, because they know that when they are chosen as role models and blacks discover how much better they would do relying on their own wits and hard work, then the black family culture can reconstruct and heal, and the Democratic Party and the leftist agenda is dead.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:34 AM | Comments (2)

February 14, 2011

What Federal Agencies Must We Keep?

Our republic must begin discussing the budget with the question, "What federal agencies must we keep?" Until Congress and the President begin framing the problem in this manner, they should be considered part of the problem, and utterly incapable of helping determine a viable solution.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:54 PM | Comments (6)

February 11, 2011

Egypt Inflamed, Obama Unmasked

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak made fools of the U.S. pundit and political classes yesterday, who had predicted the aging strongman was going to announce he was stepping down in a scheduled speech.

Instead, Mubarak refused to quit, and the world now waits to see if today's protests will escalate into something more akin to civil war.

Mubarak has left the protest-filled capitol and is now thought to be in his home in the resort town of Sharem a-Sheikh, a resort town on the Red Sea.

Throughout the crisis, the world has looked to America to see how the world's only remaining superpower would react. A trio of news stories yesterday showed how incompetent our Administration really is, showing they are incapable of leadership.

The whole situation is hysterical... for our nation's enemies. The Obama Administration has been unmasked as being simply inept, across the board. They are weak, vacillating, uninformed and incapable of command.

Good marketing slogans and charisma don't equate to leadership.

It is going to be a long two years until January 2013.

Update: Mubarak has resigned, and handed power to the military.

Let us all hope that there is an orderly and peaceful transition.

MIKE NOTES: Dr. George Friedman, head of Stratfor, the premier private intelligence source, believes that Mubarak did not voluntarily step down but was deposed in a "bloodless military coup." According to Dr. Friedman, the Egyptian military was involved in a "weeks long tussle with Mubarak who refused to leave." After the speech where Mubarak announced his intention to stay in power, the military took matters into their own hands and removed him the next morning. Dr. Friedman believes Mubarak will end up in Saudi Arabia where he has many friends. Dr. Friedman sees the beneficiaries of the Egyptian unrest being Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, who have been working for just this opportunity for the last 60 years, and who, he believes, will not waste it. If Dr. Friedman is correct--and Stratfor has an excellent record--Mr. Obama had virtually no influence on the situation, other than to diminish America's stature in the region even further. The word around the region--even with our allies--is that America under Barack Obama is a harmless enemy and a fickle and treacherous friend. If this is an example of "winning the future," it's a future in which we will likely want no part.

For information on the effectiveness of our intelligence officials and diplomats, be sure to check out Quick Takes this Thursday, Feb. 17.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:58 AM | Comments (6)

February 10, 2011

Murder in the Service of the Obama Agenda

It is no secret to anyone that Barack Obama is an advocate of harsh gun control, and that he would use any means, ethical or unethical, to further his agenda. While a director on the board of the Joyce Foundation he approved a plot to undermine the judiciary by corrupting Second Amendment scholarship. Had that plot succeeded, Heller could very well have had a very different outcome.

Obama Administration officials should now be held responsible for a plot within the Justice Department to manufacture evidence of cross-border weapons smuggling. This policy has been directly connected to the murder of a Border Patrol Agent, and likely contributed to the deaths of an unknown number of Mexican citizens as well.

Since the earliest days of his Presidency, Barack Obama has tried to use Mexican drug cartel violence as an excuse to restrict the rights of American citizens. Common sense—actually, any sense at all—would dictate that the way to clamp down on Mexican violence spilling into this country would be to develop a robust physical barrier system to stop illicit border crossings. Instead, the administration has used the porous border as an excuse to float easily debunked lies in the service of his domestic gun control dreams.

We just never grasped how far this cynical Administration was willing to go to further that agenda.

Manufacturing evidence as an academic and activist was bad enough, but it appears that the Administration's desire for domestic gun control was directly responsible for a plot where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) allowed straw buyers to purchase fully-functioning firearms in the United States and smuggle them over the border into Mexico.

The goal of the plot was to let enough guns cross the border in large enough quantities so that Mexican authorities could then capture the weapons after battles between government forces and cartel members. The guns would then be turned over to the BATF for tracking, "proving" that American guns were going to Mexico, justifying restrictions on American gun owners.

It is an entirely Machiavellian plot, revolving around planted evidence. An American government agency specifically allowed firearms to be smuggled into another country, knowing that those weapons would be used to murder members of the military, law enforcement, and civilians alike. In fact, their plot relied upon those weapons being used. If they weren't used in gun battles with authorities and captured, they couldn't be tracked. If these guns weren't killing Mexicans, the Obama Justice Department would have very little political capital to expend towards domestic gun control legislation.

Killing to make a point
Sadly, the Administration's plot has worked. Mexican cops, federal agents, soldiers, and civilians have almost certainly died as a result of this scheme. On our side of the border, the bodies are likely piling up as well. Evidence clearly shows Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed as a result of this plot. The rifle that killed him on December 14, 2010, was one that BATF agents allowed to go south.

It will come as a shock to none that the immediate reaction to the exposure of this plot has been an attempt to cover up the scheme and punish those who have leaked the knowledge of it's existence.

If agencies of Iran or Syria directed weapons to be smuggled into our country to be used against our citizens, we would rightly view that as an act of aggression, and quite arguably an act of war. The BATF, the Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama Administration have committed this same unlawful act, and an independent investigation into criminal charges must be launched. Any and all federal agents and officeholders that instigated, knew of, or approved this action are accomplices to the murder of a federal agent, as guilty as if they'd pulled the trigger themselves.

An independent investigation cross-referencing the weapon serial numbers of the guns our Administration's plot let slip across the border to the firefights the weapons were used in will provide us with chilling figures, and more importantly, the names and faces of those killed by these weapons so that Barack Obama would have the political capital he needs to push for gun control.

In it's war against our Constitutional rights, the Obama Administration has all but declared war upon an ally and neighbor. If this doesn't approach the standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors, nothing does.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:31 PM | Comments (2)

Quick Takes, February 10, 2011

ITEM: In the "Lunatic Obsession and Total Lack of Responsibility" department comes NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg who is, once again, running straw man gun buying schemes in jurisdictions somewhat outside NYC, this time: Arizona! Arizona?! Yes, Arizona. Is Bloomberg breaking local and federal laws in doing this? Yes. Does he have any authority to do this? No. Is he neglecting his duties as Mayor of NYC? Yes. Should New Yorkers (if they’re ever able to dig out) and the Feds be--figuratively speaking (we’re all about the “new civility” here at CY)--rapping him upside the head and bidding him do his actual, you know, job? As Sarah Palin would say, you betcha! And I always thought that being the Mayor of NYC was pretty much a full time gig. Just one more thing I was wrong about, apparently.

ITEM: In this week’s “Is That Cool Or What?” department, we have: The skin gun! Via Hot Air (video here) comes news of a medical breakthrough that really is a breakthrough. To prevent infection, and to hasten healing, burn patients need to have their open wounds, excruciatingly painful wounds that often cover large portions of their bodies, covered with skin as quickly as possible, but skin grafts are frail, difficult to handle and take weeks or months to work. The inventor of the skin gun--essentially a high tech medical spray gun--Jorg Gerlach demonstrates it in the National Geographic video at the link. Taking skin stem cells from the patient, a serum is made using their own cells and sprayed on the wound. The results are miraculous, healing enormous burns in a matter of days and without scarring. Remember this the next time anyone tells you we ought to be praising the ancient scientific accomplishments of peoples currently unable to manufacture toasters.

ITEM: In the “Just Desserts” department, Wikileaker Julian Assange recently experienced the joys of mutual exposure when the contents of his Swedish sexual assault files were mysteriously released on the Internet. The misuse of the net so blithely celebrated by self-righteous web vermin like Assange is deplorable, yet one can’t help but take a bit of vicarious pleasure in this kind of Old Testament justice. But don’t take too much pleasure. Wikileaks has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which, considering the dimwitted miscreants who have received it of late, is merely par for the course. My favorite commentary on the NPP was an eatery sign making the rounds of the Net after Mr Obama’s NPP, awarded for being so “him,” advertising (here) “Free Nobel Peace Prize With An Order Of Shrimp Tacos.” Indeed. At least one can still be worthy of a shrimp taco. The NPP? I’m not so sure...

ITEM: Yes, its another school shooting, but instead of the perpetrator mowing down scores of innocents and committing suicide, this evil malefactor was arrested by alert, efficient police officers and is facing criminal charges. At the age of seven. On January 17 in Hammonton, NJ, a boy described by school authorities as “a nice kid” and “a good student” was arrested at the urging of school authorities for...wait for it...allegedly shooting a $5.00 Nerf-like toy gun at school. Dr. Dan Blachford, school superintendent, said “We are just very vigilant and we feel that if we draw a very strict line then we have much less worry about someone bringing in something dangerous.” Police charged the boy with “possessing an imitation firearm in or on an education institution.” No. I won’t comment. It’s just too easy...it’s just...WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS STATE?! Their legislators have actually made possessing toy guns at school a crime?! A crime for which 7-year old children may be charged?! And what does Dr. Blachford fear--a $10.00 Nerf gun? Dr. Blachford should be required to write on the blackboard 100 times: “I will not overreact like a witless twit,” and “I will not be surprised when children behave like children.” What’s his doctorate in anyway? Hysteria?

ITEM: And in the “We’re Saving The Planet, Really!” department, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency--and I swear that I am not making this up--is now going to regulate the apocalyptically toxic, environment obliterating menace of--spilled milk. SPILLED MILK?! Spilled milk. From the Wall Street Journal Via Hot Air (here), two weeks ago the EPA finalized a rule that places milk in the same category as spilled oil. According to what passes for logic at the EPA, “...milk contains ‘a percentage of animal fat, which is a non-petroleum oil,’ as the agency put it in the Federal Register.” So is my hair much of the time. Hmm. Now who would benefit from less spilled milk? I’ve got it! Mr. Obama has turned the EPA over to a sinister cabal of Marxist dairy cattle!

How would you enforce something like this? Armed federal raids on dairy farms with crack EPA mop-up teams in cow camo slapping on the udder-cuffs? I find the image of little cow horns jutting from their Kevlar helmets irresistible. In all seriousness--since there is apparently none to be found in the Federal Government--I can’t imagine a better candidate for abolishment, or failing that, down-to-the-last-penny defunding than the EPA. Do they really need electric lights, what with all the mercury in the florescent light bulbs and all? Better abolishment or defunding than horny government operatives installing oil booms around the breasts of lactating mothers and denying their husbands drilling permits to prevent future leaks.

ITEM: And speaking of drilling, the Israelis, recognizing the dangers inherent in relying on others for their energy supplies, have discovered several massive natural gas fields and are hastening to exploit them. Being surrounded by hostiles sworn to its destruction tends to focus the attention of a nation on the basics, such as economic and national survival. But wait a minute! Isn’t America increasingly surrounded, if not in fact, then at least figuratively, by hostile nations bent on its destruction? Isn’t America reliant on other nations, including many hostile nations, for its energy needs? And doesn’t America have some of the largest energy deposits in the world, deposits that we’re doing little or nothing to exploit? I wonder if I’m too old to learn Hebrew?

ITEM: The horses are gone; shut the barn door! Sen, Joe Liberman (I-Conn.) said of the report on the Fort Hood massacre, that its “painful conclusion is that the Fort Hood massacre could have and should have been prevented.” Why wasn’t it prevented? Political correctness. The FBI didn’t talk to the Army. Army officers ignored--for years--Maj. Hasan’s blatantly Jihadist tendencies and rants out of fear that they’d be persecuted and their careers destroyed. So serious was his behavior over several years that the military would have been justified--at any instant--in discharging him and instituting an FBI anti-terrorism investigation. You don’t suppose any of this had to do with the mindlessly pro-Muslim views of our Commander in Chief, do you? Naaaah. He's too busy directing NASA's ancient Muslim outreach and developing anti-cattle counter-spillage tactics.

ITEM: During his Superbowl interview with Bill O’Reilly, President Obama denied that he wants to redistribute income. Hahahahahahaha! No, no! Stop it, please! O’Reilly asserted that ObamaCare was an example of redistributing income, and Mr. Obama explained that ObamaCare was merely a matter of people “taking responsibility.” Ah! So initially, forcing people to buy insurance against their will was a “fee.” Then it became a “tax.” Now it’s “taking responsibility.” But isn’t “taking responsibility” a voluntary matter? After all, if you’re forced to do it, no decision making is required. Doesn’t taking responsibility more or less require making a decision to, you know, take responsibility? And didn’t Mr. Obama tell Joe the Plumber that he believed in “spreading the wealth around?” No doubt he meant “spreading the responsibility around.” Hahahahahaha! I can’t take it anymore...

ITEM: Iran has taken yet another repressive measure aimed at its own increasingly restive population: The mullahs have banned, from Iranian TV, cooking shows featuring foreign recipes. It’s one thing to be the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the world and to develop nuclear weapons that will surely be used against Israel and America, but to ban pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers?! Can we bomb them now, Mr. Obama, pretty please?

ITEM: The winners of this week’s Louis Renault Award are: Anyone who believed President Obama’s assertion, during his O’Reilly Superbowl interview, that he has not raised taxes. According to Politifact (here), shortly after taking office, Mr. Obama raised taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products, and ObamaCare already has one of a great many tax increases in effect: A tax on indoor tanning. But to be scrupulously fair, since most of the other non-tax increase tax increases won’t go into effect until ObamaCare is fully implemented in 2014, Mr. Obama was arguably lying to only, say, the 99.9945% level. Where are unruly Congressmen ready and willing to yell “you lie!” when you need them? But again, to be fair, who you gonna believe? The President or your own lyin' eyes?

ITEM: According to the most recent Gallup Poll conducted from Feb. 2-5, 68% of Americans disapprove of Mr. Obama’s handling of the deficit while only 27% approve of it. His disapproval/approval rating on other politically important issues are equally grim. To wit: Taxes: 42/54; healthcare: 40/56; economy: 37/60. What remains inexplicable is the fact that 27% of the public apparently thinks that the man who spent more in two years than all other presidents in the history of the republic combined, and who is absolutely determined to spend the nation into oblivion, is doing a good job--apparently at spending the nation into oblivion. And I thought that was a bad thing. Apparently they think that “investing” is somehow different than “spending money we don’t have and can’t pay back.”

ITEM: Time Magazine recently published an online article titled “Why Obama’s Silence on Gun Control Pleases No One.” Hmm. I suspect that American’s gun owners, to say nothing of those who actually support the Constitution--all of it--are reasonably pleased about this. Discuss.

ITEM: Via the indispensable Michelle Malkin we learn that MIT economist Johathan Gruber has devised a brilliant plan to repair faulty ObamaCare “messaging.” Gruber, who was instrumental in putting together the original, 2000+ page monstrosity, has announced that he has the perfect way to explain its wonders--in a way that such benighted souls can comprehend--to those Americans unable to properly appreciate it: A comic book. That’s right, he’s going to write an equally massive comic book that will explain ObamaCare. As they used to say about Grey Poupon: “But of course!” No one who truly understands ObamaCare could possibly object to it, so a comic book must be the answer for those who couldn’t read or understand the actual bill--like the entire Congress. Gruber promises that it will have “lots of pictures.” “Unhand those uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions you evil insurance company!” “Arrghh! It’s Captain Deficit! Curses! Bankrupted again!”

ITEM: Also via the diminutive but formidable Michelle Malkin, the Mansfield Independent School District (between Ft. Worth and Dallas, TX) has recently announced that it secured a five year, $1.3 million grant from the federal Foreign Language Assistance Program. We actually have one of those?! Since when? So which language will be taught in a state that is 1/3 Hispanic? Why, Arabic, of course! The federal Department of Education has designated Arabic a “language of the future.” Of course they have. The classes, which will include indoctrination in Arabic “culture,” will be mandatory at one elementary school and one middle school and optional at another middle school and a high school.

Parents, who were not consulted or notified until a meeting February 7th (the grant was secured during the summer of 2010), were not amused. The Mansfield Superintendent apparently made a fundamental geographic mistake: Mansfield is actually located in Texas, not the Levant. I have it on good authority that local Texans are taking affirmative steps--many in cowboy boots--to “educate” the Superintendent about the “realities” of Texas geography and “culture.” Hey! Shouldn’t we be taking affirmative steps to ensure that Arabic isn’t one of the “languages of the future?”

ITEM: It’s Deja Vu All Over Again! In an apparent attempt to create the illusion that he is actually pro-business, Mr. Obama recently read from his teleprompter to a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce. He began, in his usual, humble style, by praising himself for showing up, and it was unicorns and fairy dust from there. Some of the highlights included an announcement that he has ordered all governmental bureaucracies to do away with “unnecessary regulations,” after which he observed that “regulations are good” while waving a gold pocket watch before the mesmerized businessmen who were soon rhythmically chanting “regulations are good; regulations are good...”

At last count, two years into his first term, Mr. Obama has imposed 40% more regulations than either the Clinton or Bush administrations, and if ObamaCare is implemented, that number will, as Mr. Obama is fond of saying “necessarily skyrocket.” Thank goodness Mr. Obama is pro-business. Were he not, he might take over, say, General Motors and force it to build electric cars (Electric cars! Ha-ha!) so expensive the government will have to subsidize them just to get them off the showroom floor! Ha-ha! Whew! I just slay myself sometimes!

ITEM: And the hits just keep on coming! The Navy (here) is developing protective glasses that more or less instantly change tints, going from sunglasses dark to clear in 1.4 second. For operators like the SEALS, the benefits should be obvious, but as a matter of convenience for the average man, the benefits are also great. Apparently the civilian availability of the technology is not far off. Anchors aweigh!

ITEM: That Internet Is Fast! On Feb. 9, it was revealed that Rep. Chris Lee (R-State of Witlessness/NY) had posted a shirtless photo of himself on a dating website indicating that he was 39 and divorced. Lee is mid fortyish and married. Within a few hours, Lee announced his immediate resignation from the Congress. Ironic: Lee held the seat held by Eric Massa, who also resigned due to sexual impropriety involving tickling male aides. I wonder if any “non-petroleum oil” was involved? This sounds like a job for the EPA! Interesting: Instead of dissembling, hanging on and being protected by Nancy Pelosi ala Charles Rangel, a morally compromised Republican is out so fast his hat has yet to settle to the ground. That’s change we can believe in.

ITEM: "Hell Freezes Over As Pigs Fly!" department. During a Capital Hill hearing on Feb. 9, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) asked Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke if he agreed that cutting spending is the best way to stimulate growth. Mr. Bernanke replied: “That’s correct.” Knock the nation over with a feather. Was the Bernanke we’ve seen prior to this report the evil Bernanke brother? Does he have a sinister mustache and goatee?

ITEM: Pig Not Only Fly, But Dive-Bomb! In a New York Times(!) article about bias among psychologists printed on Feb. 7 (here), Jonathan Haidt polled those present at the annual conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology to determine their political affiliation. Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, asked for a show of hands to indicate how many were politically liberal, producing a thicket of hands that he estimated as 80% of the 1000 psychologists in attendance. Asking for centrists and libertarians, he observed less than three dozen. Conservatives? Three. “This is a statistically impossible lack of diversity,” Haidt observed, and noted that approximately 40% of the population self-identifies as conservative and only 20%, liberal. This couldn’t be supportive of the proposition that overwhelming liberal bias exists in academia and psychology, could it? Naaaah. Haidt also asked the conference how many liberal psychologists it takes to change a lightbulb. Answer: Only one, but the lightbulb has to really want to change and produce jobs via high-speed rail.

ITEM: First Lady Michelle Obama recently addressed two of the most vexing problems facing America. Obesity? Nutrition? Hardly. Barack Obama does not dye his hair and has stopped smoking. It’s lighting, you see, that makes his hair gray one day and black the next. And as for smoking, Mrs. Obama knows he has stopped because she hasn’t see him light up. But of course.

And on that definitive, unassailable note, thanks for dropping by, and I’ll see you next Thursday! Hey, who you gonna believe? Mrs. Obama or your own lyin' eyes?

Posted by MikeM at 02:26 AM | Comments (0)

February 09, 2011

Tettering on the Edge

The White House has spent the last few days devoting itself to the really big issues, of whether or not the President has quit smoking, and whether or not he dyes his hair.

That the Administration and their media enablers want to engage in misdirection, to have us focus on inconsequential issues, should be viewed as an indicator of how close our economy is collapse.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:16 PM | Comments (2)

February 08, 2011

The Public Faith of Barack Obama

“Judge not, that ye be not judged,” wrote St. Matthew (7:1). It is with that admonition in mind that President Obama’s comments (available here) at the annual National Prayer Breakfast might be best considered. Unlike many occasions of the past, Mr. Obama was apparently much more comfortable speaking about faith, or at least, much more fluid in reading a reasonable facsimile of an honest expression of faith from his teleprompter. This is remarkable because Progressives tend to view public pronouncements of faith much as vampires do sunlight. For Socialists, faith is even less palatable, and there is little doubt that Mr. Obama is a Socialist. One need only turn to Stanley Kurtz’s fine book "Radical-In-Chief" for meticulously researched, documented and convincing proof.

Mr. Obama’s comments, taken superficially, indicate that he is a man of deep Christian faith who daily practices that faith, in ways great and small. A more careful reading indicates a dedicated man of the left, a community organizer, who sees Christianity as merely another useful political tool to be woven into the language of the left and made to serve its purposes.

Keep in mind that there is a significant difference between private and public faith. St. Matthew also speaks to this issue (6:5): “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.” Analyzing the motives of politicians is common American sport, not only when they are professing faith, but particularly when they use that profession of faith to justify and support their policies. Such is the case with Mr. Obama.

St. Matthew’s advice is about seeing the world accurately, overcoming our own shortcomings, and about not judging the relationships of others with God. The depth or sincerity of Mr. Obama’s relationship with God cannot be known, but St. Matthew’s advice in 7:16 “By their fruits shall ye know them,” can be heeded. The Bible makes clear that others must be judged not only by their words, but by their actions. Talk is cheap. Failing to understand this and to judge the motivations and actions of others is physically and spiritually foolish, even dangerous. The Bible often warns about false prophets and those who deceive. Informed judgment is not only pragmatic, but imperative for mere survival.

Americans are most comfortable with a President who does not try to be our minister-in-chief. On one hand, they’re comforted--to a limited degree--to know that any President of the United States has an abiding faith in God. Sincerely held, it serves to humble and temper any man. On the other, Constitutionally and practically, it’s not his place to appear to be a spiritual guide or enforcer in a nation where tolerance of all faiths is an article of secular faith.

When Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush spoke of their faith, progressives rolled their eyes and clucked their pseudo-intellectual tongues in derision at the provincial boobiness of it all. The media often worked itself to faux-righteous outrage at the simpletons trying to force fundamentalist Christianity on everyone from the Oval Office, despite the fact that it had not been a significant force in American politics since the dissolution of the Moral Majority, circa 1987. Still, few doubted the sincerity of their belief, and their expressions of fait--which did not occur only on special occasions--were unforced, natural and comfortable. Most importantly, they tended not to invoke faith as a tool of political persuasion.

Mr. Obama’s NPB speech reflects less a genuine daily walk with God than a growing facile ease with certain politically useful words, phrases and references. In fact, Mr. Obama’s comments at the NPB may not reflect the words of the Gospel so much as the words of William Shakespeare when he said in Hamlet 1:3: “This above all: To thine ownself be true.” Above all, Mr. Obama is certainly true to himself--whoever that may be.

There are compelling political reasons not to take Mr. Obama's religious pronouncements at face value. A Pew Poll taken in August--the most recent on this topic--revealed that Americans are less than convinced about Mr. Obama’s faith and its sincerity. Only 34% of Americans believe Mr. Obama to be a Christian, while 18% think him a Muslim. Amazingly, 43% have no idea of his faith. This is remarkable for several reasons. In 2009, 48% believed Mr. Obama to be Christian; in only one year 14% of the public abandoned that belief. They have good reason to be skeptical.

Americans tend to take individual professions of faith without undue suspicion, but they also tend to pay attention to what politicians do in addition to what they say, and by that measure, Mr. Obama’s Christian credentials were obviously found wanting. It is also remarkable in that Mr. Obama is arguably the most over-exposed POTUS in history, a day rarely passing without at least one pronouncement, speech or other message from Mr. Obama, and often, more than one, yet it strains the memory to recall any--let alone serial--affirmations of faith unattached to political persuasion escaping Mr. Obama’s eternally-moving lips.

It might also be useful to consider a small bit of truth: Despite his denials, Mr. Obama was a Muslim. There is no doubt that Mr. Obama is the child of a Muslim father. He has admitted it in writing, and even in his Prayer Breakfast speech. He was raised in a Muslim nation where he attended an Islamic school, his parents identifying him as a Muslim in school records. Mr. Obama's consistent, unabashed championing of Muslim causes and Muslim “outreach” is unusual--to say the least--for an American president.

There is no question that, in Islam, the children of a Muslim father are themselves Muslim for life. Islam is not like Christianity, particularly as it is practiced in America, where one may change faiths at will and suffer no more than the possible disapproval of parents or other relations. Muslims may not leave the faith except under pain of being declared an apostate. In Islam, there is but one punishment for apostasy: Death. It should go without saying that most Muslims, particularly American Muslims, do not practice the dictates of their faith in this matter. However, there are surely millions of Muslims who do take such things seriously--deadly seriously.

Mr. Obama has publicly declared himself to be a Christian, for 20 some years a Christian forged in the crucible of the Trinity United Church of Christ of Chicago under the mentorship of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (more about this later). In the best spirit of American religious tolerance, I’ll take Mr. Obama at his word, but Mr. Obama had better hope that those Muslims who take apostasy seriously do not. This single fact--as well as the fact that he is the President of the "Great Satan"--makes it far more likely that a significant number of those Muslims to whom he has repeatedly declared “outreach” not only will not listen to him, but will actively wish to kill him, just as they would any apostate who might come to their attention and be within their reach.

Mr. Obama’s NPB speech was praised by an organization whose praise Christians would likely consider to be anything but: The American Humanist Association. AHA Executive Director Roy Speckhardt said, “President Obama’s remarks acknowledge that children can be raised with a strong moral and ethical foundation, free from the presence of dogmatic religion.” This is but one example that might cause a reasonable person to question Mr. Obama’s motives and sincerity. There are many:

(1) Much has been written about the Rev. Wright and his church. Many Americans were shocked, not just by his serial anti-American, racist pronouncements from the pulpit, but by the raucous affirmation of those rants by his congregation. Mr. Obama’s claim that despite frequent attendance over two decades, he had no idea of the true nature of the doctrine of the church or of the beliefs of Rev. Wright strains credulity. Membership in that church would surely have been a wise political move for a young, black, up-and-coming Chicago community organizer, state senator and US Senator. But it is Mr. Obama’s association with Rev. Wright that is telling, and which provides a template for understanding what seems a new-found comfort with faith.

The Rev. Wright is one of America's foremost proponents of Black Liberation Theology (BLT), an offshoot of the Liberation Theology of certain Catholic priests throughout South and Central America. Both strains are stridently Marxist and anti-American, but BLT adds blatant elements of black racism, including the demonization of whites, crackpot, paranoid conspiracy theories, virulent hatred of white America, and a variety of other attitudes that have no grounding in the Word or practice of legitimate Christianity. Marxism rejects faith as a distraction from the glorious path of revolution.

Recall that during the 2008 campaign, when his association with Rev. Wright came to light in a way that could not be ignored, Mr. Obama’s first ploy was defiance. He could no more abandon the Reverend who was the man who led him to Christ, the man who married him, baptized his daughters, and who was his spiritual mentor than he could abandon his own white grandmother. But as the uproar quickly grew, political ambition quickly overrode Christian charity and loyalty, and Rev. Wright and his grandmother were equally quickly thrown under the campaign bus. This was merely the first, and most obvious, instance when politics would take precedence over faith in Mr. Obama’s public life.

(2) During the campaign Mr. Obama, believing himself to be speaking in private to Progressives--true believers--revealed his fundamental beliefs, beliefs reflected in his past, his subsequent actions, and never repudiated. He explained that those who opposed him--and them--were pathetic racists who hated those not like them and who would cling to God and guns. Faithful Christians are not in the habit of speaking of God, and of those who place their faith in Him so disparagingly, publically or privately.

(3) More recently, Mr. Obama, in speaking to Hispanics, made it clear that he considers at least half of America to be racists and enemies, and encouraged Hispanics to adopt his views. Class warfare and racial hatred are hardly hallmarks of Christianity, but they are the foundational political tools of Marxism and Community Organizing.

(4) In his speech, Mr. Obama used “I,” “me” or “my” no less than 70 times. Christians tend, particularly when speaking about faith, not to be narcissistic. True humility, particularly before God, is a fundamental Christian virtue. Mr. Obama is the virtual definition of narcissism. In fact, narcissism is virtually the antithesis of Christianity which absolutely requires the willing acceptance of and belief in One greater than oneself.

(5) The speech is also filled with Progressive/Socialist touchstones and articles of faith. Only a few years out of college, Mr. Obama was inspired by civil rights leaders, including Muslims, not to accept Christ, but to become a Chicago community organizer! It was only this truly holy calling that eventually led Mr. Obama to Christ. Particularly where Muslims are concerned, Mr. Obama has an unfortunate tendency to rewrite history. Most Americans were doubtless unaware of the important, pivotal contributions of Muslims to the Civil Rights Movement. So, most likely, are historians.

(6) According to Mr. Obama, people pray for Mr. Obama because of the evil directed at him by his political opponents. Most Christians tend to separate the sacred and secular, and would tend not to conflate opposition to Mr. Obama's policies with faith. But not Mr. Obama who quipped that God will one day show his political opponents how to vote. In fairness, this was delivered with a bit of humor, but was still an odd thing for a Christian to say.

(7) In the NPB speech, Mr. Obama said: “My Christian faith then has been a sustaining force for me over these last few years. All the more so, when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time, we are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us but whether we're being true to our conscience and true to our God. ‘Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.’” To the secular, this might seem innocuous. To Christians, it is self serving and backward. Christians are, first and above all, true to God who is the “still, small voice” of their conscience, the presence of God within them. A reliance on conscience before God is a slip, a telling slip for one who is presenting a carefully crafted, technologically supported narrative rather than expressing genuine faith.

(8) Mr. Obama invoked many Progressive touchstones and talking points such as: Health care, stopping home foreclosures (of those who couldn’t afford homes in the first place), improving the economy (by spending it into oblivion and regulating private business and industry to death), “justice,” “partnership,” and of course, promoting the absolute necessity of massive government involvement as the epitome of Christian caring and action.

(9) He also asked God to imbue him with humility, a task that might even give the Almighty pause. Mr. Obama asks God to “...open our ears and our hearts to our brothers and sisters with different points of view...” yet, he will be “...firm in our [his] core principles.” To date, being open to different points of view has, for Mr. Obama, universally meant being open to his point of view, and embracing that point of view the only indicator of true humility on the part of his political opponents.

(10) A skilled politician anticipates the arguments of his opponents, and so did Mr. Obama’s speech writers when they had him read: “It’s a reminder that our time on Earth is not just about us...” This from a man whose followers call him “The One,” a title any observant Christian would consider, at best, anything but a show of Christian humility, and at worst, outright blasphemy. Mr. Obama’s boundless self-regard is legendary, but this title, never repudiated by Mr. Obama, is its most ugly, shallow and un-Christian manifestation.

(11) Google “Obama halos,” but only if you have a strong stomach. The first article alone features no less then 20 separate images of the deification of Mr. Obama. These photographs appear in a multitude of publications in a multitude of media. They were not taken by a single photographer or published by a single media source, or even ten. There are hundreds of them, taken from 2008 to the present. Perhaps the most egregious was produced last year, on the New York Times website, in time for Easter. It featured Mr. Obama superimposed on a cross with the White House at its base.

One might argue that Mr. Obama is not behind them, that he has nothing to do with them. Not quite. It takes no specific knowledge of photography to understand that for many of these images, it was necessary for Mr. Obama to pose, to specifically allow himself to be positioned to produce a given halo image. Surely a man with Mr. Obama’s reputed intellect knew what was going on? Mr. Obama has never, to my knowledge, repudiated this practice and has never encouraged his followers to stop it. Few Christians would be at all comfortable with depicting themselves with a halo, or with allowing others to so depict them.

This is significant in that the cult of personality--”great leader” worship--is a defining characteristic of Marxism/Socialism/Progressivism. Mr. Obama, from the 2008 campaign to the present, has encouraged and contributed to this anti-democratic fealty with such artifices as his pseudo-presidential seal, the non-existent, extra-Constitutional “Office of the President-Elect,” his ubiquitous "O" symbol, and the many posters and other images of Mr. Obama rendered in Cold War Marxist propaganda style. Much of this has surely been done with Mr. Obama’s knowledge and approval. None of it is the mark of the humble Christian servant.

Ultimately, the Pew Poll results indicate that Americans are, thankfully, less gullible than Mr. Obama believes. They are skeptical of his public professions of faith, particularly because of their timing. The dedicated Christian lives his faith, in good times and bad. Mr. Obama tends to speak of it only upon specific occasions that manifestly call for it, and for two primary reasons: As a means of justifying and supporting his policy preferences, and to ingratiate himself with potentially useful voter blocks. Considering his sound thwacking at the polls in November, this is surely one of those times. While caring for the poor and infirm is a Christian virtue, the Gospel stops somewhat short of mandating ObamaCare (as does Judge Vinson). Americans can take whatever scant pride may be found in Mr. Obama’s teleprompter skills, but regarding his faith—and much else--they have much about which to be skeptical, and much about which to pray.

Posted by MikeM at 01:57 AM | Comments (3)

February 06, 2011

Smart Diplomacy and Finger Bowls

For those who have experienced the sinking feeling that Barack Obama is causing irreparable damage to America’s foreign policy interests, but just couldn’t put their finger on it, comes a story from “The London Telegraph” (here). According to “The Telegraph,” Mr. Obama secretly agreed to give the Russians sensitive information on the size of Britain’s nuclear deterrent in exchange for finalizing his START arms control deal. This information was apparently discovered in diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks. Due to the size of their relatively small nuclear arsenal, the British have been careful to keep its exact size secret. This revelation apparently refers to Mr. Obama giving the Russians definitive information on American Trident missiles provided to the British, including certain unique identifiers that would allow Russia to accurately count British weapons.

State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley has, according to Jake Tapper of ABC News, vehemently denied the story, claiming that the Obama Administration was only following part of the 1991 START agreement. In other words, Crowley is not denying the facts of the revelation of new, specific information on British weapons, but is claiming that what Mr. Obama did is nothing new and was required by the 1991 treaty.

A British spokesman, speaking anonymously, has quietly and weakly said--again according to Tapper--that “his understanding of the policy conforms with that asserted by the State Department.” This despite the fact that since that 1991 treaty, the British have never agreed to the release of the information Mr. Obama released to the Russians.

Via Hot Air, here is a portion of the memo exposed by Wikileaks:

“10. (S) Orlov asked about the U.S. practice of transferring Trident II missiles to the United Kingdom (UK) in reference to the Russian-proposed agreed statement on the subject. Trout pointed out that most of the provisions contained in the proposed agreed statement were already covered by other sections of the treaty. 

He noted that notifications existed for the transfer and return of missiles to and from a third party. Additionally, he pointed out, the Russian Federation will receive unique identifiers for each of the missiles transferred to the UK, which was more information than was disclosed under START.

Trout acknowledged that the proposal to send a notification of a UK flight test was not covered under START nor had it been included as part of this treaty but argued that this was the flight test of a missile owned by a third country. He said the United States had no legal responsibility for such a notification. Trout said he assumed the UK would send a notice to mariners and airmen prior to any flight test.”

What is apparently undisputed is that the British have never agreed to the release of the information provided by Mr. Obama, which is a matter--for the British--of national security. Why then would an anonymous British source apparently, if weakly, support the State Department version of the story? Simple: Good manners and class.

Some have probably heard the tale of Queen Elizabeth, who, at a formal state dinner, saw a foreign dignitary treating the contents of his finger bowl like soup, spooning it up. Rather than cause him any embarrassment, she did the same, as did all of the other guests, following her cue. Good manners and class are still valued by the British and are a plausible reason for their seeming support of Mr. Obama, despite his crude, oafish and serial insults of our most steadfast ally, and despite his juvenile denial of a special relationship between Britain and America. Unlike Mr. Obama, the British obviously do not consider it wise that their relationship with America be casually discounted or discarded.

So where does this leave us? The credibility of the State Department under Mr. Obama is so small that it may not be detectable by an electron microscope. In fact, American diplomats seem most adept at insulting and denigrating America in foreign capitals and convincing our enemies that they have nothing to fear from America. Mr. Obama’s antipathy toward the British is so well known and documented as to be the stuff of jokes. Russia, while our putative ally, has done virtually nothing that might convince a reasonable person that they are, in fact, an ally, while invading Georgia, which is an ally, and intimidating all of the former members of the Soviet Union. In addition, Russia trades in arms and technology with nations, such as Iran, that are clearly our declared enemies and ignores our requests for help in reigning them in. Mr. Obama has responded to Russian threats and intransigence by pulling the defense rug out from under Poland and the Czech Republic by refusing to deploy a promised anti-missile shield. And while Britain clearly realizes that Russia remains a strategic threat, Mr. Obama is so caught up in the lunatic siren song of a nuclear free world that he would apparently do anything to obtain it--on paper. No one in their right mind should imagine it to be possible in reality. Giving up the nuclear secrets of our closest ally is a small price to pay to secure--on paper--Mr. Obama’s self-imagined legacy as an influential, accomplished statesman on the world stage.

As Egypt descends rapidly into Islamic domination, Mrs. Clinton (like Mr. Obama before her) releases statements welcoming one of the most brutal and virulent Jihadist organizations on the planet, the Muslim Brotherhood, to “negotiations” for a new Egyptian government. Israel, according to reliable reports, is in a state of shock at America’s abandonment of Mr. Mubarak, a strong ally of America and an important force for peace and stability in the region. Even the Israeli left shares this shock and has come to understand, finally, that under Barack Obama, America is anything but an ally and cannot be counted on in a crisis. And every regime and terrorist that wishes America harm also knows this, and rejoices.

We are seeing, first hand, the results of “smart diplomacy,” of a foreign policy run by Socialists who reflexively sympathize with Marxist and Islamist thugs and killers, and who see America not as the solution to problems, not as the one indispensable nation, not as a force for good on the world stage, but as the primary problem in the world. The “fundamental change” Mr. Obama promised is underway, not only within our borders, but around the world. Its effectiveness is likely to be measured by body count. And we, God help us, elected him.

Posted by MikeM at 05:47 PM | Comments (2)

February 03, 2011

Quick Takes, February 3, 2011

ITEM: In the “I had no idea this was coming (snicker, snicker)” department, the White House has announced to Newsweek that President Obama will soon speechify for greater gun control. According to Obama advisor, David Plouffe, speaking to NBC News after the SOTU, Mr. Obama will push Congress to pass changes in the law that would prevent an Arizona-like attack. Three guesses: Another federal “assault weapon” ban, but this time it will include any firearm gun banners remotely consider scary looking, which is essentially all of them; a magazine capacity limitation of ten rounds--again; and federalizing mental health statutes in such a way that conservatives could be involuntarily committed for little more than possessing a firearm or using “threatening language.” You really didn’t think Mr. Obama would let his first term pass without trying to impose new gun control laws, did you?

ITEM: Department of Homeland Tzarina Janet Napolitano recently announced the obliteration of the “virtual fence” on our southern border, ostensibly because it didn’t work, and promised to, to, to... well OK, she really didn’t promise to replace it with anything, which is the kind of can-do, forward-looking, fondle-your-genitals-in-airports action we have come to expect from her. But now comes Janice Kephart of the Center for Immigration Studies who tells us that after the kind of problems that most prototype systems have, the ‘virtual fence” actually worked quite well. Well no wonder we have to do away with it! It might actually stop illegal immigration and intercept Jihadists.

ITEM: In a recent White House staged interview, Mr. Obama said that he wants a “debate” (hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge) on legalizing drugs, though he was careful to say that he opposed legalizing drugs (hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge). So let’s see: Obviously Mr. Obama thinks we need a debate on this issue because we haven’t had any discussion of it in simply years, sort of like how AG Holder thinks we’re cowards who haven’t had a thing to say about race for simply ages. And even though he has actually told people who disagree with him to shut up--repeatedly--and to come along for the ride--as long as they ride in the back (no racial connotations there!)--and even though at the SOTU he told perhaps the dumbest drug joke ever imagined by the most dope-addled pothead about smoking--get it, smoking? Hee-hee-hee! I need some munchies...-- migratory fish, and even though he is against legalizing drugs (has the statute of limitations on his admitted drug use run out?), now he thinks we ought to debate the issue. Uh, sure. I get it, sort of...maybe...How about we just fire up some salmon and forget the whole thing?

ITEM: Who said the Federal Government was inefficient! When it comes to handing out favors to political cronies, the Obamites are world beaters. In November, that Obamites approved 222 ObamaCare waivers, but by the end of December, that number rose to 729 and continues to “skyrocket!” We’re number one! We’re number one! Among the early recipients? SEIU affiliated unions! Just another example of the kind of efficiently corrupt perfection available every day with our Federal Government.

ITEM: TSA Administrator John Pistole has canceled the program that allowed airports to replace Union TSA screeners with private security. Private companies currently operate successfully at 16 airports. Pistole said he won’t expand the program “...as I do not see any clear or substantial advantage to do so at this time.” Well of course not! Replacing less efficient and more expensive government employees with their more efficient, less expensive private sector counterparts is never an advantage--for federal bureaucrats.

ITEM: In the “Oh Goodie!” Department, Pakistan has doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal and now has more then 100, apparently deliverable, nuclear weapons. This is, of course, the same Paaaahk-eee-staaaahn (in Obama speak) that is a majority Muslim nation on the verge of being taken over by Jihadists, but not to worry! Islam is the religion of peace (George W. Bush) and Muslims are part of the American family (Barack Obama)! What could go wrong?

ITEM: Also in the “Oh Goodie!” Department comes news from the Obama EPA, dropped on an unsuspecting public in a Friday news dump. According to the superior intellects of the EPA, gasoline containing a 15% mixture of ethanol is now “deemed” safe for cars manufactured since 2001. To this point, 10% has been the maximum ethanol blend. The auto industry has been trying to avoid this hotter blend over safety concerns. Ethanol burns much hotter than gasoline (it wears out expensive catalytic converters much more quickly) and with substantially less energy content. It is also corrosive to engines and delivery systems. Testing has been delayed because the new mixture melts seals in pumps and storage tanks(?!). Add the costs of installing new tanks, pumps and reengineering the entire delivery system to prevent putting the fuel in the wrong vehicles, and one might be tempted to think this was part of a continuing Obamite plan to make the cost of fuel “skyrocket” to force people to drive less and to destroy the economy. But our President and the Dems wouldn’t even think of doing that---would they? Nah...

ITEM: According to New York Magazine, Mr. Obama has never actually met, one-on-one with about six of the members of his Cabinet. Well of course not! What with all those Czars and Cabinet members and advisors and underczars, and lobbyists he was never going to hire, and vacations, and golfing, and insulting our allies and sucking up to our enemies...well, a man’s got to have his priorities. After all, when you’re the smartest man in the known universe, you don’t need to meet with such inferior intellects. But this raises the question of who is actually giving him advice? Perhaps his senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett? What could go wrong?

ITEM: The Obama Administration Loves Our Troops. Episode #203: The General. Senior Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, known as much for her Chicago slum lord past as for her obsequious, drooling praise of Mr. Obama’s matchless intellect (he’s a legend in his--and her--own mind), recently demonstrated her appreciation for our troops. Via Allahpundit and Hot Air:

”According to our tipster, Jarrett was seated at the head table along with several other big-name politicians and a handful of high-ranking military officials. As an officer sporting several stars walked past Jarrett, she signaled for his attention and said, “I’d like another glass of wine."

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, who was seated next to Jarret, began “cracking up nervously,” our tipster said, but no one pointed out to Jarrett that the man sporting a chestful of medals was not her waiter.

“The guy dutifully went up and got her a glass of wine, and then came back and gave it to her and took a seat at the table,” our tipster said. “Everyone is in tuxedos and gowns at this thing, but the military people are in full dress uniform.”

Our military really do know that they’re public servants. The Obama Administration, not so much. At least she didn’t bother a corpse-man. And if you don't visit today's Day By Day strip (here), you're missing the best laugh you've had in awhile.

ITEM: Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. The New York Time’s executive editor Bill Keller, recently interviewed by Marvin Kalb, had this to say about Fox News: “I think the effect of Fox News on American public life has been to create a level of cynicism about the news in general. It has contributed to the sense that they are all just out there with a political agenda, but Fox is just more overt about it. And I think that’s unhealthy.” Oh well. Newsweek sold for $1.00. I’ll bet the NYT brings at least $2.00. It really is all about location.

ITEM: But Global Warming is Real! Really! The British press continues to provide most of the revealing information on the rapidly disintegrating (melting?) Man-Caused Global Warming hysteria. The British Met Office’s recent press release claiming that 2010 was the hottest year in the last decade has blown up in its face. Doctors Benny Peiser and David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation reviewed the data from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (yes, the very same poster children for scientific mendacity and corruption) which revealed that 2010 was actually cooler than 2005 and 1998 and no warmer than 2003. In response the Met Office replied: “Sputter, sputter, choke! I’m melting! I’m melting!” OK, so I made that last part up. Complain to Al Gore.

ITEM: And speaking of the Goracle...Mr. Gore, inventor of the internet and savior of the planet by means of selling carbon credits by which he has purchased a home that uses more electricity in a single month than some third world countries (OK, so I’m exaggerating a bit, but not by much) and a 100 foot (ONE HUNDRED FOOT?!) houseboat (HOUSEBOAT?! The trailer must be truly epic. What do you pull that with? A D-9 Caterpillar?), sayeth: “As it turns out, the scientific community...say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-mad global warming.” And Dr. David Viner of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit--those merry pranksters who have done so much to shoot global warming--and themselves--in the foot, recently predicted that within a few years, winter snows would be “a very rare and exciting event,” and “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” As England, and now America have been blanketed with record snows, one might be tempted to ask Mr. Gore and Dr. Viner “how’s that AGW workin’ out for you?” At last report, British children are still able to correctly identify snow with a single guess.

ITEM: And the winners of the Louis Renault Award for this edition of Quick Takes are: Anyone who is shocked, shocked! that a San Francisco Supervisor would behave like an America-loathing Marxist. I speak, of course, of newly elected Supervisor Jane Kim who refuses to recite the pledge of Allegiance. “I don’t think our flag represents a nation where there’s liberty and justice for all,” spake Kim, who announced her intention to let her actions--actually her inaction--speak louder than “those 31 words.” And this has happened in San Francisco, the home of Nancy Pelosi? Who’da thunk it?

ITEM: Good on ‘em! Five South Dakota legislators--it’s unknown if they were taking the advice of the brilliant and delicious Ann Coulter--have introduced a bill that would require all South Dakotans to buy a firearm upon reaching 21. The bill is, of course, tongue-in-cheek, and a commentary on the ObamaCare insurance mandate. Their point is apt: If the Federal Government can force you to buy insurance, there is no limit to its power to force you to buy other consumer goods, such as GM cars or GE products. Mr. Obama would never even think of doing something like that--would he?

ITEM: On January 31, President Obama announced his support for jihadist terror organizations--such as the Muslim Brotherhood--to have “a role” in a new Egyptian government. Oh dear. OK Mr. Obama, for the last time: Democracy and peace--GOOD. Murderous, medieval, Islamist sub-human, raping, bombing, head-removing thugs--BAD. BAD means not inviting them to the White House. Now write that on the board 100 times.

ITEM: I’m Not A Narcissist! From Mr. Obama’s repetitious, bland, mercifully brief, Kumbaya statement on Egypt: “My administration...,” “...I know that...,” “So I want...,” “I also call...,”  ‘I just spoke...,” “...I told him...,” “When I was in Cairo, shortly after I was elected President, I said...” It’s not all about Obama. Repeat as needed.

ITEM: And in the Indispensable Lessons In Civics Department, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-Chuck Schumer), this week enumerated the three branches of American government: The House, the Senate, and the presidency. As Dr. Evil would say, “riiiiight.” The three branches, are actually, of course: Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, and the SEIU.

ITEM: Oh yes! The Gurkhas serving in the British military have long held a reputation for courage and ferocity seldom equalled in the annals of warfare, and with good reason. Recently in Nepal, Bishnu Shrestha, a 35 year-old Gurkha soldier was riding on a train when it was attacked by forty bandits armed with knives, swords and guns. They had him outnumbered and surrounded--poor bastards. Shrestha watched and waited until the bandits began to rape an 18 year old girl, and then he demonstrated why the enemies of the Gurkhas have always feared their Kukris (long, curved combat knives). Drawing his Kukri, Shrestha killed three, injured eight and sent the rest (29!) fleeing for their lives despite sustaining a serious knife wound to his left hand. Goodness and honor live--just not in Washington DC. Shrestha is an example of humanity’s best.

And on that happy note, thanks for dropping by, and I’ll see you next Thursday!

Posted by MikeM at 03:17 AM | Comments (4)

February 01, 2011

The Mentally Ill and Unintended Consequences

The good folks at Pajamas Media have posted my most recent article on the unintended consequences of involuntary commitment laws and their history. It can be found here.

I've included a bit of history about how we came to be in a relatively sorry state in terms of public safety and the treatment of the truly mentally ill. It may be worth your time.

Posted by MikeM at 01:42 AM | Comments (2)

January 28, 2011

From a Dictator, to Something Worse

Like much of the rest of the world I'm drawn to the growing unrest in Egypt. It appears that the events are approaching critical mass, and that Hosni Mubarak's dictatorial rule may be coming to an end.

The collapse of any dictatorship is something all humanity should celebrate, but we need to remind ourselves that those that may replace the existing dictator are more bloodthirsty than the tyrant they replace.

The Muslim Brotherhood is likely to take control of Egypt if Mubarak falls. The Brotherhood is the ideological home and is the birthplace of the ideology that brought us Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. Coptic Christians, already under siege from radical Islamists, could face an attempted genocide if the Brotherhood comes to power and let's loose their fundamentalist followers.

Like Afghanistan under the Taliban, Egypt could easily become a terrorist state and a threat to the United States.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:16 AM | Comments (5)

January 27, 2011

A Blind Spot for Mass Murder

Media Matters utterly failed in their attempts to smear Tea Partiers in recent weeks, as they attempted to blame the group for the actions of Jared Loughner.

Going back to the same dry well again, they are now trying to blame the Tea Party for the death of Brisenia Flores, the daughter of an alleged drug-dealer gunned down by criminal extremists attempting to rob drug dealers to support vigilante border control operations.

Was Shawna Forde an extremist when to comes to stopping illegal immigration? It certainly appears so. Is a she a murderer? Her trial should answer that question soon enough. Does she represent Tea Party values?

Of course not, despite the propagandists at Media Matters trying to imply otherwise.

It is interesting that Media Matters has be able to come up with the most flimsy of excuses to hold an entire nationwide group of normal people responsible for murder, while somehow turning a blind eye to the mass murders that occurred directly as a result of the ideologies they support.

Don't expect for these accomplices to have a cross word to say about Stalin or Che, and don't expect them to spend any time lamenting the hundreds of newborn babies killed by serial killer Kermit Gosnell and his staff. One of the most prolific mass murderers in America, he somehow can't be seen by Will Bunch, Eric Boehlert, or Oliver Willis.

Eugenics and infanticide are embraced by the Left; hug a tree, but kill a child. If he wasn't dead, Menegle would fit right in with this Soros-paid bunch of socialist sociopaths.

These loathsome creatures would indict hundreds of thousands for the murders actions of one, but can't find a cross word to say about one who killed hundreds or thousands. They seem intent on reserving themselves seats in Hell... a curious goal for a group that doesn't care about truth and justice in this world, or apparently, the next.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:22 PM | Comments (5)

Quick Takes, January 27, 2011

ITEM: In the “oh man, is this cool or what?” department, the US Navy has transformed promising theory into more promising reality by successfully testing the proof of concept hardware for the Free Electron Laser (FEL) program at Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. This could be an enormous step forward over current laser technology which requires either enormous quantities of chemicals or huge electric generating plants to produce beams of sufficient power and range. According to the Navy, a FEL laser can be adapted to deal with cloud cover, precipitation or humidity, all significant issues for any ship-born system. The research team expects to have a full power prototype, capable of instantly shooting targets out of the sky by 2018. Godspeed and hurry up.

ITEM: Here we go again. Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) took office promising to, once and for all, produce indisputable proof that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. However Abercrombie has not been able to produce the actual, long form birth certificate. According to Dr. Jerome Corsi on WorldNetDaily (story here), Abercrombie said the issues will have “political implications for the 2012 election that we simply cannot have.” So has he produced the birth certificate? Not quite. He said that to date, only some sort of unspecified “listing” or “notation” of Obama’s birth has been located in the Hawaii Department of Health archives. Abercrombie said “It was actually written, I am told, this is what our investigation is showing, it actually exists in the archives, written down.” Uh huh. We don’t want to reignite another birther outbreak, but wait: Abercrombie has done that himself, and who can’t produce their own birth certificate anyway? Sheesh.

UPDATE: Now Gov. Abercrombie’s office has announced that his quest for the holy birth certificate will end in failure. Apparently the Gov. has discovered that state law prevents the release of such records--if they exist--without the approval of the individual involved. This raises several questions: Why can’t/won’t Mr. Obama authorize the release and end this issue once and for all? Why did the Gov. Bring this up in the first place? Didn’t someone on his staff have a clue about privacy laws? And the most important question: What’s wrong with that guy? Were evil, Obama-hating right-wingers beaming anti-Obama rays into his brain when he wasn’t wearing his tinfoil hat? In any case, I’m sure this whole episode will clear up the birther issue...double sheesh.

UPDATE OF THE UPDATE: Four days later, here we go again, again. Journalist Mike Evans, a long time friend of Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie, has now recanted his story that Abercrombie told him that he could not find Barack Obama’s original, long form birth certificate anywhere in Hawaii records (here). Evans now claims that he never spoke to Abercrombie and that he “misspoke.” Good grief. How do you make a mistake about whether you actually spoke to someone? Either you did or you didn’t. If you didn’t, you have nothing to say about what they said. And why was Abercrombie foozling around for weeks making repeated statements about what appeared to be an epic quest to try to find something that should have taken a single phone call and a 10 minute records search to locate? And people wonder why this issue won’t go away. One could easily be forgiven for thinking that Abercrombie and Evans were “persuaded” to recant and shut up. That is certainly a standard and often used Obamite tactic. I’m no birther, but Mr. Obama has the power--always has had it--to make this go away at will by producing the genuine article for verification by an independent authority. That he continues to keep so much of his past tightly under wraps only contributes to this continuing rodeo. Yee-hah!

ITEM: Who says that Obama Foreign policy hasn’t accomplished anything except derailing the Middle East Peace Process? From the Seattle Times, during the State visit of Chinese Premier Hu Jintao, the White House announced the dramatic signing of a new deal for the sale of 200 Boeing civilian airliners worth 19 billion to China. Hope! Change! Smart Diplomacy! Economic progress! Not so much. The actual deal involves already secured orders from as far back as 2007 during the--gasp!--Bush Administration. And 19 billion is only the window sticker price. The Chinese will actually pay only about 11 billion for the aircraft. But other than giving a completely false impression of competence and economic foreign policy acumen, the White House press release was, as Dan Rather surely would have put it, “false but accurate.”

ITEM: And in other feckless foreign policy news, what concessions were “smart diplomacy” and “outreach” able to wring from the Chinese during Hu Jintao’s state visit? None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Dick and Squat. To be fair, the US is in a poor position to demand anything of China due to two years of smart economics, but that--like bad weather, bad breath, indigestion, global warning and acne--is, of course, George W. Bush’s fault. Ooops! No, sorry! These days it’s Sarah Palin’s fault! Former NYT columnist Leslie Gelb thinks this a stunning success. She writes: “On the plus side, Obama restored much of America’s credibility for being tough and serious that he had lost in Bejing a year ago. That’s important and will count as problems arise in the next two years.” Well thank goodness! And I thought Mr. Obama was simply incompetent. Silly me.

ITEM: And the hits just keep on coming! Via The Epoch Times, via Ann Althouse (here), at the White House state dinner honoring Hu Jintao, Chinese pianist Lang Lang (I didn’t know Pandas could play the piano!) played a Chinese propaganda song from the Korean War era that insults America. Ms. Althouse quoted Yang Jingduan, a Chinese psychiatrist now living in Philadelphia who had been a doctor in the chinese military: “In the eyes of all Chinese, this will not be seen as anything other than a big insult to the U.S....It’s like insulting you in your face and you don’t know it, it’s humiliating...” Does anyone at the Obama State Department know anything about, you know, affairs of state? Oh well. At least it’s clear that while the Chinese have no respect for us or fear of us, we make up for it by being seen as a paper tiger.

ITEM: Like a swarm of well dressed locust, more than 200 mayors have descended on Washington famished for federal bailouts, and have apparently been given at least the hope of stripping bare juicy taxpayer crops. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said they had a “great meeting” with Mr. Obama. “What was clear to me, this is a president who is focused on our cities,” he chortled. Uh, am I missing something, or aren’t these the same mayors whose lunatic progressive policies have flushed their cities down the fiscal commode? Give thanks, dear readers, that the entire Congress is no longer controlled by the Progressives. Were that the case, the mayors would be installing money pipelines directly to DC. Truly, we live in--as the ancient Chinese curse goes--interesting times.

iTEM: And the winners of January’s Captain Louis Renault Award are: The U.S., Russia, France, England, Germany and China, the six powers negotiating with Iran to convince the mad mullahs to stop uranium enrichment. The talks collapsed on January 22 when Iran said: “nanner, nanner nanner,” while simultaneously sticking out its tongue while inserting its thumbs in its ears and wiggling its fingers. Captain Louis Renault, for those not familiar with “Casa Blanca,” was the policeman who was “shocked, shocked” to discover illegal gambling going on in Rick’s Place, just before his gambling winnings were delivered to him.

ITEM: According to MSN, Marc Higgins, 21, of Connecticut has been charged with murder and assault after stabbing Mathew Walton, 21, to death, and stabbing three others, apparently at random. Higgins was angered at a party when some present made fun of his farting. Yes, farting. He left and returned with two knives and began attacking people indiscriminately. According to the Hartford Courant, Higgins told police that he wanted to teach people that they shouldn’t “trifle” with him. No doubt Higgins was inspired by Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Republicans trying to repeal ObamaCare, the Tea Party and those guys selling Ginsu knives on late night TV. The usual suspects will surely introduce a bill to limit the number of blades and accessories available in Swiss Army knives. I’ve always been worried about the destructive potential of those little toothpick thingies. I do have one pertinent question: How is it possible to have killed or injured anyone without a 30 round magazine? I don’t get it...

ITEM: So Sarah Palin is unelectable? She’s inexperienced, she’s...you name it, as long as it’s derogatory. It doesn’t take much reading of the Founders to discover that they well knew that a professional political class could arise--and would be a disaster. They hoped that our elected representatives would come from the general public, serve their limited time in the Congress, and return to real lives. How then could anyone be elected to Congress without massive prior experience? By an examination of their character and reputations which tends to help to predict future actions. Interesting, isn’t it, that we’ve become what the Founders feared. By any reasonable standard, they might well have admired a self-made, accomplished, intelligent, strong and successful candidate for national office, a doer, not one to vote “present” to avoid political footprints. And she’s the one who is unelectable... Sigh.

ITEM: A group of 13 Somali pirates in control of a Norwegian-owned ship run by South Koreans off the east coast of Africa received a wake up call from South Korean Naval Special Forces on Jan 21. The operators rescued the 21 man crew, killed eight pirates and captured five. So should it ever be. Congratulations to the South Korean government and to all involved.

ITEM: In the positive negative trends corner, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that labor union membership has dropped from 12.3% of the workforce to 11.9 in 2010. Of 14.7 million union members, 7.6 million are in the public sector. At one time, unions achieved necessary, even noble ends, but those days have long since passed and most unions now exist as greedy, corrupt arms of the Democrat party, arms that have materially contributed to the fiscal plight of many cities and states. With the possibility of doing away with secret ballot elections for union certification now a distant memory, unions justifiably continue to recede into oblivion. While I have no animosity toward hard working Americans (I are one), unionized or otherwise, it’s hard to feel anything but relief at these statistics.

ITEM: The State of The Union Pep Rally and Insomnia Cure! For my article on that epic event--or whatever it was--go here.

ITEM: Well, that sucks! According to Fox News, a 44-year old New Zealand woman made her way to the emergency department of an Auckland hospital complaining of a loss of movement in her left arm. Doctors traced the problem to a hickey on her neck near a major artery and concluded that the suction effect of the hickey bruised the artery, dislodging a clot which caused a minor stroke. The doctors administered an anti-coagulant and the woman recovered. Who’da thunk it? Mom was right about hickeys after all!

And on that warm and fuzzy note, thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you next time!

Posted by MikeM at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2011

GUTLESS: No Leadership in Either Party

If you are 40 years old or younger, you will never collect a dime from Social Security. Odds are that you will not receive any benefits from Medicare, or Medicaid, either. All three entitlement programs will have collapsed into nothingness.

This is a mathematical certainty that neither the Democratic nor Republican speakers would address last night. President Barack Obama incredibly called for more spending in his second State of the Union Address, apparently learning nothing of the abject failure of his policies issued since his first SOTU.

Wonkish Paul Ryan could not bring himself to address the proximate pachyderms either in his Republican response to the President's address.

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are dead men walking. They cannot be saved. Pretending otherwise, and letting the American people believe that entitlements go on forever is the greatest of disservices. It is poor consolation that neither party with survive the inevitable collapse.

Update: Social Security is officially broke. That took even less time than I thought!

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:12 PM | Comments (3)

A SOTU Analysis As Dignified as the SOTU

Mr. Obama’s hair is back to dignified, adult gray, not quite as gray as at the Tucson Memorial, but it now appears that he’ll change his hair--as well as his rhetoric--to suit the occasion. Bets on Vegas betting lines on the issue?

He has invoked Tucson/Rep. Giffords twice within the first few minutes. He wouldn’t be using a tragedy to score cheap political points, would he? Well, he did simultaneously invoke the “dreams” of the 9 year old girl who was killed, but that’s not cynical or anything. I wonder if they handed out t-shirts tonight too?

He’s observing that “...the public have determined that both parties will NOW work together.” Hmm. I think they “determined” that a long time ago, but Mr Obama and the Dems told them “I won,” and “elections have consequences,” didn’t they?

Ah! It’s not about the next election, but jobs! That must be why official unemployment is about 9.8% (certainly higher in reality). Mr. Obama, who is in perpetual campaign mode, would certainly never even think, let alone pursue, anything else when jobs hang in the balance.

He keeps harping on “together.” “...thanks to the tax cuts WE passed in December...” WE passed tax cuts? I thought that fell into the category of the Dems and Mr. Obama grudgingly agreeing not to RAISE taxes, not to allow the single largest tax increase in American history to automatically occur, only because the public was holding an electoral gun to their heads (it’s a metaphor! I’m not encouraging holding an electoral gun--whatever that is--to anyone’s head, let alone shooting them with it, which might get them elected to an office they didn’t want, or something) and it would plunge America into bankruptcy so fast that Obama wouldn’t have a chance at reelection. It didn’t have anything to do with actually cutting taxes, did it?

Ah! The steps he has taken over the last two years have “...broken the back of the recession!” Will miracles never cease? Is there nothing that The One cannot do?! I doubt many Americans outside the Dem. side of the Beltway would share that opinion. I mean that he actually did anything to fix the economy and that the recession has had any part even mildly bruised to date. He’ll harp on this throughout the speech which will last about 75 minutes. He is persistent, particularly when he’s dead wrong and lying to the public...

I’ll never understand why some people think the man a modern Demosthenes. I’ve taught college and high school speech. On his best day, I’d give him a B; most days, no more than a C. He’s completely dependent upon a teleprompter, his vocal rhythms and inflections never change, and his pitch and volume fall, as off a cliff, at the ends of most sentences or phrases. His gestures are limited, stilted and stereotypical, and if he doesn’t suffer nerve damage from his constant left-right-left, head movement, reminiscent of a cheap fan, I’ll be amazed. He probably still thinks that when he does that, the public believes that he’s making eye contact and meaningfully connecting with the audience rather than reading from the teleprompter screens.

Tonight, particularly during the first half of the speech, he’s halting, unsure, pausing too much at the wrong times. Is he just having trouble reading? Didn’t practice enough, or is the script scrolling at the wrong speed or in a jerky fashion? Hard to tell, but he’s a bit more clumsy than usual.

Uh-oh. Here it comes: We have to “...out-innovate, out-educate-outbuild the rest of the world.” Now comes the “investing...”

So that’s how we’ve always done it! It was Joe Biden who claimed that government was behind virtually every important advancement practically ever. Mr. Obama tells us that the government will encourage innovation and will “...spark the creativity and imagination of our people.” He doesn’t specifically say we’ll have to “invest” in that sparking, but that’s the point, of course. I always thought the American people did that quite well without government help, but apparently Ben Franklin, Henry Ford, Jonas Salk, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and countless others would have been helpless absent massive government “investment” support. Silly me.

Double Uh-oh. Now he’s invoking the race to the moon. Ah, of course! We have to “invest” in research and innovation. And what will that be, pray tell? Biomedicine, information tech, and “...especially clean energy.” Finally! It rears its feeble head!

Let’s see, clean energy will improve our security, it will save the planet and “create countless new jobs,” just like all of the clean energy jobs that have been created the last two years, you know, like all the shovel ready jobs the President finally admitted didn’t exist...oh.

NEWSFLASH: We’re going to “break our dependency on oil with biofuels.” Oh, like ethanol? Right. It makes food scarce, actually starves people in the third world, has only about 80% of the power of gasoline, is corrosive to engines, and requires huge government subsidies to exist at all. Other than that, sure, we’ll be awash in biofuels any day now! Didn’t the DeLorean in one of the “Back to the Future” Movies run on banana peels?

NEWSFLASH: By 2015, we’ll have one million electric vehicles on the roads! Yup. On the roadsides; out of electricity.

How are we going to accomplish these wonders? More “investment?” Nah. We’re going to cut all of the money we’re giving the oil companies and give it to clean energy companies. There will be “...no subsidies for yesterday’s energy,” no sir! We’re going to “...invest in tomorrow!” Well, he did promise to make energy prices skyrocket. That ought to get it off the launching pad.

WE HAVE A GOAL! By 2035, 80% of our energy will come from clean energy sources. Even the Dems in the chamber can’t produce any more than tepid and very brief applause at that whopper. He does give lip service to wind, solar (which promises to produce up to 2% of our energy needs--intermittently), “clean coal” and “nuclear” sources, but of course he isn’t allowing any permitting for nuclear plants and has sworn to destroy the coal industry and is making good on his promise just as fast as he can. He also knows that he can count on his environmentalist allies to tie up any such projects in years of lawsuits. But it won’t be so bad. By 2035 we might have access to say, an hour of electricity a day? Perhaps it will even be at night! Oh goodie!

Tepid and halting applause is the order of the day. I mean weak applause, lasting only a few seconds, is the norm, not the exception, and much of it is accompanied by obvious groans, moans, and even booing, as when he announces that he’ll replace No Child Left Behind (may it suffer the torments of the damned) with “Race To The Top,” which, as far as I can tell, is a program primarily designed to reward unions and union members for putting on shiny PR faces. That one really did’t impress anybody in the chamber. Even the smug Cheshire Cat grin on Mr. Biden’s face faded a bit--quite the accomplishment.

Some of the biggest applause came when he praised teachers, saying that we should respect them more. He even went so far as to suggest that he’s all for local control of education. Uh-huh. I’ll buy that one as soon as he abolishes the Department of Education.

Uh-oh. Here it comes: “Higher education” must be “in the reach of all Americans.” Apparently whether they want it or not. That’s why, he tells us, he took over the student loan business from that infamous Enemy of the People, the greedy banks! That doesn’t impress the crowd either. By the end of the decade, we’re going to have “the highest proportion of college graduates in the world!” Whether they want to or not! I guess the American people are just too dumb to know whether they want or need to go to college. I withdraw my suggestion that we do away with the Department of Education. That one impresses them a bit more, but not much.

IMMIGRATION NON-ENFORCEMENT DEPARTMENT: We need to address the issue--in a bi-partisan way, of course--because if we don’t then all of the “undocumented workers” who graduate from college will leave America and compete against us and that would be bad and wrong--or something. We’re kicking out people who would otherwise work in “research labs,” or “open a small business,” or something. And we’re going to work together--just like Mr. Obama and the Dems have been doing for years now--to “protect our borders,” and to “enforce our laws.” That one really didn’t impress the crowd. Apparently acknowledgement and disapproval of hypocrisy and blatant lying is back in fashion in the Congress, at least for tonight. Even the Dems couldn’t come up with much enthusiasm for this.

RAILWAYS TO NOWHERE: So that’s how we’ll do it! We’re going to invest untold gazillions in high speed rail and high speed internet. He’s not giving specific numbers tonight, but he wants to spend--I mean “invest”--lots. Now he’s comparing us to China (again--he’ll do that a bunch tonight) and Europe, and as always for him, we’re not looking very good. I don’t know. I just don’t hear that clamor for high speed rail in restaurants and coffee shops. You just don;t hear that many folks pining for the direct, high speed rail route from DesMoines to New Orleans. But Amtrak has been such a stunning success. We’ve only lost...how many hundreds of billions subsidizing it? But Joe Biden used to ride it, so that makes it...a government boondoggle?

Ah-hah! I knew it! The last two years we’ve been rebuilding America! Mr. Obama’s policies have created “thousands of jobs for the hard hit construction industry.” Well, maybe making signs advertising all of those “shovel ready” jobs, which Mr. Obama, last October, admitted didn’t ever, actually, you know...exist.
He really must think that the American people are complete idiots.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! Yes! All of this will be “completely paid for...” and he doesn’t really say how, exactly. Fairy dust, apparently.

WE HAVE ANOTHER GOAL!! Yes! In 25 years, 80% of Americans will have “access to high speed rail!” In some instances, it will be “faster than flying.” At his point, Mr. Obama took the kind of brave, forward looking, progressive excursion off the teleprompter for which we love him so much and quipped that it would be faster than flying “...without the pat downs.” I’ll bet that was part of the script. So did the crowd, who, for the most part, groaned--not at all happy-making sounds in the house. Mr. Biden thought it was hilarious. Perhaps he has the Secret Service “pat him down” whenever he flies on a government plane? Good times; good memories. Speaker Boehner, sitting to Mr. Biden’s left, was less than amused. He flies commercial. So do we. But wait a minute! Couldn’t Mr. Obama do something about those “pat downs?” He’s the President after all, and...oh. Never mind.

SO THAT’S HOW IT HAPPENED! Want to know how the tax code got so screwed up, so “rigged,” as Mr. Obama put it? That’s right. It was another Enemy of the People: Lobbyists! They did it. Would that be the plethora of lobbyists Mr. Obama solemnly swore never to employ, but did anyway? He tells us we have the highest corporate tax rates in the world. That’s the first point truth has put on the scoreboard tonight! Bring out the cheerleaders! He observes that it “makes no sense.” But wait a minute...he’s the POTUS. Couldn’t he have done something about that during the last two years...what? Oh. He did? He made it worse? On purpose? Right.

So how is he going to fix things? He’s going to “simplify,” “close loopholes,” and “lower the corporate tax rate.” Well if it was that easy, why hasn’t he done it before? He’s been POTUS for more than two years, and...oh. Never mind.

Hey! He’s done some deals with China that will “support” 250,000 jobs. Support with what? How? When? Is that the same as actually having 250,000 real, actual, you work and someone pays you money for more than a week, jobs in the private sector that actually contribute to wealth and the tax base, or is that like pseudo-medicines on late night TV that “support prostate health,” or give you erections that last for more than four hours so you have to call a doctor right away, and what’s the deal with two apparently naked people reclining in two cold, separate bathtubs out on the tundra anyway? I dunno, but at least it’s more entertaining than this speech...

Oh, and we have some sort of deal or something with Korea that will support, or create, or provoke, or annoy “7000 jobs,” or something.

WELL, THIS ONE GOT AT LEAST SOME APPLAUSE: He’s going to ruthlessly root out unnecessary regulations that are “burdens on business.” Apparently the same business that he has been ruthlessly trying to run out of business for two years (like the insurance industry?) and calling to the White House to threaten. Ah, but there’s a caveat, you see! He will also rigorously enforce “common sense safeguards that protect the American people.” What one hand giveth, the other taketh away, even more so. Hey, but didn’t he just create, with ObamaCare, so many new regulations and disincentives and new costs for business that he could remove old 100 regulations a day from now until eternity and still have so many regulations that, if stacked end on end, would reach all the way to, well, eternity? Yup. He really does think we’re morons.

WELL THANK GOD--I MEAN, THE ONE. He saved us all from another evil Enemy of the People! Mr. Obama “passed reform that finally prevents the health insurance industry (cue the sinister, evil insurance industry cackling track) from exploiting patients!” But wait a minute: Aren’t some 80%+ of the public happy with their current level of insurance industry “exploitation?” And isn’t the “reform” he’s talking about ObamaCare? You know, the takeover of health care that will, by itself, bankrupt the nation and bring us the wonders of socialized medicine that has Canadians fleeing over the northern border every day to avoid? The reaction of the crowd: Mild, unenthusiastic Dem. clapping, and annoyed and angry muttering and thinly veiled imprecations from the rest of the chamber. Looks like at least some of the Dems have been listening to voices of The People--the bastards.

On the positive side, Mr. Obama will go along with doing away with businesses having to file with the IRS whenever they do $600 in trade with anyone. That was just one of simply loads of little, unrelated to health care surprises in the 2700 page bill, you know, the one Ex-Speaker of the House (it feels soooooo good to say that) Pelosi said we’d have to pass before we could learn its contents? Rumor has it that another little known part of the law requires all Americans to wear organic lettuce in their underwear, but to wear it on the outside so Department of Agriculture Inspectors can check. That should “save or create” some federal jobs.

And Mr. Obama is not going to “re-fight the battles of the last two years” over health care. Wait a minute...what battle? Didn’t the Dems just steamroller that one against the wishes of the American people? Anyway, he wants to “fix what needs fixing and move forward.” Yeah. Into bankruptcy and the glories of socialized medicine. Swell. At least the crowd caught on and responded with tiny applause and a cacophony of boos and catcalls.

GOOD NEWS! He said it lots of times, so it must be true: The worst of the recession is over! Remember how he broke its back earlier? And did you know that the government “spends more than it takes in,” and that that “is not sustainable?” He even said--stop laughing right now! I mean it!--that “government should live within its means.! I wonder who told Mr. Obama? Does he believe anything he reads on the teleprompter? Do the people who write it?

So, he’s going to freeze domestic spending for the next five years! That will save “500 billion” in a decade. So that’s what? Two hundred fifty billion in five years? So why did he say a decade? But wait a minute, he’s racked up four trillion+ (that we know of) new debt in just two years, and that’s not counting ObamaCare, so if we freeze at current levels, we’ll still be in the hole by numbers understandable only by astronomers and math geeks, and that doesn’t count ObamaCare. So that isn’t actually “saving” anything...? Yup. He thinks we’re total idiots. The audience gets it too. One or two claps forlornly echo. Maybe there is some hope for at least some Dems...Naaaah!

We’re also going to cuts billions out of the Defense Budget, but only for things the military really doesn’t need. The camera focuses on Defense Secretary Gates. He is not overflowing with enthusiasm. Mr. Obama will “listen to proposals” for reducing the deficit, but “not on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.” You know, like labor unions, General Electric, Fannie and Freddie, ACORN or whatever they call themselves today... I somehow suspect that any substantive cuts suggested by Republicans will be quickly discovered to be on the backs of our “most vulnerable citizens.”

LESSONS IN POLITICAL HUMOR: Thus far, Mr. Obama has tried to make several jokes. They’ve all fallen flat. Even the Dems aren’t laughing. Rodney Dangerfield he isn’t.

WHAT? Mr. Obama is going to “cut spending through tax breaks and loopholes.” Uh...right. No one in the house has any idea what he’s talking about. Even the bobble-heads who have been consistently bobbling all night when Mr. Obama so much as blinks are confused and momentarily stop bobbling.

Of course. He trots out the blatant falsehood that repealing ObamaCare will somehow cost the nation a quarter of a trillion dollars. Right. Fail to spend untold trillions and that will cost a quarter of a trillion that isn’t being spent. Perhaps he learned that while he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. You know, the one for which he really didn’t edit or write anything? But he will “look at” malpractice lawsuit reform. Hasn’t he promised to “look at” a great many things? And hasn’t he, having “looked,” immediately returned to the socialist path of the glorious revolution? Thought so.

Of course, of course. We have to have a “bi-partisan solution” to “strengthen Social Security for the future,” but “without slashing benefits for future generations,” or relying on the “stock market.” But no one is suggesting cuts for those currently in the system...Oh, right. He won’t authorize any cuts for anyone, ever! And no involvement of another running dog Enemy of the People, the stock market, which by the way, he bragged has rebounded! So I guess they’re not so evil, or maybe they are, or something...

YET ANOTHER ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! “We can’t afford a permanent extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.” Oh, you mean that 2% that pay the majority of all income taxes instead of the 50% who don’t pay any? That 2%? The 2% whom you have determined have reached the point where they made enough money?

I GUESS HE REALLY IS THE SMARTEST MAN IN THE WORLD! Mr. Obama has discovered that it would be a good idea to “simplify the tax code.” Genius. And it only took him two years to figure it out! The camera pans to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-Brady Campaign). He is smirking the smirk to end all smirks, which is extra-smirky even for him, and he’s the smirk-meister. I know exactly what he’s thinking: “Yeah, like THAT’S going to happen!”

NOW HE’S THE SMARTEST MAN IN THE UNIVERSE! Mr. Obama has also discovered the necessity of “reorganizing government.” He make his point by providing the example of the salmon who are under the jurisdiction of one federal agency when in salt water, but another when in fresh water. Then he does it. He makes a drug joke, well, sort of. He says, “and I understand it’s even worse when they’re smoked!” Odd, unsettled sounds rebound about the chamber. He grins like a dim witted freshman fraternity pledge, waiting for the audience to “get it.” I’m waiting for him to say, “when they’re smoked, you know, smoked? Get it?” but he somehow avoids it. Some of them actually gasp and titter nervously as he soaks in the adulation that really isn’t there. Embarrassed laughter, groans, and rolling eyes throughout the house. What dignity and decorum. He has class and style, that one. I wonder if it was an ad-lib or actually part of the script. Which would be worse? Ten points for a correct answer.

And we’re going to get even more government transparency from the most transparent administration in history! Did you know I have a bridge for sale in San Francisco Harbor? Must be seen to be appreciated! Call 1-800...

Mr. Obama is going to veto all bills that contain earmarks. Mr. Biden is convulsed with laughter. I had no idea vetoing earmarks was such a laugh riot. Mr. Boehner looks like, maybe, he wants to cry.

Mr. Obama is promising a “...new level of engagement in our foreign affairs,” and swearing that we will “defeat determined enemies wherever they are...” Sounds good. It’s just kind of a shame that he can’t tell the difference between our enemies and our allies and particularly that he gets them exactly mixed up. I’m expecting a declaration of war against England any day now, particularly since he wasn’t invited to the wedding. I bet they were afraid of getting another iPod with his speeches again, or maybe more cheesy movies that don’t play on European DVD players.

By this point I’m struck by the realization that Mr. Obama almost sounds like an American President who is actually, you know, on America’s side. He’s making lots of patriotic noises this evening and talking about how swell America is and Americans are, even, apparently all those God and gun clingers who hate everyone who isn’t like them. Sad that our expectations of our President have sunk so low that one the rare and fleeting occasions when he actually behaves like an American President, it’s noteworthy. He continues to live down to our expectations.

AH, SO THAT’S WHO THEY ARE! “American Muslims are a part of our American family.” Well sure, all of those who don’t want to practice Sharia and aren’t trying to kill or convert every infidel by force, anyway. This one was multi-culti and diverse enough to get a standing ovation, by most of the Dems and some Republicans. Sigh.

COMEDY GOLD DEPARTMENT” Mr. Obama is now talking tough on terrorism. His inspired leadership has the terrorists on the run in Pakistan. Well, with the help of the Pakistani intelligence agency, sure. And the START treaty was a great accomplishment that will “lock down nuclear weapons” so they “won’t fall into the hands of terrorists.” Oh, the great accomplishment so great the Russian Duma won’t pass it? And now that you mention nucs falling into terrorist hands, what about the Iranians? Well, we have “tougher sanctions on Iran than ever before!” That’ll scare them a whole bunch more than all of the tougher sanctions we’ve had on them before these tougher sanctions before the previously tough sanctions. And what about the North Koreans? Well, Mr. Obama is continuing to keep “insisting that the North Koreans give up their nuclear weapons.” I suppose they’ll just shell another South Korean island or torpedo another South Korean ship in the face of such forceful, manly insistence. Perhaps if, instead of giving them billions as we usually do when they kill people, Mr. Obama threatens “tough sanctions?”

FOREIGN DISENTANGLEMENTS: In March Mr. Obama is traveling to to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador to “forge new alliances” in our backyard. He didn’t say whether he was going to continue to order the State Department to pressure Honduras to reinstate their lawfully, constitutionally deposed Marxist ex-president. Also no word on the mutual defense pact between Iran and Venezuela or all of the MANPADS Iran sold them, or the medium range, nuc-capable missiles Iran will soon install in Venezuela.

Mr. Obama also “stands with Tunisia,” and “supports the democratic aspirations of people everywhere.” He almost sounds Kennedyesque for a second, but only for a second. Yes, he’ll bear any burden to fight for liberty, except in, for instance, Iran, or Tunisia, or pretty much anywhere in Africa, or Georgia--not the state, the country, but come to think of it, he wouldn’t defend them either--or well, just about anywhere. But he’ll absolutely “stand with” them. If they can make it to DC, and if he can fit it into his schedule, if he isn’t golfing, or on the campaign trail, or on vacation, or working on the new civility, that is.

WELL, HE JUST HAD TO SLAP SOMEBODY IN THE FACE! Last year it was the Supreme Court (only five of the nine were present tonight), and this year--drum roll please Maestro--The Joint Chiefs of Staff! Mr. Obama pays ritual lip service to our troops and their families and promises fidelity, yaddah, yaddah. The troops know the difference between a POTUS who actually respects them and one who sees them primarily as props for photo opportunities. But he gamely speaks the words to polite applause. And then he makes a troop related announcement that is REALLY important: That’s right: Gays will now be able to serve openly! Dems go wild. Republicans are still, silent, or polite. The camera focuses on the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are doing their best to impersonate Mount Rushmore, but it’s not hard to imagine what they’re thinking, and it’s not fit for even this scruffy little blog. Oh yes, and he calls on colleges to embrace ROTC, not like he’s actually planning on enforcing the law or anything to make that happen. He certainly hasn’t to this point. But to be fair, I’m sure that Mr. Holder has been very busy trying to secure soccer tournaments to provide important jobs for millions of those in the badly depressed New Black Panther voter threatening, hotdog, peanut and beer service industries.

QUICK! A GLASS OF WATER! I’M GAGGING! Now he does it. He’s actually praising our democratic system, you know, the one he swore to “fundamentally change?” The one that he, and the Dems, ran like a tinpot dictatorship for the last two years, cutting Republicans completely out of the legislative process and ramming through legislation that a clear majority of the public opposed? That democratic system? The one full of evil business Enemies of the People, who he now, by the way, embraces and wants to “spark” with “investment.” Hey! I’ll bet THAT’S why he hired GE’s CEO! They have lots of sparks there! I have a sneaking suspicion that “investment” is a code word for spending ludicrous amounts of borrowed money that we don’t have and haven’t a prayer of paying back, but I guess I’ll have to take Mr. Obama at face value...

Oh yes, and he’s observing that “we all still believe in the rights enshrined in our Constitution,” that is, unless, you know, any of them might be, sort of, well, inconvenient, or you know, stand in the way of righteous Progressive...progress, then I guess “we all,” doesn’t REALLY include Mr. Obama and the Dems, because after all, the Constitution is a “living document,” which Progressives seemed determined to kill at the earliest possible opportunity, but it’s a nice sentiment, even if it’s one that no one with an IQ larger than their shoe size believes Mr. Obama really means. The crowd wildly applauds on the “applaud the principle, not the man, principle.

And now he’s calling America “the greatest nation on Earth.” Wait a minute...Didn’t he used to say that on the campaign trail, but add: “... and I need you to help me fundamentally change it?” Why yes, I believe he did. Wouldn’t that be kind of...contradictory?

And now he’s talking about the “ordinary people who dare to dream.” He’s invoking the majesty of the little people! All the haters and God and gun clingers in flyover country! Before he asks God to bless America, he virtually shouts that “we do big things!” Indeed. Like destroying the finest medical system ever known to man and spending us into oblivion.

SUMMARY:

According to Fox News, the speech was interrupted 80 times by applause, but it was, overall, the most tepid, brief, embarrassing applause I’ve ever seen at the annual national pep rally...ooops! I mean at a State of the Union speech. Despite the fact that every time Mr. Obama clears his throat or belches, the Media or Obama’s adoring followers (I know, I’m being redundant) proclaim it the greatest speech since the Gettysburg Address, maybe even better, I somehow suspect that somewhat fewer of them are going to praise this one quite so effusively. We’ve all heard it all before, over and over again from the most over-exposed POTUS in American history. It’s a another world’s record! And he doesn’t think he’s explained himself enough to the American people. It’s a problem of “messaging.”

Mr. Obama provided no specifics, no numbers. Many talking heads have wondered if Mr. Obama’s new stances are the result of a genuine Road to Damascus conversion or merely cynical rhetoric masking the same old Socialist drives temporarily tucked under red, white and blue cover. Most are saying that it’s too soon to tell. Nonsense. Much of what Mr. Obama said tonight is the exact opposite of what he has been saying--and doing--all of his life, to say nothing of the last two years. In normal company, in the company of the “ordinary people who dare to dream,” that’s know as “lying.” Progressives call it “messaging.” Mr. Obama messaged the American people up one side and down the other tonight while making it clear that he won’t entertain any real reforms or cut any real costs.

So is this new Barack Obama a political calculation born of political necessity? Is he yet a socialist wolf in centrist clothing waiting for the chance to cast off imperialist chains with a second term? Is rhetoric cheap and easy, but actual change impossible for a committed movement socialist? Do bears play in the woods? Is the Pope a Catholic?

So. Mr. Obama is going to freeze spending, cut defense, reorganize government, reform the tax code, and save simply scads of money--while simultaneously spending more and more scads of money, including not repealing the single largest, bankrupting entitlement/governmental power grab in history. Oh, that's right, he's not going to be "spending money." He's going to be "investing in the future." And he really, really loves and respects America, the troops--particularly if they're gay--and the Constitution and the ordinary people who dare to dream, and exactly how stupid does he think we are again?

Posted by MikeM at 04:39 AM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2011

Live-Tweeting The State of the Union

At @confederateyankee.

Live-blogging is so 2009.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)

Tha-Thump: Browner Under The Bus

You have outlived your usefulness to the One, eco-drone. Be gone!

Carol Browner is leaving her position as White House "energy czar," and a staff shake-up is likely to eliminate her post altogether, according to Democrats familiar with events.

The czar position, and Ms. Browner herself, have been lightning rods for critics of the president's environmental-policy agenda and a reassurance to its supporters, who liked having a top official in the White House devoted to their priorities.

Of course, Browner isn't really gone, she's just playing a bit part in Obama's little passion play. She'll be back wrecking the economy in short order, as she's tied her self worth (and her financial portfolio) to the pursuit of the Green agenda.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:01 AM | Comments (2)

January 24, 2011

Reality Check For the NY Times: Piven's Strategy Inherently Calls for Violence

The New York Times long ago ceased being a news organization, and now exists primarily as a propaganda organ for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. It is no surprise that they no only ignore the violence being called for by leading leftist ideologues, they also try to spin the aggressors into being the victims.

The thing is, the left is calling for socialism, and calling for it via violent action.

Calls for the escalation and manipulation of violent rioting have long been central to Piven's strategy. Her 1977 book with Cloward, Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, detailed the rationale behind the infamous crisis strategy of a decade before. The core argument is that the poor and unemployed are so isolated from the levers of power in America that their greatest potential impact is to withhold "quiescence in civil life: they can riot."

At the heart of the book, Cloward and Piven luxuriously describe instances of "mob looting," "rent riots," and similar disruptions, egged on especially by Communist-party organizers in the 1930s. Many of those violent protests resulted in injuries. A few led to deaths. The central argument of Poor People's Movements is that it was not formal democratic activity but violent disruptions inspired by leftist organizers that forced the first great expansion of the welfare state.

Piven has called for violence her entire career, and did so recently in The Nation.

The socialist Left can lie about the Tea Party being violent and themselves being the victims all the want. That's bull, and we have the truth, spilling from the mouths of their philosophical and "moral" leaders.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:55 AM | Comments (2)

January 23, 2011

My Letter To A Presidential Candidate

Dear Mr. Candidate:

I’ve been following your campaign for awhile, and I might be willing to cast a vote for you. Over the last several decades, I’ve had the chance to live with presidents of both parties, and I’ve a learned a few things, particularly in the last two years. So I have some advice; I hope you’ll listen.

Remember when Rush Limbaugh said that he hoped that Mr. Obama failed? Remember how Progressives went berserk? “How dare he!” They cried. “He wants America to fail!” That situation clearly illustrates our current national dilemma. You see, Progressives equate Mr. Obama and America. They think he is our voice, our face. Some of them even think he’s some kind of a deity, a god who transcends such a petty office as the Presidency of the United States and whose destiny is to remake America in his image. They’re wrong, badly wrong. It's not about the man; it's about his policies.

Mr. Candidate, the President of the United States is nothing more than a man, and someday I have no doubt, a woman. He’s a man hired by We The People, to serve as America’s chief executive. He is not great. He is never worthy of worship. Any greatness that attaches to him is the greatness of the office. He wears it as a fine garment, a garment worn only as long as he holds the office. It, like every other trapping of the office, is something for which he has been allowed, by the people, to temporarily care. The office is great because of the greatness of America and her people, particularly those who have, for more than two centuries, sacrificed so much to build, secure and maintain that greatness.

So while you’re running, and particularly if you are fortunate enough to be trusted to be America’s temporary chief executive, there are some important things you ought to know, and more importantly, believe. I know that some of them will seem, well, elementary, but my experience of the last few years has taught me that some things likely need to be said.

* You must be personally humble. “I” should be a tiny part of your private vocabulary and an even smaller part of your public vocabulary. But in your representation of America’s values and interests, you must be proud, fierce, resolute and honorable, for the people you represent are all of those things and more. Those who are full of hubris never end well, nor does their nation.

* You must believe that America is the greatest, kindest, most free, just and generous nation ever to exist in the tide of time, because, well, because it is.

* You, as did Ronald Reagan, must believe that America is Mankind’s last, best hope, and that if we lose freedom here, there is nowhere left to run. All of your official actions must be informed by this sacred faith.

* Many disdain the idea of a “caretaker” presidency, but you must embrace it. If you are to honor your oath of office, if you are to truly be a public servant, that’s really your most important job--to take care of America. As with the Hippocratic Oath, resolve to do no harm, and leave America better and stronger than she was when you took office. History will take care of itself; you take care of America.

* Your job is also to pursue America’s interests, not those of victim groups, unions, billionaire donors, or those of a fictional, hopelessly utopian one world government.

* The UN does not share America’s interests. You must not share those of the UN.

* Global Warming is the biggest scientific hoax of all time. If you fall for that, you’ll fall for anything.

* When war is necessary, the Commander in Chief must wage it effectively and ruthlessly with speed, violence and overwhelming force. Half measures cost lives. Fight to win or don’t fight at all. The only “exit strategy” is unconditional victory.

* American soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen deserve every bit of support and praise you can give them, that and far more. They know when a POTUS really cares about them, and they know when he values them only as props for photo opportunities. Despite what certain northeastern Senators think, they’re very smart. You don’t find the best and brightest in the Halls of Congress, but on the battlefield. You should thank God for that, Mr. Candidate.

* The POTUS bows to no man, figuratively and literally. This too, is part of our national tradition and faith.

* Evil exists. The leader of the free world is its primary and most important opponent in the world. If you don’t know that, if you can’t act on it, you’re worth nothing.

* The POTUS must know, without the slightest doubt, that socialism, and it’s uglier, more murderous relative--communism--are the eternal, irredeemable enemies of democracy, freedom, and particularly, America. Do I really need to tell you that you should not associate with or appoint people who are socialists, communists, or who admire communist tyrants and mass murderers? Didn’t you mother talk to you about running with bad crowds?

* America’s economic system is capitalism. Its expression is free enterprise. It’s engine is small business and the rest of the private sector. Do you notice that government has no part in that? Do you realize that government can only hinder and interfere?

* Ronald Reagan was also right when he said that the most horrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” He wasn’t kidding. Neither are we.

* You can’t save money by spending more money. You can’t repay loans by borrowing more money. The POTUS doesn't gain the power to alter reality--really.

* Government jobs don’t create wealth, they consume it.

* The POTUS must secure equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. The former encourages self-reliance and builds a strong work ethic; the latter destroys both.

* Fully developing and using America’s natural resources for the benefit of all Americans and for the freedom of the world is not an option but a sacred trust.
To make American’s energy costs “necessarily skyrocket,” is to purposely harm and betray those you are sworn to serve and protect.

* A vibrant free economy inspires innovation, invention and new technologies. Government takeover of industries, unnecessary regulation and taxes do not. Scientific breakthroughs are made by free men, not slaves of government. They are motivated by self-interest as well as altruism and can’t be mandated or bought.

* “Smart diplomacy” is diplomacy that faithfully and relentlessly furthers American interests. Doing otherwise is weakness, stupidity and sometimes, treason.

* The POTUS must know that in defending American interests, he is defending freedom everywhere, and that guiding foreign governments toward greater freedom by example and persuasion is far, far more important than hearing them say they like us. Nations don’t have egos or feelings which can be stroked or hurt. They have interests.

* Mr. Candidate, A POTUS must know that terrorism is warfare, not crime, and must approach it with the utmost resolve and ruthlessness. The terrorists are in it to win. Are you? Will you be?

* A POTUS must believe that he--and all branches of government--have only those powers granted them by the people. He must not cross that line, ever.

* The POTUS must respect all of the Constitution, including all of the Bill of Rights. The Constitution, the rights of Americans, are not entrees on a buffet.

* He must believe that without the right to self defense--including the means to act on it--the other rights are meaningless, so he must see that the Second Amendment is honored, not infringed, everywhere and in every way.

* The second most important right is the right to be left alone by government. Will you do that? Leave us alone?

* Mr. Candidate, never insult the American people. They’re a lot smarter than you imagine, and they have much longer memories than you imagine.

* The American people are more than smart enough to determine if they need or want to go to college.

* A POTUS who does not sometimes doubt that he is up to the job is a fool. If he lets the public, and particularly our enemies, see that doubt, he is a dangerous fool.

* The American people know the difference between competence and justified confidence, and feckless arrogance.

* Teddy Roosevelt was right: The Presidency is a bully pulpit. Use it sparingly and only when it’s important. The people really don’t want to see you more than their favorite TV programs, their children or their spouses.

* When the POTUS is campaigning, he’s not taking care of America.

* A teleprompter is not a substitute for substance. The ability to read a script is not synonymous with intelligence or eloquence.

* When the people rise up against his policies, no POTUS should imagine that it’s a failure of “messaging.” It’s his policies. The people are smarter than you imagine, remember?

* The people believe that words have plain, understandable meanings, in speech and in the law. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

* Any POTUS who does not, every day, take a moment to say in sincere awe, wonder and amazement, “I’m sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office,” is not worthy to be there.

* Any POTUS who thinks anyone owes him anything is a fool. It’s not all about you. It never was and it never will be.

Well Mr. Candidate, that’s about it for now. We both know I could go on and on. The American people know these things. They have a hard time understanding why people like you--politicians--don’t. They figure that politicians are either not too bright, or are criminals, socialists, communists or all four. We’re hungry for a President who actually believes in America and is honored to defend her. We haven’t seen that for a few years. Give what I’ve had to say some thought. Maybe I’ll vote for you. We’ll see if your record and actions match your rhetoric.

Yours,

An American Voter

Posted by MikeM at 11:15 PM | Comments (14)

Media Continues Praising The Terrorist Left

John has a must-read observation up at Powerline about the Left's attempts to demonize conservatives, lionize their own radicals, and control what is deemed "acceptable" public speech.

He highlights the New York Times attempt to doctor the reputation of Frances Fox Piven, a radical socialist activist that helped formulate the Cloward-Piven Plan. In essence, the plan is to destroy capitalism by overwhelming the government with cries for unsustainable entitlements. If this vaguely sounds like the sort of "change" that SEIU, ACORN, the MSM and and the controlling progressive wing of the Democratic Party is advocating, the congratulations; you're onto them.

Barack Obama has been mentored his entire life by radicals the desired to implement the Cloward-Piven strategy. Think I'm exaggerating? Look at his influences.

His mother was a radical leftist and guided his formative years. He was mentored by Frank Marshall Davis, a self-described bisexual child-raping communist with outspoken political ideas. He crossed paths repeatedly with Marxist domestic terrorists and suspected murderers Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, first in New York while a student at Columbia, and later in Chicago. Obama attended the Trinity United Church of Christ for more than 20 years, a church built from the ground up on the quasi-religion of Black Liberation Theology, a bastardized hybrid of 60s black separatism and Marxist liberation theology practiced in South America.

All of these influences embrace the theory that the way to destroy capitalism is to overwhelm the entitlement system, and when viewed from that perspective, is isn't difficult to understand why the progressive left is pushing for programs such as Obamacare that all know we can't afford. They know that such a massive entitlement system with bankrupt the government. They are counting on it.

The Left knows that openly overthrowing capitalism is a non-starter, and the Cloward-Piven plot was their rather ingenious way of convincing people that they are entitled to new "rights" that only massive government programs could provide. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and other entitlement programs are the vehicles that these radicals will leverage in an attempt to destroy this nation from within.

The only antidote to such a plan is a counterweight; Americans dedicated to shrinking government, eliminating or radically restructuring entitlement spending, and bringing federal government spending back to manageable levels. Sound like any Tea Party you know?

It is imperative that the radical left destroy the Tea Party, which is why they will seize upon any possible excuse to demonize them. Immediately blaming the Tea Party for Jared Loughner's rampage was a pre-planned, coldly-calculated and entirely unabashed attempt to control political speech in this nation. It is propaganda of the most naked kind.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:19 AM | Comments (2)

January 21, 2011

Garbage In ; Garbage Out, or The CBO Said What?!

“Garbage in, garbage out.” So goes the venerable computer aphorism which tells us that the quality of what a computer produces is dependent upon the quality of the data input. Enter faulty data into a computer and it will spit out faulty conclusions. This is the very essence, an essence not well understood and cunningly concealed, of the work product of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), particularly during the last two years.

Trying to stave off the ObamaCare repeal effort, Dems have taken to claiming that not only will ObamaCare reduce the budget deficit, if repealed it will actually increase it! So says the CBO, lauded as the bi-partisan, highly respected arbiter of congressional fiscal responsibility and sanity. ABC’s George Stephanopolous, former Clinton Administration talking head, said of the CBO, “They’re the only game in town; they’re the referees.” Also providing able assistance is the lamestream media, only 16% of which has, to date, informed the public of ObamaCare CBO sleight-of-hand.

The ultimate problem with any figure produced by the CBO is that it is required to do its calculations and projections based entirely on the figures and assumptions provided for it by its congressional masters. It is therefore common for the CBO to produce reports with wildly varying, even directly contradictory, cost estimates relating to the same issue and/or bill over time.

Let’s say that Senator Leghorn Harumph Fogbreath (D-State of Confusion) wants to pass a bill that will mandate the elimination of salt from the national diet. The figures and assumptions he provides the CBO for the first five years under the bill go something like this:

(1) Establishment of Federal Bureau of Salt Enforcement: $300 billion
(2) Annual FBSE operating budget: $100 billion = $500 billion
(3) Annual FBSE advertising budget: $200 billion = $1 trillion
(4) Annual office Supplies and salt-free, organic lunches: $100 billion = $500 billion
(5) Annual security to protect everyone involved from an enraged public and crazed chefs: $200 billion = $1 trillion

The CBO dutifully retires to its chambers and spits out a five year initial cost of $3 trillion dollars for operating expenses and $300 billion initial start up costs. Senator Fogbreath is outraged, but a sly old Washington hand, he directs his staffers to come up with some more accommodating assumptions, and the CBO again retires to work its actuarial magic:

(1) Savings due to positive health benefits: $3 trillion (roughly three million Americans X $1000 in health savings. Why $1000 per person? Why not? We're making this up as we go!). Ooops. That’s $3 trillion a year. $3 trillion times 5 = $15 trillion!
(2) Money saved from salt production applied to the production of new super efficient solar, wind and moonbeam technology: $1 trillion per year = $5 trillion. We expect dramatic breakthroughs any day now...
(3) Surprise discovery of largest gold deposit known to man under the floor of the first floor congressional aide’s men’s restroom: $1 trillion per year = $5 trillion. It could happen...
(4) Increased tax revenue due to more productive workforce due to eliminated water retention: $2 trillion per year = $10 trillion. No more salty dogs; Arrrrr!

The CBO does its voodoo and Senator Fogbreath proudly announces on the floor of the senate that his bill will produce new revenues and savings totaling $32 trillion dollars! Oh, minus $300 billion initial start up costs, but that’s just pocket change in the congressional big leagues. And that, gentle reader, is exactly the way the CBO works.

Let’s set aside, for the moment, common sense which tells us that spending huge amounts of money we don’t have on top of a massive and ever-growing national debt cannot possibly save money and surely cannot reduce the deficit. Only ceasing new spending can even begin the process of deficit reduction. Harken instead unto the Dems, who tell us that ObamaCare must not be repealed, because it will save $230 billion over ten years. However, it will work this miracle only if, in the process--and this is a feature, not a bug--taxes are increased by $770 billion and spending by $540 billion. Repeal ObamaCare and the $230 billion in savings will be lost, lost! And where did the Dems get these figures? From the CBO who dutifully crunched the numbers and assumptions given them by the very Dems lauding the results.

These numbers are fairy dust and Unicorn tails. The true costs of ObamaCare, using realistic figures and assumptions, easily run two to four times the projected costs and there are no--absolutely none--savings associated with it. Even if we forget the enormous start up and continuing personnel costs, if ObamaCare succeeds in meeting its ultimate goal of driving all private insurance companies out of business and forcing the establishment of a single (tax)payer system as Mr. Obama dreams, our tax revenues will plummet even as governmental outlays skyrocket. In addition, much of the implementation and management of the bill is relegated to unaccountable bureaucrats who will establish and enforce rules, rules that will mandate untold additional expenditures over and above the wildest imaginations of some of the wildest money spending, deficit increasing imaginations in existence--congressional Democrats.

It’s already well known that Dem pronouncements are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Mr. Obama’s by comparison require an entire salt lick block. But with the help and directions of the Dems, CBO pronouncements should currently be taken with sufficient salt to pay a Roman Legion. Senator Fogbreath would be proud.

Posted by MikeM at 10:21 PM | Comments (1)

Another Leftist Assassin, Hidden by His Allies

Every heard of Casey Brezik?

I didn't either until just a little while ago. He's just the latest of a line of radical domestic terrorists weaned on the hatred and various derangement syndromes of the radical left, and hidden by their allies in the press.

At some point, wearing black clothes and a bullet-proof vest, 22 year-old Casey Brezik bolted out of a classroom, knife in hand, and slashed the throat of a dean. As he would later admit, he confused the dean with Nixon.

The story never left Kansas City. It is not hard to understand why. Knives lack the political sex appeal of guns, and even Keith Olbermann would have had a hard time turning Brezik into a Tea Partier.

Indeed, Brezik seems to have inhaled just about every noxious vapor in the left-wing miasma: environmental extremism, radical Islam, anti-capitalism, anti-Zionism and Christophobia, among others.

In his "About Me" box on Facebook, Brezik listed as his favorite quotation one from progressive poster boy, Che Guevara. The quote begins "Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism" and gets more belligerent from there.

On his wall postings, Brezik ranted, "How are we the radical(s) (left) to confront the NEW RIGHT, if we avoid confrontation all together?"

Brezik's wild-eyed ranting is the product of spittle-flecked demagogues like Olbermann, racist Marxists like Jeremiah Wright, terrorists like Bill Ayers and Berhandine Dohrn, and bombastic politicians like Alan Grayson, James Clyburn, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and a bitter, clinging Barack Obama.

Because of their incitements, we have radical murdering zealots like Berzik, Andrew Mickel and Carlos Hartmann, union goon beating down opposition their opposition and threatening their children in their homes, and thugs chasing down and brutalizing political staffers. It is what they do, and what the media has always hidden.

Soros-funded mouthpieces at Think Progress and Media Matters exist to camouflage the intent of their language and politics, and the bloody extent their fellow travelers are willing to go to implement their leftist sharia. They are violent and radical, and because of their blinkered myopia, expect that we are the same.

They cry out against the violence they expect in us, but see most acutely in themselves. It's called "projection," and steeped in a denial of just how violent many of them have become.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:40 PM | Comments (3)

January 19, 2011

Quick Takes, January 20, 2011

ITEM: Why can’t Democrats actually behave as though they are attending a memorial service while attending a memorial service? Is it in their DNA to turn solemn occasions for reflection and prayer into crass political pep rallies? To paraphrase Mr. Obama: “At some point, I think you’ve worshiped Barack Obama enough.” See the indispensable Michelle Malkin’s live blogging here.

ITEM: Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo) has come up with a brilliant scheme that will unite the nation behind President Obama’s recent call for civility: Republicans and Democrats will engage in--GASP--mixed seating at the State of The Union Address! I can see it now: Instead of one side of the chamber leaping to its feet, screaming incoherently, drooling, and beating their hands together until they peel the skin from their palms when Mr. Obama says “and,” every other person in the entire chamber will do it. Hope. Change. Progress. Civility.

ITEM: This might be the best argument for the death penalty I’ve ever heard: The Tucson killer, who would want his name to be prominently mentioned here, according to Fox News, apparently photographed himself in the near-nude with the handgun he used to kill six people. If you have the stomach for the whole story, red g-string and all, go here.

ITEM: Ann Althouse wasn’t the only person to notice it. At the Tucson memorial service, Mr. Obama’s hair was quite gray. At the time, it caused me a moment’s pause--between the 50+ incidents of pep rally hooting and clapping--to reflect on how the demands of the job affect each president. But only a few days later Mr. Obama’s hair has transmogrified to a youthful black with not a hint of gray! The honorable Ms. Althouse suggests that the grey affectation was done to signify age, wisdom and gravitas, while the newest version of the presidential ‘do signifies youthful energy for the limitless progressive transformations lying ahead. Perhaps. But imagine the lamestream media outcry, the many psychologist/experts commenting ad nauseum if George W. Bush’s locks suddenly changed from gray to black overnight. Double standard? Hypocrisy? Nah.

UPDATE: A thought just occurred to me: Did the dye job go from black to gray for the memorial service, or from grey to black thereafter? Which would be more revealing of a lack of character?

ITEM: Bob wrote about Rep. Steve Cohen's (D-Tenn.) comparison of Republicans with the worst crimes of Nazism. Praise be, on Wednesday the good Representative clarified his Tuesday remarks that directly compared Republicans to the Nazis and invoked the Holocaust. “I don’t think I was comparing the Republicans to Goebbels. I was saying that lies are lies and Goebbels was the great perpetrator of lies and that’s a danger, and if you look at Goebbels you can see the lie that he told about Jews which he constantly did, became considered fact in Germany that the Jews were evil, and people got involved and didn’t stand up.”… “I think civility is not lying, and if you can’t come up and say that somebody is lying when they’re lying, then the lie becomes the truth. That’s not uncivil to say somebody lied.” Well, thanks for clearing that up Rep. Cohen. This is undoubtably the new Democrat civility we've been so anxiously awaiting. Hope. Change. Derangement. Blood Libel.

ITEM: Noted Constitutional scholar Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) announced Wednesday that ObamaCare not only has “created jobs” and will create jobs, but repealing it will kill Americans. She also announced that repealing ObamaCare was a violation of the 5th and 14th Amendments. Uh, what?! But wait; there’s more! In an interview with Fox’s Neal Cavuto, she repeated the refrain, but with a bit of multi-media assistance: An aide holding a poster of an elderly person receiving medical care behind her as a backdrop. That’s right; the Dems are now carrying portable ObamaCare backdrops for interviews. What’s next? Wheeling gurneys with desperately ill patients everywhere with them so that they can be prodded to gasp or weakly lift a finger in support of ObamaCare?

ITEM: Noted historian and Constitutional Scholar Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) also chimed in on Wednesday with the observation that people should be required to purchase insurance because the preamble of the Constitution guarantees the “pursuit of happiness,” and the 14th Amendment guarantees “equal protection under the law.” Lewis also noted that health care is not a privilege but a right. OK, let’s put aside that the “pursuit of happiness” appears in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, and that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment has never remotely been construed to mean what Lewis is suggesting, and the fact that there is no such thing as a “right” to health care. Other than that he has a point, or something...

ITEM: By a vote of 245-189, the House of Representatives voted to repeal ObamaCare on Wednesday, January 19. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has already sworn that the measure will never receive a vote in the Senate and many Democrats are calling the House vote a political stunt while simultaneously spouting cooked-book propaganda asserting that ObamaCare will actually lower the deficit. So let’s see if I understand this principle: If I’ve maxed out five credit cards, have four or five consumer loans including my mortgage, and make only enough to make the minimum payments on my debts, the path to fiscal solvency requires me to obtain and max out five or six new credit cards, obtain as many additional consumer loans as possible, and immediately seek a much lower paying job. Got it.

ITEM: Who said Barack Obama’s foreign policy hasn’t accomplished anything but debasing America? At a state dinner for Chinese Premier Hu--affairs that are usually reserved only for our close allies--President Obama had stunning news: “under a new agreement, our National Zoo will continue to dazzle children and visitors with the beloved giant pandas.” That’s right; we get pandas for five more years. The tens of thousands of Chinese political prisoners in gulags, and the scientists behind China’s massive military buildup could not be reached for comment.

ITEM: And the feel good--or feel something--story for this edition of Quick Takes comes, via Fox News, from the Land Down Under--Australia--where a 19 year old man and woman were inspired to float down the flood-swollen Yarra river, buoyed in body--and possibly spirit--only by two inflatable sex dolls. Unfortunately, the young woman lost her airy partner on a rough patch and was forced to cling to floating debris until she and her male partner--who did not lose his inflation aid-- until they were rescued. The police, dealing with serious flooding, were somewhat less than amused, announcing that inflatable sex toys are “not recognized flotation devices.” Senior Constable Wayne Wilson retained a sufficiently dry wit to note that “The fate of the inflatable dolls is unknown.” Insert your own pun here.

See you next time!

Posted by MikeM at 11:51 PM | Comments (8)

New, Calm Political Rhetoric: Dem Compares Republicans to Nazis Over Obamacare Repeal

On the bright side Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) isn't claiming that repealing Obamacare would be unconstitutional, like the dumbest member of Congress, Sheila Jackson Lee, (D-TX).

On the other hand, Cohen decided to compare the Tea Party, conservatives, and the majority of Americans that want to overturn government-ruined health care by comparing them Nazis implementing the Holocaust.

In an extraordinary outburst on the House floor, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) invoked the Holocaust to attack Republicans on health care and compared rhetoric on the issue to the work of infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

"They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels," Cohen said. "You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing, blood libel. That's the same kind of thing."

And Congressman Cohen didn’t stop there.

“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it--believed it and you have the Holocaust. We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care. Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover," Cohen said.

Citing Polifact's lie of the year—or absurd over-generalization, take your pick—is a fabrication in and of itself.

But comparing the majority of Americans that want to overturn Obamacare to a genocidal regime that put millions to death in hell holes... To Nazis....

To the monsters that did this...

This is a blood libel. A real one.

By one who should know better.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:37 PM | Comments (5)

When the First and Second Collide

A Massachusetts man has had his firearms and ammunition seized by local police for a blog entry he wrote in the wake of the shooting of Arizona Congressional Rep.Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others in Tucson on January 8.

39-year-old Travis Corcoran entitled a blog entry, "1 down, 534 to go."

Police are investigating the "suitability" of 39-year-old Travis Corcoran to have a firearms license.

"We certainly take this as a credible threat, and credible until we prove otherwise," said Arlington police Captain Robert Bongiorno.

In his blog Corcoran writes, "It is absolutely, absolutely unacceptable to shoot indiscriminately. Target only politicians and their staff and leave regular citizens alone."

Police visited Corcoran's home and found a "large amount" of weapons and ammunition, which have been removed.

The length of the suspension, or whether Corcoran's license will be revoked will be determined by the outcome of the investigation.

A debate has broken out about limits of the freedom of speech has broken out in the comments of the news story that is worth reading.

If the media is telling the entire story—and with the site apparently down, there is no way to be entirelysure—I tend to agree that the police have done the right thing in this instance. While Corcoran is not directly making threats himself against elected officials, he is certainly inciting violence. He is not using hyperbole. He is not merely saber-rattling in some sort of rhetorical way. He directly says "Target only politicians and their staff..." which is about as a direct of an incitement as one can make without naming specific politicians.

In my opinion, this goes over the line.

Corcoran, a comic book store owner, tagged his now offline blog with the following tags:

Anarchocapitalism, guns, dogs, entrepeneurialism, science, science fiction, War on Terror, Catholicism, extropianism.

I'll let you infer from that what you will.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:01 AM | Comments (12)

January 17, 2011

A Change in the Wisconsin Wind

Two states, and two only, deny their citizens the right to carry concealed weapons: Wisconsin and Illinois. The District of Columbia, of course, also bans concealed carry, but despite the best efforts of many Democrats, DC is not a state, at least not yet. However, it seems that change is in the Wisconsin wind.

With the recent election of a Republican governor and Republican majorities in both houses of the Wisconsin legislature, it seems a foregone conclusion that concealed carry will become law this year. Gun ownership has always been high in Wisconsin, and two attempts to pass concealed carry in recent years were vetoed by Democrat Governor Jim Doyle, but now Republican Scott Walker is in the governor’s mansion and has expressed his support for such measures.

In a recent Lacrosse Tribune story picked up by Reuters (available here), the anti-gun position was prominently represented. According to Jeri Bonavia, executive director of “Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort,” “We really don’t believe that more people carrying guns in public is beneficial in any way. In fact, we think it’s harmful.” Reporter John Rondy commented, “A college dropout opened fire on a crowd gathering for an event by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona on January 8, killing six people and wounding 13, including Giffords. The shooting has raised questions about permissive U.S. guns laws.”

For anti-gun “activists,” any occasion raises questions about “permissive U.S. Guns laws.” Changes in the weather, cattle stampedes, the existence of Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, George W. Bush, any criticism of Barack Obama or his policies, hangnails, bad breath, any occasion at all. Gun banners see the need for more gun bans in the ocean, clouds, the stars, the smile of a child, reflected in a lover’s eyes, perhaps even as a cure for global warming, which guns, like virtually everything else in the known universe, surely cause.

Illinois is, until decades of Democrat corruption and mismanagement cause it to become completely bankrupt and lead to its inevitable collapse, hopeless. It will likely remain, for some time, one of the last anti-gun bastions in the nation. But Wisconsin may, in the near future, rejoin the constitutional republic that Ben Franklin helped to establish and feared we might lose. The ultimate verdict on that matter remains out, but with this small light of hope in Wisconsin, there is renewed reason for hope and perhaps early congratulations to the people of Wisconsin who have taken the first steps to taking back their government.

Posted by MikeM at 11:15 PM | Comments (8)

Loughner Not the Only nut in Tucson, Just the Only One That The MSM Wants to Discuss

After having spent the better part of a week attempting to slander and libel the Tea Party movement and conservative leaders for Jared Loughner's rampage with a Glock 19, we've discovered that one of the things that had driven Loughner was a hatred of George W. Bush.

One of Loughner's victims, Eric Fuller, played along with and for the media, reiterating claims that the Tea Party and conservatives were somehow to blame for the murders. The media loved echoing Fuller's claims... until he was arrested for making death threats against a local Tea Party official and involuntarily committed for mental evaluation.

Now we find out that Mr. Fuller, like Mr. Loughner, was also a fanatic in his own right, and also someone who hated George W. Bush.

Loughner appears to be criminally insane, and quite a few armchair pundits are in general agreement that he seems to be displaying traits of paranoid schizophrenia. Fuller is "just" a rabid liberal.

Why doesn't that make me feel any better?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:28 PM | Comments (3)

January 16, 2011

Tea Party Official Concerned That Death Threat Democrat May Be "Canary In A Coal Mine"

Days after blood-libeling conservatives and Tea Party supporters for Jared Loughner's blood rampage last Saturday, Eric Fuller was arrested for making a death threat towards an Tea Party official and involuntarily committed to a mental health evaluation. Some are speculating that trauma from the shooting may be to blame for Fuller's outburst, and that is entirely possible.

But it now appears that Fuller may have been confrontational prior to the shooting as well, getting into a verbal altercation at the Giffords event last weekend prior to the shooting that required an aide to Giffords to separate Fuller from the still unidentified second party.

Trent Humphries, the Tucson Tea Party official threatened by Fuller, has received
numerous other threats as well, and wonders if the threats will translate into action.

"I had nothing to do with the murders that happened or the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords," Humphries said. "And I wonder, if he (Fuller) is crazy or is he the canary in a coal mine? Is he saying what a lot of other people are holding in their hearts? If so, that's a problem."

Based upon comments made from self-described progressives in social media and on blogs since last weekend and on cable news, dishonest rhetoric and hate towards the right is indeed very much in the hearts of those on the left. What is far less certain is whether or not progressives are willing to convert their vile rhetoric into physical acts.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:49 PM | Comments (8)

January 15, 2011

The Fallacy of Progressive Thought

The recent shooting in Tucson provides yet another opportunity to examine the dank, moldy recesses of the Progressive mind. In order to embark upon this counter-intuitive, frustrating journey, one must understand that Progressive belief, theory and policy is non-falsifiable. In other words, it cannot, by any means, human or Divine, be proved false. It is, in essence, as I pointed out in my recent PJM essay (available here), an article of faith, and any reality that does not comport with it is not reality at all and can and must be ignored. At the same time, Progressive belief, theory and policy can, upon the pronouncements of a contemporary maximum Progressive leader, change in an instant. Despite the fact that said change may be the exact opposite of the past absolute Progressive truth, a truth abandoned just seconds earlier, the Progressive mind sees no contradiction or hypocrisy, such qualities being reserved solely for Conservatives, particularly Sarah Palin.

Relieved of the necessity to analyze their beliefs, theories and policies through the application of experience, logic and reality, Progressives believe that any problem that exists has one of two--or both--causes:

(1) Conservative opposition, which hinders or prevents the full wonders that will be realized when Progressive policy inevitably establishes perfect social justice, equality, diversity and absolute peace.

(2) Insufficient Progressive policy has been applied, or it has not yet had sufficient time to work its miracles.

Before continuing, here are several links readers may wish to explore:

(1) For video illustrating the reality of the speed of magazine changes, go here.
(2) To quickly research the specifications of Glock handguns, go here.
(3) The website of economist/criminologist Dr. John R. Lott may be found here.
(4) For a more complete report on Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) bill to establish a 1000 foot no gun zone surrounding certain officials, go here.

This understanding of Progressive thinking may be now applied to the renewed calls for gun control arising out of the Tucson massacre. One week on, we know considerably more about the motivations of the shooter, who would like to have his name prominently mentioned here. Not only is there no evidence that he was a conservative, the only political leanings ascribed to him by those who knew him were liberal. That said, it seems clear that his motivation was exclusively derangement--not mental illness that would prevent his punishment--and an impulse to do evil, yet his derangement was not so debilitating that it prevented him from, over a period of time, planning his attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) for the imagined slight of failing to properly answer his nonsensical question at a townhall meeting. The other deaths and injuries seem to be a matter of evil convenience. They were there, he had the time and the ammunition, so why not?

Many people, conservative and progressive, have suggested many causes and related factors in an attempt to understand what, when logic and common sense are employed, is not at all hard to understand: The shooter was deranged, violent and evil. He did what he wanted to do and he liked it.

Let’s consider some of those issues and the reality related to them. As we do, remember that wherever reality does not completely agree with Progressive belief, theory and policy, it will be disregarded by Progressives. Also keep in mind that I use “Progressive,” “Leftist,” and “Liberal” interchangeably because Leftists and Liberals, reading the results of polls that invariably indicate that most of the American public have little regard for those terms and all relating to them, have adopted “Progressive” in a failed attempt at re-branding.

NEW GUN CONTROL LAWS WILL PREVENT SIMILAR FUTURE ATTACKS. Consider that every policy now being proposed (they’re all retreads of past failed policies) must, by the most basic understanding of human nature, fail. All such policies are rendered useless before they are ever sent to paper, because all gun control laws are obeyed only by the law abiding who are no threat to anyone. Are we to believe that a criminal planning mass murder will be deterred by the potential violation of any lesser law? Will the killer, armed and prepared, ready to attack a school, see a “gun-free school zone” sign, and chastened by the thought of violating such an awesome recitation of the law, simply go home? To purchase a gun, the buyer must complete federal form 4473 which asks a number of questions. One wrong answer and the dealer may not sell a gun to that buyer. Among the questions is whether the buyer is a drug addict or unlawful user of drugs. The shooter was clearly a chronic drug abuser, yet obviously lied--broke a federal law--in order to buy the gun. Yet, Progressives ignore this most basic understanding of human nature.

THE SHOOTER WAS MENTALLY ILL, YET WAS ABLE TO LEGALLY BUY A GUN. We now know that the shooter had been displaying odd, anti-social behavior for many years and had recent contacts with various law enforcement agencies, yet was completely capable of behaving in a rational manner when he had those contacts. He was, for example, stopped by a wildlife officer three hours before the shooting for running a stop sign. There is no doubt that the involuntary commitment laws of some states can be made more effective, but unless we wish to give the police the power to involuntarily commit people who are merely odd, eccentric, or who utter inappropriate, even anti-social comments at the wrong places and times, this issue must be approached with the utmost caution.

THE SHOOTER HAD BEEN DENIED MILITARY SERVICE, YET WAS ABLE TO LEGALLY BUY A GUN. People are denied military service every day for a variety of reasons including flat feet, less than perfect vision, a wide variety of minor physical issues, low military aptitude test scores, or, as is reportedly the case with the killer, failing a drug test. Unless we are truly willing to deny fundamental rights to such people, including those who have, upon occasion in their youth, used drugs, this is a non-issue.

WHEN THE WILDLIFE OFFICER STOPPED HIM, HE COULD HAVE SEARCHED HIS CAR, FOUND THE GUN, AND PREVENTED THE SHOOTINGS. Any police officer making a traffic stop can search a driver or his car only if he has probable cause. Probable cause is observations, circumstances, or facts that would lead a reasonable police officer to believe that a crime has been committed and a specific person has committed it. Observing only a stop sign violation, a police officer has no reason or legal justification to search the driver or the vehicle, and even then, would usually not have the power to search a trunk if the driver could not easily access it from the driver’s seat. In this case, considering what is known about that stop, there was no probable cause to do more than issue a ticket for the observed traffic violation. Even if a search turned up the gun, it was not illegal for the shooter to possess or transport it.

WE MUST REINSTITUTE KEY FEATURES OF THE CLINTON GUN BAN SUCH AS BANNING “ASSAULT WEAPONS” AND LIMITING MAGAZINE CAPACITY. In effect from 1994-2004, the ban accomplished, in terms of crime prevention or reduction, nothing at all. It succeeded only in inconveniencing honest gun owners. The bill sought to ban or regulate “assault weapons,” something which does not actually exist except in the minds of gun banners who consider any firearm they don’t like--particularly those with a military, utilitarian appearance--to be “assault weapons.” The weapons they claimed were the favorites of criminals such as common semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 family, were involved in so few crimes as to be virtually statistically negligible, a fact that did not change during the decade the law was in force. Likewise, limiting the magazines of semiautomatic handguns to 10 rounds accomplished nothing but annoying and inconveniencing the law abiding. The effects of the law were so obvious that even the BATFE admitted that it could not support the Brady Campaign’s claims that the ban caused a decline in violent crime. Even the always anti-gun Centers for Disease Control admitted that there was not enough evidence to support anti-gun preferences. Many anti-gun groups did, stuck in Progressive thinking, suggest that it was--after a decade--too soon for the law to work its progressive wonders. Democrat politicians, having seen the electoral effect of supporting such idiotic, anti-freedom measures on their ranks, were quick to watch the ban slip beneath the waves for the final time.

THE GLOCK 19 IS A UNIQUELY DEADLY WEAPON, DESIGNED ONLY FOR KILLING LARGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. The Glock 19 was designed to be a somewhat smaller version of Glock’s full-sized, successful model 17 pistol which is commonly carried by uniformed police officers. With a magazine capacity of 15 rounds of 9mm ammunition, it is in the middle of the capacity range of Glock pistols with the 19 round G17 at the top and the 10 round G26 at the bottom. Ironically, the G26, which is much smaller and more easily concealable than the G19, was designed during the Clinton Gun Ban around 10 round magazines and has been very successful since. The G19 is among the most popular and common self defense handguns available today. The 9mm round the G19 fires, in continuous use for more than a century, is in the middle of the effectiveness range for defensive handgun cartridges and is currently the most common semiautomatic handgun round. The Glock 19, like all Glocks, was designed to be a reliable, accurate handgun useful for self defense and a variety of other legitimate purposes. It has no uniquely dangerous capacities or features that distinguish it from similar handguns marketed by other manufacturers. Anyone who characterizes the G19 otherwise is uninformed or is trying to misinform the public.

SINCE THE KILLER USED A MAGAZINE WITH A CAPACITY OF APPROXIMATELY 30 ROUNDS, ALL MAGAZINES MUST BE RESTRICTED TO 10 ROUNDS. This suggestion reveals a profound lack of knowledge of firearm ability and use. While it is undeniably true that a large capacity magazine can hold, and potentially allow one to fire more rounds in a shorter time than a smaller capacity magazine, even for untrained shooters, the time difference involved is negligible. The Tucson killer reportedly fired 31 rounds, yet the Glock 19 has a normal magazine capacity of 15 rounds (+ one in the chamber for a total of 16), and can fire thirty one--which requires one magazine change--in only one to six (at the absolute most) seconds more. Visit Bob’s post with video that clearly illustrates this issue at the link at the beginning of the article. One must weigh the advantages to the honest and innocent. Larger capacity magazines provide significant advantages to the honest--particularly women--who sometimes find themselves facing multiple attackers. They are also a great training aid on the range. Because shooters don’t have to constantly stop to reload low capacity magazines, their training can be less tiring and more effective. Despite many researcher attempts to support anti-gun theories, there is no evidence whatsoever that limiting magazine capacity has any effect on limiting the number of victims in mass shootings, or in reducing crime.

BANNING CONCEALED CARRY WILL HELP. THERE WAS AT LEAST ONE PERSON ON THE SCENE OF THE TUCSON SHOOTING CARRYING A CONCEALED WEAPON, AND IT DIDN’T HELP. Joseph Zamudio, 24, who was carrying a concealed handgun, was one of several people who helped to subdue the shooter when his handgun malfunctioned on its second magazine. Zamudio’s gun was not a factor because he was in a nearby store when the shooting began. By the time he arrived to help, the killer’s handgun had malfunctioned and had been taken away from him, and correctly realizing that there was no need to draw or use his own weapon, he helped to restrain the killer. The point is that concealed carry is effective in two primary ways: It actually reduces violent crime in states that allow it, and it is the only truly effective means of immediately stopping--even intercepting--violent attacks.

The research of Dr. John Lott has been often attacked by anti-gun groups, but has never been refuted. Visit his website via the link at the beginning of the article. Those states which have passed concealed carry provisions have uniformly experienced reduced rates of violent crime. This is so because every criminal knows that they can’t know who is carrying a concealed weapon, and must assume that everyone they meet might be. In my long police career, I learned that criminals fear--and avoid--the potentially armed citizen far more than the police because, unlike the police, they are unpredictable. Dr. Lott is not the only researcher who has found this effect. In fact, since the Heller decision, violent crime in the District of Columbia has dropped, despite that fact that the DC government is doing all that it can to continue to obstruct lawful ownership of handguns. Criminals are wisely assuming that more and more of their potential victims may be armed.

Concealed carry is also effective at the scene of violent crimes, but only if the person carrying a handgun is actually present just before or at the initiation of the attack, as Zamudio was not. Had Zamudio--or another person similarly armed and prepared--been present, they might well have stopped the killer before he fired a single round, or at the very least, have significantly limited the volume of his fire. In armed encounters, seconds count and the Police--who have no legal duty to protect any individual citizen--are, at best, minutes away. Concluding that concealed carry is ineffective because someone who was not actually present during the event did not stop it is not, to say the least, a logical or rational conclusion.

GUN FREE ZONES MUST BE ESTABLISHED AROUND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is apparently having a Progressive moment. He is planning to introduce a bill that would establish a 1000 foot gun free zone around members of Congress. Those interested in the full story should visit the related initial link. All available evidence clearly indicates that gun free zones are as much a predictably obvious failure as they are an obvious danger. Almost all of the mass shootings of recent years have taken place in gun free zones such as schools. The reason is obvious: Killers can expect their victims to be unarmed, because honest people obey the law, even laws that could mean their death if attacked. Killers also know that they will almost certainly be able to kill many before the police can hope to intervene. Conversely, dishonest people do not obey gun free zone laws any more than the multitude of other laws they break. This is true because they are criminals, because they commit crimes. I know that I sound as if I am talking to seven year olds, but in terms of accepting logic in this matter, Progressives may not have reached that mental age.

Should Rep. King be successful in his desires, he will be establishing a nightmare for those who enforce the law and for those who obey it. One thousand feet is a distance greater than three football fields. Even on a clear day, with binoculars and no intervening obstructions, the average person would be hard pressed to confirm that a congressperson was within 1000 feet of them, and this assumes that every citizen would be constantly on the lookout for congressmen to avoid breaking this particular law. Merely driving past a venue where a congressman was speaking indoors would render citizens utterly unaware of their presence instant federal felons. A citizen standing 1005 feet from a congressman would become instantly criminally liable if the congressman took two steps in their direction. Perhaps most ironically, the law would ensure that if an armed criminal broke just one more law and approached a congressman with evil intent, no honest citizen would be able to stop them. The net effect of the law Rep. King proposes would be not only to criminalize honest citizens who are making no affirmative act toward lawbreaking, and would actually make congresspersons less safe in the case of an actual attack. Surely Rep. King would declare that it is not the intention of the law to criminalize the law abiding as I have suggested. My response would simply be: “I’m glad to hear it. So don’t pass the law.”

Doubly ironically, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) wants to allow congresspersons to carry concealed handguns in DC and on the House floor. Reportedly, many more than one might imagine already do. Of course, he is not yet suggesting that this privilege be extended to actual, common residents of the District, who, through no fault of their own do not happen to be congresspersons, just to congresspersons who are, apparently far more than common folk--by the virtue of being congresspersons--deserving of the ability and means to protect their lives. To be fair, Gohmert apparently has said that congresspersons should not get "special privileges." Still, that's not quite the same as working to extend the same rights to everyone.

To be completely fair, Rep. Gohmert’s idea is reasonable and based in reality. There is an old saying that a Conservative is a Progressive who has been robbed at gunpoint. It is tragic that the injuries and deaths suffered by countless common citizens have apparently meant so little to so many of our congressmen. It took the near-mortal wounding of one of their own to awaken them to the reality that evil exists and may work its will on anyone--congressman or elementary school teacher on her way home--at any time. This is a worthy realization, if it leads them to avoid hasty, ill-conceived laws that will harass and annoy only the law abiding, while enacting laws that will support and extend freedom and the right of every law abiding person to self-defense.

The examples I’ve provided indicate rather clearly the illogic and ineffectiveness of the various proposals and concerns raised by Progressives (and a few honest if confused congressmen). May I be so bold as to suggest that my contention about the nature of their thinking is supported by their continuing support for measures that have always been a failure and always will be a failure? One may, of course, observe that longing for such restrictions on liberty is not only a result of faulty thinking, but is clearly indicative of an overwhelming desire for power over the lives of others. This too is a fundamental characteristic of Progressive thought, but that’s a topic for another time.

Posted by MikeM at 11:13 PM | Comments (2)

Blood-Libeling Democrat Arrested for Death Threat

Eric Fuller, one of those wounded in Jared Loughner's ramapage last weekend and who blood-libeled Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and the Tea Party in days since (in all absence of facts), has been arrested for making a death threat against a Tea Party Leader:

Local station KGUN is reporting that Eric Fuller a 63-year-old military veteran who was shot in the back last Saturday while attending Rep. Giffords' "Congress on Your Corner" event, became enraged by the statements of some of the participants at the town hall events and threatened the life of Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries.

Is he now going to claim he was influenced by his earlier hate speech?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:58 PM | Comments (6)

January 14, 2011

Eric Fuller's Blood Libel

You can be both the wounded survivor of a massacre and a vile,opportunistic, jerk:

A wounded survivor of the Tuscon shooting that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is blaming Sarah Palin, House Speaker John Boehner, Fox TV host Glenn Beck, and former Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle for the tragedy.

"It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target," Eric Fuller said in an interview with Democracy NOW.

"Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled — senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even 9-year-old girls," he added, referring to the death of Christina Taylor Green.

We now know from interviews with multiple people that Jared Lee Loughner did not actively follow politics, didn't listen to talk radio, or watch cable news. The one person who did describe him having any sort of political bent at any time remembers that several years ago he could have been described as very liberal.

These are all well-know, published facts. Eric Fuller, however, has chosen to keep right on demonizing political figures on the right, even though there is even indication that Loughner was in his own insane little world and may have been completely unaware that Boehner, Palin, Angle and Beck even existed, outside of possibly knowing their names.

Mr. Fuller, I'm glad that you served your nation in the past, but you are doing it a great disservice now. You dishonor yourself. You dishonor the dead.

And you spread far more bile and hatred than anyone else you would blame.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:16 PM | Comments (17)

January 13, 2011

A Few Words on Blood Libel

On Twitter yesterday I ticked off quite a few vehement leftists for supporting Sarah Palin's decision to use the phrase "blood libel" in describing how blatantly biased media branded conservatives in general, the Tea Party in specific, and a handful of political figures in particular as somehow being responsible for inciting Jared Lee Loughner to go on his shooting spree in Tucson.

I can only ascribe their anger to the effectiveness of the comparison, which portrayed those pushing this dishonest meme in a very bad light, and lumped them in the corner of Russian thugs, medieval zealots, and murderous Muslim extremists that have used (and still use) the original blood libel against the Jewish people.

These leftists shrieked that using such a term was offensive to the Jewish people, and that it can only be used in referring to the original meaning.

Really?

Jim Geraghty isn't the first to notice that the term has been used repeatedly in common usage, and in that context is not dissimilar from the use of "witch hunt," though certainly infused with more power in our contemporary language.

The simple fact of the matter is that when someone is falsely accused of shedding blood, that is a blood libel.

Stop.

Period.

End of story.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:49 AM | Comments (8)

The Appalling Media Double Standard on Reporting Political Violence

I wrote a column by that title for Pajamas Media back in May of last year. It's amazing how well it has stood up over time, concluding:

Again, the progressive media turned a blind eye to real violence because the source of that violence was a bit too close to their ideological home. It was no mistake that MSNBC's Contessa Brewer hoped that the Times Square bomber was a tea party protester; it is a view that is common among a media that is a symbiote of the Democratic Party. Progressive media have spent the last decades turning a blind eye to the depravity, violence, and terrorism that mark the radical fringe of their beliefs.

Never mind the stench of the smoke and the steady fall of ash. The media refuse to report, because they refuse to believe that their allies are capable of such actions.

Radical leftists are typically more violent than those on the right, but the media buries these stories—like those I documented—as quickly as possible, while over-promoting threats that serve their ideological needs. And as we've learned in these disgusting last few days, the threat doesn't even have to come from the right for the leftist media to make the charge that it does.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:54 AM | Comments (2)

January 12, 2011

Quick Takes, January 13, 2011

ITEM: According to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services Brenda Sprague, new passport applications will be “gender neutral.” Blanks will no longer ask for “Father” and “Mother,” but will now list “Parent one” and Parent two.” Why? ““We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago,” Sprague said.” Sprague denied that the change was motivated by political correctness. Well of course. More and more people are recognizing that there is absolutely no difference between men and women. Unconfirmed rumors are circulating that under a little known provision of Obamacare, hospitals may lose federal funding if an insufficient quota of men are not proved to be giving birth.

ITEM: Having cut off production of the F-22 stealth fighter, currently the most advanced in the world at only a bit over 180 aircraft, the Obama Administration apparently felt no embarrassment or alarm whatever at the release of video of China’s Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter. The J-20, which resembles the F-22 in many ways, appears on first glance to have benefitted from stolen American technology. It completed its first test flight this week. China is currently working on an unprecedented technological military build up. This too does not seem to embarrass or alarm the Obama Administration. You?

ITEM: Congresscritters and the Obama Administration are claiming that repealing Obamacare would actually cost money and would “explode the deficit.” The lamestream media is taking up the hue and cry. Let’s see if I have this straight: Repealing a bill that will spend upwards of three trillion dollars (or more), establish more than 100 new federal bureaucracies, hire tens of thousands of highly paid, mostly unionized governmental employees in the IRS alone, that is already causing insurance and medical costs to skyrocket, that will give free insurance to tens of millions, etc. etc. is far more costly and damaging to the economy than not spending all that money? But of course. Have I mentioned that I have a miraculous fuel additive that will allow your car to get 500 MPG? Only $99.99 if you call in the next 15 minutes! It also removes body fat and wrinkles!

ITEM: Those darned kids these days. Seventeen year old Sammy Parker weighs only 75 pounds. Stricken with cerebral palsy, Sammy cannot speak or walk. Until his recent surgery for a life-threatening heart ailment, his father Rick carried him upstairs to his bedroom every night. Enter Rudy Favard, the son of Haitian immigrants. Co-captain of the Malden Catholic high school football team in Boston and an honor roll student, Rudy was glad to help, and so four nights a week, he drives to the Parker home and carries Sammy to bed. The complete article can be found here. This is America. This is the best we can be, and Rudy is not alone. There is real hope.

ITEM: Under President Obama, gas prices have risen 55% in only two years! We’re number one! We’re number one! Shortly after his appointment, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that he wanted to “...figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe.” At that time European gas cost $7.00 to $8.00 per gallon. Remember that President Obama, while on the campaign trail (yes, I know; he’s never left), promised that “energy prices would necessarily skyrocket” if he got his way. Memo to self: When a Democrat politician promises to destroy the economy, that’s the only thing about which he is not lying.

ITEM: So that’s what caused it! Former Speaker of the House (Ahhhhh! To paraphrase James Brown: “That feels good!”) Nancy Pelosi has, for the sake of posterity, explained why Democrats were so soundly spanked at the mid-term election: George W. Bush did it. But of course! Global warming? Bush did it. No global warming? Bush did it. Lost your car keys? Bush did it. Got a pimple? Bush did it. Amazing what a man certified by the left as a low-grade moron can accomplish. Can we pass a constitutional amendment requiring that all federal politicians be pre-tested and certified for adulthood?

ITEM: There is no lack of competition for the “Most Deranged Commentary by a Politician Commenting On Deranged People” award, but I hereby nominate Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) and Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry (D). On the Imus show, Kerry noted that the Arizona killer was “mentally ill and deeply troubled,” and that he wouldn’t address his political beliefs--immediately before announcing that his attack was motivated by those who want to appeal ObamaCare(?!). Clyburn suggested that the attack was somehow motivated by or related to the recent reading of the Constitution in the House of Representatives and unspecified attempts to “delegitimize the President.” “All that stuff is uncalled for,” he said. I just know that somehow, somewhere, George W. Bush is involved...

ITEM: Speaking in Abu Dhabi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared the Arizona killer with Arab terrorists, drawing no distinction between them and calling both “extremists.” But of course. There is obviously no difference between organized and well financed groups of Jihadis who have declared war on the United States and western civilization, who commit horrendous atrocities without a second thought, and a deranged pothead loner with a handgun. That’s why Mrs. Clinton gets the big bucks and all the perks. Nuance. Sophistication. Vision. Hope. Change. I used to think that she could not have been worse that Barack Obama. I’m no longer sure...

ITEM: Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has announced plans to make carrying a firearm within 1000 feet of certain “high-profile government officials” a federal offense. Great. That’s more than three football fields. As with so many gun laws, this proposal would do nothing more than create an entirely new class of criminals out of law abiding gun owners who had no idea that a “high profile government official” was within 1000 feet of them. “But that’s not what we intend with this law,” its supporters would surely say. OK then. Don’t pass it.

ITEM: He did it again. President Barack Obama has, in his serial insults of Great Britain, set another world record. But in a press opportunity with French President Nicolas Sarkosy Obama said: ‘We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people.” It’s hard to imagine a more direct insult to the British other than, perhaps, Mr. Obama’s previous serial insults. THe British press has not been amused. With a President and Secretary of State like this, who needs enemies?

ITEM: The Democrat controlled Illinois legislature, having driven the state into bankruptcy, at the urging of Gov. Pat Quinn took the bold and courageous move of increasing personal income tax rates 67% and business rates 46%. No Republicans voted for the increase. The governors of Indiana and Wisconsin are said to be ecstatic and are advertising, or planning to advertise, their business friendly climates. That’s Progressive thinking for you: “Our policies have propelled the state into bankruptcy, but that’s only because we haven’t inflicted even more of the same policies on the state. Just wait; you’ll see.” Yes, they will. Congratulations to Wisconsin and Indiana and to the owners of Illinois home and business moving companies!

ITEM: A few questions about President Obama’s speech at the Tucson memorial service on Wednesday evening: Why would anyone think a university athletic arena an appropriate venue? Repeatedly and loudly cheering the President? At a memorial service? Handing out t-shirts beforehand? Did it remind you too of the Wellstone memorial/Dem. pep rally? Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder speaking before the President? A 34 minute speech, after other lengthy speeches? Why was the POTUS there at all, to say nothing of the other administration figures? Is this yet another occasion all about Mr. Obama? Is this his attempt to be, like Bill Clinton, the comforter in chief? Will he rush to comfort victims of tragedies around the nation from now on? Just asking.

CORRECTION: It seems that the source from which I received an armed citizen report isn't quite as reliable as I might have hoped. Since I can't unquestionably verify it, I'm removing it. Thanks to George and Professor Hale for catching that one!

See you next time!

Posted by MikeM at 11:57 PM | Comments (2)

The Westboro Left, Calculated Lies, and Wellstone II

Matthew Sheffield has a very interesting post up at the Washington Examiner:

Fred Phelps, the crazy leader of the Westboro Baptist Church cult, has become infamous for blaming any bad event on the evils of homosexuality. Earthquake in Haiti? Blame the gays. Combat troop deaths in Iraq? Ditto.

Phelps' logic works thusly: God literally hates people who engage in homosexual conduct and unless societies take the steps to ban and punish such action, God is going to destroy them. Any natural disaster or mass murder is, accordingly, the will of God being carried out on the "sinners" who refuse to listen.

If that type of "logic" sounds familiar, it should be. It's exactly the same as the explanations the far left is resorting to in its efforts to pin the recent Tucson, Arizona shooting onto conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Glenn Beck, and the right generally.

Rhetorically, there is very little difference between the ranting of the Westboro cult and rhetoric vomited forth on the pages of the New York Times and Newsweek in recent days. Facts are irrelevant to reporting on this massacre Leftists immediately seized upon as an opportunity to demonize conservatives and squelch free speech.

Eerily, liberal Democratic politicians and their allies in the leftist media seem to have once again coordinated a two-pronged assault against civil liberties, using deception and outright lies. Perhaps most disturbing of all is that they've given up all pretense of tying their efforts to facts or reality.

The 22-year-old that shot 20 people—killing six—has become an excuse for the left to blame the Tea Party in specific and conservatives in general for the massacre, attempting to tie the shooter and the slayings to the patriotic rhetoric used to capture the House in the 2010 mid-terms.

Actual reality is utterly irrelevant in liberal massaging on the tragedy. Jared Lee Loughner has been identified as being "very liberal" by a classmate who knew him in high school, in a band, and community college. His documented history of abusing marijuana, admiration of flag-burning, dislike of the Constitution, and anti-war views that held the Bush Administration as "war criminals" for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan closely coincide with the progressive liberal world view.

Despite this, most conservatives and moderates on both sides of the aisle recognize that Loughner's rampage is far more closely tied to mental illness than any political philosophy. Meanwhile, liberals hoping to find a way to turn this outburst of violence into a ghoulish opportunity—as evidenced in the Krugman editorial and alternate-reality Newsweek article linked above—are forging ahead with rhetoric to restrict free speech, while simultaneously promoting restrictions on civil rights and declaring intentions to further alienate and insulate themselves from the very people they are supposed to represent.

The always excellent James Taranto notes the authoritarian and repressive political putsch on display in an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal:

To describe the Tucson massacre as an act of "political violence" is, quite simply, a lie. It is as if, two days after the Columbine massacre, a conservative newspaper of the Times's stature had described that atrocious crime as an act of "educational violence" and used it as an occasion to denounce teachers unions. Such an editorial would be shameful and indecent even if the arguments it made were meritorious.

The New York Times has seized on a madman's act of wanton violence as an excuse to instigate a witch hunt against those it regards as its domestic foes. "Instigate" is not too strong a word here: As we noted yesterday, one of the first to point an accusatory finger at the Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin was the Times's star columnist, Paul Krugman. Less than two hours after the news of the shooting broke, he opined on the Times website: "We don't have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was."

Evidence indicates that Loughner's obsession with Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords years before the Tea Party formed, but leftists persist in constructing an alternate reality where the Tea Party and a handful of conservative politicians and pundits are is the root of all evil. Facts are utterly irrelevant in a worldview so skewed; Sheppard's likening of the radical left to the Westboro hate cult grows more apt with every dishonest attempt to draw false parallels between the Tea Party and conservatives and the maniacally-grinning, left-leaning madman.

Sadly there is reason to believe that this hateful rhetoric attempting to demonize and isolate the Tea Party comes straight from the White House itself, author's of the theory that you should never let a tragedy go to waste if it can be used to extract a political gain. Hence the false characterizations and outright lies in hopes of generating support for the draconian gun control laws that the Administration favors, but lacks the fortitude to openly champion.

And of course, we look with trepidation and sadness upon what may likely transpire later today, when President Obama is scheduled to speak in Tucson.

This is an opportunity for a real statesman to attempt to bridge the political divide and promote healing, but nothing in this President's past suggests he is capable of delivering a speech that isn't calculated and self-serving. It appears that we face the probability of another Wellstone funeral, as the memorial has taken the tone of a politicized union rally.

There are few things more shameful than using the corpse of of a child as a campaign stage, but we've long past the point of thinking that this radical Administration is capable of any decency at all.

Update: Sarah Palin labels the media/political smears as "blood libel," which is both controversial, and accurate, as Dan Riehl observes.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:33 AM | Comments (2)

January 11, 2011

Bet on Stupid

With college football now over, the folks doing online sports gambling at betus.com have one less sport to wager on this time of year. I'd suggest they put together a line on which opportunistic politicians and social commentators will make the dumbest statements or propose the most preposterous laws in the wake of Jared Loughner's 20-victim rampage in Tucson this past Saturday.

Peter King's self-serving, dim-witted, and no-doubt unconstitutional attempt to build a 1,000 foot gun-free zone around politicians is certainly a candidate to win the prize for dumbest proposed law, though the attempt by a bevy of Democrats to resurrect the laughably ineffective "assault weapons ban" of the 1994 federal crime bill is a close second.

The most competitive betting would take place on who is making the dumbest comments regarding the murders, with Pima County Sheriff Dupnik being a contender, along with Paul Krugman, and pretty much the entire stable of anchors and commenters at MSNBC.

The would-be elitists on the left all want to capitalize on the shooting and hope to to use the actions of a deranged individual to libel their political enemies. We can't be sure what perverse suggestions or solutions they will offer next, but it's a sure bet it will be vitriolic and stupid.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:00 PM | Comments (3)

Why Magazine Limit Laws Don't Save Lives

Gun control advocates are hoping to use the bodies of those killed by Jared Loughner as a podium to spread their views. New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy—Democrats all—are using the tragedy to rush forward a ban on magazines of more than ten rounds, claiming that by limiting the number of cartridges held in each magazine, the number of casualties in shootings would be reduced.

Really?

Here is a magazine change of a Glock 19 pistol (the kind used in the shooting in Tucson and at Virginia Tech) by a shooter with average skill.



He fires two shots, drops the empty magazine, reloads, and fires two more shots within three seconds. That includes shooting two rounds from each magazine, not just the magazine change, which takes roughly a second. Such results are not atypical, and skilled competition shooters are even faster.

The bills being proposed by these freedom-hating lawmakers aren't about guns.

They're about control.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:50 AM | Comments (3)

January 10, 2011

Get Olbermann, Matthews, and Behar Their Sedatives. New Revelations Paint Picture of Jared Loughner as Being an Insane Left-Winger

Before tonight revelations from friends and acquaintances of Jared Loughner had already paint a picture quite counter to that of a conservative.

Loughner was identified as being "very left wing," abused drugs, found humor in aborted fetuses (once proclaiming they could be fitted with suicide vests as "baby bombers" according to one offended classmate), hated God and was a 9/11 Truther... all beliefs more consistent than the political left than right.

Now we find that that Loughner was a vitriolic anti-war left winger as well.

Reality isn't what the media would like it to be. Expect this story to die soon.

What, you don't expect them to report Loughner was a product of their hate speech from the last decade, do you?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:14 PM | Comments (3)

January 09, 2011

The Politics of Political Rhetoric

In the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) and 19 others outside a Tucson supermarket, the usual rhetoric about political rhetoric has been flying wildly about. “Contemporary political rhetoric,” contemporary wisdom says, “is uniquely harmful. It is far more venomous and dangerous than ever before, and something ought to be done about it.” Political graphics, such as those with what appear to be telescopic sight crosshairs “targeting” the states of political opponents are particularly likely to incite the unstable to violence. Nonsense.

A cursory reading of the history of American political campaigns and political cartoons reveals that, in many ways, our political discourse is, by comparison, reasonably polite and restrained. Few of the political figures we revere today escaped having their parentage, intellect, honesty and personal morals and habits publicly questioned in less then delicate and tasteful terms. And while we do have more or less instant means of communication that our predecessors lacked, the kind of obscene, witless nastiness often seen there is commonly confined to a few very specific and partisan websites where those inclined to fling feces through the bars of their cyber cages are able to fling it almost exclusively at, and to the deranged delight of, each other. Most people become aware of it only as the result of bloggers who seek out such vitriol for the purpose of illustrating the derangement of their political opponents and post it as representative examples. Thankfully, it represents the thinking and juvenile tendencies of only a tiny portion of the population, a portion that likely still laughs uproariously at fart jokes some ten years or more on from high school.

As much as politicians of some stripes decry the use of military terminology and metaphor in political advertising and rhetoric, both sides use it freely and it is a staple of our everyday language. One could search exhaustively and never find anyone actually incited to violence by rhetoric about “targeting,” politicians for defeat, or about waging “war on poverty,” or “war on illiteracy,” or about “focusing like a laser” on this or that initiative. In fact, one commonly finds equally bloodthirsty rhetoric surrounding high school football games and even in school songs that, among other things, incessantly shout “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

For those who have followed political discourse over the years, much of this is reminiscent of the obscenity wars that have, for the time being, settled down to a low simmer. “Pornography is the theory, rape is the practice,” was a common feminist article of faith. Many demanded censorship, alleging that exposure to porn caused all manner of horrors. Fortunately, actual research did not establish the kinds of connections censors hoped to find. In one famous experiment prior to widespread access to the internet, college boys were confined to rooms containing filing cabinets filled with the more commonly available pornography such as Playboy, Penthouse and several less classy offerings. After a short period of initial interest, the guys became quickly bored and returned to reading Sports Illustrated, watching TV and similar fare. The largest problem encountered turned out to be keeping kids from stealing the magazines to show their roommates when the experiment ended.

Whether the issue is porn or overheated political rhetoric, let’s try a thought experiment. Let's assume that some small percentage of the population--usually male--will be, in some way, affected or inspired by exposure to overheated political rhetoric or what most would consider pornography. Are you really willing to censor speech and imagery based on what the most deranged among us might do?

Before you answer, consider the case of Ted Bundy, serial killer. After Bundy was captured and shortly before being executed for his many crimes, Dr. James Dobson of Focus On The Family, then a prominent anti-porn crusader, produced a video interview in which Bundy directly claimed that porn was the root cause of all of his evil. What Dobson did not tell his viewers was that the kind of porn Bundy favored and that was discovered in his possession upon his arrest was brochures advertising cheerleading camps. No nudes, no violence, no depictions of intercourse or snuff killings, just smiling, bouncy cheerleaders. Dr. Dobson would have you believe that Bundy killed because porn made him do it. I know better. Bundy killed because he was evil, and because he liked it. It’s that horrifying and that simple. Everything he did was illegal; the imagery he favored was not. Short of killing him twice, no law could have been more effective in dealing with Bundy or anyone like him.

The point, of course, is that we often make the mistake of assuming facts not in evidence. Because we are “normal,” we assume that deranged criminals will be incited to violence by, well, depictions and descriptions of violence. With the politically correct tidal wave of recent years, mild jokes that might be welcomed one day can be firing offenses on another. Too many people seem to believe that they have an absolute right never to be exposed to anything that they might find offensive or disturbing, or any idea or belief with which they might disagree. Thank goodness we have not yet empowered those who would be only too happy to try to enforce such a right to have at it.

When faced with senseless violence, it is only human nature to try to make sense of it, to try to explain it in a way that can assure us that a similar fate will not befall us or those we love. It is also perfectly natural to believe that we can legislate against human nature, that we can write laws that will in some way make us feel safer or that will “send a message” about what we think is right. The problem is that feeling safer isn’t being safer, and sending messages is best reserved for advertisements or texting. Neither is remotely effective in stopping the deranged whose motivations are almost certainly nothing most people could or would ever imagine.

There are a great many political “leaders” and “community organizers” and ”community activists” out there who would be only too delighted to gain the kind of political power that some might be tempted to give them in a vain attempt to ensure their safety. But the truth is, no one can do that. No one can ensure that anyone will be absolutely safe, not even the Secret Service who could not intercept or stop assassination attempts on John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

Sometimes, as frustrating as it is, we have to simply accept that tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us, and as resilient as human beings can be, we are also remarkably fragile. We certainly can and should call out and shame those who step over the line of reasonable political discourse, but that does not include those who use common, non-threatening metaphors and imagery. But for now, the most meaningful, effective thing we can do is to offer our humble, sincere prayers for the physical and spiritual healing of the victims and their families. We can also give thanks that we live in freedom unprecedented in human history and resolve to do all that we can that, as Abraham Lincoln said, “...government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

Posted by MikeM at 09:57 PM | Comments (2)

January 08, 2011

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Shot, At Least 6 Killed at Town Hall Shooting

I just got home from a very enjoyable day with my parents, my brothers, and their families, to discover a man in Arizona just ripped families apart, forever.

A shooting rampage at a town hall-style event Saturday in Tucson, Ariz., left six dead, including a federal judge, and critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who police said was the target of the attack. There were more than a dozen others wounded.

Giffords is in intensive care but expected to survive after being shot in the head at close range.

The local sheriff seems to think there may have been accomplices, but comments I've read about him elsewhere make me suspect he doesn't know what he's talking about. That would give him something in common with the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, who seems to have gone off the deep end quite some time ago, with a history of substance abuse and bizarre statements many are interpreting as signs of mental illness.

Descriptions from those who knew him make him sound a bit like Andrew Mickel, an Indymedia blogger that assassinated a police officer in hopes of triggering a civil war, and who is now on California's death row. At the moment, though, I could care less about the shooter or his motivations.

My prayers are with the families of those killed and injuries and the shock and agony they are enduring. My thoughts are of my family, how precious they are to me, and how I must focus on living every day with them like it is my last, because some day, it will be.

God be with us all.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)

Michael Vick More Important to Obama Than Family of Soldier Killed In Combat

Not that anyone didn't already know this by now, but our President is a shallow, self-absorbed buffoon:

It was bad enough that after Sgt. Sean Collins was killed in Afghanistan his parents received a senator's letter of condolence with the wrong name.

But the soldier's father says the White House added to the sting by subsequently turning down a request for President Obama to personally call Collins' mother.

Pat Collins, a retired lieutenant colonel, told Q13 FOX in Seattle that the family was told last month that the president could not fit it "into his schedule" to call mother Linda Collins about their son's death. Pat Collins, who initially made the request with the White House, said he would've understood, except for the fact that around the same time, Obama found an opening in his schedule for a much-publicized phone conversation with Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie.

Barack Obama is an embarrassment who belittles the high office he holds every day he occupies it. I cannot wait for the day that he departs.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:22 AM | Comments (2)

January 06, 2011

Juan Williams Rides Again

After an exhaustive investigation into its firing of Juan Williams, National Public Radio has announced that it acted entirely legally, that its Senior Vice President for News, Ellen Weiss, is resigning, that its CEO Vivian Schiller will lose her 2010 bonus, and, oh yes, NPR sort of kind of wishes it had handled things a little, you know, differently and will take steps to ensure that it handles such things sort of kind of differently in the future. Those interested in reading NPR’s various statements and the statement of their ombudsman, Alicia C. Shepard, can find that information here.

For those who have not closely followed the case, in October of 2010, the news broke that Juan Williams, who had worked for NPR for a decade, had been fired for a statement he made on an edition of The O’Reilly Factor. Williams, billed as a liberal commentator on Fox, told O’Reilly that he experiences a moment of anxiety when he sees people in obviously Muslim garb about to board the same aircraft on which he is flying. Williams was careful to note that this did not mean that all Muslims should be considered terrorists. Weiss soon fired Williams--by phone. She refused to speak to him in person and generally treated him shabbily.

One might think that Williams’ progressive friends and colleagues would have immediately rushed to his aid in outraged defense of diversity and the First Amendment. One would be wrong. While some few progressives did offer some words of support, Fox News not only ran with the story in a big way, but promptly hired Williams at a salary far higher than he lost at NPR. Public outcry against NPR was swift and merciless, and there were public--and most frightening for NPR--Congressional cries for complete federal defunding of all public broadcasting.

In the immediate aftermath, Williams’ comments were restrained. He did explain the shabby way he had been treated by Weiss, and expressed his opinion that he was fired because NPR is a progressive shop that does not tolerate other views. He also suggested that his firing was the direct result of NPR’s long-standing discomfort with the fact that he often appeared on Fox programs. One might reasonably wonder why Williams worked for NPR for 10 years knowing its nature as he did, but that’s an issue for another time.

NPR immediately struck back accusing Williams of being a serial violator of their ”standards.” At a news conference defending NPR, Schiller crudely commented that William’s comment regarding his anxiety in seeing Muslims boarding an aircraft indicated that he needed to see a psychiatrist. Her comments raised such a firestorm across the nation that she was quickly forced to issue a lengthy written apology to affiliated stations and NPR staff. She was not specific about her wrongdoing, but merely expressed regret that the process was not well handled. She said: "In any event, the process that followed the decision was unfortunate — including not meeting with Juan in person — and I take full responsibility for that.” Of interest is that NPR affiliated stations around the nation were, at the time, actively engaged in one of their periodic fund raising drives, fund raising which NPR’s actions directly jeopardized.

Responding to the news of the outcome of the NPR investigation, an investigation in which he declined to participate, Williams restated his belief that NPR is a closed, liberal shop that does not tolerate other beliefs, opinions or stories. Williams characterized Weiss, who had worked at NPR for three decades, as one primarily responsible for that orthodoxy, an orthodoxy that prevents NPR from fully and competently covering the news.

Is NPR a closed, liberal shop more concerned with progressive opinion and causes then in truth? In the years that I have, upon occasion, followed NPR programs, I’ve had no doubt whatsoever about the progressive nature and practice of NPR. It should not be forgotten that on October 9, 2003, NPR’s Terry Gross, on her “Fresh Air” program, lured Bill O’Reilly by promising to discuss his recently published book, but instead unleashed a hostile progressive ambush that was so egregiously partisan and unprofessional even NPR’s ombudsman agreed with O’Reilly. It would not be unreasonable to suspect that lingering hostility over that incident had some bearing on NPR’s treatment of Williams. Progressives tend to have long memories about such things.

One need only read the NPR stories available at the link to understand that Williams is entirely correct in his assessment of NPR. Like so many progressives, NPR employees apparently live in a hermetically sealed bubble such that no other ideas or beliefs intrude upon their consciousness. Their worldview allows for no conclusion other than that their thinking is fair, balanced and the only thinking any intelligent, rational human being could possibly have. Their outlook is so far to the left that even Juan Williams, a man who has never described himself as other than liberal, can seem, to them, to be an evil conservative attacking the one, true faith.

Particularly revealing is the statement of Ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard, which must be read in its entirely to be fully appreciated. Shepard begins her statement with a thinly veiled attack on Williams: “Juan Williams once again got himself into trouble with NPR for comments he made at his other job, at Fox News. And NPR's reaction has unleashed an unprecedented firestorm of criticism directed not at Williams – but at NPR.” Shepard goes on to describe the thousands of outraged listeners who bombarded NPR in response to its treatment of Williams, and attempts to invoke reader sympathy because NPR was treated so badly. Shepard does eventually get around to admitting that NPR treated Williams improperly, but sticks to the party line that he essentially deserved it. Shepard defends NPR’s dedication to diversity: “It's not about race. It's also not about free speech, as some have charged. Nor is it about an alleged attempt by NPR to stifle conservative views. NPR offers a broad range of viewpoints on its radio shows and web site.”

Anyone taking the time to read NPR’s own reporting on this matter may have considerable difficulty in detecting any commitment to “...a broad range of viewpoints.” What the objective reader will likely find is an organization deeply offended that any dare question it. They will find an organization that is blatantly partisan and one-sided in its thinking and presentation of “news.” They will find an organization that is far more interested in protecting itself than in admitting wrong doing or in preventing wrong doing in the future, particularly wrong doing toward those who stray off the progressive reservation.

Ironically, the primary person benefiting from this debacle is Juan Williams, who while clearly liberal, is a generally reasonable, personable commentator who can actually engage in debate without resorting to name calling, red-faced expectorating and righteous indignation. Also benefiting is Fox News which continues its institutional practice of constantly employing liberals to balance conservative opinion on its many opinion and commentary programs, all of which continue to dominate cable news, providing a model of balance that any objective analysis would reveal NPR incapable of matching.

There seems little doubt that NPR’s public pseudo mea culpas have little to do with any recognition of individual or institutional wrong doing. What worries NPR is that Congress, newly energized by a Republican-controlled house, will follow through on its threats and defund NPR. While NPR has, over the months following William’s firing, tried repeatedly to minimize the amount of money it receives from the Federal government and its effect on NPR’s viability, without that government support, NPR would almost certainly quickly go the way of Air America and every other failed attempt at openly, exclusively progressive media.

Newsweek magazine, for example, not long ago announced that it would no longer trying to present unbiased news, but would be a journal of elite liberal opinion. Shortly thereafter, on August 2, 2010, it was purchased for one dollar by liberal stereo billionaire Sidney Harman and currently exists as his wholly supported project. Such was the fate of the late, unlamented Air America until its wealthy liberal benefactors tired of throwing away good money.

Obama administration attempts to regulate the internet, which are still ongoing, clearly reveal that progressives understand that their message cannot stand on its own in the marketplace of ideas without government support, financial and regulatory, to handicap not only openly conservative commentary, but unbiased, professional news presentations.

The Congress should defund all support for “public broadcasting.” The First Amendment creates no obligation for government to subsidize any expression, nor does it create a right to such subsidies. Let NPR strike out boldly on its own. Allow it to operate free of the fetters of government funding. Let it burst forth, once and for all, as a proud source of elite, liberal opinion, free to express its true beliefs without the need to keep up dishonest and distasteful appearances. How much better and more righteous would NPR executives feel if they could say, “sure we fired Williams. He deserved it. He betrayed the one, true faith. He sounded like a conservative and we don’t allow that.” We’ll all be the better for having the extra bandwidth when NPR goes the way of its predecessors.

Posted by MikeM at 07:45 PM | Comments (3)

Mewling Obama Supporter Calls Secret Service, Attempts to Inform on UFC Fighter

The petty little tyrants just can't stand dissenting views, can they?

UFC lightweight Jacob Volkmann, following his UFC 125 win over Antonio McKee, declared that he wanted to fight President Barack Obama for his next fight.

[snip]

After defeating McKee, Volkmann was asked who he would like to fight next. Volkmann first requested Clay Guida, then said "Actually, Obama. He's not too bright … Someone needs to knock some sense into that idiot. I just don't like what Barack is doing."

[snip]

The Secret Service showed up both at his residence and during a youth wrestling camp he coaches.

[snip]

"This guy had the whole interview on a piece of paper and it had my picture and everything," said Volkmann. "He was like 'is this what you said?' and I said, 'yes it is.' He's like 'I want to let you know I'm a little embarrassed for coming here and doing this because obviously nothing happened.' He actually apologized for coming, but he had to come. He wanted to make sure I wasn't going to D.C to hurt the President.

"The thing is, I got home and I checked my e-mail and I had about 20 e-mails and one of them, one of ladies had actually contacted the FBI and the Secret Service, and she was telling me that she was going to do it."

The person who contacted Volkmann, according to the fighter, was a member of the election committee that worked for President Obama's campaign.

Volkmann's comments were clearly rhetorical, and requesting someone to compete in an organized sporting event with rules, attending physicians, a referee and panel of judges can in no way a threat.

But because our timid little President is so delicate and easily offended, the Secret Service has wasted our tax dollars to harass a citizen and small business owner for comments that would have elicited a yawn under the previous administration, where liberal death threats against President Bush were a staple of their protests.

Democrats aren't tough enough to face domestic criticism. We should hardly be surprised that they are so easily rolled by our nation's real enemies.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:52 PM | Comments (23)

An Honest Question About the Debt Ceiling

So we seem to be facing a problem:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned congressional leaders Thursday that the government could reach its borrowing limit by spring and failure to raise it could affect millions of American jobs.

The government will reach the limit between March 31 and May 16, Geithner said in a letter to congressional leaders. Not increasing the $14.3 trillion debt limit could lead to job losses, he said.

Inaction could drive up interest rates and make it more costly for U.S. companies to borrow money.

Geithner's warning is directed chiefly at Republicans, who are vowing to block an increase in the debt limit and use the fight to restrain government spending.

If we refuse to raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit, interest rates could go up and jobs could be lost in an already depressed economy. I get that.

But which is worse? Hitting our debt limit, or raising it again, only to hit it in the near future with even more catastrophic results? It would seem better for the nation to run out of money we frankly don't have now, instead of piling up the debt and defaulting on it later, hurting both us and our creditors in other nations that much worse when we finally do default, which we assuredly will as we keep kicking the proverbial can down the road, borrowing far more than we have the financial resources to repay.

At this point, refusing to raise the debt ceiling and dramatically cutting government spending would seem to be the only logical and fiscally responsible action out Congress can take. Continually raising the debt we owe to other nations would seem to be a clear and present danger to our economy and Republic.

What say you?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:38 PM | Comments (7)

January 05, 2011

Ace, Fire up the Ewok: I Just Got a Boehner

You pronounce it however you want, but this is gold.

Senate Democrats announced that they would obstruct and attempts by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives to overturn Obamacare.

In turn, Speaker-Elect Boehner's office has issued their own terse reply.

Senators Reid, Durbin, Schumer, Murray and Stabenow:

Thank you for reminding us – and the American people – of the backroom deal that you struck behind closed doors with 'Big Pharma,' resulting in bigger profits for the drug companies, and higher prescription drug costs for 33 million seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D, at a cost to the taxpayers of $42.6 billion.

The House is going to pass legislation to repeal that now. You’re welcome.

- Speaker-Designate John Boehner's Press Office

It's game on, folks, and if the incoming Speaker has the fortitude to stick to this sort of pro-American, anti-Obama message, it could spell even larger gains in the House and the collapse of the Democratic Senate in the 2012 elections.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:23 AM | Comments (3)

January 04, 2011

Like WaPo's Ezra Klein, HuffPo Writer Terkel Confused By Constitution

Think Progress shill Amanda Terkel is not very bright, and seems easily confused by the Constitution like a certain boy blogger we know who can't grasp the plain meaning of documents more than 100 years old (guess we can count out his review of The Mabinogi: A Book of Essays that I worked on as a grad assistant).

Terkel whines:

The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Someone should inform out dim liberal friend that, that isn't "according to" Scalia. That's "according" to a plain text reading of the Amendment itself.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The only gender references in the document plainly refer to males... do we need to highlight that? Furthermore, this is a commonly understood reading of the document that is utterly uncontroversial. The single sex nature of the 14th Amendment is the reason that an Equal Rights Amendment creating a Constitutional basis for equality between the sexes has been proposed time and again since 1923.

As William Jacobson notes, Terkel and her liberal allies simply don't know the Constitution.

Perhaps the failures of the liberal education system in this country are at fault. Can you think of any other reason liberals consistently claim The Constitution says things, that it clearly does not?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:27 AM | Comments (3)

January 03, 2011

Missing the Main Course

My peers on both sides of the political blogging aisle seem very interested in Republican Rep. Darrell Issa and his promised investigations into the corruption of the Obama Administration, but after seeing what he says he intends to investigate, I'm actually a bit disappointed in the items he hasn't listed:

  • the firing of Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general who had his sights on Kevin Johnson, a prominent Obama supporter
  • the buy-off of Joe Sestak which Issa once called "Obama's Watergate" and in which Issa suggested three felonies took place
  • Pigford and Pigford II, which were fraud-filled payouts to people who claimed to be farmers, that some describe as then Senator Obama's attempt at reparations for slavery
  • The Black Panther/DOJ Voter Intimidation case that the Administration dropped after winning, and the alleged refusal by the DOJ Civil Rights division to prosecute minorities
  • the Administration's bullying of car companies and Wall Street
  • abuse of power by the Administration, including the massive and unconstitutional expansion and assertion of executive power

The list could of course go on.

Some are speculating that Issa's current list is just a jumping-off point to get the ball rolling, but I suspect that it is a bit less ambitious than that. Congressmen love power, and the prospect of leverage. I would not be surprised at all that the items listed above are nothing more or less than items the GOP will use for political blackmail.

Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I suspect the threatened investigations are all about the pursuit of power, with justice and the eradication of corruption merely being a pleasant side effect.

The Tea Party may have succeeded in sending a message in 2010, but the entrenched political machines won't go down without a fight. I'm expecting a lot of resistance from both Democrats and Republicans to the calls for real change, and if we have any hope of seeing this kind of corruption eradicated, the Tea Party is going to have to secure more victories in 2012, and driving the old guard on both sides out of Washington is the only way to do it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:21 PM | Comments (5)

December 31, 2010

"Grandmother" of Obama's Socialist Philosophy Calls for Violent Revolution Against Capitalism

I saw yesterday that Ron Radosh had uncovered a recent rant from leftist agitator Frances Fox Piven in the pages of the the radical left The Nation. Piven and her husband Richard Cloward had formulated the so-called "Cloward-Piven" strategy to overwhelm the welfare system and collapse capitalism in a prior article in The Nation in 1966, and the strategy has been a focus of leftist ideologues for more than four decades, including ACORN and it's most famous community organizer, Barack Hussein Obama.

The Blaze wades back into the newer article again today, noting:

She's considered by many as the grandmother of using the American welfare state to implement revolution. Make people dependent on the government, overload the government rolls, and once government services become unsustainable, the people will rise up, overthrow the oppressive capitalist system, and finally create income equality. Collapse the system and create a new one. That's the simplified version of Frances Fox Piven's philosophy originally put forth in the pages of The Nation in the 60s.

Now, as the new year ball drops, Piven is at it again, ringing in 2011 with renewed calls for revolution.

In a chilling and almost unbelievable editorial again in The Nation ("Mobilizing the Jobless," January 10/17, 2011 edition), she calls on the jobless to rise up in a violent show of solidarity and force. As before, those calls are dripping with language of class struggle. Language she and her late husband Richard Cloward made popular in the 60s.

Americans well aware of Barack Obama's influences have always regarded him as a potential threat to the Republic, and when his Administration's "accomplishments" are viewed through the prism of Cloward-Piven, and that suspicion seems well-grounded.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:34 PM | Comments (6)

December 30, 2010

Ezra Klein Less Well-Educated Than Thought

Twitter users have been ripping Ezra Klein apart for his dim-witted televised pronouncement that the Constitution is too difficult to understand because the document was written "more than 100 years ago."

The thing is that Klein isn't nearly done on displaying his ignorance of the Constitution, baring his ignorance for all to see in print as well.

My friends on the right don't like to hear this, but the Constitution is not a clear document. Written more than 200 years ago, when America had 13 states and very different problems, it rarely speaks directly to the questions we ask it. The Second Amendment, for instance, says nothing about keeping a gun in the home if you've not signed up with a "well-regulated militia," but interpreting the Second Amendment broadly has been important to those who want to bear arms. And so they've done it.

The contextual ignorance Klein puts on display in this one simple paragraph is stunning.

Anyone with a decent classical education would know that "well-regulated" in this context has nothing to do with a legislation. When something is "regulated," it is brought into a state of uniformity. Something that is "well-regulated" is in proper working order, or in colloquial terms "well-oiled." It functions smoothly.

The purpose of the Founders, easily reinforced by the their own writing, was to assure that the civilian militias could function effectively in their military role. They wanted America's citizens to shoot, and shoot well. They wanted us to be able to fight, defending both our rights and our communities.

That Klein—a supposed intellectual—is dim to this rather common definition simply lends credence to the theory that a "liberal" education involves very little actual education at all.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:05 PM | Comments (8)

Another Kind of Death, From Another Kind of Death Panel

We've watched Obamacare become the poster child for death panel socialism, but that is hardly the only venue that leftists are using to destroy America.

Investors Business Daily has a very disturbing article on how left wing environmentalists are in the process of destroying the most fertile farmland in the nation—and forcing people to go hungry—in order to save a nonviable species of minnow:

Fresno is the agricultural capital of America. More food per acre in more variety can be grown in the fertile Central Valley surrounding this community than on any other land in America — perhaps in the world.

Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens.

State and federal officials, driven by the agenda of environmental extremists, have made it extremely difficult for the valley's farms, introducing costly environmental regulations and cutting off critical water supplies to save the Delta smelt, a bait fish. It's all driving the economy to collapse.

This isn't really about saving a forgettable species that contributes little to it's own ecosystem. It's purely about human's attempting to exert power and control over other humans. More to the point it is about evil humans subjugating their fellow man to economic ruin and starvation in order to assert their own political agenda.

I suppose it could be worse. Those responsible for this debacle could wall off the region they are starving and put up a gate that glibly suggests "work will set you free," putting aside all pretense of being representative of a "free" society.

Frankly, I'm surprised that dams and irrigation-restricting controls haven't mysteriously started experiencing malfunctions or outright failures.

Perhaps the starving farmers in Fresno aren't feeling the pangs of hunger severely enough to take direct charge of their own futures. Or perhaps like far too many citizens of California, they've simply lost their sense of self worth, and lack the will to exist.

(h/t Hot Air)

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:26 PM | Comments (2)

December 29, 2010

R. Lee Ermy Rips into the Obama Administration

I'm starting to think the character of Gunny Hartman wasn't that much of a stretch to play. He's no fan of the Socialist-in-Chief, and flat out states that Obama's goal is to bankrupt the country.

"...We should all rise up and stop this administration from what they're doing because they're destroying this country. They're driving us into bankruptcy so they can impose socialism."

I'm not sure where he's raising troops, but listening to the crowd, he's still one hell of a recruiter.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:01 PM | Comments (6)

December 28, 2010

Is America Worth Defending

Recent developments in the domestic and international arenas have raised several important questions. Among the most important is: Does Barack Obama believe America is worth defending? My most recent article at Pajamas Media seeks to answer that, and other pertinent questions. The article can be read here.

Posted by MikeM at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2010

The Road to Mecca

My latest post on Pajama Media is about a middle school teacher who asked for three weeks off during December to attend the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca observant Muslims are expected to make once in their life, if possible. When her principal sensibly refused, she took offense, decided to sue, and found an ally that, for the first 232 years of America's existence, would have been most improbable.

The article can be accessed here.

Posted by MikeM at 10:44 PM | Comments (8)

It's ReVolting

Life comes at us fast, as the commercial tag goes, and change is ubiquitous. In our fast paced, ever-changing lives, we can take occasional comfort in the fact that some things never change. We can rely on death, taxes, McDonald’s, the fecklessness and narcissism of Barack Obama, and above all the obsequious New York Times.

Yes, the NYT has, once again, lived down to expectations. Thus comes Lawrence Ulrich, on the Times website, with a review of the much-ballyhooed Chevy Volt, a review that could not be more fawning if it was named “Bambi.” In fact, “Volt” could easily be replaced with “Obama” in much of the review and it would yield yet another Obama puff piece for which the NYT has become justly infamous. That review, entitled “Loaded with Baggage and Planning to Go Far,” may be accessed here. My original take on the Volt may be accessed here. Oh, and about the title...I couldn’t help myself. Stop me before I pun again!


Volt EPA Sticker

Let’s take a brief trip to that magical land where socialists run free to regulate as they please and where all-electric, union built cars roam like wild, majestic mustangs, mustangs that are relegated to a 40 mile range and tethered to electric outlets powered by coal fired power plants.

“The Volt leaves you grinning with its driving-the-future vibe. Yet the car operates so seamlessly that owners need not think about the planetary gear sets, the liquid-cooled electrons and all that digital magic taking place below.

Just don’t forget to unplug it when you back out of the garage.

And plugging it in is what you’ll want to do, as the Volt was designed with an operating strategy entirely different from other hybrids. It is meant to be driven primarily on the energy stored in its battery; the gasoline engine’s contribution to moving the car is largely indirect, by turning a generator that powers the electric motors once the battery has been depleted.”

Mr. Ulrich might want to restrain his giddy, vibrating grinning a moment and reflect on basic economics. The Volt is a $41,000 compact car that, unless one wants to take 8-10 hours to charge its battery, requires a 240 volt fast charger in the home which costs another $2000. The fast charger will top off the battery at the warp speed rate of 4-5 hours. Ah, but the government is providing a $7500 tax credit, which brings the total price down to something like $35,500. Set aside, for the moment, that the taxes paid by the buyer on a $30,000+ car are substantially greater than those paid on a car costing only about $20,000. Set aside, for the moment, that this government subsidy does not appear out of thin air, but is comprised entirely of tax revenues being wasted to subsidize the union cronies and pie-in-the-sky greenie dreams of our new socialist masters. Automobile manufacturing economics are relatively simple: Build a car enough of the public will want to buy in numbers large enough to turn a substantial profit. In this basic, simple equation, the Volt fails abysmally. In a real, Capitalist world, a world where the Government did not own a controlling percentage of General Motors, the Volt would have never been built.

It is tempting to believe that Ulrich moonlights writing ad copy for Chevrolet as he and Chevy have labored mightily to hide the fact that the Volt is nothing more than a unnecessarily complex, common hybrid. The gasoline engine’s contribution to moving the car is not, in fact, “largely indirect.” When the battery charge falls below a predetermined level, the gasoline engine directly powers the wheels. It’s an ridiculously complex and expensive hybrid.

Still, despite giving it the good old college try, Ulrich can’t hide all the warts: “Having delivered the energy-use equivalent of about 112 miles per gallon in battery mode, the Volt continued to have admirable economy with the gas-driven generator supplying the electricity: 44 m.p.g. over all, whipping the E.P.A.’s estimate of 35 city and 40 highway. With its 9.3-gallon gas capacity — premium fuel required — you can exceed 300 miles per tank, in addition to the initial E.V. miles. That’s the crux of how the Volt maintains everyday practicality while affording owners all-electric motoring on short local trips.

After logging 120 miles (60 electric and 60 in gas-electric mode) the Volt returned the no-fudging equivalent of 64 miles per gallon. That average accounts for the 18 kilowatt-hours of plug-in electricity the Volt consumed — just over a half-gallon’s worth of gasoline using the conversion of about 33 kilowatt-hours of energy per gallon.”

So, when we combine the all electric range, multiplied by the gasoline equivalent, divided by the kilowatt-hour cost, added to the furlongs per fortnight factor, and throw some banana peels in the gas tank, the Volt gets unbelievable, earth-shaking mileage at virtually no cost!

This is a large part of the Volt’s problem. There is no rational, easily understood means of comparing the Volt with gas powered vehicles. It’s all smoke and mirrors, as the EPA produced mileage sticker suggests. In order to arrive at any figure, one must make a great many assumptions about relative costs, among the largest of which is that electricity and gasoline will remain relatively cheap even as the Obamites labor to make all energy prices “necessarily skyrocket,” as Mr. Obama himself dreamed on the 2008 campaign trail. Keep in mind too that premium gas--notice how slyly Mr. Ulrich slipped that little bit of economic disaster in--commonly costs $.50 to $.75 more than regular (a substantial, costly difference). And the “everyday practicality” about which Mr. Ulrich writes requires downtime of from 4-10 hours for charging, which means planning trips in advance to take advantage of that “practicality.” No spur of the moment, all-electric trips for Volt owners.

Mr. Ulrich ultimately settles on 64 MPG for his Volt driving experience and blithely claims: “Most owners, I think, will do better, determined to drive most of their miles on battery power.” Ah yes, the practicality! Ulrich continues: “Early adopters with the means and mind-set to buy a Volt--$41,000 on the window sticker, but $33,500 after subtracting the $7,500 federal tax credit, or $350.00 a month on G.M.’s sweetheart lease--will plug in faithfully, rarely sullying their Volts with a fuel nozzle.”

Let’s hope that Volt “adopter” doesn’t live in a cold climate where about half of the year its battery will be substantially--even completely--drained of power, hence, range. Let’s also hope that they understand that they’ll have to invest heavily in gasoline stabilizers as gas unburned in a tank for long periods of time breaks down. But Mr. Ulrich is somewhat honest here in that he hints at the real nature of likely Volt “adopters.” These are people who see the Volt as a social, political statement, a badge of ecological honor. People who are willing to trade real everyday practicality for a multi-thousand pound, rolling statement of their green purity and virtue. That and people who are wealthy enough to buy a Volt for its novelty while still maintaining a fleet of conventional vehicles for, you know, everyday practicality.

And what is this “sweetheart lease?” What Mr. Ulrich apparently means is that GM isn’t going to make a penny off the lease; GM will probably lose money. Ah, but the taxpayer will pick up the difference. What sweethearts!

To be completely honest, Mr. Ulrich does get around to noting that the Volt is “...really a plug-in hybrid...”, but he quickly falls back into cheerleading. “But please, enough with stories that cherry-pick statistics comparing worst-case Volts against Priuses running downhill on the nation’s cheapest gas,” writes Mr. Ulrich, who immediately begins to pick his own cherries. “In California...Pacific Gas & Electric plans to charge as little as 5 cents a kilowatt-hour for nighttime E.V charging.”

So many fish, such a small barrel. Remember that one of Mr. Obama’s fondest, often and explicitely expressed wishes is to obliterate the coal industry in America, the coal industry that supplies coal for coal-fired power plants. Remember too that he has essentially stopped all nuclear plant building and his greenie allies have stopped solar and wind power generation projects. With this in mind, how does PG&E plan--as opposed to, you know, actually charging--to charge “...as little as 5 cents a kilowatt hour for nighttime E.V. charging?” This would only be economically feasible if there were hundreds of thousands, even millions of electric vehicles to charge each and every night. Absent that, only government subsidies could make such largess possible. Forget, for the moment, the utter improbability of millions of electric vehicles, even in green-obsessed California and remember the very nature of California. Rolling brownouts sound familiar? Wasn’t there something in the news recently about California being bankrupt, about to default? Weren’t California politicians vehemently denying it, which is a sure sign it’s true? Hmm. Maybe California wasn’t such a great example after all...

Mr. Ulrich adds one odd bit of information when he writes “...owners can also cool or heat the car remotely, using grid electricity rather than draining the battery.” Apparently, while a Volt is plugged in, an owner can remotely pre-warm or cool the interior of the vehicle, otherwise a rather long electric cord would be required. But this inadvertently reveals what Mr. Ulrich apparently doesn’t realize, or has chosen not to mention: Functions such as heating and air conditioning the vehicle will dramatically reduce range as they drain battery power. Even such luxury functions as running the radio, using turn indicators or headlights will also quickly diminish range.

Describing the Volt, Mr. Ulrich dissolves into the language of oh-so-chic fashion reporting. “Call the Volt quietly handsome, with a pleasingly sporty stance and uncluttered visage...The flush-mounted touch panel controls look all Logan’s Run...the Volt’s cabin is comfortable and whimsically futuristic...” Remember that the NYT is the same newspaper whose David Brooks thought that Barack Obama would be a very good president--and, as Dave Berry says, I am not making this up--because of the crease in his pants. Mr. Ulrich even explains that the Volt handles well for a car that isn't designed to handle well and doesn't really have the tires for it, which is rather like observing that a professional basketball player can't jump, but makes up for it by being 5'2" tall.

Toward the conclusion, Ulrich engages in a bit of fantasy-laced reality: “Certainly, you could buy a conventional Chevy Cruze for $20,000, get respectable mileage and save thousands. But the Volt isn’t for people looking for the lowest possible price or operating costs — it is designed for those willing to spend extra for new technology that can wean them off gas and cut pollution.

In other words, the Volt is a car that will make fans feel good about driving and about themselves. If that’s not your cup of green tea, don’t buy it. But if the Volt appeals to you, my hunch is that you’re going to love it more than any car you’ve driven in years.”

Indeed, the Volt is for people--at least some people--who want to feel good about themselves in a particularly smug, self-righteous way. Such people will likely love the Volt more than any car they’ve driven in years because they love themselves more than anyone they’ve met in years and they’ll see the Volt as a reflection of themselves. But particularly if greenie hopes of a Volt in every garage come true, from where, pray tell, will all that electricity come? Even the government can’t print it. Won’t the greatly increased electric demand itself keep pollution at the same level, likely even increase it? Notice too, Mr. Ulrich’s math. Buy a Chevy Cruze for $20,000 and save thousands. Yes, that’s from $13,500 to $15,500 (there’s that 240V fast charger again). I suspect most folks see “thousands” as two or three, not 13.5 to 15.5. Even if a Volt saved $1000 a year in fuel costs over a comparable high-mileage sedan, it would take 13.5 to 15.5 years to break even in those costs alone. If, for example, an economy minded buyer purchased a Ford Fiesta for say, $18,000, the numbers become even worse: From 15.5 to 17.5 years to break even. Most people would never come close to breaking even. This is what economists call a "disincentive."

Firearm Guru Col. Jeff Cooper called double action trigger mechanisms for semi-automatic handguns “an ingenious solution to a non-existent problem.” And so it is with the Volt. Its only potential virtues are somewhat higher mileage than comparable vehicles, and the potential to reduce pollution. However, these virtues depend almost entirely on wildly optimistic projections and hopes, and on infrastructure that does not exist and will not exist unless the sheer number of electric vehicles on the road make it economically feasible to build. Or, of course, unless the government spends money we don't have building it regardless. On the downside, compared with its competition, the Volt is substantially more complex, far less flexible, offers inferior performance in virtually every measurable category, and is so much more expensive, even considering a $7500 tax advantage (explain to me again why the Volt needs a huge tax incentive just to get it off dealership lots, and how long do you suppose the taxpayers will be rendering that advantage? 2012? 2016, if Mr. Obama is reelected?), as to make the mere economics of building and marketing the vehicle an exercise in fiscal insanity.

Under normal circumstances, the Volt would be an interesting engineering and development exercise and nothing more. The much reviled “bean counters” at GM would have prevailed, justly pointing out that the technology had not caught up to the dream (the engineers would likely have agreed), that the manufacturing costs were simply too high, that the potential customer base was far too small, and that even with an unprecedented taxpayer subsidy, the list price was simply too high. They surely would have added that when the subsidy evaporated, building the Volt would change from mere stupidity to absolute lunacy. All of these factors would add up to tell GM that every Volt manufactured would plunge GM further into red ink at a time when GM’s continued existence depended entirely on taxpayer bailouts. Under normal circumstances.

But the Volt will not quickly go away. It owes its existence to Barack Obama and his bureaucrats who will not allow it to die until they no longer have any choice or say. And when it dies, as it surely will, the multi billion dollar price tag for this particular green boondoggle will, as always, come out of the pockets of taxpayers, the same taxpayers who one morning awoke to find themselves 61% owners of GM, the same taxpayers whose energy costs Mr. Obama is working so diligently to make “necessarily skyrocket.”

Oh well. What’s billions of squandered taxpayer dollars compared to the incomparable public service provided by Mr. Brooks and Mr. Ulrich writing about the rapture of pants creases and gee-whiz automotive features?

Posted by MikeM at 09:59 PM | Comments (2)

December 23, 2010

Quick Takes: December 23, 2010

ITEM: Vice President Biden: The US will be out of Afghanistan by 2014 come “Hell or high water.” Achmed the Taliban in a cave: “Well OK. We’ll lay in supplies until then.”

ITEM: Vice President Biden: The Republicans forced us to extend the Bush tax cuts during the lame duck session. Republicans: “Hey, didn’t the Dems have the White House and majorities in both houses?”

ITEM: Vice President Biden recently declared that failing to tax everyone into oblivion is a moral issue. Oh, I get it: Being annoyed when people like Sheriff Joe forcibly take the money I earn to distribute it to their cronies and favored victim groups makes me immoral. Of course.

ITEM: Vice President Biden: “The President and I are space aliens.” OK. I made that one up, but how many of you thought “I knew it!”?

ITEM: During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama visited all 57 states. Now comes Janet Napolitano, director of Homeland Security who assures us that the DHS is working 24/7/364 to protect Americans. I wonder if the Jihadists know which day DHS takes off? Napolitano is apparently off every day...maybe that’s not such a bad thing...

ITEM: During an ABC TV interview with Diane Sawyer on December 20, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted that he knew nothing at all about the Dec. 20 arrests in England of 12 Islamist terrorists. The DNI had no idea. The man solely responsible for knowing everything about terrorism, and, you know, intelligence, had no idea. Oh well. He probably thinks his primary job is to install foot washing stations in public schools so no Muslim will feel unclean.

ITEM: President Obama and Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson are poised to announce new, onerous emissions regulations on power plants and refineries within the next few days as a means of bypassing Congress. When even Al Gore is admitting that the Global Warming jig is up, apparently all you have left is bureaucrats and regulations. Some in Congress are threatening to cut off EPA funding. What’s the saying? I’ll believe it when I see it? That’s the one.

ITEM: In a June speech to something called the “Network of Spiritual Progressives,” America’s only Muslim member of Congress, Keith Ellison (D; Islam)
prayed that America’s borders would become “an irrelevancy.” He also observed that military strength does not provide security. What does, you ask? Are you sure you want to hear the answer? Don’t say I didn’t warn you: Only policies of “equity, generosity and engagement,” provide security. Hmmm. Hasn’t President Obama been engaging the Muslim world senseless for the last two years? And hasn’t that hopenchangy approach been, you know, a total failure? Perhaps we just haven’t been equitable and generous enough as yet...

ITEM: In a press conference on December 22, President Obama said: “And I think we are past the crisis point in the economy, but we now have to pivot and focus on jobs and growth. And my singular focus over the next two years is not rescuing the economy from potential disaster, but rather jumpstarting the economy so that we actually start making a dent in the unemployment rate and we are equipping ourselves so that we can compete in the 21st century.”

Hmm. Let’s review, shall we class? A number of states, including Illinois and California are bankrupt, but have yet to completely collapse, businesses are afraid to invest or hire because they know that whenever Mr. Obama’s lips are moving, he’s lying. Gas prices are rising, and Mr. Obama is trying to make good on his pre-election promise to ensure that energy prices “necessarily skyrocket” by doing a regulatory end run on Congress to protect us from the global warming that virtually no one outside of UN bureaucrats actually believes is occurring. And to top it all off, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has been making very pessimistic noises about the economy while simultaneously printing money as though it grows on trees. But Mr. Obama says the crisis is over, so I guess we just wait for his pivot. Oh wait. He’s vacationing in Hawaii and will, of course, be golfing as much as humanly possible. I bet he meant “divot.”

CODA: The good news is that after the mid term elections, America now has a chance to limit, perhaps even reverse some of the damage for the next two years.
And on that positive note, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Posted by MikeM at 09:35 PM | Comments (3)

Sure, She Says For Us to Diet...

...but why do Michelle Antoinette's actions always amount to "let them eat cake?"

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2010

Reparations, By Any Other Name

Our racist, Marxist (two decades in a church espousing Black Liberation Theology) President continues his divide and conquer, "I'm gonna get me mine" approach to racial divisiveness in the Pigford Scandal, where fraudsters could get a cool $50,000 payout for "attempting to farm."

One common misconception is that Pigford is about people who defrauded the government by pretending to be farmers. From the research I've done, there's almost nobody who pretended to be a farmer. The shocking truth is that you didn't have to fake a farming resume to collect $50,000 — all you had to do was to make a credible enough claim that you "attempted to farm."

This category of "attempted to farm" was a huge slap in the face to the bona fide black farmers that the Pigford case was supposed to help. Many of these farmers faced real discrimination at the hands of the USDA and it's clear they had legitimate claims.

I would love to see inside Barack Obama's mind, to know what motivated him here. Was it purely the old cry for reparations for slavery? Was it the cynical buyout of rural votes? These theories and more have been floated, and I would not be surprised if each theory had at least some merit. The "first post-racial President" continues down his path of polarizing the nation along racial and political lines, almost as if he hopes to cause an implosion.

I don't know that I believe in a Manchurian candidate, but the Hawaiian one proving to be every bit as effective in sabotaging this nation. Let us hope the Republic survives his term.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2010

Is Instapundit Ever Wrong?

They told me that if I voted for the crotchety old Republican, the evil Sith Lord Karl Rove would be prosecuting the nation's political enemies, and they were right!

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:54 AM | Comments (1)

December 18, 2010

Quick Takes, December 17, 2010

ITEM: At 0001 Sunday, December 19, the Federal Government will shut down unless Congress can pass a temporary funding bill. As this is being written, there is no bill in sight, at least in part because Democrats (and a number of Republicans) are desperate to moon the voters one last time, and to pass a repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a massive land grab that would make even more acreage off limits to development of any kind, and that would make even more of our southern border off limits to the Border Patrol for environmental reasons, carving in stone union favors, illegal alien amnesty, environmental measures sure to hasten national bankruptcy and a wide variety of other looney tune measures in the two or so weeks before many Congress critters have to return to--the horror!--real lives.

Shutting down the Federal Government for any period of time would be a bad thing because...?

ITEM: At a recent “Environmental Justice Conference” at the White House, Janet Napolitano, former Governor of Arizona and current head of the Department of Homeland Security professed her undying belief in climate change, which is causing and will cause “increased drought,” “catastrophic [wild]fires in the West,” “more category four and five hurricanes,” and “other natural occurrences that are affected by changes in climate.” All of this, and more, of course, is directly related to national security, well...because she says so, and she’s the head of DHS! She's the very same head of DHS who thought the system was working beautifully when the underwear bomber’s bomb, through incredible dumb luck, only torched his junk instead of blowing an airliner out of the sky. I suspect his fellow passengers, exposed to the sights, sounds and smells of that little bit of systemic competence, might think otherwise.

But in a deranged, bureaucratic way this makes all kinds of sense. After all, we now know that NASA’s proper, enlightened, primary mission is to make Muslims feel good about the scientific accomplishments of other Muslims who have been dead for centuries. Why then shouldn’t the DHS be primarily concerned with hurricanes, climate change, rising sea levels, toads, delta smelt and melting glaciers that really aren’t melting? After all, it’s not like DHS is in charge of keeping Americans secure from terrorist attack or actually has any real work to do. Right?

ITEM: In the aftermath of the December 14 shooting at the Bay County School Board in Panama City Florida, some interesting, recurring misconceptions have popped up. The gunman, who would like his name to be mentioned, fired approximately 15 rounds from a semi-automatic handgun at ranges from 5-20 feet, and didn’t hit anyone. Fortunately, School Security Chief Mike Jones was present and shot him. The gunman dropped and briefly exchanged fire with Jones, hitting no one before shooting himself in the head. The misconceptions? (1) The gunman obviously didn’t want to hurt anyone, because he was shooting at close range and didn’t hit anyone. (2) This just goes to show how important and effective gun free schools zones are.

And now for a quick dose of reality. It is very common for people, including police officers, to get into gunfights at inside-a-telephone-booth range, empty their weapons, and hit no one. Outside of movies, calm, deadly accurate marksmanship is unusual, not the opposite. It would be interesting to know how those school board members feel about gun free school zones today. The GFSZ signs around the Bay County School District obviously weren’t terribly effective in protecting the innocent, but a handgun in the hands of someone ready and able to use it was. But what would have happened on December 14th if Mike Jones was home with the flu? I wonder what the School Board would have thought of that--if they were still around to think of anything. It was Winston Churchill who said that nothing is more stimulating than being shot at without result. Perhaps the School Board, post-stimulation, learned something: Good intentions and thin metal signs protect no one.

ITEM: You owe it to yourself, during the Christmas season, to attend a live performance of Handel’s “Messiah.” My article on the history and experience of “Messiah” can be read here. You also owe it to yourself to acquaint yourself with the finest female voice--ever--in popular music: Karen Carpenter. Sadly, Carpenter died on Feb. 14. 1983 from complications of Anorexia Nervosa. But her delightfullly beautiful “Merry Christmas Darling” is more than worth your time.

Merry week before Christmas until next time!

Posted by MikeM at 01:37 AM | Comments (3)

December 17, 2010

Go Green... and Kill People

Reality comes to Cancun with a lesson from Stephen Crowder.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:33 PM | Comments (1)

Good. I Can Go Back To Hating The Traitor Again

It turns out Bradley Manning, the treasonous little turd that leaked thousands of documents to Wikileaks, is being treated "just like every other maximum security detainee at the military brig" in Quantico. He's not being singled out or abused, despite claims from Manning supporters.

I know I should have followed that age old advice, "never trust a sockpuppet with a taste for Brazilian cabana boys."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:32 PM | Comments (4)

That'll Do, Donkeys

The Obama tax increase failed, and the earmark-packed budget was pulled in favor of a continuing resolution.

It wasn't a perfect outcome—that would have involved torches and pitchforks, which is desireable nearly every time Congress is in session—but considering what the bitter, vengeful and outbound liberal caucus had hoped to ram through, it wasn't a bad night.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:41 AM | Comments (6)

December 15, 2010

God Help Me, I Agree with Greenwald

My feelings about U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning are well documented by The Google, which has my blog entries Let's Try Bradley Manning for Treason and Brad Manning, I Hope They Hang You High being the #1 and #2 search results for a search on "Bradley Manning traitor."

In my opinion, by turning over that massive amount of data to a foreign national—including the names of agents and informants that are risking their lives to help our efforts against terrorism—Manning's treason is on par with Benedict Arnold's treasonous attempt to hand West Point to the British. If I had my way, Manning would have a swift and just trial by a military court martial, be found justly guilty of treason by the overwhelming preponderance of evidence against him, and then executed.

I detest Bradley Manning... but the extended solitary confinement he has endured before even being tried sounds very much like prisoner abuse.

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch).

If Manning had been convicted of a capital offense, I would not have such misgivings about his treatment, but treating him to this kind of behavior before he is even tried seems extreme. Do we treat even treat violent murder and rape suspects in the military with pre-trial solitary confinement for months on end like Manning has experienced?

Give him his day in court, and if he is found guilty, put him back in a small isolated cell for the rest of his life or strap him to a gurney and let the drip-drip-drip of poison end him. If convicted, pin a target to his chest and let a firing squad deliver justice.

But Bradley Manning, traitorous little bastard that I suspect him to be, is still entitled to defend himself in court, and it seems to go beyond the pale to treat him in the manner Greenwald describes and that the military doesn't dispute.

He deserves better that this, and as a nation of free men, we must demand better for the sake of our own souls, if not for his.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:21 PM | Comments (43)

December 13, 2010

Did Harry Reid's Incompetence Doom Obamacare?

A VA judge has struck down the individual mandate, and a mistake by the Democratic Senate may leave the entire law undone as a result.

If this ruling (certain to be appealed) stands, would Obamacare really be dead?

H/T Animal Mother

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:52 PM | Comments (6)

It's 10:30 AM...

...do we know who our President is today?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2010

And Just Like That, Bill Clinton Became President Again

Surreal:

"I've never seen anything like that," said MSNBC’s Cenk Uygur after cutting back following a press conference on the tax plan. It had begun with a surprise appearance by President Obama who then brought in a further surprise, none other than Bill Clinton, to help him explain the deal. However, after introducing Clinton and letting him begin to talk, Obama suddenly announced that he was leaving for a Christmas party and vanished, letting Clinton talk for 25 more minutes as if it was 1996! I guess it could have been worse. Obama could have left to go play hoops.

Seriously, what was the thinking here? This has to be one of the worst PR moves in the entirety of the administration. Obviously, Clinton is probably a more popular Democratic figure right now, but they had to imagine this would hurt Obama. I mean, letting a former president explain your tax bill while you head to a Christmas party? A Christmas party?

Consider this a test-abdication, of what could be the first Presidency ever quit by a POTUS who has come to the realization that he simply isn't up to the job for which he campaigned.

Betting sites should start odds-making on whether or not Barack Obama will simply quit the Oval Office, after discovering that governing is simply not something he has the intelligence, fortitude, or experience to do successfully.

Do I personally think Obama would quit the Presidency? No, not at all.

But then, I didn't expect him to leave Bill Clinton in charge at his press conference while he scurried away like a hen-pecked weakling, either.

Make sure you read Mike's take on this bizarre incident as well.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:24 PM | Comments (8)

"It's Deja Vu All Over Again"

So said everyman’s philosopher, Yogi Berra. But it was “The Onion,” during the Clinton years, that wrote the immortal headline: “President Clinton To Feel Nation’s Pain, Breasts.” And just when Americans thought it was safe for wholesome, American breasts to once again roam free, the man responsible for diminishing the office of the presidency more than anyone ever thought possible poked his head into the White House Press Room and said “I’m baaaaaaaccckkk!”

For those just emerging from Afghan caves, President Obama met with President Clinton at the White House today. After their meeting, Mr. Obama held a press conference, accompanied by President Clinton. That’s when things got weird. Mr. Obama abruptly excused himself to attend a Christmas event, leaving Mr. Clinton to continue the press conference, which, as Mr. Clinton is prone to do, ran substantially longer than any press conference Mr. Obama has ever held. Words such as bizarre, surreal, inexplicable, even bull goose looney seem inadequate to describe the spectacle of Mr. Clinton, once again standing before the press in the White House, calmly and authoritatively taking questions as though he was still POTUS, as though he had--shudder--never left.

While Mr. Obama has certainly inflicted substantial pain on America with a great deal more to come as Obamacare, the bill we had to pass to discover its contents is, bit by bit, revealed, Mr. Clinton’s blast from the past was surely one of the strangest things ever done by any American president. Even for a President as utterly inexperienced and politically tone deaf as Mr. Obama, this was truly an epic feat, ironically accompanied today by the announcement by Gallup of the lowest ever approval ratings for Mr. Obama.

It’s well known that Mr. Obama is simply bored with the trivialities of the Presidency while simultaneously having no idea of the importance of related symbols. But can Mr. Obama actually be so empty-headed as to fail to grasp the symbolism of leaving his own press conference and turning it over to only the second president in US history ever to be impeached? At a time when Iran is planning to install missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads to America in Venezuela, when Iran is impeded in its quest for those warheads only by a computer virus, when the Koreas could be at war at any second, when even fourth rate nations feel free to insult and ignore America, when our nation is going bankrupt faster that Mr. Clinton could take a congressional phone call while simultaneously undergoing a, ahem, presidential staffing, America is in desperate need of strong, adult leadership. So Mr. Obama turns it over to Bill Clinton.

America’s only hope is that this is just a temporary glimpse into an alternate reality, or perhaps we are reliving a bad episode of “The Twilight Zone,” and as soon as we change the channel, it will all go away. The alternative is that Mr. Clinton will, all too soon, have an unimaginable amount of American pain to feel. American breasts, widely believed to be under wraps, could not be reached for a comment.

Posted by MikeM at 01:22 AM | Comments (5)

December 09, 2010

When Entitlement Socialism Fails...

...the results aren't pretty.

Expect to see this kind of behavior on a wider scale when big government entitlements fail under their own weight here, as they assuredly will in the near future.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:26 PM | Comments (19)

December 06, 2010

Oh Noes! Lefty Professor Calls for Obama to be Primaried

I guess he's a um, racist?

t is not easy to consider challenging the first African-American to be elected as President of the United States. But, regrettably, I believe that the time has come to do this.

It is time for Progressives to stop "whining" and arguing among themselves about whether President Obama will or will not do this or that. Obama is no different than any other President, nominated by his national party. He was elected with the hard work and 24/7 commitment of persons who believed and enlisted in his campaign for "Hope" and "Change."

You don't have to be a rocket scientist nor have a PhD in political science and sociology to see clearly that Obama has abandoned much of the base that elected him. He has done this because he no longer respects, fears or believes those persons who elected him have any alternative, but to accept what he does, whether they like it or not.

I'd point out that if Jones and his fellows had looked beyond Obama's half-black heritage to his utter lack of executive leadership or substance then they wouldn't be in his predicament, but that is perhaps a bit more reality than the "reality-based community" can handle.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:06 AM | Comments (4)

December 05, 2010

Off To War

What to make of President Obama’s recent “surprise” trip to Afghanistan to visit the troops? Certainly, having the Commander in Chief actually making contact with the troops is, generally speaking, a good thing. However, it is certainly fair, considering how little actual contact Mr. Obama has had with our soldiers, particularly those serving in combat zones, to wonder about his motives.

Recent news reports of Mr. and Mrs. Bush welcoming troops home at DFW Airport likely were not happy making for the Obama Administration. That Mr. Bush did not publicize those visits in advance, as he virtually always kept private his many contacts with the troops and their families during his years in office, speaks well of him, just as thinking or speaking well of George W. Bush has been quite impossible for Mr. Obama or his minions. And Mr. Bush’s recent media appearances in support of his best selling memoir, combined with persistent reports of his rapid and unexpected personal rehabilitation, are unlikely to have set well with the Obama White House.

Likewise, Mr. Obama’s political fortunes, to say nothing of his approval ratings, have taken a recent nosedive. What better to perk up those ratings and Democrat morale than photo ops, with Mr. Obama wearing a leather presidential flight jacket, and smiling troops? But there again, Mr. Obama came up short. In all of the videos and photographs I’ve seen, there has not been a single smiling soldier, just soldiers posed as backdrops, standing at parade rest, remaining professionally impassive. Remember Mr. Bush’s surprise visits? The joy and appreciation on soldier’s faces was genuine, spontaneous and lasting.

Let’s not forget that when Mr. Obama made visits to the troops at the beginning of his administration, his aides were caught handing out digital cameras to hand picked soldiers who supported Mr. Obama so as to give the appearance of spontaneous troop adulation and support when the media filmed soldiers filming Mr. Obama. Let us also not forget that virtually every public appearance Mr. Obama has made as POTUS has been carefully stage managed with hand picked audiences in hand picked venues to ensure the appearance of universal support and adulation.

It is likewise amusing to recall the outrage of the media and Democrats at the sight of Mr. Bush in genuine pilot’s regalia, outrage born of the ugly realization that Mr. Bush looked like a fighter pilot because he was, in fact--like his father before him--a fighter pilot and knew exactly how to wear the equipment and how to walk in it. Not only could he talk the talk, he walked the walk. Compare this with such images as Senator Kerry in a haz mat bunny suit, Governor Dukakis exemplifying the phrase “political weenie in a tank,” and now, Mr. Obama portraying...well...Barack Obama in someone else’s leather flight jacket. Contemporary Democrats just don’t do well in martial pursuits, whether pursuing them, directing them or speaking about them.

Ultimately, it is the troops who will decide whether Mr. Obama’s visit was motivated by a sincere desire to show his appreciation and support for them, or whether it was a cynical PR ploy to try to boost his badly sagging political fortunes. Our troops are very, very good at telling the difference. No doubt, Mr. Obama's cause will not be helped by the fact that his Justice Department did nothing to enforce the laws written to ensure that military absentee ballots were mailed in time to allow those serving overseas to vote. Those simple folks in the military tend not to forget such small oversights. Mr. Bush was the real thing, and they knew it. Mr. Obama? Not so much.

Posted by MikeM at 10:09 PM | Comments (5)

December 04, 2010

No Friends of Reality

Progressives like to think of themselves as belonging to a "reality-based community"... and I concur. Anything "-based" is inherently less than or not the object they aspire to mimic. That precisely describes the problem with Senate Democrats today, as they try to ram through a doomed vote on the Obama tax increases:

Seeking to paint Republicans as guardians of the rich, Senate Democrats are forcing a vote Saturday on extending the Bush tax cuts to only the middle class – a defeat that is inevitable as negotiations between the White House and Republicans for a compromise continues.

But Democrats, already eyeing the 2012 elections, want to use this showdown to weaken a resurgent GOP.

"All those people out there in the Tea Party that are angry about the economics of Washington, they really need to look at this," Sen. Claire McCaskill., D-Mo., said Friday as Democrats took turns pummeling Republicans.

"They need to pull back the curtain and realize that you've got a Republican Party that's not worried about the people in the Tea Party," said McCaskill, who will be on the ballot next year. "They're worried about people that can't decide which home to go to over the Christmas holidays."

It is the height of hilarity that McCaskill and her fellow Democratic senators think that this vote actually helps their image with the Tea Party-affiliated voters that drove so many of their allies out of office just over a month ago. It is cognitive dissonance on a massive scale.

These Democratic Senators—and progressives in general—are under the illusion that by pushing for only the middle class to avoid the Obama tax increases, that they will find sympathy from the American people.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If the Tea Party has done one thing extremely well, it is to espouse the values of fiscal conservatism, and highlighting the importance of the health of the small business sector. While corporations employ millions of Americans and have the lobbying dollars politicians crave, it is small businessmen that employ the majority of Americans. The Tea Party and other fiscal conservatives have done an excellent job of explaining to the American people that when small businessmen aren't hiring, it severely affects the economy and jobless rates.

As a result, the American people are not long susceptible to the worn liberal lie that the Obama tax increases are a sop to "the rich." Americans know that the people that will be hurt the most are the small businessmen who can hire them and drag this economy out of a recession, if politicians will just get out of the way.

Claire McCaskill and liberals like her simply lack the cognitive processing ability to think that way. They are fundamentally unable to understand the simple truth that an ever-expanding government is an impediment to growth and prosperity, or that lower taxes means that employers are able to hire more workers.

On one level I feel sorry for the birth defect of liberalism that prevents them from understanding such simple economic realities. On the other, however, I can feel not pity for a group of would-be elites that has watched big government socialism collapsing economies worldwide, and somehow is delusional enough to think that the solution is more of it.

And so the Democrats persist in a bit of Saturday theater that will make the the public revile them all the more, unable to understand the people that the simply no longer represent in any meaningful way.

They'll have their vote. They'll be defeated. And they'll be utterly unable to understand the contempt with which they will be held for the useless spectacle they've engineered.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:00 AM | Comments (6)

December 03, 2010

Seeing the Emperor

After the Democratic "shellacking" in the midterm elections, everyone wondered how President Obama would respond. Would he show what he was made of? Would he stand firm for the values he believes in, even in the face of political adversity?

Of course President Obama has shown us what he's made of! He's been showing us "what he's made of" since that first terrifying second that he realized that he'd actually become President.

Barack Obama's entire life history is a story of running from one job to another, finding it miraculously easy to succeed—or at least dash away from his failures—all the way into the White House. Now, there is nowhere to run, and he can no longer fake substance anymore.

Do not pity him, or those who support him.

Liberals such as Paul Krugman, who put down his glass of arsenic long enough to cobble together the tortured prose above, elected to vote for vague promises of "change" over a semblance of competence twice, in the primaries, and then in the general election. Now he and his fellow cultists have the audacity to feign shock when a man most famous for having accomplished nothing of note in his entire life, continues that tradition in office.

Despite blame-casting from the left, conservatives can't destroy Obama, because there is no "Obama" to destroy. In him, Democrats are getting exactly what they elected. There simple is nothing more to the man other than a cheap veneer, falling away under pressure.

You showed us what you were made of, Mr. Krugman, when you championed for President a man without substance. Please pardon me if I have no sympathy for you learning a hard lesson about your own failed leadership as an over-rated pundit.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:36 PM | Comments (2)

December 01, 2010

Reporting Failure

The so-called Debt Commission's co-chairmen, Erskine Bowles and former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson provided President Obama what he wanted in the form of a do-nothing report that will be pilloried by both sides and allow politics as usual to wreck what is left of our economy. Of course, that is precisely what we should have expected from a blue-ribbon panel of politicians.

What this report shows is that the political class is not yet serious about addressing the federal government's spending addiction. It may suggest that they simply aren't bright enough to understand the depth of the problem, nor amenable to those steps required to put us on a true corrective course.

They cannot bluff their way through this crisis. Sooner, rather than later, it will catch up to them, though I fear we'll be the one's left holding the bag.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:54 PM | Comments (4)

November 30, 2010

"Everybody"

According to Brian Beutler of the aptly-named Talking Points Memo, "everybody" hates President Obama's largely symbolic federal worker's pay freeze.

Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!

The early reviews of President Obama's plan to freeze federal worker pay are in -- and it gets a resounding "F" from just about everybody outside of GOP leadership.

Michael Linden, a budget expert at the liberal Center for American Progress, said the plan is small potatoes that risks driving away valuable civil servants with little budgetary upside.

It is important to understand what Beutler and his kindred view as everybody. One cannot know precisely what he means (I doubt he does, either), but suspect "everybody" probably includes the following:

  • federal government workers and their unions
  • state government workers and their unions
  • municipal government workers and their unions
  • left-leaning pundits, bloggers, and journalists
  • left leaning think tanks
  • leftist academics
  • anyone so designated/appointed by George Soros

The "freeze" does not affect the pay of the nation's military servicemen. It does not prevent federal government employees from getting a raise by moving to the next pay grade. It does not touch bonuses awarded to federal employees.

It does nothing to curtail the government that Demcrats have created, which is the largest and most bloated government in American history, with the highest number of employees making more than $150,000/year in American history.

"Everybody" in Beutler's insular little world are his fellow big government extremists that look to personally profit from government bloat.

The radical left wing "everybody" doesn't include the small businessman, workers, managers, specialists, technicians and engineers that power this nation's economy in corporations and shops. It doesn't include doctors, farmers, students, and middle class families that are being crushed by the greed of statists.

The problem with Obama's "freeze" isn't that it is too ambitious, it is that it isn't close to being ambitious enough. We need to reduce the number of people working for the federal government and send them back to the private sector where they can add to the economy.

I read a comment somewhere yesterday (I wish I could remember where) that encapsulated the concept perfectly.

"All non-essential government workers are to stay home from work today... and every day after."

Government should be a service, not an unsustainable liability. It's too bad we can't get "everybody" to agree to that.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:21 PM | Comments (14)

November 29, 2010

"WikiSleeps" Offers Little News in Latest Document Dump

The New York Times and other news outlets have produced articles about the latest document dump from the muckrakers at WikiLeaks.

Rape suspect Julian Assange and his band of thieves have perhaps stirred up a bit of a tempest in a teapot with their latest document dump, but some perspective is in order. Assange did not release these communications with the goal of making the world a better place, revealing injustice, or launching an investigation of the corrupt or tyrannical. The singular goal of this release was to embarrass the government of the United States. Period.

It petty and small ways, they perhaps accomplished their goals. What they did not do was better the world, strike a blow for the oppressed, or do anything else that can be interpreted as noble. It was entirely self-serving. "Hey, look what we can do!" it cries. And yet, despite the volume of information, it is largely much ado about nothing.

The document dump is useful for two groups: current historians and military prosecutors building an iron-clad case against the politically-progressive traitor that leaked the hundreds of thousands of documents, a disgruntled gay misfit soldier named Bradley Manning.

Manning should be convicted of treason and deserves nothing more or less than an ignoble execution in a military prison before being forgotten, much like these non-revelations that so many news organizations are headlining on a slow-news Monday.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:20 AM | Comments (4)

November 28, 2010

The Post-Muslim Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama

A recent article in the Arab News (available here), linked at the fine PowerLine blog (available here) on November 26 has, once again, raised an interesting and persistent question: Is Barack Hussein Obama, the President of the United States, a Muslim? The article quotes Obama’s paternal grandmother, 88 year old Haja Sarah Omar as saying “I prayed for my grandson Barack to convert to Islam.” Omar was interviewed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia while on the Haj, the journey all observant Muslims are expected to perform once in their lives to Mecca, the most holy city of Islam.

John Hinderaker of PowerLine was not impressed. “President Obama is NOT a Muslim, whatever else he may be. But he needs this kind of story [linked to the Arab News story] like a hole in the head.” Hinderaker concluded his post: “ In principle, the fact that a substantial part of Obama's family is Muslim is neither here nor there. If Obama were a successful President, no one would care. But given that many millions of Americans view him as a kind of alien presence as a result of the policies he has tried to impose, Obama must wish his Kenyan relatives would fade quietly away for the balance of his term in office.”

In the traditional American sense, Mr. Hinderaker is correct, but in the Muslim world, the matter is seen entirely differently, and in a just world perhaps the Muslim viewpoint should prevail in this matter, particularly considering Mr. Obama’s apparent dedication to supporting and praising all things Islamic. Mr. Obama has never failed to laud and “reach out” to Islamic regimes and domestic groups regardless of their known and suspected terrorist connections, such support--from time to time-- causing his Administration considerable embarrassment, if one accepts that Mr. Obama and those chosen to surround and advise him are capable of embarrassment.

A case in point is Mr. Obama’s NASA head, Charles Bolden, who in a June interview with Al Jazeera at the American University in Cairo outlined Mr. Obama’s priorities for the space agency: “...and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science...and math and engineering.” While one might be forgiven for wondering what this has to do with, well...space, it is yet another in a long series of insights into the thinking of a man who can’t seem to summon up any praise for America and Americans, but always has a good word for people and nations who are, if not directly supportive of, at least sympathetic toward, Islamic terrorists who delight in murdering Americans.

The important distinction, which I’m sure as an attorney, Mr. Hinderaker appreciates, is that Americans enjoy the blessings of the separation of church and state and the traditions flowing from it while Muslim nations almost uniformly do not. It is well known that Mr. Obama has repeatedly said that he is a Christian, having converted at some point in the past under the influence of the Rev. Wright. The intentions and influence of the kind of Marxist, blatantly anti-semitic, racist and anti-American black liberation theology so openly practiced in Wright’s former church may be fairly debated elsewhere. The point is that in the American tradition, each American has the freedom to chose their faith, and they tend to accept the faith professions of others at face value. In addition, one may freely leave a given faith and adopt another, and Americans commonly don’t find this in the least remarkable.

Part of the American tradition is that children are generally raised in the faith practices of their parents, but it is understood that when they reach sufficient age and understanding, they may choose to remain in that faith, to explore, even to adopt another, or to become essentially faithless. Apart from parental disapproval and disappointment, generally no consequences arise from such choices.

However, in matters of faith, as in politics and much else, Americans tend to have sensitive and accurate hypocrisy detectors. Americans tend to notice when one’s words and actions do not well match, and this is a large part of Mr. Obama’s problem.

The facts are quite simple. Mr. Obama was born to a Muslim father. The children of a Muslim father are Muslims. In Islam, this is not a matter of choice, but a matter of custom, tradition and Sharia. When Mr. Obama attended a Muslim school in his youth in Indonesia, his parents identified him as Muslim on school records. Presumably his parents were not mistaken or playing a prophetic, ironic joke on school authorities, a joke that would not become apparent until young Barry Sotero attained manhood, an obviously Islamic name and became POTUS.

This traditional, cultural reality is at the heart of the conflict between America and Islam. Americans identify themselves, first, as Americans. For more than 200 years, e pluribus unum has been a worthy motto and description of the process by which millions of immigrants have come to America to gain that which they--and generations of native born Americans--held most dear, the right to say “I am an American.” Americans might also consider themselves to be Texans or North Dakotans or perhaps Lutherans or Catholics, but their dedication and loyalty to their nation--for all intents and purposes--takes precedence over concerns of religion, race or heritage. Considering the European experience--an experience many Europeans appear to have forgotten--Americans who are suspicious of those whose first allegiance is to a religion have good and historically well documented reasons to be suspicious.

If one follows the letter--and observant Muslims would surely argue, the spirit--of Islam, all Muslims, wherever they live, are first, last and always, Muslim. Under Sharia and tradition, Muslims, whether born into the faith or converts by choice or force, have no choice: Once a Muslim, always a Muslim. One who leaves the faith is an apostate and the punishment for apostasy is death, such death sentence to be carried out by family members, the agents of Muslim states, or any fervent Muslim anywhere. While the sentence may never be carried out, the sword always hangs over the head of the apostate.

As Americans, we tend to believe individual professions of faith, as long as they are accompanied by actions that tend to support those professions. This is Mr. Obama’s problem. For a self professed Christian, he tends to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy in the promotion of the welfare of Islam and of Muslims, and comparatively little in the promotion and welfare of traditionally American values relating to faith, to say nothing of democracy, the continuing furor over his refusal to clearly condemn the Ground Zero mosque being only one of a great many cases in point.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that in professing conversion to Christianity, Mr. Obama has publicized his status as an apostate Muslim in the eyes of observant Muslims everywhere. The more cynical might assert that Muslims understand that Mr. Obama is really one of them and has to profess Christianity so that he can continue to work on behalf of Muslim interests. Lying to infidels in the furtherance of the goals of Islam is a part of the faith. That Mr. Obama has denied ever being Muslim might be accepted by Americans who consider only faith decisions made by adults to be truly informed and legitimate, but to observant Muslims, such statements only add deadly insult to mortal injury.

So Mr. Hinderaker is right too in that it matters not that many members of Mr. Obama’s extended family are Muslim. Many presidents have had inconvenient, embarrassing family members. But the success, or lack thereof, or Mr. Obama’s presidency has no bearing on this matter. The problem remains Mr. Obama wanting to have a respected, even worshipped presence in each world/faith tradition while simultaneously drawing blessings and benefits from both. That these are mutually exclusive, actively hostile (on the part of Islam), irreconcilable worlds and traditions phases Mr. Obama not at all for he is above and beyond such petty concerns in the same way that he has transcended the boring, insignificant office of the presidency.

The controversy continues and will not abate, because while most Americans find themselves willing to accept Mr. Obama’s profession of Christian faith, when his NASA head is, at Mr. Obama’s direction, far more interested in patting long dead Muslims on the back for Algebra than in exploring space and reaping the benefits therefrom, they can’t help but scratch their heads and wonder why a self described Christian in a secular nation seems so interested in representing the best interests of Islam. Why he seems so little interested in effectively ending the Islamic terrorist threat, a threat his Administration cannot and will not specifically identify, is a matter for another time, but is also a major contributor to Mr. Obama’s woes in this area.

Mr. Obama may be thought to be an alien of sorts by many Americans, but this is so because his words and actions since taking office have revealed him to be anything but a faithful representative of the American people and nation. Islamophobia? American common sense. One can only imagine Mr. Obama’s frustration at this and much else. After all, who we gonna believe, him or our own lyin’ eyes?

Posted by MikeM at 11:52 PM | Comments (3)

November 24, 2010

The Goldberg (Dull) File

Whoopi Goldberg, she of the manufactured pseudo-righteous outrage at Bill O’Reilly’s entirely factual assertion that Muslims attacked America on 9-11, appeared on the O’Reilly Factor on Fox on November 23rd. While Goldberg might be accorded some degree of acknowledgement for merely appearing on O’Reilly’s show, she revealed, in convenient capsule form, much that is wrong with the contemporary left.

Goldberg’s argument seemed to be that when O’Reilly said that America was attacked by Muslims--an incontestable fact--he was actually saying that all Muslims attacked America and that all Muslims want to attack America and that all Muslims are bad, hate adorable puppies (wait, they do hate adorable puppies)...or something like that. She also took exception with the assertion that the Japanese attacked America at Pearl Harbor (yes, she actually did).

What was most interesting is that Goldberg, considered the most brilliant commentator on "The View," hence one of the most brilliant on the Left, admitted that she had no idea what a Madrassa was, nor did she have any idea what role Madrassa’s play in contemporary Islam. This is a stunning admission that goes a long way toward explaining how the Left can hold and espouse such amazingly ignorant views on the nature of those who would be only too happy to cut off their talking heads with dull knives and display them in jihadist snuff videos.

A Madrassa, for those in need of a refresher, is a traditional Islamic school, exclusively for young boys. In more traditional Muslim nations and cultures, girls are not educated. In the traditional, historic Madrassa, the curriculum consists almost entirely of learning the Koran by memory (in Arabic), complete knowledge of the Koran being thought to be all the well educated Muslim man needs to know.

However, in the contemporary Madrassa, thousands of which exist in such supposedly enlightened and allied nations as Saudi Arabia, there are four primary facets to the curriculum:

(1) Rote memorization and recitation of the Koran--in Arabic.

(2) Study of the Hadith, which is the sayings and actions of Muhammed and his companions. It consists of the oral law and the record of those who passed it down to the present.

(3) The necessity of killing all infidels, particularly the Jews (Israel is the Little Satan) and Americans (America is the Great Satan), and of establishing Sharia (Islamic law) throughout the world.

(4) Combat training including maintenance and repair of various Warsaw pact weapons, the making and employment of bombs, suicide bombing theory and technique, and similar skills.

Considering that several generations of Muslims throughout the Muslim world, including the Gaza Strip and West Bank, have been brought up with this kind of poisonous hatred, it is interesting and instructive that Goldberg, and apparently a great many others of the Left, have no idea of the very source of much of the hatred and violence toward America. Surely they appear to be unable to understand that under Sharia, they would fare very poorly, but mercifully, briefly.

But perhaps it is of no consequence. Would it matter if they did know? Would they change their beliefs one whit? Goldberg also asserted that white people are a contemporary terrorist threat. Hope and change spring eternal.

Posted by MikeM at 02:55 AM | Comments (8)

November 20, 2010

The Outcome Is...Trying

Eric Holder and Barack Obama are, in many ways, alike. Men of few actual accomplishments but unlimited, astronomical self-regard, they have been elevated far past their abilities, living examples of the Peter Principle, people rising to and greatly surpassing their own level of incompetence. Despite having little prosecutorial experience and having less experience in management, Mr. Holder was elevated to the office of the Attorney General, apparently on the strength of his slavish devotion to leftist philosophy.

Rewind a year to the outrage over Mr. Holder’s decision to try those responsible for “man caused disasters,” and/or “overseas contingency operations” in civilian courts. All of the downsides of this kind of thinking have been exhaustively catalogued and are obvious to those possessed of common sense. The upside is, according to Mr. Holder, that jihadist murderers will appreciate the transparency and fairness of the American civilian court systems and that this will somehow, magically, improve America’s standing in the world. And Mr. Holder, a man of scant trial experience, was absolutely certain that such trials would be won. In fact, he guaranteed that every alleged man caused disaster causer tried in civilian court would, without exception, be convicted. The common man might be forgiven for wondering how the outcome of a fair trial could be guaranteed beforehand, but Mr. Holder apparently knew better. In fact, in the case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Mr. Holder declared that “failure is not an option.”

Failure is indeed the option, despite Justice Department and White House attempts to spin it otherwise. Of 285 counts, including multiple counts of murder, Ghailani was, only this week, convicted of only one. One count of conspiracy for which he may be sentenced to 20 years to life. Considering time served and good behavior, perhaps he’ll be released next week (yes, that’s an exaggeration, but sadly, likely not enough of one). Ghailani, for those who have not been following his case, is the self confessed man caused disaster causer responsible for the murder of 224 people (and the wounding of many more) in the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Because he was tried in civilian criminal court, Ghailani, a mass murderer, a terrorist combatant dedicated to killing Americans, received all of the rights and benefits of a common American criminal. Vital witnesses and evidence were excluded--properly under American criminal law--and other vital evidence could not be used lest intelligence sources and methods be disclosed. To anyone not Eric Holder or Barack Obama, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Still, Mr. Holder and Mr. Obama gamely claim that even if Ghailani had not been convicted, he would still be held as an enemy combatant, making any claim of transparency, fairness and the glories of the American criminal justice system a farce. But not to worry; we can hold Ghailani and his like as long as the war continues. Worry indeed, for Mr. Obama intends to end all hostilities as soon as possible and only just announced that he is confident that we will pull our troops out of Afghanistan on a predetermined schedule. And when that day comes and Mr. Obama declares that the war is over (he is psychologically, perhaps even physically, incapable of declaring an American victory), what becomes, morally and legally, of our justification for holding illegal enemy combatants, combatants who have not been tried with a guaranteed, pre-determined outcome, in civilian, criminal court?

We have been lucky thus far. Despite having suffered, during the first two years of the Obama era, multiple successful terrorist attacks and attempts on our soil, the body count has been blessedly low. Mr, Obama has also recently observed that America can “absorb another 9-11,” and one might be forgiven for believing that his policies are designed to ensure that we’ll have the opportunity to demonstrate the American resilience he seems to prize so greatly. After all, when the underwear bomber was thwarted by dumb luck and hands-on fellow flyers, Janet Napolitano, our hapless DHS chief, proclaimed that the system worked. That's the kind of success we can't afford.

Our current government cannot bring itself to identify our enemy, cannot admit that some people are more likely than others to commit acts of terror, cannot even admit that we are fighting a global war, a war being dictated by our enemies. We are on the defensive and depending on luck and the occasional alert, lucky officer fortuitously in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to protect us against people who are willing to give their own lives to take ours, and our government thinks that making nice in civilian court will impress them.

And so we have the bizarre spectacle of forcing people least likely to jaywalk, to say nothing of commit acts of terror, subjected to nude imaging, intrusive searches and interminable delays when we know that the Israeli method which focuses on the reality that certain kinds of people are terrorists and most are not, has a perfect record of performance. And we try mass murderers in civilian court when any rational person would know that so doing is the virtual definition of insanity and incompetence.

And how is all of this working in terms of international relations? Mr. Obama’s recent trip to Asia is instructive. Even democrats are admitting that he accomplished nothing at all, that he was seen as a weak, pathetic figure to whom few foreign leaders pay attention and fewer respect. Even the Palestinians have publicly admitted that his anti-Israeli interference in the Peace Process has forced them to adopt positions they did not want to adopt and has harmed, probably fatally, the potential for any meaningful talks and for peace.

When common sense and human nature are ignored, there is a price to pay. There is always a price to pay. Pray gentle readers, that the price won’t be too high, that absorbing the next attack won’t involve you or those you love. And remember that Mr. Obama, Mr. Holder, and anyone who thinks even remotely like them cannot be trusted with the lives of Americans and with American national or domestic security, and act accordingly.

Posted by MikeM at 11:27 PM | Comments (3)

November 14, 2010

If You Build It, They Will Charge--UPDATED!

UPDATE 11-16-10:

Chevrolet has announced that the Motor Trend Car of the Year for 2011, beating out such strong contenders as the much anticipated Ford Fiesta, is...Maestro, drum roll please!...The Chevy volt! The Chevrolet Volt pseudo-semi-electric car is Motor Trend magazine's 2011 car of the year. According to the AP:

"Motor Trend says the Volt has some of the most advanced engineering ever seen in an American car. The Volt can run up to 50 miles in pure electric mode before a backup gas engine kicks in to give it more range. Motor Trend also said Tuesday that the car is a great value. It costs $33,500 with a federal tax credit, but will likely be cheaper to run than a traditional hybrid. The Volt goes on sale next month."

The EPA has yet to announce a mileage estimate for the Volt (it can't go on sale without it) and Chevy expects that to happen anytime now. Apparently Motor trend has now upped the Volt's range by 10 miles over Chevrolet estimates and is somehow seeing amazing value in a compact car that costs $33,500.00, but only with a $7500.00 tax credit. Oh well. Motor Trend also made the Chevy Vega its car of the year back in the 70's. The more hopeful you get, the less things change.

The ways of American automobile companies are mysterious indeed. Recent evidence would seem to suggest that the three remaining American manufacturers have abandoned any and all knowledge of how to successfully do business in a capitalist democracy, if, that is, they ever truly knew. There was a time when the “Big Three” as they were once known, all but completely owned the domestic market. But then came the 70’s, Jimmy Carter, long gas lines, and the Japanese, who did learn how to do business in a capitalist democracy from--wait for it--us! Patiently, over time, they improved their products and quality, and always offered high mileage, reasonably priced vehicles, vehicles that slowly but surely began to gain market share.

That was then; this is now. The Japanese are now dominant and the South Koreans are daily gaining market share. The Japanese have even made significant inroads into a mom and apple pie slice of the market: Pickup trucks. GM is a majority controlled subsidiary of the Democrat party (OK, to be fair, it’s the US government--the taxpayers--in a for 61% share) and the United Auto Worker’s Union. Chrysler is a slow-walking zombie with pieces falling off every second. The only good news is Ford, the only company that resisted the siren song of government money (and overweening control) which is showing real signs not only of survival, but of long term viability. It introduced, for instance, a standard V6 Mustang with more than 300 HP, capable of 30+ MPG on the highway. Perhaps you can have your cake and eat it too.

Perhaps the single most unfathomable practice of American auto manufacturers is how and why they decide to build a given vehicle. It’s widely understood that they spend millions on sophisticated demographic models and surveys, striving to understand and predict every niche of the market so that they can tell how many units of a given model they can expect to sell versus the manufacturing costs and profit potential of that model. Yet, they still manage to produce vehicles that the guys hanging out in the local hardware store could have told them would be major league turkeys before the first vehicle rolled off the assembly line. A case in point: The Chevy Volt.

By now, most have heard the ever changing propaganda emanating from Chevrolet in a manner reminiscent of, of, well, of the Obama Administration explaining why all of the negative effects of Obama Care aren’t bugs, but features! Magnificent selling points that all would embrace if they were only smart enough to understand them. Consider the following conversation between Mr. Average Consumer (MAC) and Obama Motors (OM):

MAC: So the Volt is absolutely, positively electrically driven and will employ super hi-tech battery technology?

OM: Absolutely! Hi-tech! Battery! Green! No pollution! Save the planet!

MAC: So how far does it go on one charge?

OM: Forty miles!

MAC: Forty miles? That's not very far.

OM: Well, up to 40 miles, under, you know, ideal conditions.

MAC: But is that 40 miles with just the driver? What if you actually carry passengers?

OM: Well, maybe, probably less than 40 miles if you actually carry people...

MAC: Less than forty miles? That’s awful! You couldn't even get to work and back for sure...

OM: Oh, not at all! Studies show that most people don’t commute that far.

MAC: What studies?

OM: Have I mentioned the 40 mile range?

MAC: But what if I have to use things that drain power, things like lights, turn indicators, air conditioning, the radio, windows, stuff like that?

OM: Well, you know, up to 40 miles, but maybe, probably, less if you insist on using such frivolous, outlandishly luxurious accessories.

MAC: What if I go fast, like 70? Won’t that reduce the range?

OM: Have I mentioned the revolutionary, hi-tech battery? It's really quiet! Save the planet?

MAC: Don’t lithium-ion batteries contain substances that, if they combine even through a pin hole, spontaneously burst into flame?

OM: Well...did we mention 40 miles...?

MAC: And doesn’t one of those batteries cost about $10,000?

OM: That’s an absolute lie! No more than $7,000-$8,000, maybe...I think...

MAC: How long do they last?

OM: A really, really long time. Trust us on this. We’ll even guarantee them.

MAC: (Sigh) How long does it take to recharge?

OM: With standard 110 volt house current, 8-12 hours.

MAC: Eight to twelve hours?!

OM: Well, maybe longer...

MAC: Longer?! Can’t you do it faster?

OM: Of course! You just have to install a special 220 volt fast charger in your home.

MAC: How much does that cost?

OM: Oh, you know, about, well, $2000.00...

MAC: $2000? For a battery charger?!

OM: But it charges the battery in only about four hours, and if we sell a million or so Volts, it will probably cost less...

MAC: Less? A million or so? Four hours? If the battery is drained, I have to wait four hours to drive the car again?

OM: Of course not! But if you don’t fully recharge, your range will be a lot less...

MAC: Less than what?

OM: Well, 40 miles...

MAC: Never mind. What about charging the car away from home?

OM: Oh, I’m glad you asked! There are plans to install charging stations, you know, like a lot of interest flowing...

MAC: Yeah? Where? How many?

OM: Plans, you know, like real plans...lots and lots, you know, here and there, lots of places, and lots of interest by interested...parties...

MAC: But I’d still have to sit there for four hours?

OM: Not at all! You could, you know, take as little as, for example, two hours...but your range would be less... Catch up on your reading! Commune with nature! Do you knit?

MAC: Knit? Less than...never mind. Doesn’t the Volt actually have a gas engine too?

OM: Well, yes, but that’s just to charge the battery when it drains too far. It will never drive the wheels.

MAC: Wait a minute! You mean that if the battery drains too far, I’m stuck?

OM: Oh no! The gasoline engine will provide enough electric power to the battery to allow you to limp--I mean, sedately motor-- home at a very reduced speed, I mean, as long as it’s not too far, you know...40 miles and all...

MAC: What?!

OM: Did I say that? Ha-ha! I mean that the gasoline engine actually drives the wheels if, you know, the battery gets too low, or if, you know, you want to drive at really crazy speeds...

MAC: What do you mean, crazy speeds?

OM: You know, like around 70...or so...

MAC: What?! But that means that the Volt is just another hybrid!

OM: Have I mentioned hi-tech? Quiet? Revolutionary? Green?

MAC: Oh never mind. Where can I buy one?

OM: For the time being, only in Texas, California, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Washington D.C.

MAC: What? Why only those places?

OM: Green?

MAC: Never mind. How much does one cost?

OM: We’re really proud of that! A basic model is only MSRP $41,000!

MAC: What?!

OM: But the government will give you a $7500 tax credit for each and every Volt you buy!

MAC: But that means the car still costs $33,500 for a base model...

OM: Isn’t that great...

MAC: ...plus $2000 for a home battery charger! That’s $35,500! For a compact car with a range less than 40 miles! Wait a minute...I also have to consider how much in taxes I have to pay to buy my own car!

OM: Green! Revolutionary! Save the planet!

MAC: Hey, you guys said you were gonna make 60,000 of the things. How many are you actually making?

OM: Oh, we’re making, a whole, complete, absolutely making, you know...10,000...

MAC: Ten thousand? Just for those six states?

OM: On no! For all of North America.

MAC: What?!

OM: How many can I put you down for? Green...

And so Chevrolet is producing a compact car with a range of less than 40 miles, a car that is not, in fact, an all electrically driven car, but another sort of hybrid, a hybrid that costs, even with additional taxpayer support beyond the taxpayer’s 61% stake in GM, at least $33,500. And what, pray tell, niche market does Chevrolet hope to fill or create with the Volt? The hopenchange, “yes we can” niche market has been, of late, severely depleted and disheartened. What family could afford to employ a Volt as their sole vehicle? For most, the Volt could not serve as even a reliable second car.

There remains yet another factor that has not been discussed in the media (Hmmm. I wonder why not?): Cold weather. Cold drains, even disables, batteries, even revolutionary, green, hi-tech, lithium-ion batteries. The colder the temperatures, the more quickly batteries drain, and in much of America and virtually all of Canada it gets cold enough for long portions of the year to render an all electric vehicle an expensive driveway awning. Patchwork fixes like heated garages and battery heaters are essentially useless. An onboard battery heater will drain the power of the battery it is working to keep warm, further reducing an already reduced range. Will there be a heated garage at work? An outlet for keeping the battery warm enough while it’s being recharged so that it can be recharged? And if it’s cold enough, will a Volt actually make it to work before it loses all of its battery power and is forced to rely on its underpowered gasoline engine? It’s a delicious irony that the Volt works best in warmer climates like Mexico or Central and South America where most people can’t afford to buy one. It’s almost as if it was designed by the government!

Perhaps I’m being too harsh on the Volt and GM. Perhaps this really is revolutionary, green technology so powerful that millions will rush to buy this ridiculously overpriced better mousetrap. According to George Will, writing in the November 14 edition of the Washington Post, Marc Reuss, GM North American Division President said: “The early enthusiastic consumer response--more than 120,000 potential Volt customers have already signaled interest in the car, and orders have flowed since the summer--give us confidence that the Volt with succeed on its merits.” Ah! I see. “Enthusiastic response...signaled interest...orders have flowed.” GM is sounding more and more like the Obama administration trying to defend the indefensible every minute. Would this enthusiasm and signaled interest translate to flowing orders without say, the $7500 taxpayer funded tax credit? What merits? And, Mr. Reuss, exactly how many orders, accompanied by cold hard cash, have flowed into GM coffers as yet? Mr. Reuss? Can we expect the same stunning, economic success that was Cash for Clunkers?

But let’s assume, just for fun, that the Obamite dream of a bold new green future, led by the hard charging (get it?) Volt, comes true and millions of all electric (sort of) pollution free (not really) cars take to the roadways. Imagine gas at $10 per gallon rising on the skyrocketing energy rates for which Mr. Obama so fondly dreamed when he was candidate Obama, accompanied by tens of millions of convenient electric fast charging stations! What does an hour of fast-charge 220 volt electricity go for these days anyway?

Not so fast. America is just about tapped out on electric capacity, capacity flowing through a crumbling electric generating and transmission infrastructure, an infrastructure that cannot be replaced or augmented. Why not? Because Mr. Obama and all of his allies oppose the building of new power plants, nuclear, coal, even solar and wind. No, I’m not kidding. The enviros are opposing the building of a solar generation facility in the Mojave Desert. Yes. The Mojave Desert. Something about lizards or toads I think. In addition, the Sierra Club and various other animal rights organizations are preventing the construction of electric generating windmills across the land because their blades kill birds and bats. Electric facilities and transmission towers despoil pristine--and not so pristine--wilderness, etc. And there are various politicians keeping windmills from despoiling their favorite views of nature. You name it, someone on the left opposes it and has it tied up in litigation and red tape. Add EPA Chief Carol Browner altering scientific documents and lying about it to make it appear that scientists supported a drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico, combine that with Administration refusal to authorize the building of additional refinery capacity, and the Obama Administration has succeeded in creating a lose/lose situation.

All of us, the American taxpayers, are building a car with not ready for prime time technology. A car that offers no advantage over any other car on the market, to say nothing of any car against which it will directly compete. For the price of a single Volt and charger, one can buy two well equipped Ford Fiestas, cars which achieve 40 MPG in highway driving, are fun to drive, and have a range of at least 400 miles, after which a ten minute stop at any gas station will restore a range 10-20 times that of a Volt.

The Volt should not exist, except as an engineering exercise. That it does exist suggests two possibilities: The Obamites intend to so damage the economy that a Volt will actually be economically feasible, even desirable, or they have no idea whatsoever of reality on any level. On second thought, rack up both of those possibilities. If they get their socialist wishes, we’ll have no choice but to charge. Charge, that is, if there is anyone left in America who can afford a Volt or has access to electricity.

Posted by MikeM at 09:12 PM | Comments (8)

November 10, 2010

Jim Demented

You can’t be a fiscal conservative and not be a social conservative.

So says Jim DeMint in his latest poorly thought-out public pronouncement. It takes a special kind of arrogance, ignorance, and outright stupidity for a Senator to find a way to offend so many potential allies at once.

Americans on both sides of the political center are coming to the inevitable conclusion that our nation's current spending habits are unsustainable. There is recognition, even in the most socialist of enclaves, that government spending and growth must be curtained, else the entire nation fall.

In such an environment, a conscientious Senator that imagines himself a leader of men should have the common sense to build a coalition of as many allies as possible in order to affect the fiscal agenda so important to this Republic's viability.

But Jim DeMint isn't conscientious, or a leader of men, or, apparently, blessed with common sense.

He has now potentially damaged relations with fiscally conservative libertarians, gays, agnostics, non-Christians, and Christians like myself that are opposed to forcing our religious beliefs onto others. The Tea Party attracts people from all walks of life that simply want to be left alone. Jim DeMint reveals that he represents nothing more or less than another would-be elite, just one cut out of a slightly different cloth.

The fiscal conservatives of the Tea Party and their allies can have a major impact on this Republic, but only if they keep narrowly focused on the all-important work of fiscal reform. If any of the more traditional and fragmented groups and agendas manage to hijack the movement, then the Tea Party will lose the essential wide base of support that is needed to force both parties to reform.

We don't need you, Jim DeMint, and we don't want you telling us what we are, or what should become. Lord knows, we have enough of that coming out of Washington already.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:37 PM | Comments (9)

Convict that Bankrolls Media Matters Betting to Get Rich On U.S. Collapse

And you can bet you last (devalued) dollar that Media Matters, Think Progress and all the other anti-American organizations will be cheering the entire way down.

The Fed's new action, labeled "quantitative easing" or QE2, follows a first attempt at "QE," known as QE1. QE means that the Federal Reserve is printing more money and buying more government debt. In total, according to Investor's Business Daily, "the Fed will have created $2.5 trillion out of the blue."

Diamond said the result of the Fed's policy will be to "increase the debt, devalue our currency and create a bigger problem that won't solve the crisis."

Eventually, America could "collapse under its own weight of massive debt," he warned.

The QE2 "will devalue the dollar and lead to higher commodity prices, asset and price inflation. It may even lead to the end of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency," Diamond predicted. He noted that Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner floated the idea of the dollar losing its status as the world’s reserve currency, "only to backpedal from it when it raised some eyebrows."

"What is most troubling to me about this," Diamond added, "is that the Fed's QE2 is in alignment with George Soros's agenda to destroy global capitalism."

The decline of the dollar "is what George Soros wants and what he has proposed in the past," he noted.

Soros, the billionaire hedge fund operator who finances various leftist and Marxist groups, including Media Matters, has made his fortune by betting on the collapse of national economies and currencies. He was convicted of insider trading in France.

Soros also has no regrets about collaborating with the Nazis, so that tells you something about his moral character.

Economists try to make the "science" painfully difficult, but it really isn't complicated. Every thing has worth, and that worth will fluctuate based upon supply and demand. If the object in question (currency) is scarce and/or in high demand, the relative worth of that object increases. If that object is common/in low demand, the relative worth of that object decreases.

The Fed, acting as Soros would like, is literally printing money that is not backed by demand. That makes the value of all the other U.S currency in circulation worth less on a dollar for dollar basis. For example, a dollar today may be worth a dollar, but after the government printing presses kick and spit our $2.5 trillion dollars without much worth behind it, your dollar may be worth only $.80, or even less. By printing too much money, the government is literally robbing your salary of its worth, decreasing your purchasing power.

We talk about higher taxes and the damage that will do to American business, but I suspect that if more Americans knew what the impact was of the Obama Administration's intentional devaluation of the dollar how it hurts the majority of Americans, and who it makes rich, then riots would ensue... and with just cause.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:57 AM | Comments (4)

November 09, 2010

Criminals are the Reason to Buy Handguns To Protect Your Family. Totalitarian Liberals are the Reason You Buy Battle Rifles

Thank you, Ted Rall, for proving precisely why the Founding Fathers felt so strongly about the right of the people to bear arms that they felt it second in importance only to the freedom of speech and religion.

Ted Rall and spoiled rich kid radicals like him still fashion themselves as the would-be elites, and still shrilly regard themselves as absolutely right and good, and their ideological opponents not only wrong, but evil. It is this warped belief system and imagined supremacy that has convinced Rall that you must be killed... or at least bullied into thinking you will be killed if you don't adopt or bow down to the "right" values.

It should be no surprise that his profoundly homicidal views are shared via an increasingly radicalized MSNBC. Nor should it be surprising that his rhetoric mirrors that of some of the most dehumanizing rhetoric of the most blood-soaked totalitarian regimes of the past century.


Update: With tedious predictability, totalitarian leftists are coming over, attempting to claim that posts I've written in the past also advocate violence. As usual, they can only make such claims by taking my comments out of context or purposefully misinterpreting them. Their shared intellectual rot is so pronounced that I wrote this post months ago to address their willful ignorance.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:45 PM | Comments (22)

November 08, 2010

The Post-Responsibility President

Mr. Obama has diagnosed the problem, the malady that caused his electoral faux-Greek columns to collapse: It was all a failure of messaging. Well, at least he has taken some meaningless faux-responsibility. Yet, even in this, he is in the process or transformation. He is, as he is so fond of saying, moving America forward, making progress. Until his recent admission on 60 Minutes, it was George W. Bush’s fault. Everything. All of it. You name it, he did it. Then (actually, more or less simultaneously) it was the fault of the American people, the bastards. Too fearful and stupid, one and all, to understand the brilliance of the scientific, factual communists who rule them. Ingrates, every man, woman and child, unable to be properly grateful for the bounty bestowed upon them by The One.

But now, at long last, Mr. Obama has it. The problem is, finally, absolutely, wait for it...the messaging! It is true that this explanation has been periodically trotted out, only to be quickly flattened like a shooting gallery target, but this time Mr. Obama appears to have settled on it. It is at least a grudging, tacit admission that we, the people are possibly sane and smart enough to understand and accept the brilliance and majesty that is Barack Obama, his policies and all of those who worship him if only he would formulate and speak the correct message! Forget the endless speeches and press releases, forget that Barack Obama is the single most over-exposed President in history, nay, should America persist to a trillion generations, the most over exposed President in perpetuity, all Mr. Obama need do is trot out the proper message and the scales will fall from the eyes of the electorate. Is it not fitting that the subjects of The One should be healed if only he spake the word?

Herein lies, as plain as the peasant noses on our dull, collective, ungrateful faces, the answer to a question that seems to perpetually vex the chattering classes: Will Obama change course and tack toward the center? Of course not. There are two primary reasons, reasons that rely upon science and fact (of course), that explain what seems so difficult for the intelligentsia to understand.

It can, no doubt be proved by means of countless studies in the fields of sociology, biology, and particularly, psychology, that one can only change a lightbulb if the lightbulb really wants to change. In this case, Barack Obama, the embodiment of hope and change, cannot change, will not change, unless he recognizes that his policies have failed and that change is, therefore, required. Mr. Obama acknowledges only (without actually saying it, of course) that perhaps we are a little brighter than he thought and he will labor to craft the correct message that will trigger the proper receptors in our reptilian brains, forcing us to embrace him and his ideas, which is his destiny.

The second, and larger issue is that Mr. Obama is a committed socialist/communist. Even Mr. Obama’s two (?! Don’t get me started...) autobiographies clearly outline his lifelong communist mentoring, education, friendships and associations. As a true believer, he cannot admit error or failure, for the socialist path never ends, is inevitable and non-falsifiable. Anyone who believes that socialist policies are failing is mistaken. The problem, the only problem, is that insufficient socialism has been envisioned and/or applied. Thus the only possible solution to any mistakenly perceived problem is the application of more and more fervent socialism.

But wait--as an informercial would say--there’s more! Mr. Obama is a narcissist of epic, heretofore unseen, proportions. As such, the recognition of personal failure or error is a virtual impossibility. Hyperbole? Consider this quote by Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett from “The Bridge,” an Obama biography by David Remnick: “I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is...and I think he has never really been challenged intellectually...somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy...He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.” No doubt Mr. Obama, upon hearing such fulsome praise, immediately blushed and bade Ms. Jarrett tone it down. Hey! I just saw a flying pig!

Imagine a man who has never held a real job, has never had to keep regular hours while working for his living, yet has enjoyed every benefit America has to offer: Exceptional educational opportunities, mentors and supporters willing to extend not only social connections but substantial cash to his upkeep and advancement, and slavering worshippers who cannot praise him enough. Imagine a man who has never had to endure the rigors of accepting or discharging responsibility. Recall, please how Mr. Obama and his advisors, shortly after his ascension to the minor office of the presidency, which is no doubt terribly boring, complained that they really hadn’t anticipated how, you know, like, hard it was. I mean, long hours, governing and people complaining and stuff, geez!

And so Mr. Obama has adopted socialist foreign policy as American domestic policy: If one talks to the enemy, that is, in and of itself, a transformative, real accomplishment. Mr. Obama has recently revealed that the American public is the enemy, and he is now contemplating how best to talk to it. He was the post-racial president, the post-American president, and he has nearly transcended all “posts” to become the post-responsibility president, a man who need no longer be bothered by doing, but merely by speaking.

A nation of enemies breathlessly awaits the messaging.

UPDATE ON 11-10-10: Several readers have taken me to task for suggesting that Mr. Obama is a socialist/communist. It is, as others have observed, remarkable that many of those who identify themselves as socialists and agree, in significant ways, with Mr. Obama's policies, bridle when Mr. Obama is identified as a socialist. In making such statements, bloggers must rely upon known evidence, and in Mr. Obama's case, it is considerable and of long standing. May I suggest reference to Stanley Kurtz's new book on Mr. Obama's long socialist pedigree, and for more handy and brief reference, a posting only today on the excellent Powerline blog on the same topic. No doubt there are various flavors of socialism/communism and true believers and gatekeepers may consider such matters of some importance. But among the unmistakable strategies of socialists are denying socialist intent, attacking anyone who identifies it, and keeping their long term agenda hidden as part and parcel of achieving their eventual socialist goals. Many American socialists, being rather unsophisticated and inexperienced and realizing that most Americans have little patience for socialism, have actually made the mistake of making explicit that strategy in discussing the eventual goals of Obamacare which include driving private insurance firms out of the market to pave the way for a socialist single payer system, which Mr. Obama himself has, on more than one occasion, expressed his explicit desire to achieve. In brief, when one is up to one's hips in a socialist snake pit, they need not wonder what all the hissing is about. Communists are merely a more generally murderous version of socialists.

Posted by MikeM at 11:51 PM | Comments (4)

November 02, 2010

Election Tweeting

Returns are coming in too fast to blog, so check out the CY Twitter page for snarky, 140 characters or less coverage.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)

Vote

Left my house to vote at 8:04 and was back home by 8:16. Granted, my polling place is literally around the corner, but it seems that so many people took the early voting option that there was no line and no wait.

Folks, voting is not going to be a hassle. No excuses. Get out there, and make the change you need.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:44 AM | Comments (8)

November 01, 2010

On What Comes After

Conservatives have been joking for quite a while now that we "can see November from our house!"

Well, I'm looking a the calendar, and November is here.

A lot of my fellow pundits are going to make predictions on what they think the outcome of tomorrow's elections will be, hoping that they will hit the mark and gain some credibility for their precision, when what happens tomorrow at this point is nothing but a SWAG.

I'll leave the prognosticating to the man I think is best at it, my fellow North Carolinian (and a very nice guy) Scott Elliott. He'll have his final numbers up soon (and they may be up by the time you read this).

I'll shock precisely no one when I tell you that if I was betting on the election I would bet heavily on the Republicans, but I might surprise a few if I told you the specific final results of the elections don't mean that much to me.

I'm certain we can count on our would-be betters in the MFM to throw some digital chicken bones on the floor screen in a lame attempt to declare that they understand the divine meaning of the ballots cast, but you know better.

This election is about one thing, and one thing only... trust. When it comes down to it, that is what all elections are about. Which candidate or party do I trust to make the big decisions that will affect the country for the next few years? Which party can we trust with our nation's economy? Our security? Our history? Our future?

In the 2006 and 2008 elections—and with quite a bit of help from the MFM—voters went to the poll and decided the nation's future would be be run by the elitist far-left wing of the Democratic party.

Well, we've had our liberal Congress. We've had our liberal Senate. And we have a liberal President that would rather bow to foreign dignitaries or talk to half-empty college auditoriums or play golf or watch ESPN than actually lead a nation desperate for real leadership.

But when the leaders fail, the people will lead. It's what Americans have always done, since before we thought of ourselves as "Americans."

It is a beautiful accident of our collective DNA that we are populated by people always looking for a fresh start and more opportunity, who never quit, and who refuse to be told they can't do more, have more, dream more, and be more.

And so tomorrow will end, I suspect, with Republicans firmly in control of Congress, possibly in control of the Senate, and facing one of the most bitterly partisan Presidents in living memory and his rabid followers in the press.

If history is any guide, the professional Republicans will declare themselves as riding a mandate from the people, which they will them immediately scuttle as they return to being the other craven party of Beltway elitists that helped get us into this present predicament.

And so I would remind my fellow fiscal conservatives—which at this point should be all Americans—that when the smoke clears tomorrow, the campaign against the Republican Party and what remains of the Democratic Party begins in earnest.

The Tea Party drove this election, and attracts the sympathies of a growing number of Americans because it found the common ground we must share and exploit if we are to weather the tough times ahead and come out of this worldwide financial crisis still holding our heads high as a nation.

We cannot allow the GOP Elite or the RNC or the pundit class or social conservatives to hijack and divide a movement built upon a promise of returning to the first principles of small government.

That means ending entitlements. That means removing withered social safety nets already collapsing from their own rot. That means reconsidering how we live as individuals and families, and if we are really better off being a nation of reckless, overextended consumers.

I hate to sound dour. Perhaps you, like many people we know, have already rediscovered people as a far more rewarding way to spend your time. You don't miss much when you miss today's Hollywood's movies, just special effects unable to cover the absence of a plot.

In some ways austerity helps up refocus on those things that are really important, even if the adjustment was uncomfortable or even sometimes traumatic.

Our bloated government, far too large and unhealthy for its own good (or ours) similarly needs to go through a period of adjustment, belt-tightening, and refocusing, so that it, too, focuses on "We, the People" yet again.

But that will not happen.

Or at least it won't happen if won't continue to grow the movement for small government fiscal conservatism, if we don't continue to pressure the old guard and support the newly victorious US we're sending to Washington.

We can't let ourselves get distracted, or greedy, or preachy, or too proud.

The hard work of rediscovering and rebuilding America begins with sweeping up the ticker-tape.

Let's roll.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:22 PM | Comments (6)

Allegations of Voter Fraud Continue In North Carolina

In the North Carolina early voting, a growing number of Republican and Democrat voters reported that when they voted a straight Republican ticket, their votes were flipped to Democrat in North Carolina in numerous precincts by a default setting that came up and flipped the ballot to straight Democrat as their hand was moved half way down the touch screen.

Shocking, the Board of Elections is dismissing these complaints, even though the voting machine problem is consistently turning Republican votes into Democrat votes.

Thanks to near constant polling by a number of organizations we can ascertain what the outcome of the elections should be once the votes are counted, and if the Democrats take seats all data suggests they should lose, then these elections must be contested.

In the meantime, I'd suggest that voters in both parties select their candidates individually instead of relying up the straight party ticket option.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:03 AM | Comments (5)

Yeah... I Miss Him

I disagreed with some of the things George Bush done in office, but one thing I've never questioned is his utter and complete love of this nation.

I wish I could say the same about the current President.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:34 AM | Comments (2)

October 30, 2010

The Good Earth and Dodged Bullets

From the ridiculously charming, smart and indispensable Michelle Malkin and the good folks at Hot Air comes a reminder that Progressives really are a separate--and dangerous--species. I speak, of course, of America’s sweetheart, Katie Couric, who has done so much to drive one of the formerly great network news organizations into the dumpster.

Hot Air reports: “Rick Kaplan, her executive producer, says that ‘when she’s on the road--in Iraq with David Petraeus--she has a great way with people. People like her and she likes them. There are anchors who consider being on the road a pain in the butt. She really looks for opportunities to feel the earth and touch people.’”

Let us, just to be kind, consider that Mr. Kaplan, and Ms. Couric, mean this in the best possible way. That said, who even thinks this way, let alone says it?! She has a great way with people? They like her and she likes them? It sounds like she’s talking about cute puppies. Of course, we all appreciate Ms. Couric’s sacrifice in actually, you know, traveling to do her job, the job for which she is compensated with untold millions. But how, pray tell, does one go about feeling the earth and touching people, particularly since Ms. Couric is among those instrumental in making earth touching a moral and criminal offense, to say nothing about touching a member of a protected, favored class. But of course, we earthy types in flyover country are certainly touched by Ms. Couric's concern and good intentions.

And now let us venture into dodged bullet territory. I speak, of course, of the man who nearly became president of the United States by running on the “I’m better and smarter than any thousand of you” ticket: Senator John Kerry. Thanks to Doug Powers at Hot Air who reported Mr. Kerry’s concerns for America in these dark hours:

“It’s absurd. We’ve lost our minds. We’re in a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don’t weigh in. It’s all short-order, lowest common denominator, cheap seat politics.”

The Senator is referring to the great unwashed, the fearful God and gun clingers who hate those who aren’t like them who are on the verge of expelling large numbers of their betters from that most sacred, intellectual and moral institution: The United States Congress. Let’s see: The Europeans are trying to run away from socialism as fast as possible, global warming has been exposed as the most egregious scientific hoax of all time, Cap and Trade and Obama Care will bankrupt the nation, and the American public has recovered, with a vengeance, from an overdose of hopenchange, but Mr. Kerry can't imagine why we don't drool all over him and the polices of his progressive pals? What's not to love?

We dodged a huge bullet with Mr. Kerry. That was a close one.

Posted by MikeM at 11:41 PM | Comments (1)

Forward to the Past

The winners of the October, 2010 Louis Renault Award have been announced: Anyone who is shocked, shocked! to learn that NPR is a wholly owned propaganda arm of the Progressive (formerly Democrat Party.) And the runners up are: Anyone, particularly Juan Williams, who is shocked, shocked(!) to learn that conservatives are orders of magnitude more tolerant, caring and forgiving than progressives.

Louis Renault, for those who have never seen Casa Blanca, is the police Captain who accosts Rick--played by Humphrey Bogart--the proprietor of Rick’s, saying that he was shocked, shocked(!) to discover that gambling was going on in Rick’s place...moments before he was handed his gambling winnings.

I’ve long thought Mr. Williams to be among the more rational and least doctrinaire leftists. Occasionally he falls back into the fold, ignoring the facts, denying the obvious, gamely trying to defend the indefensible, but generally, Williams has been one of a very rare breed: A liberal who can discuss controversial topics without displaying the usual liberal traits of yelling insults, calling opponents racist, stupid or mentally defective, accusing opponents of plotting to starve children, knock the elderly out of their wheelchairs and do horrible things to small furry animals, running out of the room, exploding in raging anger, or if they can’t work up to the real thing, feigning righteous anger, playing the moral superiority card, or just turning red and sputtering. He’s the kind of man with whom I could easily enjoy a brisk, civil debate.

But I have to wonder. Williams spent a decade working for NPR. In all of that time in the progressive snake pit, didn’t he ever wonder what all the hissing was about? Didn’t he often see what appeared to be a duck, walking and quacking like a duck, and didn’t he realize that it actually was a duck? Didn’t he find himself regularly immersed in a tepid bucket of politically correct spit? He’s a smart man; why didn’t he see who and what his colleagues were?

I have been heartened to see a bit of light peeking through the progressive clouds, but the scales have yet to fall completely from Mr. Williams’ eyes (metaphor alert!). He has opined that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t conservatives who were intolerant after all. Maybe, just maybe, it was, it was--gasp!--leftists all along. No doubt Mr. Williams has been encouraged to ponder this apparent paradox owing to several recent developments, among them his abrupt firing from NPR for the crime of speaking the truth about the existence of Islamic terrorists, a truth understood and shared by tens, even hundreds of millions of Americans; his subsequent immediate hiring--at a much higher salary--by the locus of all of the world’s evil: Fox News (Arizona is a close second); the fact that those who immediately jumped to his defense were almost entirely conservatives; the fact that those who selflessly defended and hired him did so because they were expressing loyalty to a friend, a friend who was also meritorious, which is of no small importance to conservatives, but is of little or no importance to progressives; and the fact that they were defending constitutional principles of free speech without concern for the political correctness of said speech.

I’ve little doubt that Mr. Williams is grateful, but I wonder if he--like far too many Congressional Republicans, has really learned the most important lessons of his experience. Considering that November 2 is fast approaching, this is not--like the details of Dr. Evil’s life--inconsequential.

Many Republicans such as Lindsay Graham and John Boehner have already begun to mutter about reaching across the aisle, compromising and cooperating with Democrats. There are many problems with this, but I’ll mention two just for fun: They haven’t taken control of either house of Congress as yet, and if they don’t they’ll be able to expect exactly the same cooperation, compromise, professionalism and human decency that Democrats have extended to them for the last two years: Not only none, but less than none. And even if they do win, as Rush Limbaugh put it, where’s the compromise with socialism, with policies that are designed to destroy freedom, democracy and the rule of law? Do we strike a deal to allow the Democrats to destroy the odd numbered articles and rights in the Constitution? The even?

To be completely fair, the Congress should be a place for honest and full debate, a body where no law is passed before the people have a chance to read it in full, where no bill is written like a blank check for future bureaucrats to fill out, where no bill can be more than 100 pages long, where everyone is treated with respect and dignity, but where everyone understands that they are temporary hired hands entrusted with the future of the last, best hope of mankind. To that end, everyone should be treated fairly and professionally, but when any one legislator ignores the Constitution, when they put themselves above the people, when they forget who they are and their temporary status as public servants, they deserve to be treated as the scoundrels they are and must, slowly and painfully, earn the full privileges of their positions. This is the current state of the Democrat party, a party dedicated to the destruction of America. Until every Democrat is once again dedicated to America and has proved that dedication beyond any doubt, they must be treated like the insidious danger they are.

Whether it is Juan Williams or Congressional Republicans, the problem is the same: A inability and/or stubborn unwillingness to recognize, embrace and act upon experience and reality. Sadly, I suspect that Mr. Williams will be far more likely to embrace reality than the Republicans. If this is the case, the Republicans may expect many more, and much more painful, lessons delivered by a public who can learn from experience and deal with reality. Living in the real world, rather than Washington D.C., tends to do that.

So, good luck to Juan Williams. Come on over to the good side of the Force, you know, the side that embraced and defended you when it mattered? And to Congressional Republicans: Nobody likes you. You are, for the moment, the lesser of two evils. You have a very, very long way to go before you have once again earned the trust of the American people. Start by defeating the immediate evil. We're watching.

Posted by MikeM at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

Rally to Restore Corduroy Now Underway

Comedy Central Planning has tried to ban Pajamas Media from covering today's hoping-to-be-cooly-ironic spectacle on the National Mall today, showing the Obama-worshipping faux news hosts speaking at the event aren't much for coverage that doesn't involve a laugh track.

You can watch it live here if you so desire.

I'm "watching" the event on two computers with the sound off for as long as it lasts. After all, Comedy Central is paying for the bandwidth, right? I'll actually be watching college football on television.

For those of you on twitter, the #fearofsanity hashtag is providing some pretty funny material so far.

Big Government is live blogging.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:34 PM | Comments (1)

October 28, 2010

NC Democrat Tim Spear's Mailer: You Always Want the Wehrmacht Covering Your Back

which_army

On the bright side, these were only WWII reenactors, not real German soldiers that the North Carolina Democratic Party wants to back. It's certainly a step up from the white supremacist unit they supported in the only successful military coup d'état in American history (via Big Government).

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:05 PM | Comments (9)

A Recognition of Evil

One of the most impassioned calls to crush the Democrats in next week's midterm elections comes from Kevin DuJan, a Democrat of more than three decades that has seen the monster his party had become.

Howard Dean, Donna Brazile, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Obama took the mask off the Democrat Party…and the Leftist gorgon that lurked beneath is something America-loving, middleclass, Jacksonian/Clintonian Democrats want nothing to do with.

As part of your "Reverse Operation Chaos", you really need to emphasize something the media just won't talk about — and that's the simple fact that even if you called yourself a Democrat for 32 years, the way I did, because everyone you grew up with and everyone in your family was a Democrat, that in 2010 it's time to ask yourselves what that really means.

Do you want to be in a party that calls people racists for stepping out of line and voicing opposition to the socialist lurch of the current administration?

Do you condone voter fraud and the shameless, undemocratic tactics employed by Democrats?

Do you wish to associate with the likes of ACORN, the SEIU, the Black Panthers, and all the other thugs, goons, and degenerates the Obama campaign and White House employ as the DNC's muscle on the ground?

It is crystal clear that being a patriotic American who loves this country is intellectually incompatible with being a Democrat. If you love America and want it to prosper, the Democrat Party is at absolute odds with everything we need for a thriving, successful economy.

I seriously suggest you read the entire entry, which takes the form of an open letter to Rush Limbaugh from the leader of what was one of the most prominent Hillary Clinton-supporting blogs in the 2008 primaries, HillBuzz.

Clinton Democrats learned first-hand the thuggish Alinsky tactics of the socialist "progressive" left. The Clinton-supporting Democrats of 2008 are largely what we would consider moderate to conservative Democrats, and they are being targeted for extinction by the radical left. Progressives can brook no dissent. Philosophically, dissent is impermissible, and as time goes on, the remaining Democrats are being squeezed towards representing ever more radical positions by the Marxists and socialists currently leading the Party.

It is this radical view—this fundamental misunderstanding of humanity and an arrogant presumption that enough force-fed government can somehow "perfect"mankind—that has infected what remains of the Democrat Party. It is this poisonous, quasi-religious fervor that was used to justify more than 100 million human beings being murdered in the name of progress in the last century alone, and the reason that the generation that now guides today's radicals coolly rationalized the deaths of 25 million Americans in concentration camps for the good of "their" country.

We've gotten so used to demonizing our opponents via hyperbole and brazen untruths that we seem numbed to the real threats to our way of life. We seem to have convinced ourselves that our nation's leaders can't also be our greatest enemies, despite the bloody battlefields and mass graves that have resulted, and which have been repeated time and again throughout the long history of humanity when self-styled "elites" determine that they, and they alone, know what is best for the citizens.

We should not wait for representative democracy to be plowed under by the evils of socialism and the racialism of a President that was mentored by communists, murderous terrorists, and radical racial separatists.

Nothing good has come as the result of the progressive domination of our current government. The regime has dramatically intruded into the private sector, awarded itself powers the Founders never intended, has massively increased the nation's debt, and undermines out individual liberties... all quite by design.

I'm quite sure that those on the left can rationalize and justify every constitutional infringement, every direct action, every harassment, even broken campaign office window, every false flag operation and every case of voter fraud, convinced that their actions are for the good of us all.

They don't mean to be evil. They think they are doing us a favor with every shuffling step towards totalitarianism. But that is how evil works in the real world. This is an evil that even lifelong Democrats like Kevin DuJan now recognize must be eradicated for the sake of the Republic. Progressive liberalism is a cancer, and it will try to infect this election as it seeks to spread over and envelope the nation.

We've already seen evidence of possible voter fraud in Florida, Utah, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, all calculated to help incumbent Democrats loyal to the radical progressive movement fronted by Barack Obama.

Vigilance is necessary. Complacency is deadly. They will try to steal this election if they can to minimize their losses and keep their most devoted acolytes. Watch them carefully.

And make sure you vote for the good of the Republic, not the arrogance of the elites.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:10 PM | Comments (6)

October 27, 2010

Paul Supporter Claims MoveOn.Org Activist Was a Threat

Let me use small words and short sentences so that the brain trust at firedoglake can't possibly twist this: the Rand Paul supporter that put his foot on a professional left wing activist outside the Paul-Conway debate was wrong to do so. Lauren Valle, the activist attempting to push her way through the crowd to get to Paul, had already been subdued and was on the ground.

But I will argue that Paul supporters had reason to believe that Valle was a potential threat based upon her earlier actions.

Police have summoned Tim Profitt to appear before a judge to face an assault charge after a scuffle was caught on tape outside the KET Studios in Lexington before Jack Conway and Rand Paul's debate Monday night.

Today, Profitt says he fears for his safety and has received numerous death threats after others have watched the incident on tape. He says his actions were misunderstood.

"I feared for his safety," Profitt explained.

In the video, it appears to some that 23-year-old Lauren Valle is wrestled down to the ground by Rand Paul Supporters and then stomped on.

But to Tim Profitt, the the situation is much different. He says what the video doesn't show is Valle's aggressive behavior. Profitt says she rushed Paul's car three different times; each time refusing to stop.

He says at the time, he didn't know what she was trying to do.

"We thought she was a danger; we didn't know what she was doing."

Profitt explained that he used his foot to try and keep her down because he can't bend over because of back problems. He also says police were alerted to watch her before Paul arrived because people in the crown recognized her as someone who may try and pull a stunt.

Anyone with a basic grasp of history knows that American leftists love to use women to do their dirty work. Obama friend and mentor Bill Ayers used women in his terrorist cell to plant bombs; his then-girlfriend was killed when killed in a Greenwich Village townhouse explosion when the bombs she was constructing to attack a dance at a nearby army base prematurely detonated. His wife, Bernadine Dohrn, is still the primary suspect in the bombing death of a California police officer.

And who could forget Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme (part of the Manson Family that Dohrn so admired she created forked finger salute in their honor celebrating Sharon Tate's murder) and her attempt to assassinate the President, or a similar attempt on President Ford's life by leftist Sara Jane Moore?

Erratic individuals, acting aggressively and attempting to push their way through the crowd can easily be viewed as a physical threat to a political candidate. I therefore find it quite plausible that the scenario at the Paul/Conway debate was such that Paul supporters thought subduing Valle was a rational response to a perceived threat.

Once she was down, however, and ceased to be a threat, it was wrong for Profitt to step on her shoulder in an attempt to pin her down. Others had the situation in hand.

Do his actions rise to the level of assault? I'll leave that for the legal system to determine.

I can tell you that any rational viewing of the videotape clearly shows he did not "stomp" on Valle's head, as the irrational members of the community-based reality trumpeted throughout the leftist blogosphere. He foot was clearly on her shoulder and back, and if he touched her head at all, it was incidental.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:37 AM | Comments (27)

October 26, 2010

Racial Slur of the Week

Mr. Obama is at it again. Only last week we learned that we're all too fearful and stupid to understand evidence and argument and science, and that we're going to be engaged in "hand to hand combat" with Democrats after the election. But Mr. Obama redeemed himself on Monday by inviting Republicans along on the Obama Magic Bus, with one proviso: We have to ride in the back.

Hope, change, progress, lunatic racial slurs...it's a brave new world.

Posted by MikeM at 08:21 AM | Comments (14)

Rand Paul Support Stomped Outside Paul/Conway Debate

The media and leftist blogosphere are all over the story of a moveon.org supporter that attempted to approach Rand Paul while wearing an obvious disguise. The young lady was assaulted, and charges should be pressed against her assailants.

At the same time, at the same rally, a Democrat supporting Jack Conway viciously stomped on the foot of a Rand Paul supporter who had recently gone through foot surgery, tearing open the incision.

The simple fact is that supporters on both sides acted like animals outside this debate, and it is disgusting to watch the media and leftist blogosphere provide such one-side coverage.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:57 AM | Comments (9)

Dems Literally In Bed With Terrorists?

Oh Harry, is there anything else you can do to torpedo your campaign?

An aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repeatedly lied to federal immigration and FBI agents and submitted false federal documents to the Department of Homeland Security to cover up her illegal seven-year marriage to a Lebanese national who was the subject of an Oklahoma City Joint Terror Task Force investigation, FoxNews.com has learned.

Diana Tejada, Reid's Hispanic Press Secretary, admitted to receiving payment for "some of her expenses" in exchange for fraudulently marrying Bassam Mahmoud Tarhini in 2003, strictly so he could obtain permanent U.S. residency, according to court documents.

She only fraudulently married him, so I guess the headline saying that this Democrat was in bed with terrorists is something of a cheap shot. I should have said that she was simply will to take money from a terrorism suspect in order to hide her willingness to take payments to compromise national security.

Tejada—a mouthpeice for La Raza as well&mdash:was only released from Reid's campaign last week, apparently when the Senate Majority Leader was alerted that Fox News was going to expose her and embarrass the campaign.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:59 AM | Comments (2)

October 25, 2010

North Carolina May Add Governors' Wing to Central Prison

Or at least they may need to consider it, if both the current and former governors are as corrupt as some suspect:

Governor Beverly Perdue made her first public appearance Monday following Friday afternoon's announcement that federal investigators are probing her 2008 election campaign.

At a gathering of municipal government leaders Monday morning, she knew she'd face questions, but had little to say.

"It's an ongoing investigation. It would really be inappropriate for me to make any comment on this at all. I hope to be able to do that later, but right now I can't say anything," she told ABC11.

The State Board of Elections fined Perdue's campaign $30,000 in August for failing to report in a timely fashion private flights. A majority of the board found no deliberate effort to break the law.

And North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation was already investigating Perdue after Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby said he had lingering questions about her campaign's airplane flights...

[snip]

While the feds aren't talking about the investigation, some speculate it may reach back to their ongoing investigation of former governor Mike Easley.

Ruffin Poole, a former top level aide to Easley, pleaded guilty in April to income tax evasion in a plea deal with federal prosecutors that included his cooperation.

The income tax charge was related to money Poole made from an investment with Lanny Wilson - one of the backers of a Carteret County development where Easley bought a lot at a heavily discounted price.

Now, North Carolina political watchdog Joe Sinsheimer speculates the feds could be focused on Perdue's relationship with Wilson - who was her campaign finance chairman.

North Carolina's Democrat Party has been murderously corrupt since Reconstruction, and so I don't expect either governor to do time. Their minions will take the fall, and the cycle will continue.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:29 PM | Comments (2)

So Little Left To Say

I scanned through the news articles and blog entries posted on Memeorandum this morning and realized that I really don't have a lot to add to the painfully obvious.

Rabid liberals are still backing one of the most horrific human beings in Congress simply because he is a progressive. Another Democrat however, seems to be vying for the dishonor.

NPR is still getting flamed for their purge of Juan Williams.

Days from the midterm elections, Democrats are still making promises of sunshine and unicorns, even as 60 Minutes slips and admits that the real unemployment rate is so much worse than any leftist will admit. Republicans are still confidently predicting a November 2 route, while no doubt planning continues in the RNC to cut the assumed rise of the Tea Party Caucus on Capitol Hill. This will set up a nice split between the rising power of the fiscally-focused Tea Party and socially conservative Republicans in 2012, giving the trainwreck Democrats a chance of regaining power and re-electing Obama in 2012, at which point I think I'll buy a nice bunker somewhere.

Of course, I haven't had my coffee and it's Monday, so I could be wrong.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:58 AM | Comments (2)

October 22, 2010

The Biscuit (Or Do We Really Want Democrats in Control of Nuclear Weapons?)

Ah, the good old days when Democrat leadership was riding high, when the economy was booming, basking in the post Cold War glow when America was respected and loved, when Yassir Arafat was the most frequent foreign sleepover guest in the White House (can’t you just imagine the pillow fights and related hijinks!), when terrorists were killing hundreds of Americans every year around the world, more or less unnoticed, and almost destroyed the World Trade Center, yet were treated as common criminals, and when Osama Bin Laden was offered, repeatedly, to Bill Clinton on a silver platter, a platter he declined. But above all, who can forget the trademarked Democrat foreign policy acumen and leadership displayed by the aforementioned President Bill I-feel-your-pain-and-other-assorted-parts Clinton when he lost, for several months, the “Biscuit,” the card on which was printed the nation’s nuclear access codes. That’s right, the POTUS actually lost the codes that he was required to carry with him 24/7/365, the codes without which he could not access America’s nuclear arsenal.

This was first reported seven years ago in Dereliction of Duty, Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson’s (USAF Ret.) book about his years in the Clinton White House carrying the nuclear “football,” the briefcase carried by a military officer, always within reach of the POTUS, containing the means to authorize the release of nuclear weapons. The Biscuit allows access to the football. Without the codes written on the Biscuit, America is disarmed. The story has been recently resurrected by ABC News and other news outlets when it appeared in a recently published book, Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hugh Shelton. The best (as in most horrifically appalling) part, according to Patterson and Shelton, is that Clinton concealed the fact that the biscuit was missing for months, only grudgingly admitting to Patterson that he couldn’t remember the last time he saw it. Suffice it to say that Lt. Col. Patterson’s book, and his followup book Reckless Disregard, paint a picture both disgusting and frightening to those who care about America’s leadership and national security.

Anyone surprised that Democrats would prove themselves incapable of being trusted with national security surely deserve the Louis Renault Award. Louis Renault, for those who haven’t seen the Humphrey Bogart classic film Casa Blanca, was the Police Captain who approached Bogart’s Rick, the owner of Rick’s, and declared himself “Shocked, shocked!” to learn that gambling was taking place at Rick’s--moments before his gambling winnings were delivered to him.

This particular case has also resurrected a story from the administration of the greatest ex-president in American history, Jimmy Carter (if you don’t believe he’s the greatest ex-president, just ask him. Actually you don’t have to; he’s telling anyone who will listen). It seems that Mr. Carter too lost the Biscuit, sending it to the cleaners in his suit. “Hi. This is Joe at Joe’s One Hour Cleaning? I’d like to order a nuclear strike on my mother-in-law in Pittsburgh, please. What’s that? Oh yeah, I got the codes right here...” Whether this oversight was due to the stress of being the only President in history to have been attacked while in a rowboat by a swimming, kamikaze rabbit remains lost in the tides of time, or at least in the murky depths of the pond on Carter’s peanut farm where the traumatic rabbit attack took place.

Fast forward to the present where there is much speculation about President Barack Obama’s political fortunes. Clueless pundits wonder at endless length about his political flexibility should the Democrats find themselves slapped even more senseless than usual by the electorate on Nov. 2. You know, the electorate who are fearful, illogical, who can’t appreciate the miracles being worked on their behalf by Mr. Obama, the electorate who cling to God, guns and hate those who aren’t like them, like, you know, Democrats? That electorate?

The short answer is that Mr. Obama is fundamentally incapable of moderating because it would be a repudiation of everything he is: A doctrinaire Marxist. This is hardly news to those who have actually taken the time to research Mr. Obama’s past and who have paid attention to his statements and actions as President. No Louis Renault awards for them.

As exhibit “A” consider the latest in his many Marxist influenced foreign policy debacles: The Mid East peace process. According to Jackson Diehl writing for the Washington Post, it was Mr. Obama who sabotaged the newest round of talks between the Palestinians and Israel by independently demanding that Israel stop building homes in its settlements. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, during an interview on Israeli television October 17 said: “When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped. If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?” Abbas confirmed what has been suspected for a year: It was not Abbas or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that demanded a settlement freeze that has derailed the talks, but Mr. Obama. Even Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad recently said that future settlement construction would have no effect on the talks or any potential Palestinian state. When the settlement moratorium imposed by Mr. Obama expired on Sept. 26, he called for its extension during his September address to the UN General Assembly. This made it impossible for Mr. Abbas to drop the issue and has likely doomed the peace talks.

It’s not hard to predict Mr. Obama’s complete lack of flexibility, but for those who might need a bit more evidence, let’s take a quick look at his overall foreign policy performance. While this list is by no means all inclusive, it betrays an alarming tendency toward supporting Marxists and terrorists, betraying and insulting allies, and acting against America’s interests.

(1) Among Mr. Obama’s first acts upon taking office was to return the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office since 9-11, a gift of the British Government.

(2) When Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid his first visit to Mr. Obama, the traditional diplomatic exchange of significant gifts was somewhat lopsided. The British provided a pen set made from the timbers of a vessel important in ending the slave trade. Mr. Obama provided a set of American movies of the kind one might find in any WalMart. But that’s not the best part. European DVD players use a different format than American players. The DVDs were not only cheap and tacky, they were useless.

(3) When Mr. Obama met the Queen of England, he provided a personal gift: An iPod. An iPod loaded with his speeches. We’re lucky to have avoided a declaration of war by the British.

(4) Mr. Obama’s serial bows to foreign leaders.

(5) When the Honduran Government and Supreme Court upheld their Constitution, democracy and the rule of law in ousting their president who violated Honduran law in the process of a Marxist takeover, President Obama sided with and supported...wait for it...the Marxists!

(6) Mr. Obama’s betrayal of our Eastern European allies regarding missile defense.

(7) Mr. Obama’s feckless threats and pleas to the Iranians to pretty please stop building nuclear weapons, or this time we’ll think harder about begging the UN for even more ineffective, meaningless sanctions. Really, if you don’t meet the next deadline, we mean it! Hey, quit laughing!

(8) Mr. Obama’s shabby treatment of Mr. Netanyahu at the White House when he walked out on him, essentially saying “If you change your mind, I’ll be around,” and did not serve him dinner. Horrendously bad relations with Israel were later explained away by White House spinners as a failure of “messaging.”

(9) Mr. Obama’s feckless, continuing arms concessions to Russia, whose leaders must be amazed at their good fortune to find at least a four year window where they can indulge their expansionist, totalitarian designs with no threat of American intervention.

(10) Mr. Obama’s insistence on returning to the good old days when terrorist murderers were treated as civilian criminals.

(11) Oh yes, let’s not forget Mr. Obama’s resolute prosecution of one of America’s most cruel and relentless enemies: Arizona.

Let’s round out a brief, incomplete list with Mr. Obama’s reflexive support of a terrorist government and its people who train their children to hate and kills Jews and celebrate their suicide bombing deaths, and his reflexive hostility toward one of America’s best allies and the only stable democracy in the Middle East, Israel.

To those who imagine that Mr. Obama possesses the ability, or the inclination, to moderate his views, views that branded him the most leftist Senator prior to his run for the presidency, perhaps a trip to Rick’s is in order. Like the good Captain Renault, they too can be shocked, shocked! when Obama leaves America’s rudder jammed firmly to the left after Nov. 2.

Americans are finally seeming to realize, in ever increasing numbers, what was once commonly understood and accepted: It’s never a good idea to put Democrats in charge of national security (or anything else, but that’s another article for another day).

Has anyone checked to see if Mr. Obama has misplaced the Biscuit? If he has, maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all. He might decide to use our arsenal against Arizona; he certainly won’t use it against our actual enemies.

Posted by MikeM at 06:01 PM | Comments (6)

October 20, 2010

Man Who Claimed the New Black Panther Party Was Created by Fox News Suddenly Seen As Credible Expert on Bigotry By MFM, Left Wing

The media spreads the lie that the Tea Party is racist based upon the activities of a half-dozen members nationwide in a movement number millions of people, and of course left wing blogs blogs join in as well. After all, the unrepresentative slur fit the narrative they've been working so hard to create.

I guess it would be more credible to the other 80% of the population if the primary messenger of the slur wasn't himself tied to a group that only can only exist if it finds boogeymen to fight against.

NAACP officials with their own history of racist rants could not be reached for comment.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:42 PM | Comments (6)

Milbank: A Pissant Goes A-Sniping

Dana Milbank once used to be entertaining, back when... well, I'm sure he was, or he wouldn't have a job.

Unfortunately, whatever he was, what his is now is a shrill, whiny little man who reveals far more about his own prejudices than he hurts those he sallies forth against.

Take for example, the evil rich folks running against Dana's beloved progressive Democrats in this election.

Consider the candidates on the ballot next month who are getting Tea Party support. In the Connecticut Senate race, there's Linda McMahon, who with her husband has a billion-dollar pro-wrestling empire. The challenger to Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, is a millionaire manufacturing executive. The former head of Gateway computers, Rick Snyder, is spending generously from his fortune to win the Michigan governor's race.

In New York, the Republican gubernatorial candidate is developer Carl Paladino, with a net worth put at $150 million. And Rick Scott, running for governor in Florida, has a net worth of $219 million from his career as a health-care executive. Then there's California, where the Republican Senate nominee is former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina and the gubernatorial candidate is former e-Bay boss Meg Whitman.

The McMahons turned a regional wrestling sideshow into a billion-dollar business empire. Ron Johnson, likewise, is a self-made entrepreneur in the plastics industry. Rick Snyder worked his way through the ranks of Coopers & Lybrand before joining Gateway computer. Rick Scott's dad was a truck driver and his mother worked as a clerk at J.C. Penney, and he worked his way to the top.

In each and every instance, the men and women Milbank reviles for the crime of being rich are self-starting, hard working individuals that created the wealth they now command. They are living examples of the American dream we were once taught to admire.

Not only did these individuals make themselves very wealthy, they created dozens or hundreds of jobs each, supporting thousands of family members. Like all successful entrepreneurs, they created wealth not just for themselves, but for everyone around them.

This, apparently, amounts to capital crime for someone like Milbank, a small man who can only generate scorn, not jobs.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:33 PM | Comments (8)

October 19, 2010

Who to vote for in NC4

So, I don't normally do candidate endorsements... it simply isn't my thing. I prefer to talk policy and news and issues, and know readers will make their choice based upon who they think is best in their districts.

That noted, I feel rather strongly about defeating a couple of North Carolina's entrenched liberal incumbents, starting with David Price here in NC-4.

Price is my Congressman, and while he acts on stage like a North Carolinian, he votes to the left of my deranged former congressman in New York, Maurice Hinchey. After being in Congress 22 years, it is fair to say Price isn't a North Carolinian. He's a beltway insider, that slathers the folks back home in pork so that they keep electing him. I have to admit that strategy has been successful until now. But now the cost of all that largess is coming home.

The simple fact of the matter is that while Price has brought home research dollars for the universities in his district, he is one of the power-hungry progressives in Congress that has driven up the federal deficit and made it far more difficult for businesses to operate, even here in RTP.

Unless you are a university researcher and intend to stay on campus your entire career, David Price is a threat to your livelihood.

His opponent BJ Lawson is cut from an entirely different cloth. Lawson has never held public office, but instead left his medical residency to become a successful businessman after identifying a market for medical software. Having run a successful business and running headlong into the morass of innovation-stifling regulation Democrats have thrust upon the healthcare industry, Lawson is in an excellent position to provide the insights we need on Capitol Hill when we overturn Obamacare and develop health care legislation that lifts up all Americans, instead of dragging us all down to a minimal level of care.

On healthcare and healthcare alone Lawson deserves your vote, but Lawson also respects the Founders' intent for a small federal government.

Price has failed miserably in debates with Lawson, and has actually beaten himself quite convincingly.

David Price can't make a reasonable argument to extend his mediocre tenure in Washington, even to himself.

It's time we send the better man to Washington. BJ Lawson deserves your vote in NC-4.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:03 AM | Comments (9)

October 18, 2010

The Fury of the J. Crew Anarchists

I've read some truly dour news story and blog entries concerning our economy during this recession. Much of it (it seems to me) has been superficial, in that though the impact to individuals and companies can indeed be traumatic, the underlying pillars of the economy was relatively solid.

The central pillar, of course, is the aggregate middle class.

But when the recent news came out that banks had been "robo-signing" mortgages and in many instances didn't even know where the physical paperwork was to the loans for many homes, it scared the crap out of me. As a result, banks have (temporarily) lost the power to foreclose and evict. This makes a bad situation worse.

It suddenly hit home that it was becoming increasingly possible that my fellow citizens in the middle class could simply say "screw it," stop paying their underwater mortgages, and essentially dare the banks to do anything about it.

The empty shell of a home across the street from me is a stark reminder of the impact that can have on the micro level. My neighbor—I should say, former neighbor—ignored payments on his home, neglected his yard to the point where erosion was washing topsoil into the street when it rained. He was the bum, and his house was the eyesore on our block. For years.

And at some point in the foreclosure process, he moved to a nicer home that cost less in the neighboring town, and in a more upscale neighborhood.

Think about that for a second. This family skirted the edges of neighborly decency, constantly ran afoul of HOA standards for minimal home and yard maintenance standards, refused to pay their mortgage, depressed property values for the rest of us who live here and their apparent "punishment" was a nicer home somewhere else.

What kind of message does that send to those of us that play by the rules, who pay our mortgages on time, and invest money into our homes, making improvements and enhancements? What good does out work do to our own homes, if our neighbors have no regard for the rest of the neighborhood and leave us with an eyesore that is now listed on the market for $40,000 less than it was worth when it was built 5 years ago?

Thanks Gerald, you asshole.

It sends a message that we don't have to play by the rules, or pay our bills. It tells me that I don't have to pay my mortgage or sell my home if I find a better one; I can abandon my current home and leave my neighbors to deal with what follows. And far better people than Gerald are considering it (via Instapundit).

It is a recipe for anarchy, and an economic collapse.

I've worried about individuals and individual families before, and in broad terms, thought the wider economy would take some hits but weather the storm.

Now I am not so certain, and I have no idea whatsoever what to do to prepare for it should the worst occur.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:58 AM | Comments (16)

October 14, 2010

Probably Too True To Be True, But...

When Dan Rather "broke" the story of George W. Bush's alleged malingering when he served as a Texas Air National Guard fighter pilot, the only thing Rather ultimately broke was his own career. His reputation for honesty and integrity had been broken long before. The story was, of course, false and the documents that were the sole basis for and proof of the story were proved by bloggers to be neophyte forgeries within hours. Within a few days, the entire story collapsed and CBS was forced to backtrack. However, Rather did do a public service (no, not by resigning, but that was surely a public service) by introducing an entirely new reporting standard: The documents were "fake but accurate." Relying on that well-established and much-revered Lamestream Media standard, we introduce the tale of the Cattle Guards.

This is a story making the rounds of the Net that is likely false, but humorous nonetheless. The story goes that a little while back, President Obama was reviewing a report regarding Colorado ranchers protesting his proposed changes in grazing policies. The report mentioned the "100,000 cattle guards" (as in the metal grates ubiquitous in the West that cattle will not cross) in Colorado. President Obama immediately ordered his Secretary of the Interior (apparently this took place in a cabinet meeting) to fire the offending people who were guarding the cattle! Vice President Biden is reported to have intervened, suggesting that before being fired, they should receive six months of retraining so that they could serve as Arizona border guards!

While those who live in the midwest and west and actually work for a living would have little trouble believing this, it very well may be false. President Obama would almost certainly have tried to unionize and federalize the "Cattle Guards," rather than fire them, and no one in the Obama Administration would have ever thought of doing anything that would actually increase border enforcement or in any way aid Arizona, the political entity considered most dangerous in the world by the Obama Administration. Still, the story does illustrate the very real disconnect between those who live on the coasts and those who live in flyover country. Fake but accurate indeed.

Posted by MikeM at 06:16 PM | Comments (3)

October 13, 2010

David Price Fiercely Campaigns Against... David Price

Via Randy's Right.

The race for NC-4 is heating up, as a recent debate between Democratic incumbent David Price and, uh... Democratic incumbent David Price... left Republican challenger Dr. BJ Lawson with little to do except cheer along with the audience. Price made his case for his own replacement, displaying time and again how hopelessly out of touch the pro-Obamacare, pro-stimulus, pro-amnesty liberal is with the district he is supposed to represent.

Watch for yourself, and marvel at how the clueless incumbent shows how out of step he is with the audience in this debate.

If the stakes weren't our nation's future, it would almost be funny. The emperor has no clothes, and Congressman David is a Price NC-4 can't afford.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:33 AM | Comments (7)

October 11, 2010

Don't Let Facts Get In the Way of Your Racist Delusions

I've always found Salon to be one of the most informative web sites on the entire Internet...though not for the reasons you might think. Like many other sites that feature and attract progressives, Salon serves as a chronicle of the "liberal condition," collecting the insecurities and psychological projection of its writers and its intended audience.

And so I find myself gazing with sick fascination into the mind of someone named "Keka," a desperately frightened soul that warns us that a new age of White Supremacy, night riders, and lynchings are on the way, because she saw a bumper sticker at a fast food drive thru.

I wish I were exaggerating:

I saw it. But I couldn’t believe it.

There I was, in a fast food drive through, behind a man whose back window decal, in small white letters, sent me a message that sent a chill down my spine—just as he’d hoped it would, no doubt. It said:

THIS COUNTRY WAS BUILT BY WHITE MEN WITH GUNS

Now, I was there because I needed something to eat badly. I’ve been tending a new puppy that behaves and has to be tended like a newborn, so you only get so much “break’ time if you’re keeping to your schedule. I had just enough to grab a bite, get some work done…and get ready for play time number…I’m not sure which.

But I lost my appetite entirely, when I saw that decal.

I’ve lost my appetite for America, period, to be honest—he’s just one of the many reasons. Forget that fact that if he really believes this, this guy must never have read a history book in his life—it’s the fact that he felt comfortable driving around with that ridiculous statement on his back window that galls me most. But I saw it comin'.

What a delicate, brittle flower of liberal womanhood is our poor friend Keka! A man with a historically debatable message on his vehicle has her all but ready to revoke her citizenship. My, oh my.

Her article, such as it is—White Men With Guns--Reconstruction Redux—is a sad mix of history, ignorance, and willful self-deception. The bumper sticker was just the thinnest excuse for her own ahistorical rant.

She uses civil rights-era violence from a half-century ago as the excuse to foist upon us one bigoted and extraneous stereotype after another. Keka's target is the Tea Party movement, which she is desperate to portray as the next coming of the Ku Klux Klan. For a child of the 60s she is quite limber, contorting reality this way and that in order to twist it into something of which she can be afraid.

She bases her arguments... actually, Keka doesn't both to concern herself with arguments.

Nor does she deem it important to cite facts, instances, actors, or events that justify her beliefs. Unfortunately, poisoned beliefs and bizarre assertions are all that Keka has.

She holds white Tea Partiers responsible for a gay Rutgers student Tyler Clementi committing suicide, because his Indian-American roommate and Asian-American girlfriend filmed him having sex and live-streamed it on the Internet. White people made them do it?.

A Hispanic gang in New York called the "Latin King Goonies" beat and sodomized a fellow Hispanic gang member they thought was gay. But Keka says white people made them do it.

Another white man that Keka most assuredly hates made a comment last week about some people being born to be slaves. He was of course talking about those suffering from the sort of mental bondage to which Keka has subjugated herself, a self-imposed prison from which no other person can set her free. She has made whites in general and Tea Party protesters in specific into boogeymen, responsible for all the evil she sees, facts be damned.

From her sequestered reality it was not doubt a simple matter to turn a blind eye to the eight years of near insanity shared by her fellow passengers (NSFW).

Utterly lacking self-awareness, she laments:

How can I connect these crimes to the Tea Party et al? Easily. Any country which has gotten to the point where it's president can be caricatured and spoken of as he has been in the graphics I've supplied, many of them brandished at Tea Party events...is in trouble. Free speech? You bet. But what that right is being used to say and do right now is a chilling statement about where we are as a nation right now.

It's not really just about Obama, you see. It's about me, my family and all of the black people of America—the world, really. Yes, there were pictures of Bush as all kinds of things—but they were "ideological." Much of the awful stuff being done to Obama's images is racial. Even if the image isn't, the "subtext" is.

She spoke exactly one fragment of truth, when she said "It's about me."

The images she culled from 4chan and photoshop contests are horrific, but signs of bigotry are inevitable on a world wide network, and the fact that she had to pull from the same sources to even prevent the handful of truly racist images she provides is a testament to just how much opposition to Obama has nothing to do with his race, and everything to do with his radical socialist ideology, as the most popular caricature of his image readily proves.

It is readily apparent that Keka's myopia is self-inflicted, her phobias generated from paranoia, her view of the entire outside world overshadowed by a pysche trapped in the worst part of 1955 Missippi.

Congratulations, Keka. You found 14 images on the Internet, and that was enough to validate your own prejudices and world view, and was a sentiment that Salon's editors thought was one your fellow progressives would recognize and share (and they were right).

As Salon so often does, they exposed a seething hatred, and let us see into the twisted minds ruining this nation.

Thanks for that.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:20 PM | Comments (10)

I Guess He's Not The "Teabagger" Candidate After All

Carl Paladino is winning friends influencing people in the New York gubernatorial race with speeches like this:

Flame-throwing Republican Carl Paladino erupted again, declaring Sunday that being gay is "not the example that we should be showing our children."

"I don't want [children] brainwashed into thinking homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option - it isn't," Paladino said to applause at a meeting with Hasidic Jewish leaders in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

In a version of the speech distributed by a rabbi, the rant went further, charging there is "nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual."

Paladino, who's running for governor, winced as he got to this section of the text, and he never spoke the line.

His campaign later said it had days of discussions with Orthodox leaders about what Paladino would say, and the text distributed to some reporters was not produced by the campaign.

Unfortunately for Paladino, the voters he impressed the most were all from Westboro Baptist Church.

I can't quite understand how Paladino and his allies get it into their heads that being gay is an "option" like being between cloth or leather seats in a new car. You are attracted to who you are attracted to, and I find it baffling for him to suggest that being gay is a choice, because that also asserts that the vast majority of us choose to be straight.

At no point in my life was I handed a multiple choice test on this.

I like women, find them intoxicating. It simply isn't in my makeup to view men in the same way. But that doesn't mean that men who view other men (or women who view other women) as sexually desirable are evil, even if they are notably "deviant" from a statistical point of view. It just means they are different, not evil, and this sort of bigoted pandering isn't good for anyone.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:14 AM | Comments (16)

October 09, 2010

I Feel Sorry For John Amato

Perhaps the most aptly named excretion in the political blogosphere is Crooks and Liars, where John Amato and company do their very best to reinforce the group-think of their increasingly insular community-based reality.

Amato's latest attempt to bend the truth to fit with his ideology is this nearly humorous effort to call Rush Limbaugh a racist. What was the talk show host's offensive statement?

Why, this.

This is a tough thing to say, because a lot of people don't want to hear this, because it goes against everybody's desire that we all be the same, that there be no pain in life and that there be no suffering and that everybody do well and that everybody have what they want and so forth.

But there is no equality. You cannot guarantee that any two people will end up the same. And you can't legislate it, and you can't make it happen. You can try, under the guise of fairness and so forth, but some people are self-starters, and some people are born lazy. Some people are born victims. Some people are just born to be slaves. Some people are born to put up with somebody else making every decision for them.

Some people, on the other hand, are born and they're not going to take anything from anybody. They're going to be totally in charge of their lives. They're not going to sit around and wait for something. They're going to make it happen. You can see this throughout the American strata -- population.

Predictably, Amato got his quote from Media Matters for America, which shows he follows orders well.

But what, precisely, is wrong in what Limbaugh says?

But there is no equality. You cannot guarantee that any two people will end up the same.

Virtually no sane person will dispute that. There are variations in intelligence, education, physiology, and aptitude that differentiate us as individuals. It is part of what makes us such an interesting species. But perhaps it is the next line that infuriates the socialists and Marxists that are in the choir Amato to which Amato is preaching.

And you can't legislate it, and you can't make it happen. You can try, under the guise of fairness and so forth, but some people are self-starters, and some people are born lazy.

This truism—that you cannot pass enough laws to force equality and stamp out individualism—is what infuriates dedicated communists, for it undermines the entire premise of the ideology. It is a slap in the face of everything Amato and his fellow big government totalitarians believe. The next line—which is equally true—allows a reeling Amato to try and lash back with what appears to be the only weapon in the liberal arsenal, as he tries to claim the following words are somehow racist.

Some people are born victims. Some people are just born to be slaves. Some people are born to put up with somebody else making every decision for them.

No rational person can really dispute this comment, which merely speaks of the mindset some people have that keeps them from ever being able to prosper, not matter what advantages they are afforded. We all know of people like this, and acknowledge that it afflicts people in every segment and strata of society. Some people cannot be forced to succeed, just as other individuals cannot be keep down no matter the obstacles thrown in from of them.

But John Amato is neither a rational person, Nor an honest one. John Amato is a person so blinded with ideological hatred for moderates, independents, and conservatives that he is forced to lash out irrationally and disproportionately against any rational statement that threatens his carefully constructed and delicate view of the world. And so Amato does what modern American socialists do, and attempts to claim Limbaugh is racist, asserting bizarrely that his comment has something to do with the institution of slavery.

This mindset, simplified, is that whatever you say that I don't like is racist, and therefore, I win. It is their ultimate, catch-all defense mechanism, now worn to the point of toothlessness.

Limbaugh's commentary cannot in any way be twisted to mean what Amato wants to make it mean, and it is sad he even makes the attempt.

One must wonder if he knows how much he is embarrassing himself, or if he even cares. But he'll continue preaching to his choir, not matter how small it gets.

Some people are born victims. Some people are just born to be ideological slaves.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:35 PM | Comments (4)

October 08, 2010

The Great Commode Flushing of 2010

“Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.” So goes the venerable old saw. The modern, progressive version, however, would most likely be: “Let’s tax you, let’s exclude me, and let’s tax every rich person behind every tree until we drive them and all of their assets to Switzerland with its scenic numbered Swiss accounts, and their businesses to China.”

Perhaps the best contemporary defining example of the respective economic philosophies of conservatives and socialists--for that is what the artists formerly know as “democrats” have become--is the battle over the renewal of the Bush Tax Cuts, as they are so euphemistically called. In a rather deranged sense, it’s fortuitous that Democrats are calling themselves Progressives as there is nothing whatever democratic about what they intend to do to America.

Do you ever find yourself sitting in front of the television, clenching your fists and yelling at the screen in amazement as the unarmed hero, pursued by a multitude of bloodthirsty, armed baddies deftly renders a bad guy unconscious, and immediately trots off without picking up his weapons and ammunition?! By the same token, do you find yourself yelling at the TV when a politician makes an absolutely outrageous assertion and the talking head is completely unable to see the obvious, common sense, devastating reply or the simple question that will lay waste their entire ideology?

Witness the recent progressive vacation exodus from Capitol Hill by those brave soles of the overwhelming majority, those demigods (demagogues?) of public virtue who inexplicably lack the ability or fortitude to pass a budget or to vote on the renewal of the aforementioned tax cuts prior to the upcoming Great Commode Flushing of 2010, or as it is less colorfully known, The Off Year Elections. If only their fortitude did not extend to definitions.

Who knew, for example, that the cost of a middling home in much of America was actually the dividing line between the middle class and the rich? While I’d love to experience the Olympian luxury and leisure of making $250,000 per year, I wouldn’t be foolish enough to imagine that it made me rich. Who could have imagined that our earnings were actually the rightful property of the elite Progressive class who know so much better than do we what to do with our money? Who could have known the mere existence of the rich was an impending apocalypse?

One of the great joys and wonders of Capitalism is that it is not a zero sum game. A dollar made by my neighbor is not a dollar unavailable to me. Nothing restrains me from starting a small business, building that better mousetrap, and attaining the unimaginable wealth of $250,000 but my own abilities, knowledge and determination (OK, OK, The Obama Socialist Laser Economic Death Ray would probably burn a hole right through me, my employees and my payroll, but play along...).

There was a time in America when coveting the possessions of others or shamelessly expressing jealousy of them was considered unseemly, a sign of bad upbringing and shabby character, yet such blatant covetousness has been adopted wholesale by President Obama and his followers. One wonders what mothers would say about those who extend such bad manners to include an entire, arbitrarily selected class of people.

If my neighbor is rich, it speaks as well of my character that I sincerely congratulate him on his industry and good fortune as when I clothe and feed the poor and hungry. His success should serve as nothing but inspiration to me and others to pursue what he has attained if we are so inclined, and in America, at least as it was PO (Pre-Obama), nothing would stand in our way. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson on religion, his wealth neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg, and this particular rising tide does lift all boats, small and great.

The idea, often spouted with smug self assurance by socialists, that if Republicans (and not a few democrats who feel the torches of the enraged, pitchfork wielding villagers on their fleeing coattails) want to extend the Bush Tax Cuts, they must come up with a gazillion dollars to pay for the resulting loss to the Treasury is one of the more brazen economic lies ever created, yet it’s a useful lie. It’s useful in that it clearly reveals the heart and soul of the socialist economic philosophy: Your money is not yours, not only the money in your pocket, but any money you might potentially earn in the future. Neither is your property or liberty. You possess only that which the all knowing, all caring, all wise state deems you fit to possess. Did I mention that the state may also change the rules, all of them, at any time and without notice? Ask GM stockholders about that.

The Bush Tax Cuts are phantoms. They are potential, future taxes, inventions, wishes, ghosts, fairy dust, taxes that need never be levied by the Congress, a Congress that has arranged this particularly bit of legislative sleight of hand so that the taxes will be levied automatically if they do...nothing. In their present form, the BTC's exercise at least minimal restraint on a rapacious, never sated government, allowing citizens to keep more of their own earnings. They are not monies in the mythical Al Gore lockbox that will be stolen from hungry widows, orphans and the infirm elderly if heartless Republicans allow the evil rich to keep their ill gotten gains, gains that do not yet, and may never, exist.

There is no way to know precisely how much money any given new tax will bring in, but if the BTC’s are not extended, hopefully permanently, their expiration in January of 2011 will constitute the single largest tax increase in the history of the Republic. It is this fact, no doubt, that is overflowing the drool buckets of the Congressional Socialists. And will they use it to reduce the deficit? Balance the budget that they could not be bothered to write? Of course not. Even now many of them daydream about a lame-duck manifested second “Stimulus” such as the first that brought us “The Summer of Recovery,” thousands of legally mandated signs lauding shovel ready construction projects that weren’t, billions in government checks sent to the dead (presumably in Chicago and other Democrat strongholds, no doubt as payment for voting services rendered, past and future), and countless other economically brain dead pursuits.

It does seem more than likely, however, that the largest tax increase in history, coupled with an economy poised on the very brink of a double dip recession and 10%+ unemployment, will not only fail to bring in the anticipated drool-covered revenues, but will actually cause the Treasury to lose money. Those fabled laboratories of democracy, the states, have some significant recent experience with exactly that ugly state of affairs. Imagine that. Spend money you don’t have by mortgaging the country to China, vastly increase taxes on everyone, encourage the truly wealthy to shelter their assets and move themselves and their businesses out of the country, destroy all incentive for small business with punitive taxes (let’s not get into Obamacare, shall we?) and tax revenues decrease. As Yogi Berra said, “It’s deja vu all over again.”

Is it too late? Too late to take sincere pleasure in the good fortune and accomplishments of others? Too late to stop spending money we don’t have? Too late to stop drooling with the obscene hunger of spending other people’s money, money spent against their will, money they have yet to earn? Too late to write an honest budget? Too late to actually read bills before votes are cast? Or will we demand that those obvious, common sense replies be made, the questions asked, even if we have to do it ourselves? The answer may determine if, on November 2, that great maelstrom will flush away not only a brace of socialists, but our identity and future as the last, best hope of mankind as well.

Posted by MikeM at 11:48 PM | Comments (1)

Marxism, Socialism, Communism and Obama

“I don’t get it,” my friend said, shaking his head in confusion. “Obama is supposed to be so smart and such a brilliant politician...”

“Right,” I said. “So?”

“So everything he has done or wants to do is a disaster! It’s all opposed by the majority of the American people. Even Democrats are running away from him as fast as they can. If he’s such a great politician, why does he keep doing things most people hate? And that’s not the worst part. When people complain, he calls them too dumb to appreciate what he’s doing for them!”

Why indeed. The answer is deceptively simple:

Thus begins my exposition of Mr. Obama's background and motivation posted by the good folks at Pajamas Media. The entire article can be found here.

Posted by MikeM at 09:35 PM | Comments (3)

October 07, 2010

Four Weeks -Remember November

Powerful Stuff.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:41 AM | Comments (2)

October 06, 2010

Hey Joe, Where You Going with That Gun in Your...

Vice President Joe Biden has told Democrats at a Minnesota fundraiser that he'll "strangle" members of the GOP who complain about the federal budget.

I'm complaining, Joe. And like tens of millions of other Americans—Republican, Independent and Democrat—I'm a gun owner.

Good luck with that strangling thing.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:29 AM | Comments (8)

October 02, 2010

In Attempt To Save Face For Ed Shultz, MSNBC Edits Crowd Size Out of AP Story On Today's Left-Wing Rally

The great thing about wire service copy is that news organizations can pick and choose which parts of the story they would like to include, and which parts they would like to cut. MSNBC made some interesting choices today in their coverage of a left wing rally in Washington DC today, one that was headed by one of their own on-air personalities, Ed Shultz.

What did they edit out?

For starters, they removed a veritable who's who of radical left wing bomb-throwers (in this instance, figurative) and their quotes, from AFL-CIO's Trumka to White House outcast and radical Van Jones, to chronic race baiter Al Sharpton.

But the most obvious thing that MSNBC chose to edit out of the story was the reporter's crowd size estimate... one that would embarrass Shultz, who had previously bragged he could draw a bigger crowd than that which attended Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" held on August 28th.

This is the embarrassing graph that never made it to MSNBC's site.

Organizers claimed they had as many participants as Beck's rally. But Saturday's crowds were less dense and didn't reach as far to the edges as they did during Beck's rally. The National Park Service stopped providing official crowd estimates in the 1990s.

It's almost as if MSNBC itself was embarrassed to admit the radicals and outcasts that showed up at the rally they championed, or the decidedly low turnout. But don't worry, liberals... there are always crooks and liars around to make your community-based reality seem more in-tune than America than it will actually ever be.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:32 PM | Comments (9)

Pro-Depression Rally In DC Today

Of course that isn't what they are calling it, but how else do you characterize 400 left-wing groups that are coming together to protest for the policies of bailouts, takeovers, bullying and bigger government that has this nation spiraling deeper in debt and away from prosperity?

"This is certainly an opportunity to remind similarly aligned progressives what’s at stake in November," said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. "Elections have consequences. There will be very few progressives who will prosper under a Republican Congress."

That's pretty much the point, Fred.

Americans are sick and tired of progressives prospering at the expense of our current economy, our nation's culture, and the future of our children. We don't was to see our nation decline into a second-rate nation so that you can file hate crimes charges at someone who turns up their nose just because you decide to prance down the street in high heels and a feather boa.

We're also tired of public officials raping the taxpayers at large to payoff narrow-minded and exclusive special interests and thuggish unions.

We want simple things: an America that allows Americans a chance to prosper, an opportunity to grow, and the room to dream. Progressive politics are constrictive, choking the life out of our republic.

Bus in your paid-for day laborers, freaks and thugs, your stoners and university Marxists, your limousine liberals, eco-fascists, and racial supremacist groups. It will not matter.

November is coming, and we remember what you have tried. We are of no specific color, age, creed, or nationality, but we remember what America once was, and what it will be again once you are defeated.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:10 AM | Comments (3)

October 01, 2010

Cheerio! Eco-Fascist Greens Want You Dead

I'll let James Delingpole splatter you with the details, and instead, merely let the video stand on its own demerits.

True Believers—whether they follow Jim Jones, David Koresh, Che, or Mao— are one of mankind's greatest threats. When idealism is stripped of humanity and becomes zealotry, no number of lives is too many to purge to "embrace the change."

BTW, there is a political party here in the U.S. chock-full of eco-nuts just like these, and they are coming up for re-election in almost exactly a month, and will pursue economy-killing eco-fascism for the next two years if you don't show up Nov. 2 and vote them out.

No pressure.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:30 PM | Comments (4)

Obama "It took time to free the slaves."

I agree.

Another 32 days ought to do it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 AM | Comments (4)

September 30, 2010

Bob "Who are You?" Etheridge Sort of Pulls a Grayson

Thanks to his videotaped assault this summer Bob Etheridge is now known outside of North Carolina for the first time, despite a decades too-long career in the House of Representatives. That attention has given his Tea Party-supported challenger, nurse Renee Ellmers a real shot at taking the seat and sending the incumbent home.

Etheridge's biggest accomplishment of his career has been acting as a conservative Democrat while on the campaign trail, only to morph back into a liberal upon crossing the Potomac back into Washington, DC.

After getting shelled by Ellmers in a new video for voting to cut a half trillion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare, Etheridge has struck back by claiming Ellmers wants to impose a 23% tax raise on everyone.

This is a desperate lie, by a flailing big-spender. Ellmers supports converting from our current Byzantine tax code to a simpler model, something akin to the Fair Tax or Flat Tax model. Lorie Byrd, a fellow Tarheel who works for the Ellmers campign, referred to this deception as an "incredibly brazen lie."

It's also an incredibly hypocritical one, coming from a liberal who voted to flee Washington without extending the Bush tax cuts, thereby automatically imposing an almost $1,500 tax increase on almost every family in his district.

Bob Etheridge is getting desperate. I wonder what fact (or person) he'll assault next.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:32 PM | Comments (3)

Experts Rip Obamacare's REC Foul-ups

Houston Neal, Director of Marketing for Software Advice, emailed me a link to an article on his company's medical blog, explaining what his company feels that electronic health records and the Regional Extension Centers (RECs) created to support them in Obamacare are a huge mistake.

The entity spearheading this effort, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), is specifically charged with helping 100,000 priority primary care providers become "meaningful users" of EHRs in 24 months. Eight months have passed since the ONC began funding RECs, and we're skeptical that they will deliver.

Don’t get us wrong. We're big advocates of EHRs. We're glad to see such an energized EHR market. We're just skeptical that throwing money at the problem will lead to efficient and successful adoption of this important technology.

In our opinion, there are five fundamental flaws with RECs:

1. Doctors aren't moving as fast as the money is flowing
2. The market already delivers on what RECs promise
3. "Preferred vendor lists" limit choice and free markets
4. RECs won't get doctors to "meaningful use" fast enough
5. The REC model leads to under-staffed, ephemeral entities

The article goes on the detail each of the five flaws in detail.

Obamacare—like everything else MR. ESPN has touched—is a mindlessly expensive disaster that costs billions and makes things worse for all Americans, and serves primarily to strangle private business and grow government.

Let's get this thing repealed

STAT.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:06 PM | Comments (2)

Answer the Call

Nancy Pelosi's Democratic Congress has done what everyone has expected, tucking its tail between its legs and fleeing Washington to avoid voting on an extension to the so-called Bush tax cuts. Tactically, the move made sense.

Incredibly unpopular, viewed as arrogant, incompetent, and elitist, the evasive exodus gave Democratic incumbents hemorrhaging votes an opportunity to run to their home districts and use their expansive campaign war chests to try to buy another term in office. Granted another two years, they could dedicate their time to pissing away America's future for the sake of their dream of a progressive socialist United States.

Here in my home state of North Carolina I'm watching Bob "Who Are you?" Etheridge and Pelosi "Yes man" David Price attempt to convince Tarheels that they are moderates and centrists, despite voting records that prove otherwise. Like Price and Etheridge, many other Democrats in the would-be ruling party are similarly watching their support falling away, their time-worn, divisive cries of racism and class warfare falling on deaf ears in communities sharing the misery of crippling national debt and feeling quite Taxed Enough Already.

The Republican Party itself is little better than the Democrats, having their own turns in power and likewise abusing the public trust when they controlled Congress. Frankly, all incumbents need to be thrown out, across the board. In the wake of the purge this nation needs, new more fiscally responsible parties need to be reforged on both sides, but that is a battle to be fought after November 2.

Or, we can continue to re-elect those who fail to understand the real world and allow ourselves to be victimized by their incompetence, and still face the unpleasant task of rebuilding once the whole tottering edifice collapses from its own impossible bulk.

Our legislators in Washington can't fulfill their most basic duties, cannot honor the oaths they swore, and view us as something less than equals in their quest for power. November must lead to a sea change in American politics, or it will be a precursor to an eventual collapse.

Which eventuality is more likely? That depends entirely on how seriously you take your responsibility as an informed voter and American patriot, and whether or not you will continue to support the very thieves robbing our children blind.

Volunteer.

Vote.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:59 AM | Comments (1)

Enjoy Your Nanny State

A $27.5 million mandate to change the font on street signs in New York.

The Federal Highway Administration is behind this, providing yet more evidence that branches of our nation's bloated bureaucracy need more than pruning; they need to be lopped off entirely at the trunk.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:38 AM | Comments (2)

September 28, 2010

Absolute. Moral. Authority.

Maureen Dowd said Cindy Sheehan had it. Her allies in the MSM—on every channel and in print—hung on the ditchbank disciple's every deranged word as she railed against the Iraq War (a war her son chose to fight, in an army he joined of his own free will).

Now Saint Cindy of Crawford isn't so beloved. I wonder if it is because the useful idiot isn't so useful anymore. Or is it because those who embraced her and championed her are now embarrassed by what their fawning praise of a madwoman says about them.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:51 AM | Comments (2)

BREAKING: Left-Wing Panel Finds All Woes Originate on Right

With the economy continuing to stagger and job creation not moving quickly, "working people are justifiably angry and frustrated" as they approach the Nov. 2 elections, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Trumka and Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, Eric Alterman, journalist and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and moderator Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation, led a panel discussion—Which Way for the Working Class? Elections 2010 and Beyond—Friday afternoon in New York City.

Which way for the working class? The direction coming from this group is obvious: left, and then down.

They also discovered that Republicans are uniformly rich and evil, that Tea Partiers molest children before cannibalizing them, and that Barack Obama can cure lupus with his mind. Make sure that you read the entire article at the link. You'll love Trumka's parting shot:

we need to fundamentally restructure our economy and re-establish popular control over the private corporations which have distorted our economy and hijacked our government. That’s a long-term job, but one we should start now.

Yes, kids... these people are, by definition, socialists.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:45 AM | Comments (1)

September 27, 2010

My One-and-Only Christine O'Donnell Post

It seems everyone else in the political blogosphere has turned out their opinion of the Delaware Republican Senate Primary, and is now furiously focusing the race purely upon the perceived merits or demerits of the Republican primary winner, Christine O'Donnell.

The primary race itself was something of a litmus test, pitting O'Donnell, who professes to be a conservative, against well-known and generally popular moderate Republican Mike Castle. Reform-minded Tea Party purists gravitated to O'Donnell. Many others embraced polling data that suggested the moderate Castle would win in a walk over Chris Coons, the nearly sacrificial Democratic candidate.

The in-fighting on the right was intense as bloggers and pundits chose up sides, pulling readers this way and that with both well-reasoned and occasionally absurdly emotional arguments for and against their preferred candidate.

In the end, Delaware's voters made the decision to risk a near lock of a Republican pick-up (Castle) in favor of a much more risky, but theoretically more ideologically pure conservative (O'Donnell).

I'll respect the decision of Delaware's Republican primary voters. They made the choice to give up an easy victory with a perceived RINO in favor of a much tougher battle with an untested, under-vetted, and inexperienced conservative option. That takes both guts and faith, and considering the nation's growing anti-establishment movement, it could be a bet that pays off.

Now, would I have voted for Christine O'Donnell if I was a Republican Primary voter? Honestly, I don't think that I would have.

O'Donnell may end up winning the general election against Chris Coons and go on to be a successful conservative senator, but I don't see that as being a likely outcome. For starters, I rather suspect that the demographics and voting history of Delaware strongly favors Coons. It will be a surprise to me if O'Donnell beats him, but then, few gave her a chance of making it this far.

But even if she wins, I don't think O'Donnell would turn out to be a "Tea Party senator." I suspect this will come as a shock to many of her new supporters.

Everything in the candidate's personal biography paints the portrait of committed social conservative, but I see nothing in Christine O'Donnell's personal or professional biography to suggest that she is any better at all than Mike Castle on fiscal matters. As a matter of recorded history, her personal finances are a study of incompetence, blame-shifting, ethically questionable and fiscally irresponsible decisions.

So if I was a Delaware Tea Partier, Republican, Independent, or moderate Democrat, I would have an interesting choice to make in November. Do I hold my nose and chose the lightweight and apparently vindictive socialist in Chris Coons, ensuring that Senate Democrats have an assured "yes" vote for every big government entitlement scheme and tax increase they can dream up? Or do I chose the eccentric born-again virgin who can't seem to balance a checkbook or hold a job of her own? Frankly, I could understand why some Delaware votes might chose to stay home November 2nd, or at least skip over the Senate race.

From where I sit, however, it is better to vote for the lesser of two evils, if only to avoid the greater evil gaining power. The last thing Delaware needs is another big government liberal like Chris Coons to join his economy-wrecking fellow Democrats in the Senate.

Christine O'Donnell should be your vote for Senator from Delaware, if only as a preventative measure.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:47 AM | Comments (2)

September 26, 2010

If It's Rampant Voter Fraud...

...it must be Democrats. And you can smell it all the way to the Obama Administration.

Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Steve Caddle, who also works for the Service Employees International Union. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid. The other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day; registrations of non-citizens; so many applications from one Houston Voters collector in one day that it was deemed to be beyond human capability; and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, often with different signatures.

Caddle told local newspapers that there "had been mistakes made," and he said he had fired 30 workers for filing defective voter registration applications. He could not be reached for this article.

The SEIU are, of course, Obama's brownshirts, and have specialized in intimidation and corruption. Their leader, Andy Stern, was Obama's top visitor to the White House.

Stern resigned from SEIU several months ago. Does anyone know if he's allowed to play with matches?

And yes, that is the same Houston district where the fraud is so rampant. Dead and fraudulent Democratic voters can be expected to turn out in droves November 2nd, across the country.

The question is whether enough real voters who are tired of these games turn out to assure that this fraud goes for naught. As the saying goes, "if it ain't close, they can't cheat."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:47 AM | Comments (11)

September 24, 2010

Exclusive: Another Character Witness for Erik Scott

Irrelevant character assassination seems to be the order of the day at the Erik Scott inquest as we go through the third day of the process. Prosecutors have spent the the first days of the inquest talking about everything but the actual facts of shooting. Quite frankly, there is little chance that this farce can end with justice being served. There have been at least 200 inquests there since 1976, and none have led to the criminal prosecution of a police officer.

Not surprisingly, the prosecutor's attempting to portray Scott as a violent drug addict runs completely counter to the way friends and co-workers characterized the West Point and Duke MBA grad.

In an exclusive to Confederate Yankee we have the testimony of someone who claims to have been one of Erik Scott's business rivals. I think we'd all be thrilled to have our rivals speak of us in such glowing terms.

Unlike many who've come to their own opinions on the unfortunate episode, I knew Erik Scott. I competed with him, directly, in medical device sales for two years before moving on to another surgical specialty. Less than two months before his tragic death, he reached out to me regarding openings in my field and I was only too happy to oblige him. Competitors and doctors, alike, respected him and I can't recall a negative word being uttered against him. To my knowledge, he was a go-getter and never demonstrated any of the erratic behavior his ex-girlfriend seems inclined to attribute to him. In short, while I hope for justice's sake that the police responded properly to what they construed as a dangerous situation, I find it difficult - in the extreme - to believe Erik pulled his weapon and pointed it at an officer. The rumors I've heard regarding the incident involve him gesturing - hands held overhead - in a manner to acknowledge firearm possession in his "fanny pack." He was, indeed, a large and well-muscled man who could have provoked fear in lesser trained individuals, but it seems more than improbable to me that he'd draw his weapon in such a scenario. As anyone who's lived in Las Vegas for some time could tell you, law enforcement may tolerate the lesser "BS" from irresponsible tourists, but the serious business is met with a decidedly different edge. I'd be comforted to find I'm wrong about this and that the Erik's death, while tragic, was largely his own responsibility. But I fear this is not the case. The dearth of video surveillance footage from one of the highest volume, best-located Costco retail locations in greater Las Vegas strains credulity. As a weekly shopper at that very location, this incident strikes close to home in more ways than one.

I've withheld this character witnesses name by request, as he rightly fears a potential backlash from a suspect law enforcement community in Las Vegas. It is worth noting, however, that this statement is far more in line with the statements of those who knew Erik Scott the best than the character being created during the inquest.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:39 PM | Comments (7)

Our Racist Executive Branch

I read Christopher Coates' prepared testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights early this morning, and was able to watch several minutes of the proceedings (still being broadcast live) during lunch.

It is beyond infuriating to read and listen to this testimony, and realize that our Department of Justice, with the blessing of the Attorney General and White House, explicitly condoned racism, providing that racism was directed at whites by minorities.

Officials involved in this scandal should resign in embarrassment, but they seeming blinded to their own racism, thanks to how their thought processes have been warped by their political ideology.

Law must be enforced equally, and justice meted out impartially for our Republic to function. The purposeful inequality forced with the Department of Justice requires nothing less than the targeted firings of all involved.

If this does not occur, we have ceased to be a nation ruled by law.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:14 PM | Comments (5)

Unfit to Lead

Asking a comedian to perform, in character, in front of a Congressional committee is just the latest example of why Democrats are incapable of leading this nation.

Stephen Colbert seemed more than willing to prove that point:

Stephen Colbert's routine as a Republican commentator on his hit TV show might leave millions of his fans laughing every night, but he failed to amuse lawmakers Friday during a House panel hearing on farm jobs and illegal immigrants.

Colbert stayed in character during testimony as he made light of his experience working for one day as a farm worker.

"America's farms are presently far too dependent on immigrant labor to pick our fruits and vegetables," he said. "Now the obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables and if you look at the recent obesity statistics, you'll see that many Americans have already started."

While some audience members laughed, most the members of the House Judiciary subcommittee barely cracked a smile.

"This is America," Colbert continued. "I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian."

I guess this is what we should come to expect from a Party led by a Hawaiian brought up in Indonesia that some feel is a Kenyan who has the economic views of a Cuban.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:32 AM | Comments (3)

September 23, 2010

Just Words

Everybody and their mother is weighing in on the 21-page Republican Pledge to America. I'm sure it is faithfully edited, watered-down enough to avoid taking any too-controversial positions, and focused-grouped to death. But I could care less what it says.

It's just words.

I'm far more interested in actions.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:23 PM | Comments (4)

The Hat Trick: How To Outreach America to Death

Bob Woodward has once again revealed—to whatever degree one is willing to credit Woodward for unerring accuracy and integrity—many disturbing actions and thoughts of an American president, but in this instance, it’s President Barack Obama. In excerpts from his soon to be released book, Obama’s Wars, published on Sept. 22 in the Washington Post and New York Times, Mr. Obama’s beliefs informing his performance as Commander in Chief are revealed much more clearly than Mr. Obama will likely find comfortable. In fact, he may well have written some of the most effective Republic campaign commercials for 2012.

Mr. Obama is well on his way to completing a Democratic hat trick of economic and foreign policy wreckage begun and carried out under the previous Democratic presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. But perhaps it would be useful to provide a brief reminder of the previous Democratic shots on goal of American financial stability and national security before updating Mr. Obama’s skills on the ice as America's economy goes into sudden death overtime.

Under Jimmy Carter, America engaged in feckless international moralizing to the detriment of American security and prestige. Recall, if you will, Mr. Carter’s gob smacked amazement at the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and his subsequent public admission that he finally began to realize that maybe the Soviet Union really wasn’t interested in buying the world a Coke and teaching it to sing in perfect harmony. And who can forget those halcyon days of 20% interest rates, runaway inflation and endless lines at the gas pumps where a few gallons of gas may or may not have been available? And who was not moved to tears when Mr. Carter sacrificed by turning down the White House thermostat and wearing a Mr. Rogers cardigan sweater as he brilliantly summed up all of American’s problems while simultaneously solving them with the penetrating insight that America was suffering from “malaise,” or was it mayonnaise? I forget; I’m still recovering from being penetrated by the insight.

But Mr. Carter’s greatest achievement was, without question, reawakening the global jihad, while simultaneously failing to recognize or do anything about it, by whacking our long time ally, the Shah of Iran, with the moral superiority stick, thus allowing the Islamic Revolution in Iran that resulted in the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Expert opinion is still out on whether that event, or the creation of ABC’s Nightline hosted by Ted Koppel was the more damaging calamity. But what is known is that after more than a year of outreach, understanding and moralizing, the Iranians released the hostages on the very day that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, and to the Iranians, seemed likely to continue Mr. Carter’s outreach by turning Iran into a glowing, steaming sheet of radioactive glass. This, finally, was outreach the Islamists could appreciate.

Thereafter, Americans learning that Mr. Carter made history as the only American President who served as a naval officer ever to be attacked while in his rowboat by a swimming rabbit, who may or may not have been a jihadist, were commonly heard to swear under their respective breaths and mutter, “sounds about right.” The Islamists, rabbits or not, did not forget, and having declared war on infidels and the Great Satan (that’s us, folks), set to work, never losing sight of their ultimate, long term goal of world domination.

After the horror of the Reagan and Bush years of American prestige, prosperity and genuine, as opposed to sloganeering, progress America was rescued, just in time to enjoy the benefits of the collapse of the Soviet Union, by the election of Bubbas Maximus, President Bill Clinton. Who can forget his many accomplishments, some made while actually wearing pants and/or with a zipped fly? Recall his televised address where he, with the most genuine faked sincerity, and the most emphatic finger wagging, delivered by an American President to that point in history, declared that he did not have sexual relations, with that woman…Miss Lewinsky? Of course, that depended on what the definitions of did, not, have, sexual, relations, with, that, woman, ellipsis, Miss and Lewinsky were. Linguists are still wrestling with the implications after all these years.

Mr. Clinton empowered our military and intelligence agencies by reinventing government. Of course, that reinvention consisted mainly of stealing their funds and mothballing assets, but hey, you have to break a few eggs to know what the meaning of “is” is. He really helped the CIA by, in an act of moral clarity not seen since Jimmy Carter took the moral superiority stick to the Shah, prohibiting CIA agents from dealing with anyone with a criminal record. Apparently Mr. Clinton had been informed by Democratic operatives that intelligence information could be best gathered by employing as intelligence assets nuns who are, after all, know for their close associations with terrorists and spies. Remember the inspired mirth of Mr. Clinton’s refusal to ever hold a one on one meeting with the Director of the CIA he appointed? And who didn’t double over with laughter when an attention seeking dullard--no, no, not Al Gore—crashed a small plane on the White House lawn spawning the joke that its pilot was the CIA Director trying to get a meeting with Mr. Clinton!

Mr. Clinton’s faux fondness for the military and his unswerving lack of attention to his duty as Commander in Chief was best chronicled by Lt. Colonel Buzz Patterson (USAF Ret.) who carried the nuclear football for Mr. Clinton in his books "Dereliction of Duty" and "Reckless Disregard," which titles do not refer to Mr. Clinton’s failure to pursue sexual adventures in or out of the White House, or under his desk, for that matter.

Who does not look back in fondness on Mr. Clinton’s establishing the precedent of treating Islamic terrorism, including the first World Trade Center bombing, as a criminal matter? Who cannot fail to chuckle at the loveable rogue’s serial refusals to take Osama Bin Ladin into custody when Bin Ladin was offered to him on a silver platter by foreign governments? Impeachment, perjury, sexual harassment and rape allegations were only a few of Mr. Clinton’s many, notable domestic accomplishments. And who can forget that immortal headline in "The Onion": “President Clinton to Feel Nation’s Pain, Breasts”?

Thereafter, Americans learning that Mr. Clinton and Mrs. Clinton, upon leaving the White House, looted many of the furnishings (that is, the few remaining furnishings that weren't reduced to rubble by one of Mrs. Clinton’s many obscenity laced, paint peeling, chuck-everything-that-isn’t-nailed-down-at-the-President domestic outreach sessions), were commonly heard to swear under their respective breaths and mutter, “sounds about right.” The Islamists remained determined to dominate the world, responding to eight more years of Democratic outreach with their traditional, cheery greeting and salutation of: “Death to America!”

So great was the domestic and foreign policy success of Jimmy Carter (who has never ceased to miss an opportunity to remind Americans of just how magnificent he was and is while simultaneously actively working against American interests and the interests of our allies) and so darned loveable and roguish was the loveable roguishness of Bill Clinton that America had little choice but to elect another Democrat, in this case, the single most leftist Democratic Senator the republic had ever survived, on the platform of “hope” and “change” and raising the seas and healing Al Gore, or something.

Mr. Obama’s dedication to relentlessly clinging to every catastrophically destructive Democrat domestic and foreign policy ever imagined in the most fevered socialist brain seemed positively pedestrian in comparison to Mr. Woodward’s initial recitation of Mr. Obama’s priorities. Oh sure, we know that he considers NASA’s most important mission to be helping Muslims feel good about their scientific accomplishments, you know, like, centuries ago? Of course, we pretty much have to scrap the space program to provide the funds for this vital endeavor, but that's hope and change for you! We also know that when Iran responds to his outstretched hands with their traditional, heart warming “death to America!” Mr. Obama is only more determined to destroy America’s economy and to figure out how more effectively to avoid calling Islamic Terrorists Islamic Terrorists.

But who, pray tell, would even think, let alone say, "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger,"? By that sort of logic, why should we bother to try to prevent the next attack, or even the next several? After all, would those attacks not make us stronger still? That a President of the United States actually believes this, and actually thought nothing of saying it to a reporter, should shake every American who actually believes in America, democracy and the survival of America and western civilization to their bones. Better still, it should motivate them, at every election up to and including 2012, to finally, once and for all, understand that Democrats cannot be trusted with the economy or national security (to name only two), and to vote for any Republican candidate, even a ham sandwich providing it's a Republican, or at least, not a Democrat.

One wonders what the survivors of the victims of 9-11 think of absorbing another 9-11? One wonders what the victims of those future attacks might think, or Americans who might very well become those victims, which would be potentially all of us. One wonders if Americans who learn that some 800 Americans were killed around the world by Islamists after the Iranian Hostage Crisis and before 9-11 would be surprised, so greatly have our Democrat Presidents lowered our expectations of presidential leadership and morality, particularly that of Democrats. One wonders what more we’ll learn about Mr. Obama’s actions and core beliefs, including his despicably political approach to war and our military already hinted at in the excerpts from Woodward’s book when it is released and read in its entirety? I suspect that Americans will be commonly heard to swear under their respective breaths and mutter, “sounds about right.” A hat trick indeed.

Posted by MikeM at 01:02 AM | Comments (3)

September 22, 2010

Intellectual President: Mexicans Were Here Before the 57 States

For the life of me, I can't see why the media continues to try to portray Barack Obama as a scholar when he has proven time and again he has Blutarsky's view of history:

"Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples. The British and French, the Dutch and Spanish, to Mexicans, to countless Indian tribes. We all shared the same land," President Obama told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Mexico declared its independence on September 16, 1810. It was recognized on September 27, 1821.

The United States of America declared its independence in 1776.

The video at the link is just as dumb, but not nearly as impassioned as this intentional comedy classic (mildly NSFW-language).

I blame the teleprompter.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:27 AM | Comments (43)

September 20, 2010

The Ballad of Goatse Paul

Paul Krugman is a Nobel Laureate who seems to have deserved his honor just as much as President Obama did his. Writing from inside the walls of his Westchester estate (your mansion is in Westchester, isn't it Paul?), Krugman attacks "the angry rich," the unsufferable and arrogant Americans that don't feel the government has a right to plunder even more of their hard-earned income.

Americans that want to keep their income instead of turning it over to an unworthy government are angry... and Krugman goes out of his way to demonize them.

These are terrible times for many people in this country. Poverty, especially acute poverty, has soared in the economic slump; millions of people have lost their homes. Young people can’t find jobs; laid-off 50-somethings fear that they’ll never work again.

Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason — you won’t find it among these suffering Americans. You’ll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.

True to form, Krugman has his head shoved so firmly up the southern end of his alimentary canal that his collarbones are sagging under the pressure.

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, while composing his latest op-ed for the New York Times.

You don't see chauffeured Bentley's at Tea Party rallies, and razor sharp creases on tailored trousers aren't the uniform of the day. There are buses and Walmart tee shirts, homemade signs, and genuine goodwill towards men.

As a matter of fact, a disproportionate number of multi-millionaires and billionaires (such as the Mexican tycoon that rescued Mr. Krugman's employer) are dedicated Democrats, and their message, more than than that of the right, relies on the deep pockets of Carlos Slim, George Soros, the Tides Foundations, and a Byzantine network of smaller organizations that operate as a liberty-stealing hydra.

The angry today fall into two camps; those that are furious that our government has far exceeded the mandate our Founding Fathers established, and the statists that have come so close to establishing complete control, but fear it slipping through their sticky grasp.

Krugman, Obama, and their fellow leftist radicals fall into the later group of parasites. They would break this nation if they can, sappings its spirit to make it docile, controllable, and unexceptional... a spineless citizenry mimicking a lesser Britain.

The majority of Americans want to live as American were meant to live, unfettered and unbowed and unbeholden to those that imagine themselves a ruling class. They will not be cowed by the threats of a leaching state... or the rants on one if its lesser pundits.

They—we—are the angry ones that Krugman really fears, lurking in the shadows outside of his estate, waiting for justice and revenge in November.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:07 PM | Comments (4)

Left Wing Activist: Chris Coons is a Monster

I keep reading that Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons is a "bearded Marxist." Apparently that makes him worse than shaving Marxists, but that isn't really my area of expertise. He's a Democrat that would back Obamanomics and the further degradation of our economy. Do you really need another reason to vote against him, even if you don't care for his opponent?

But his politics aren't the only reason to vote against him; he also seems to be a vicious little monster that unleashes the power of the state against his critics.

Please note that the activist in the article is a self-professed left-wing green, and that the blogger who broke this, Patrick Frey, isn't a Christine O'Donnell fan...nor am I.

But the simple fact of the matter is that Delaware has to send someone to the Senate, and we're down to voting for the lesser of two evils. I'll pick a slightly nutty but mostly harmless candidate any day over a power-abusing petty tyrant like Coons.

Seems like an easy choice. I hope Delaware voters agree.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:40 AM | Comments (1)

August 19, 2010

Issa Report Forces Administration's Propaganda Retreat

Via email:

In a letter to Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Darrell Issa, Department of Transportation Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III stated that the Federal Railroad Administration and the Federal Transit Administration, "have relaxed their original ARRA signage requirements" and DOT agencies no longer require ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) signage. Despite this change, Rep. Issa remains concerned about inappropriate propaganda efforts pushed by the Department of Transportation and a lack of focus on creating private sector jobs.

"Despite eliminating requirements to post signs, Department of Transportation agencies are still improperly focused on pushing projects to display signs crediting President Obama and the so-called 'stimulus' for earmarked funding handouts," said Issa. "The Administration's obsession with using taxpayer money to get political credit for projects adds unnecessary expenses and bureaucracy to a spending package that's failing to spur promised job creation in the private sector."

The Federal Railroad Administration's decision to eliminate requirements for posting stimulus signs took effect on July 15, 2010 and follows questions and criticism by Republican Members of Congress, including Rep. Issa and Rep. Aaron Schock, about the improper use of stimulus funds for politically motivated signage.

The stimulus is a failure, and the propaganda efforts the DOT is (slowly) backing away from only existed to fluff for the Administration.

This isn't much, and isn't the GAO investigation Issa is calling for to go after the illegal propaganda being generated from from White House.

Still, it is a start.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:56 PM | Comments (5)

August 18, 2010

Thanks Democrats: Insurance Costs for Large Companies to Skyrocket Because of Obamacare

And if you're and employee of a smaller company, you stand to get reamed as well.

The deficit will continue to balloon, the quality of care will decline, employers will necessarily slow hiring and pass along the insurance cost increases to their customers in the form of higher prices, and to their employees in the form of higher rates/lower salary to keep compensation packages reasonable.

What's not to love?

If I were a Republican or Independent candidate hoping to win in November, I'd build off the cascading series of failures Obamacare promises to bring, and make it's repeal a key part of my platform, making it understood that getting the federal government out of health care is the key to making it affordable to all. If my opponent voted for Obamacare, I'd hammer them for it, repeatedly asking them if they read and understand the bill before voting for it (they didn't). I'd repeatedly ask how they can justify voting for something they didn't understand, that added so much expense, and created so much uncertainty.

It needs to be made clear: Democrats who voted for Obamacare didn't vote for the best interests of their constituents. They can't even pretend that is the case, having voted for a bill none of them even understood. They cast their votes out of lockstep conformity, and because they lack leadership. The only Democrats who can claim to have exercised leadership in the debacle known as Obamacare are those that voted against it.

And how many of those were there?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:44 PM | Comments (4)

I Confess... It's Me

Let me make things easy for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

I funded all the opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque.

Contributions sent to my Paypal account, along with Adsense revenue from this blog, are the cash cows that have bribed almost 3 of every 4 Americans into oppressing the freedom of this aggrieved Muslim minority (those sources also fund my eBay purchases... but don't let my wife know).

Now that I have taken responsibility for my actions, Madam Speaker, I invite you to now move on to pressing charges against me and suggesting a suitable sentence for what I have done.

[idea for taking credit shamelessly stolen from fgmorley in the comments of this previous post.]

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 PM | Comments (9)

Pelosi Wants GZM Opponents Investigated

Nancy Pelosi wants an investigation of the majority of Americans opposed to the so-called Ground Zero mosque.

"There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded," she said.

It's revealing to hear elitists like the Speaker admit that they believe the majority of Americans are their opposition. And it should be noted that they tend to view opposition to their desires as not just illegitimate, but worth of being subjected to inquiry and suppression.

November can't get here fast enough.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:17 AM | Comments (8)

August 17, 2010

Faith No More

crash

It may go up. It may go down. But right now the President's job disapproval is polling at 51%. Despite attempts my his media allies to spin it, this isn't about messaging.

This is about the public's rejection of incompetence.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:24 PM | Comments (10)

The Campaign Against Obama's Propaganda War Heats Up

Ranking member Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and the minority members of the House Oversight and Government Reform and Judiciary Committee continue to hammer the Obama Administration's unlawful use of propaganda using taxpayer funds.

This time, they've created a video hammering the Administration for bullying states into costly spending on roadside signs that promoted the failed stimulus.

The Administration was blasted for their unprecedented and unlawful use of propaganda yesterday in a Congressional report, and Issa had asked that the GAO investigate based upon those findings.

And Roger Simon of the Politico thought he was joking about Obama maybe being a half-term president...

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:00 PM | Comments (9)

Those Voices Don't Speak for the Rest of Us

Yeah, I'm sure you've probably seen it elsewhere.

But it's worth watching again.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:54 AM | Comments (4)

Fake Tea Party Candidate Angling to Upset Nevada Senate Race

I wrote about Scott Ashjian's spoiler candidacy back in early March:

Unpopular nationally for being thin-skinned and surly, Reid is foundering in his home state of Nevada, where he faces reelection in November. Reid has consistently trailed Republican challengers in his reelection bid; he trails all four in recent polls. Without a major shift, Reid's political career would seem to be on the cusp of drawing to an ignoble end.

And then in walked Scott Ashjian.

Scott who?

You can be forgiven if you don't know who Scott Ashjian is, or where he came from, or if he's even a serious candidate. Even local journalists haven't had much luck figuring that out. All we know for certain is that Ashjian seems poised to jump into the 2010 Nevada Senate race as a third-party candidate representing the newly formed Tea Party of Nevada.

The group, established merely weeks ago, is attempting to trade on the name of the grassroots tea party movement. Though while tea party protests arose organically and simultaneously over the past year, the founding officers of the Tea Party of Nevada don't seem to have been active in any local or regional tea party events. In fact, they don't have any ties to the movement at all. If anything, they seem to be an odd mix of cranks and conspiracy theorists, fronted by a registered Democrat who once represented a reattached John Wayne Bobbit. And the perspective candidate Ashjian may as well be Nessie for his reclusiveness and unwillingness to give interviews or make public appearances.

The Tea Party of Nevada doesn’t seem to be a serious attempt at a third party, but instead seems intent on siphoning off enough support from Republican candidates leading in the polls to put Reid back in contention. Whether or not the Democrat-led Tea Party of Nevada is successful will likely depend on how well Republicans and real tea party activists do in exposing the group attempting to co-opt the votes of their more casual supporters.

Ashjian disappeared as a candidate for a while, but has just announced his intention to re-emerge.

His role is simple: siphon just a couple of percentage points away from Republican candidate Sharon Angle by exploiting the Tea Party name (he affiliated with no actual Tea Party groups in Nevada, other than the group that was created to support his candidacy) on the ballot. Ashjain, Reid and their supporters hope that the dirty trick will be enough to throw the election to the embattled Democrat.

Whether or not the plot succeeds depends upon Nevada's voters.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:21 AM | Comments (6)

August 16, 2010

It's On: Issa Calls on GAO to Investigate Obama's Propaganda Mill

He actually phrases it a bit more delicately than that in his letter (PDF) to the Acting Comptroller General, but not by much.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:51 PM | Comments (2)

Die Quietly, Ladies

The Washington Post reports this morning that the Food and Drug Administration is considering revoking the approval of the anti-breast cancer drug Avastin. Some are already identifying this as an attempt by the Obama Administration to use the FDA to give political cover for "Death Panel" Donald Berwick, Barack Obama's controversial recess appointment for the director of Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Berwick is a staunch advocate of the flawed and failing British Health Care system, including their care rationing schemes. Ace makes a very compelling argument that this is "the Chicago way" at its very worst. Obama continues to cravenly hide from the public the unarguable fact that under Obamacare, services and treatments will be rationed.

Call it a death panel. Call it whatever you will.

The fact remains that under Obamacare, a bureaucrat, not a doctor, will ultimately decide whether or not you life is worth the price of medications and procedures that could prolong your life, and/or the quality of your life.

Our friends on the left seem willing to sacrifice their mothers, wives, daughters and even themselves to this barbaric and deceptive practice.

Die quietly, ladies. It's for the good of the Party.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:47 PM | Comments (13)

Prevent It... Because They Want It, Too

[The following essay is a guest post from CY commenter Mike McDaniel, following up The Ground Zero Mosque: Prevent It, Because They Want It]

Among the advantages of adulthood are experience and perspective. If we pay attention, have good teachers—not only in classrooms--and an active conscience, we can put aside childish things like self-delusion, doing the same things over and over while expecting different results and hubris. If not, we become leftists, and if we're really impaired, President of the United States. We also learn--and it's interesting that these lessons appear to be most easily grasped and applied by God and gun clingers--that aphorisms that sounded remarkably profound when we were young are in reality, pretty stupid, and easily recognizably so, when we're adults. Thus is "love means never having to say you're sorry," transformed by experience, the ability to recognize and act upon reality and adult morality into "love means being able and willing to say you're sorry, and meaning it."

Not long ago I wrote about the Ground Zero Mosque and concluded that we should deny those who want to build the mosque primarily because they want it. The point was that those who want it are our intractable enemies, people who accept and honor no separation of church and state, who are using the First Amendment against us to conquer and destroy us. Experience and reason informed by reality should convince us that when our enemies repeatedly express their ardent desire to kill us, we should take them at their word and know that whatever they want is not in our best interests. Gun and God clinging adults understand this; those who inhabit a more exalted moral and intellectual plane of existence--such as Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama--do not and cannot. When our enemies use the Constitution--a document whose principles they neither recognize nor respect--against us, actual adults see it as a cynical, insulting bit of rhetorical propaganda. The morally and intellectual superior see it as an opportunity, and under the Rahm Emmanuel Doctrine, such opportunities are not to be wasted.

So Mr. Obama produced this bit of multi-culti, diverse tripe: "But let me be clear: as a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center…in lower Manhattan…This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure."

What are we to make of this? At best, these comments reveal a stunningly unsophisticated, surface misunderstanding of the First Amendment. And to suggest that the Founders would approve of such shallow, foolish rhetoric must certainly have Mr. Jefferson spinning in his grave like a piece of stock turning on a lathe. But for a man who is everything to everyone, a blank slate upon which anything may be projected, yet stands for nothing, such is hardly surprising.

Consider that everything that Mr. Obama has done in the field of foreign relations has been a failure, but not merely a failure, serial failures that benefit our enemies and harm America. Smart diplomacy? Muslim outreach? Speechifying to Muslims in Cairo? An open hand to the Iranians? To the Palestinians? Bowing to despots? Apologizing to those who wish us ill? Not so successful; not so smart. In fact, Obama has been successful only in undermining American interests and the interests of America's historic allies. Insulting England? Insulting Israel? Backstabbing the Czechs and Poles? Letting the North Koreans get away with murder? Telling our enemies exactly when we'll be cutting and running from war zones? All stunningly successful—for our enemies.

Mr. Obama, if his followers are to be believed, is one of the most brilliant minds mankind has yet produced. Constitutional law professor, community organizer, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, a man who will unite the world, sweep aside all division, hatred and racism, heal the planet and reduce the oceans. Yet reality reveals that he was merely an adjunct teacher, never a professor. His brilliance appears, more and more, limited to teleprompter reading. Even he cannot explain what a community organizer is or does. Even he admitted that he doesn't deserve the Nobel Prize, not that he allowed that fact to get in the way of accepting it. He has, in less than two years, driven Americans farther apart than at any time in memory, inciting rather than calming racial tribulation. The planet remains in need of healing and the seas are as restless and flush as ever.

Mr. Obama's greatest failure, one that his words reveal, is his inability and unwillingness to recognize that we are at war. He cannot accept that we have been at war since at least the Carter administration and its Iranian hostage crisis. He cannot understand that even before 9-11, some 800 Americans were killed by our enemies around the world. A president who willfully refuses to identify our enemy surely cannot accept that we are engaged in a war for survival. It is, to be sure, a war the Democrats prefer to ignore, focused like a laser on domestic affairs as they always are (with the exception of adopting foreign policies that harm American interests). And until 9-11, we had the luxury, in terms of economics, world influence and power, to more or less ignore the fact that we were fighting a war that would determine the future of western civilization, and that may well plunge humanity into another dark age from which no Renaissance may be possible.

Even by Democrat standards, Mr. Obama is unique in his obtuseness, in his stubborn refusal not only to accept the reality of the war that is very interested in him despite his determination to ignore it, but in his utter disdain for the greatness of America and the greatness of the Constitution and the fundamental freedoms it reflects. Such behavior does not indicate intelligence, experience and adult responsibility, but a petulantly childish stubbornness, and a refusal to accept that doing things the same way over and over again does not yield better results, results favorable to American interests and the survival of civilization. But Mr. Obama's comments do reflect his default beliefs, shallow and destructive though they are.

What, then, do we make of these comments, hastily flung at the public when his original comments didn't work as intended? "I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding." Right. Apparently Mr. Obama's original comments, which seemed pretty profound, at least to him and those who write for his teleprompter, seemed pretty stupid to the semi-adults among his advisors only hours after their utterance. One can only imagine the volume and intensity of the outcry reaching the White House that would cause such a rapid and clumsy "clarification."

The facts remain, whether Mr. Obama and his followers can understand or accept them: Those who wish to build the mosque are our enemies who plan to use it as a propaganda tool, a victory in a war that they expect to fight for a very long time to eventual victory. They know that they can never defeat us on the battlefield, but that they can defeat us in the propaganda war at home and around the world, just as the North Vietnamese did, with substantial help from Democrat politicians and the news media. The Koran gives Muslims Allah's blessing to lie to infidels in the furtherance of Jihad. The First Amendment does not empower the followers of any religion to build anything they want wherever they want it. The Constitution, according not only to the Founders, about whom Mr. Obama knows so little, but to the Supreme Court, cannot be read as a suicide pact.

When a President of the United States actively supports a propaganda victory by our enemy, particularly during a period of open, declared warfare, it is reasonable to inquire as to exactly whom that President represents and why. Has he grown up and put away childish beliefs and reasoning? Tragically, a slight alteration of my original point is now required. We must deny the mosque because they, the Mayor of New York City, many Democrats, and the President of the United States, want it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:40 AM | Comments (6)

August 15, 2010

Obama Backs Away On Manhattan Mosque Defense

Barack Obama came out as being supportive of the so-called Ground Zero mosque proposal, but quickly revised his phrasing yesterday in the wake of immediate public criticism.

Speaking to reporters today, President Obama drew a sharp line under his comments last night, insisting that his defense of the right to build a mosque does not mean he supports the project.

"I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding," he said.

And with that, Sir Robin bravely ran away.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:16 AM | Comments (5)

August 13, 2010

Kossack: 9/11 was "More About Optics than Actual Harm."

A blogger at the popular progressive blog Daily Kos has attempted to smear many Americans with a very wide brush of anti-Islamic bigotry, while at the same time espousing a decidedly bizarre progressive view of the worst terror attack in this nation's history.

...a new CNN poll that shows that 68% of the nation opposes the construction of the community center in Manhattan. The question asked was about a mosque which I find a little misleading, and it used the inflammatory "Ground Zero" name for the site of the Twin Towers, but that is not really the point. This new data shows a couple of things that we know already to be true. First off, the majority when asked their opinion will almost always be against the rights of a minority. This is a particular hot issue because of the 9/11 attacks where carried out by Muslims, but it is to be expected even if that were not the case.

Muslims are only a small minority in the United States, with somewhere between 1.3 million and 7 million of our citizens being practitioners of this faith. This makes Muslims between .3% and 2.1% of the over all population. However world wide the followers of Islam are closer to 25% of the planetary population.

Given that they are such a small minority in this nation, it is odd that so many of our fellow citizens see them as such a threat. Yes, the 9/11 attacks were horrific, but they were more about optics than actual harm. The economy was already taking a hit before the Twin Towers fell. The reaction of the nation to seeing two major buildings in New York fall on T.V. has boosted the attack out of proportion. While the loss of even a single life is to be condemned and the devastation these deaths caused the families of those killed, more than this number of teens are killed every year in car crashes. These are also tragic losses but we do not make the kind of high profile issue of it that the 9/11 attacks are.

It is this sort of disconnected, community-based reality that these elitists have fabricated for themselves that had led the majority of the nation to find these elitists not just out of touch, but dangerously out of step with the rest of the nation.

There is certainly plenty of room to debate whether or not the contested Islamic community center and mosque being proposed in lower Manhattan is appropriate. There is room to debate whether or not whether Islam, as a oppressive and intractably conjoined mixture of religion and a totalitarian political movement, is what the Founders meant to extend unlimited protections to under the First Amendment.

Trivializing the losses of 9/11, both personal and cultural, is not a way to win your argument.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:19 AM | Comments (16)

August 12, 2010

Dear America: Liberals Want You to Know How They Feel About You

The Coffee Party was a flop. The Other 95% bombed. Crash the Tea Party made progressives a laughingstock. So can they make it any worse for themselves?

Yes they can!

Dem group launches 'F*ck Tea' campaign

Last summer, Democrats argued that the Tea Party movement was the astroturf creation of corporate groups. Now that the grass-roots conservative resurgence has emerged as a clear force on the right, the left is making a different case: That tea parties are simply the enemy.

To that end, the Agenda Project, a new, progressive group with roots in New York's fundraising scene and a goal of strengthening the progressive movement, has launched the "F.*.c.k. Tea project," which is aimed, the group's founder Erica Payne wrote in an e-mail this morning, "to dismiss the Tea Party and promote the progressive cause."

The article goes on to say that Payne is a co-founder of a group of liberal mega-donors that ultimately fund the Center for American Progress, Media Matters and Think Progress. They also have a profane video (NSFW) that mocks Tea Party supporters and imagines liberals as clever and urbane.

You really must see it to believe it.

My advice? Distribute this far and wide, without distortion. Let America know what the would-be ruling class thinks about them in their quest for more and more power. Let our citizens know how Democratic elitists (and some Republicans as well) feel about their concerns about our economy, our sovereignty, and our nation's future.

I expected this kind of "let them eat tapas" attitude from Michelle Antoinette in private, but never expected her palace guard to be so open about their disdain for the concerns of the majority of America in public.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:39 PM | Comments (10)

Another Debunking of the Laredo Invasion

Regular reader Bill Smith forwarded me this story from Texas GOP Vote that continues to blow gaping holes in the claims of the sensationalists I've dubbed the "Laredo Truthers."

Just like the people they were named after, the complete lack of evidence supporting their argument only deepens their suspicions that a cover-up must have occurred, and the less evidence there is, the higher the conspiracy must go.

The probability that there never was an incident, or there was a hoax, or minor infraction embellished to the point of being unrecognizable is far less fun to promote, and at this point, several of the key promoters of this story have bet all their credibility on it being true.

I'll let you pick who to trust.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)

August 11, 2010

Another Corruptocrat Dies

Another corrupt member of the would-be ruling class goes to meet his eternal judge.

Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, the Chicago Democrat who became the leading architect of congressional tax policy in the Reagan era but later went to federal prison for corruption, died Wednesday, a family friend said. He was 82.
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2010

Otter Crash Kills Five, Including Former Senator

Via Fox News:

Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, one of the longest-serving senators in U.S. history and a tireless advocate for his state, was killed in a plane crash southwest of Anchorage Monday.

A spokesman for the family, former chief of staff Mitch Rose, confirmed to Fox News that Stevens was among the five dead. He was 86. Colleagues of the veteran lawmaker, who had waited all day to learn of Stevens' condition, mourned his loss and described him as an Alaskan "hero."

Hero to some, example of entrenched corruption to others, Stevens was the third prominent and controversial old guard Senator to die in recent memory, with Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Robert Byrd (D-WV) also passing away within the past year.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:21 PM | Comments (8)

August 08, 2010

Defending Liberty

Over the course of the past week I've written several entries that have infuriated the would-be tyrants among us.

  • A Nation on the Edge of Revolt warned that "either the American people—not extremists, but good and decent patriots like your neighbors and yourselves—will revolt and destroy the ruling class and reform our government based upon first principles, or the United States we know as our forefather conceived it is dead."
  • Closer to Midnight attempted to answer a veteran's question about why patriotic Americans that value our First Principles should prepare for a possible conflict if the corruption of our government cannot be tamed at the ballot box.
  • We Get Letters! and We Get (More) Letters! chronicle the typical threats issued by followers when they cannot intellectually defend their unconstitutional actions with a reasoned justification for their behavior.
  • The Edict-Makers notes the continued destructive path of the would-be ruling class, and the abuses they would heap upon the Constitution and citizens in their desperate quest to grab more power for themselves.
  • Pre-Revolutionary, last but not least in this series of posts, highlights the revelations of experienced Democratic operative Pat Caddell as he notes the fracturing of his party and the attempt of the elites in the party to rule instead of serve the American people.

It will come as no surprise at all that those institutions and individuals that serve as adjuncts to the would-be ruling class have attacked this series of posts.

Media Matters attacked them twice. Conservative media figures openly discussing revolution...again places me among the company of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh as some of the conservatives in the media that note well and understand this point in history... though they obviously offer their own spin to evoke a response from their readers.

Wash. Examiner's Owens suggests right-wing violence will be necessary, hopes we "feel threatened" is their same-day response to Closer to Midnight (link above), partnered with a none-too-subtle attempt to pressure the Washington Examiner into silencing me and others who would raise the alarm about the constitutional abuses and usurpations being orchestrated by their masters.

Other leftists have followed the lead of Media Matters, and continue down the path of disinformation they hope will help them divide and conquer this nation's citizens.

At left-wing Daily Kos, "bernardpliers" attempts to claim that I advocate " an explicitly racial war." The author selectively drops quotes from this blog in this entry, and of course, not one of them supports anything at all like a conflict driven by concerns over race. Only the left is concerned with race. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the post concerns itself with noting possible points of division within the various groups opposing their encroaching tyranny, instead of attempting to defend their actions and goals.

The "divide and conquer through race" strategy is nakedly on display at Balloon Juice as well, where "Dennis G." makes his attempt to claim that opposition to would-be ruling class machinations are nothing more or less than an attempt to revive his vision of the Confederacy of the Civil War.

This axis of weevils may be blatantly dishonest, but they have a clear agenda. They would like to portray opposition to their plans as racists. They would like to portray political and media figures (even admittedly minor ones such as myself) that stand in opposition to their usurpation of liberty as neo-confederates, attaching the stigma of slavery and defeat to their opposition. It is a clever rhetorical device and an emotional one. It will succeed in inflaming the easily led, but the primary goal of this attempt at labeling their opposition is to try to silence the good and decent people who recognize our present Constitutional crisis, and would stand against it.

So let us take on this attempt at division and deception as directly as possible.

Liberty is colorblind. It does not see in shades of yellow or beige or brown or black. Liberty speaks without accent, and with all of them. It cares not whether your ancestors hail from misty islands, verdant savannahs, frigid steppes, or tropical jungles. Liberty is liberty, freedom of men and women, freedom of thought, freedom of the spirit, and freedom from constriction and stasis, that all real men and women crave like water or air.

We care about liberty. We are devoted to our nation, because we acknowledge and weigh its faults and superlatives, and know that we represent the best hope for true freedom and equality mankind has to offer. We are not blind to the mistakes and evils of our collective past; we seek them out, and overcome them. We will not be guilted into becoming a second-class nation because some choose to cling to division as a method of control.

We are revolutionary. We are evolutionary. We look to restore the government to its proper role, as servant of the people. It must once again be made into a precision instrument that empowers, replacing this corrupting enterprise that seeks to punish and enslave the people for the enrichment of the self-styled elite.

Good men and women know that the story of these United States is far from over, and we will not accept the leftist trope that our nation's best days are behind us. We are a nation of incredible ingenuity, kindness, and hope. We are a nation of dreamers, but we are also a nation of action.

We will not be guilted into silence, nor bullied into becoming a lesser state.

We will not stand by and trade the bright future of our nation for the weight of oppression, and we will not be silenced or defined by those comfortable in their chains.

Feel pity for the poor souls who wallow in the misery of mediocrity and unrequited dreams, but refuse to be defined by them. We are Americans, citizens of the United States, defenders of liberty and represent the best this world has to offer.

And we will never accept being anything less.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:14 AM | Comments (14)

August 07, 2010

Cop-Killing Leftist Terrorist Buck Dies

Marilyn Buck, another friend of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn involved in left-wing terrorism with The Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army, has died:

On Oct. 20, 1981, she was part of a group of Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army members who ambushed a Brink's armored car carrying $1.6 million at a mall in Nanuet, N.Y.

One guard was killed at the scene. A second was badly wounded. Two police officers were subsequently killed after they pulled over one of the getaway cars.
Buck accidentally shot herself in the leg during the gun battle with police, but she escaped and remained free for four years.

During that time, she was involved in a series of bombings that included a 1983 nighttime blast at the Capitol that didn't hurt anyone but damaged Senate offices. The bomb was purportedly placed to protest the U.S. invasion of Grenada.

Liberals love to pretend that their terrorist acts were a relic of the 1960s, but Buck and her allies were committing murders, bombings, and armed robbery well into the 1980s. Buck was captured in 1984 and confessed to some of her crimes in 1988 to protect her co-conspirators.

Bernadine Dohrn was thought to be an accomplice during the Brinks robbery/murders in 1981, and did seven months for criminal obstruction of justice related to that case. Bill Ayers was at Banks College. Barack Obama was blocks away at nearby Columbia.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:51 PM | Comments (2)

We Get (More) Letters!

Omar Little (omar.little2009@gmail.com) seems to have the same wonderful outlook on life that Omar Thorton does... and I think he's a fan!

Bring the revolution on you racist c**kscker.
If you like, I'll even let you take the first shot. At me. I'll send you my address. You can come to my house. Bring a nuclear bomb if you want. I'll take you weapon from your weak racist *ss, shove it up your *ss and pull the trigger until it goes click. Because it is obvious that you racist c**ksucker confederates need yet another *ss kicking.

You are a typical racist f**k - all loud talk, but a weak *ss p*ssy when someone tells you to jump.

You'll note that Omar uses the same reason and eloquence we've come to expect from the SEIU crowd. He speaks the language of violence well, and he certainly thinks it is intimidating.

But he isn't done yet.

Or maybe I'll come down to your house
And burn the flag of treason on your front lawn. I'll stand there, a symbol of all that liberalism you hate, your sworn enemy. I'll give you as long as it takes for your flag to burn to take your shot. But you're a p*ssy and probably don't even own a gun.

I'm amused. I told him as much.

We should expect more "love letters" from people like Omar, individuals that either imagine themselves to be part of the would-be ruling class, or who are content to subsist on the scraps of liberty that would remain if such tyranny is fully realized. You'll note that like our last letter writer he's full of vitriol... just not much else.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:08 AM | Comments (11)

August 06, 2010

The Tone-Deaf Tour Continues

Michelle Obama's conspicuous consumption is even infuriating our allies, including the U.K.'s Daily Mail, which rips the free-spending First Lady and her entourage:

Michelle Obama today faced a fresh wave of attacks over her lavish break in Spain with 40 friends, which could easily cost U.S. taxpayers a staggering £50,000 a day.

The First Lady has been lambasted for her extravagance at a time when the economy is still struggling. One blogger went so far as to brand her a modern-day Marie Antoinette.

And her critics will be further annoyed when they learn that the president's wife had a Spanish beach closed off today so that she, her daughter and their entourage could go for a swim.

I'm sure if they made an effort they could find a way to plot a more tone-deaf public spectacle to reinforce the notion that the first family is grossly out of touch with the economic pains being experienced by so many Americans... but it might be tough.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:35 PM | Comments (10)

August 05, 2010

Pre-Revolutionary

I was surfing by Ace's place and caught this extraordinary bit of video of Democrat Pat Caddell discussing the fracturing of his party, among far more ominous rumblings. Watch it all the way through. I'll wait.

Ace's reaction is dead on, as is Caddell's.

The Democratic Party has fractured (past tense), and the elitist extremists in the Democratic leadership are giddy at the thought of purging themselves of moderate Democrats. Waxman's admission is the symptom of a larger disease, an arrogant ruling class mentality that neither respects the will of the American people, nor the separation of powers, nor the Constitution.

Says Caddell:

The Democratic Party has essentially been hijacked by an educated—over-educated—elite group, who basically don't care about the people who constitute the Democratic Party...

[snip]
It's a much graver constitutional crisis. They believe we have a situation where 21% of the people believe that the government is operating with the consent of the governed, from the Declaration of Independence. 21. 68% say no. 57% of the people in a CNN poll a few months ago said they believe that the federal government is becoming a direct and immediate threat to their own freedom. Now, I'm telling you that is pre-revolutionary.

And in democratic—and what is happening is this sense of pushing people—'we're going to shove this down your throat, we're going to shove this, we know better for you,' the issue is very simple: who is sovereign in the country, the people, or the political class?

It is quite obvious that the elites believe that they are the sovereign powers and the arbiters of our fates. It is just as certain that they feel entitled to that power, are intent on keeping that power, and have shelved the Constitution in favor of making this a nation of men, not a nation of law. The have illusions of keeping that power to themselves, and have put only the thinnest of veneers over their attempt to create a nation where the people serve the ruling class.

Even more shocking? The don't seem to care and don't even try to hide their disdain for the people, the culture, or our shared history.


Ace vents:


When it was just a policy debate, it was intellectual.

But now they've gone and made it personal.

That was a mistake. Because you can sell people down the river if you can keep them asleep while you do it.

When you rouse them...? When you alert them...? When you incense them...?

Tougher.

And it's not just personal, but fundamental: Who decides in America? The people, as the books claim? Or the elite, as common practice seems to have it?

And so the rage.

And soon the fire.

What astounds me about our would be rulers is the utter contempt with which they hold their constituents. They act as if their power grab is complete and they don't even need to pay lip service to respecting the law or the people.

This will go badly for all concerned. It remains to be seen if it will go violently.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:01 PM | Comments (16)

For the First Time In Her Life This Vacation, Michelle Obama is Proud to be an American Living Large On the Taxpayer's Dime

Let them eat flan:

While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with 40 of her "closest friends." According to CNN, the group is expected to occupy 60 to 70 rooms, more than a third of the lodgings at the 160-room resort. Not exactly what one would call cutting back in troubled times.

Reports are calling the lodgings of Obama's Spanish fiesta, the Hotel Villa Padierna in Marbella, "luxurious," "posh" and "a millionaires' playground." Estimated room rate per night? Up to a staggering $2,500. Method of transportation? Air Force Two.

To be clear, what the Obamas do with their money is one thing; what they do with ours is another. Transporting and housing the estimated 70 Secret Service agents who will flank the material girl will cost the taxpayers a pretty penny.

Andrea Tantaros compares Michelle Obama to a modern-day Marie Antoinette, but I suspect that comparison is unfair. There is no evidence Obama favors another country as Antoinette did Austria, just that she has so little "like" for this one.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:46 PM | Comments (8)

The Edict-Makers

My inbox has been flooded with a stream of disturbing information overnight and this morning... and sadly, there seems to be a common theme.

The DNC Stimulus
James Pethokoukis warns of of a possible "August surprise" from President Obama. There are hints that the President may leverage the Bush-era HARP (Home Affordable Refinance Program) to forgive some mortgage debt for the millions of Americans that are upside down a total of $800 billion. The bailout would amount to a backdoor stimulus package, sidestepping bi-partisan opposition in the Senate to increasing the debt. The reason for the backdoor bailout? Utterly cynical.

The nascent recovery is already running out of steam. Wall Street economists just downgraded the government’s second-quarter GDP estimate of 2.4 percent to around 1.7 percent. And as even Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is warning, the unemployment rate may well begin to rise back toward the politically toxic 10 percent level given such sluggish growth. Many in the White House thought the unemployment rate would be dropping sharply by this point in the recovery.

But that is not happening. What is happening is that the president's approval ratings are continuing to erode, as are Democratic election polls. Democrats are in real danger of losing the House and almost losing the Senate. The mortgage Hail Mary would be a last-gasp effort to prevent this from happening and to save the Obama agenda. The political calculation is that the number of grateful Americans would be greater than those offended that they — and their children and their grandchildren — would be paying for someone else's mortgage woes.

The purpose of the possible debt-increasing backdoor stimulus is to pay-off millions of banking industry donations to the Democratic Party, while hoping to limit the damage to Democrats in November.

It does nothing to help revive the economy.

Backdoor Amnesty
Keeping up the theme of ruling class abuse originating in the Oval Office is a warning that the White House may attempt to use "administrative alternatives" to bypass Congressional opposition and create a stealth amnesty for criminal aliens:

Addressed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas and tellingly entitled "Administrative Alternatives to Comprehensive Immigration Reform," the 11-page memo proposes a nonlegislative amnesty that uses executive orders and other legally questionable methods as the basis to circumvent congressional intent.

"It is theoretically possible to grant deferred action (i.e. non enforcement) to an unrestricted number of unlawfully present individuals," the memo cheerfully points out. Its four authors include USCIS Chief Counsel Roxana Bacon and chief of policy and strategy Denise Vanison, two former immigration attorneys who in effect are urging a modern version of the antebellum Sen. John C. Calhoun's nullification theory.

You'll note that we're finding out about these attempts to subvert the rule of law and will of the people from the conservative media... not Congress, nor their allies in the MSM. Both of these schemes usurp Congressional power for a corrupt and abusive executive branch, but as they serve the will of the would-be ruling class as a whole, congressional leaders are silent.

They aren't going to stick their necks out and risk the wrath of the people if they can feign ignorance or blame the President for doing what they want.

A Widening Gulf
Fittingly, Mark Tapscott rounds out today's discoveries with an editorial pointing out the obvious and growing gulf between the political class of would-be rulers and the majority of Americans:

Big majorities of Mainstream America also think the Political Class couldn't care less about what regular folks think, and most mainstreamers are embarrassed by the behavior of the Political Class. Mainstream Americans think cutting government spending and reducing deficits are good for the economy, Political Class members think doing that will harm the economy.

That the gulf between these two Americas is growing wider is seen most disturbingly in Rasmussen's finding that less than a quarter of Mainstream America now believe the government has the consent of the governed. Washington has a profound credibility crisis.

That Rasmussen's results are far from unique or isolated is seen in the Gallup Poll's most recent finding that only 11 percent of those surveyed have confidence in Congress and only a third have confidence in the presidency.

So how do we explain these two Americas? Rasmussen says his data shows that "the American people don't want to be governed from the left, the right or the center. The American people want to govern themselves."

Americans are increasingly disenchanted with corrupt politicians, elitist media, and disconnected academics, precisely at a moment in history when these would-be rulers have chosen to become more overt in both their quest for power and their contempt of our culture, history, and laws.

A collision course seems imminent.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:54 AM | Comments (11)

August 04, 2010

Judge Strikes Down Prop.8 in CA

The state's gay marriage ban is shot down... at least temporarily:

A federal judge in California ruled today that the state's same-sex marriage ban amounts to unconstitutional discrimination and should be immediately struck down.

"Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license," wrote U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker in a 136-page decision. "Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples."

Yawn.

I'm not going to bother reading the opinion for the simple reason that doing so seems pointless; the ruling is sure to be appealed and will more than likely find it's way to the U.S. Supreme Court within a couple of years.

B. Daniel Blatt has read the opinion and finds that the judge's ruling is wanting, which just reinforces my thought that getting too excited about the ruling is pointless.

I find that the judge makes some good arguments for gay marriage, but doesn't succeed in relating them to the constitution. His legal analysis is sloppy at best and dismisses the sex-difference argument for traditional marriage by flippantly referring to what he calls "discredited notions of gender" as if the assumptions about a supposed social construction of gender had been proven true when, in fact, all serious psychological, sociological studies have shown the opposite. Not to mention studies of the human brain.

He fails to cite a provision of the federal constitution which prevents states from making distinctions based on sex difference, primarily because there isn't one.

I suspect this is only going to contribute to the feelings of anomie for social conservatives (Democrats and Republicans) that are increasingly feeling disenfranchised by legislators and the courts.

Oh, we live in interesting times...

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:30 PM | Comments (6)

Angle: Beware False Idols

I have a confession to make. I haven't paid that much attention to the Nevada Senate race between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his Republican challenger Sharon Angle. I've seen that from time to time she has made statements that can charitably be called "questionable" in nature, which you should translate as "what the heck is she thinking?"

Well, she's done it again, with an odd pronouncement that has driven the liberal bloggers on Memeorandum into an absolute hissy-fit.

Jon Ralston at the Las Vegas Sun found an April 21 interview Angle did with Rick Wiles of TruNews Christian Radio, and presented us with this gem (my emphasis below).

Wiles: Half of the country is working to produce and pay the taxes and pay the bills, the other half is living off the taxpayers -- they're living off the other 51 percent.

Angle: We're right to that point in the graph where it says, "government dependency." And we know that once we have a majority that are dependent upon the government, we will lose our freedom; it says we go into bondage. That's the next stage. Our Founders warned against this. They said don't... that your liberty is only as secure as the people are. Because once they, um, get the ability to vote themselves entitlements from the largesse of the government, liberty is done; freedom is over with. We were warned. We are there. We're right on the cusp of it, and you've identified those numbers. That's the war that we're in. You know, when I talk about a war and a battle and soldiers we have to take up our…our cry for freedom. And we can do it right now at the battle box… I mean at the ballot box. I'm not sure what continues on after 2010. I know people are very frightened about what's going on in this country. And these programs that you mentioned -- that Obama has going with Reid and Pelosi pushing them forward -- are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that's really what's happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We're supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government. And you've just identified the real crux of the problem. I've also been endorsed by a PAC out of Washington D.C. and the name of that PAC is Government is not God. And I thought that that was so appropriate because that is really what's happening in our society and we need to take our country back.

We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government.

Very, very strong words... and very true.

Predictably, Greg Sargent, Alan Colmes and other progressives are promoting this with a "holy war" spin. As Angle was speaking to a Christian audience on a Christian radio show and is apparently herself a devout Christian, it may be a fair characterization of her feelings.

But the simple fact of the matter is that Angle is dead-on in accurate characterizing the mind-set of progressives. They do think that more government—not individuals, or God—is the solution to almost every problem. To be fair, this is also the mindset of many Republicans, and together, this would-be ruling class is responsible for our nation's addiction to big government.

Idolatry?

No doubt progressives are offended at being tarred with a religious term, but it does adequately reflect their fanatical devotion to ever-larger government as the solution to all the nation's ills. They even have hymns for their savior.

Yes, they did. And it's too bad he seems to have the governing skills of David Koresh.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:17 PM | Comments (4)

Missouri Tells Dems Where to Stick Obamacare

Show Me indeed:

Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama's administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March.

"The citizens of the Show-Me State don't want Washington involved in their health care decisions," said Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the August ballot. She credited a grass-roots campaign involving Tea Party and patriot groups with building support for the anti-Washington proposition.

With most of the vote counted, Proposition C was winning by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1.

It remains to be seen if the referendum actually has any legal standing.

Do any of you lawyerly types want to hazard a guess?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 AM | Comments (4)

August 03, 2010

We Get Letters!

The deceptive efforts of Media Matters finally duped one of their gullible readers to respond. This gem comes from brian75752003@yahoo.com.

Subject: You Are a TRAITOR

I hope you chickenhawk cowards do try to revolt against our government. Please try it. I want to be the first in line to shoot the traitors of America. You think people are afraid of you??? You are a complete coward Owens. I hope you rot in f*cking hell you piece of sh*t TRAITOR. This veteran will defend his country to the end against traitorous pukes like you.

Eloquent, don't you think?

I responded:

Interesting.

The overwhelming majority of veterans I've talked to honor their oath to the Constitution, and look on the current elitists (Democrat and Republican) with sadness, for they know that these elitists and their continual power grabs represent the domestic enemies that our Founding Fathers and even later day Presidents have warned us as being the greatest threats to our republic.

I regret that conflict may be a possibility if the electoral process cannot purge the sickness from the system.

You, apparently, relish the thought of killing your fellow citizens, just as you misunderstand your oath and who the traitors to this republic actually are.

Somehow, I'm less than impressed.

Anonymous threats are easy to make on the Internet. Coming up with a compelling intellectual argument defending the attempts of the ruling class to usurp our rights is far more difficult.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:02 PM | Comments (13)

Closer to Midnight

When I wrote A Nation on the Edge of Revolt Saturday morning, I knew that it would be taken out of context by some and well-received by others.

Perhaps the most interesting feedback I've received this far was in the comments of that blog entry, where a commenter calling himself TN_NamVolunteer wrote:

Bob/CY I would like to ask you a question and do not need/require a personal reply, just answer here or perhaps better a reply in new post.

I've read you for a number of months (years) primarily because you have been a 'level head' or a 'voice of reason' even re. other conservative blogs; and, here, once before - you said the time was not now.

the question: What has changed your mind? What event or piece of information has happened or transpired that has moved the hands of the clock of destiny closer to midnight? What has changed your mind that you now "advise" us to: "prepare for war"?

(for the vets here my oath was on 17JUL1968, my father's 31JAN1943)

What has changed my mind? What has transpired that makes me feel that patriots should gird for a possible revolution? What, as he asks, "has happened or transpired that has moved the hands of the clock of destiny closer to midnight?"

These are all fair questions, and I do not have a simple answer to any of them.

For example, I'm not sure that my mind has changed. We live in a nation with the longest continually-functioning government in the world. The Founders were brilliant men who set up a system of checks and balances that has kept any of our three branches of government from easily seizing power for themselves, and just as importantly, has made it difficult from them to collude with one another. It is a system that has worked better than any other for several hundred years.

But just as there are no perfect people, there are no perfect governments, and all governments over time seek to grow. Governments crave power and control the way plants seek light and nutrients. The more they grow, the more they need to survive, and the more they need to take.

Inexorably, this taking comes at the price of our individual liberties.

Angelo M. Codevilla's recent America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution brings us nothing revolutionary in and of itself. What Codevilla does best is bring a bit of synergy to the fractured thoughts many of us have harbored in part or in whole as we witness our nation's perilous state and the megalomania of those who have both caused so many of our problems and who simultaneously claim to be our saviors.

The greatest disagreement I have with the author is that he thinks that Democrats represent the elitists and that Republicans, almost by default, represent the best hope for the rest of us.

I respectfully disagree, and suspect that many who read the Codevilla article will come away with the realization that there is very little difference between Democrats and many Republicans. I also think they will agree with the author that the elitists that are entrenched in both parties have far more in common and are far more driven by the desire to further their lots in life than they are to serve their fellow citizens. As a bipartisan group, this would-be ruling class exists to increase their power, at the expense of the rest of us, the so-called "country class."

But specific membership aside, the author correctly notes:

The ruling class's appetite for deference, power, and perks grows. The country class disrespects its rulers, wants to curtail their power and reduce their perks. The ruling class wears on its sleeve the view that the rest of Americans are racist, greedy, and above all stupid. The country class is ever more convinced that our rulers are corrupt, malevolent, and inept. The rulers want the ruled to shut up and obey. The ruled want self-governance. The clash between the two is about which side's vision of itself and of the other is right and which is wrong. Because each side -- especially the ruling class -- embodies its views on the issues, concessions by one side to another on any issue tend to discredit that side's view of itself. One side or the other will prevail. The clash is as sure and momentous as its outcome is unpredictable.

One side or the other will prevail. The clash is as sure and momentous as its outcome is unpredictable.

We have moved "closer to midnight" not because of any singular act , but because of inertia of a political class that does not respect or enforce the laws, or this nation's sovereignty. We have diametrically opposed views of how our nation can and should be run, and it appears that there is very little room left for negotiation.

Propagandists for the elitists at Media Matters seem troubled by A Nation on the Edge of Revolt. They portray it as a threat when "Conservative media figures openly discuss armed revolution."

I hope they do feel threatened. Attempts at peaceable protests have been met at turns by feigned ignorance, then mockery, then attacks on the character and motives of those would not sit quietly by. Perhaps it will take a serious review of our capacity for violence to get them to realize we shall not surrender our individual liberties to their lust for power.

I have not yet been swayed to the point of view that an armed conflict is inevitable, TN_NamVolunteer. But we are close enough that one would be wise to prepare for a possible conflict, just as one would prepare for any coming storm.

Update: Media Matters responds with the sort of "objectivity" you'd expect.

08/11/2010 Update: Brad Reid at the aptly named Crooks and Liars has joined the shrieking liberal chorus. I invite his readers, like those of Media Matters and Daily Kos, to read my response, Defending Liberty.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:10 PM | Comments (40)

Worse Than the Klan: Exposing the Real Sherrods

Far from being an advocate for black farmers, Charles and Shirley Sherrod abused them mercilessly, treating them in ways that the most ardent racists would have found appalling (h/t/ Instapundit).

The swirling controversy over the racist dismissal of Shirley Sherrod from her USDA post has obscured her profoundly oppositional behavior toward black agricultural workers in the 1970s. What most of Mrs. Sherrod’s supporters are not aware of is the elitist and anti-black-labor role that she and fellow managers of New Communities Inc. (NCI) played. These individuals under-paid, mistreated and fired black laborers–many of them less than 16 years of age–in the same fields of southwest Georgia where their ancestors suffered under chattel slavery.

Read the entire article. It is short and to the point, and exposes Charles and Shirley Sherrod as monsters more than willing to play the race card to exploiting what they might have called "their own kind," for both power and profit.

No wonder she made such a perfect speaker for today's NAACP...

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:49 AM | Comments (1)

July 31, 2010

A Nation on the Edge of Revolt

Ernest S. Christian and Gary A. Roberts wonder aloud whether the power grabs of the Obama Administration and the ruling class mentality of entrenched Democrat and Republican political machines will lead to a second Revolutionary War.

I'll lay it out bluntly for you; either the American people—not extremists, but good and decent patriots like your neighbors and yourselves—will revolt and destroy the ruling class and reform our government based upon first principles, or the United States we know as our forefather conceived it is dead.

I do not state this as hyperbole. I do not state this to incite violence. I state this as nothing more or less than an observation of both history and current events. While we are a relatively young nation, our government is the oldest on the planet. Since our founders met in Philadelphia, the French have gone through five republics. Every nation in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and North America has seen governments rise and fall, but our resilient democratic republic, the "Great Experiment," has soldiered on.

All cultures and governments, however, rot. This inevitably comes from inside, as a cancer. Our politicians view the people as rubes and subjects, and treat them as such. They imagine themselves a ruling class that exists for their own edification, at the expense of the nation as a whole.

When nations reach this point, they either collapse, or the people reform or replace their governments.

We have arrived at that time. Reform increasingly seems to be a fleeting option. Republicans and Democrats differ only in how they plan to loot the public coffers. Our present Congress and Administration are merely more transparent in their corruption and disdain than their predecessors.

Our would-be ruling class has abandoned the principles that founded this nation. They are attempting to establish a state of affairs where the people serve the government and the government determines your success or failure. Corruption no longer matters. Sovereignty no longer matters. The rule of law no longer matters.

They have won in a bloodless coup.

Or so they would like you to think.

Whether they actually win or not depends upon how much you love your family and your nation and the principles that made this nation great. Our founders themselves believed in the right of revolt, and knew better than any of us that governments must be replaced from time to time. They were wise enough to provide us with a constitutional framework that will outlast any government, including this one. We can dispose of this government, and restore the Constitution that has served us and the rest of the world so well for so long.

We stand at the brink.

We are on the right side of history. Our would-be rulers, fat on self-appointed largesse and drunk on their own purloined power, imagine us subjects, not free men and women.

Revolution is a brutish, nasty business. Innocents will fall along with patriots and the corrupt, and success is not assured.

In a letter to James Warren in 1789, Samuel Adams foresaw our current state.

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.

The question for you, my fellow Americans, is simple.

Will you fight, or will you surrender your liberties?

I pray for peace.

But I prepare for war.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:07 AM | Comments (63)

July 30, 2010

That Sweet, Sweet Scent of Desperation

Steny Hoyer? He haz it:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Wednesday that the expiration built into the Bush tax cuts is a "Republican tax increase" for "working Americans" and the Democrats have "no intention" of allowing it to go into effect.

"We have no intention of allowing the Republican tax increase — that their policies would lead to — to go into effect for working Americans. Period," he said. "We're going to act and make sure that the Republican phase out and increase in taxes does not end as they provided for in the laws they passed."

This is the same Steny Hoyer who said in late June that the Bush cuts must eventually be rescinded so that Democrats could continue their free-spending ways:

Hoyer also suggested that tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush will eventually be rescinded. He said that it is necessary in order to help pay for the nation's mounting deficit and that permanent tax cuts would be too costly.

"As the House and Senate debate what to do with the expiring Bush tax cuts in the coming weeks, we need to have a serious discussion about their implications for our fiscal outlook, including whether we can afford to permanently extend them before we have a real plan for long-term deficit reduction," Hoyer told a forum on deficit reduction.

Is over a month too long ago to consider Hoyer a hypocrite and opportunist? Perhaps his position has "evolved" over time.

If so, it was a short time.

Here is Hoyer a week ago today.

In a speech on the economy and jobs, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Friday reiterated his party's call to extend the Bush middle-class tax cuts and deemed Republicans' call to extend breaks for the wealthy a "mistake [that] would be putting ourselves even deeper into debt."

Hoyer is now and always was against the "Bush tax cuts," a phrase he's uttered like a curse since they were first enacted. Hoyer's ultimate plan is to raise taxes—or as he says, "raise revenue"— on the middle class, just as soon as it is politically feasible. But he can't raise those taxes if House Democrats get pummeled in the fall.

Steny's terrified, and changing his tune today for one reason, and one reason only.

He can see November from his house.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 PM | Comments (6)

Nice work, Blutarsky

Administration spokesman Robert Gibbs ranted about Rush Limbaugh and how the government takeover of GM and Chrysler was a good thing, then made the kind of gaffe that we've come to expect from this administration of dunces:

"I'll let those that sat in the cheap seats a year-and-a-half ago and wanted to walk away" from a million workers, he continued, "explain to every one of those workers why they made that decision."

Finally, he wrapped it up: "And then you should ask Mr. Limbaugh — I don't know what kind of car he drives, but I bet it's not an F-150."

Ford, which makes the F-150 pickup, didn't take the bailout, and was the first of the three companies to turn a profit.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:19 AM | Comments (3)

July 29, 2010

Oh Pretty Please... Shirley Sherrod Announces She Will Sue Andrew Breitbart

I suspect that this will end badly. For Sherrod.

Note the creative writing in the AP story (my bold):

Ousted USDA employee Shirley Sherrod says she will sue conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, the Associated Press reports.

Sherrod made the announcement Thursday in San Diego at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention.

Breitbart posted a heavily edited video of Sherrod speaking to an NAACP group and appearing to admit that she had deliberately refrained from giving full assistance to a farmer because he was white.

The political fallout from the posting eventually prompted the Agricultural Department to fire Sherrod to resign.

First a few words about the narrative that the AP writer is trying to further.

The video was not heavily edited... it wasn't edited at all. It was merely an excerpt proved to Breitbart from a much longer speech. That speech, viewed in its entirety, seems to suggest that Shirley Sherrod does in fact continue to struggle with racism. Some of her more recent comments (post-firing) also show Sherrod to be a woman fighting a battle against her own racial biases.

The other amusing claim is that the video led to her eventual firing. Eventual? The Administration was so eager to see her gone that she was driven to pull over to the side of the road and resign on her Blackberry... they didn't even let her get to the office.

But now let's back to the story, and away from the narrative.

Sherrod claims she wants to sue Breitbart. I don't see him being the kind of guy to back away from a challenge, so there is a pretty good chance he won't settle, and they'll wind up in court.

Frankly, Sherrod seems to have a lot more to lose during legal proceedings than Breitbart. She and her husband have profited immensely from race-baiting, and they both have racist and or race-baiting comments caught on video that they cannot deny. Discovery and a cross-examination by a good attorney are not something I think either Sherrod would want to address.

I think she's bluffing, but I kinda hope she isn't.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:47 PM | Comments (10)

July 28, 2010

Despicable Ds: Obama's DOJ Attempts to Screw Overseas Soldiers Out Of Their Vote

I'm shocked, shocked to discover that a progressive-led government would seek to disenfranchise the military servicemen that they so clearly despise:

The Department of Justice is ignoring a new law aimed at protecting the right of American soldiers to vote, according to two former DOJ attorneys who say states are being encouraged to use waivers to bypass the new federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act.

The MOVE Act, enacted last October, ensures that servicemen and women serving overseas have ample time to get in their absentee ballots. The result of the DOJ's alleged inaction in enforcing the act, say Eric Eversole and J. Christian Adams — both former litigation attorneys for the DOJ’s Voting Section — could be that thousands of soldiers' ballots will arrive too late to be counted.

I'm sure the fact that soldiers tend to vote a bit more conservatively has nothing to do with this, at all.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:31 AM | Comments (8)

July 27, 2010

Nifong Investigator Charged With Stalking, Obscenity

Apparently the District Attorney and the accuser in the infamous Duke Lacrosse rape hoax weren't the only loons involved in the case.

Guns and cell phones were among the items seized in a search of a home and several vehicles belonging to the top investigator for former Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, according to search warrants released on Monday.

Linwood Wilson, 61, is accused of violating a June 8 protective order sought by his estranged wife in Kent County, Del. He is charged with stalking and two felony charges of obscenity, in addition to other harassment charges.

Wilson worked for Nifong from 2005 until Nifong resigned in 2007 over his improper handling of rape allegations against three Duke University lacrosse players that proved to be unsubstantial.In the July 15 search, authorities seized a booklet labeled "Barbara Wilson portfolio," 21 pictures of Barbara Wilson, three cell phones, a shotgun and shotgun shells, laptop desktop computers, a mini-disc player, a .38 Special handgun, rifle rounds, VHS tapes and a digital camera.

Vetting. People in Durham should try some.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:36 AM | Comments (2)

July 26, 2010

The "Full Sherrod"

Dan Riehl has done some digging and found out why the media made Shirley Sherrod disappear so quickly. It seems both racism and Marxism run deeply in her family, including her husband, Charles Sherrod, who has no use for "the white man and Uncle Toms."

I'll send you to Dan's article to read the rest.

It is so amusing that clowns such as Bob Schieffer attack Andrew Breitbart for the video excerpts he released of Shirley Sherrod (full disclosure: Brietbart sites Big Government and Big Journalism carry some of my blog entries, but no money changes hands), when anyone who watch the full video would note other references she made during the speech that reveal she does, in fact, view the world through a racial lens.

The more she spoke, the more racist she revealed herself to be. Like Cindy Sheehan before her, the media gave her plenty of rope, and she hanged herself quiet violently with it. She exposed herself as being a liability instead of a useful idiot, and so her expected opportunity to turn the rare "full Ginsburg" vanished into nothing.

There needs to be a term for those inconvenient ideologues exposed at their expected apex in the news cycle, who are then ostracized by the media, never to be heard from again.

The "full Sherrod" seems just as good a name as any.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:11 AM | Comments (1)

But Will They Retract?

Digger's Realm and Kimberly Dvorak, the two bloggers that have driven the hoax of Los Zetas gunman taking over American ranches in Texas, only to be besieged by U.S. and local law enforcement officers, reaffirmed late Saturday that they were sticking to their stories, and that they would have more evidence by Sunday.

Sunday morning and afternoon came and went without an update, and so I sent both of them the following email:

You have yet to provide a single on-the-record source (and the Minuteman citing an anonymous source does not count) for the allegation of a ranch invasion, can't provide an address, nor dig up the name of the people displaced, etc.

There is literally no evidence of anything, except for unsupported claims by anonymous sources. It has been almost 24 hours.

At what point will you issuing a retraction of your Laredo invasion story?

Dvorak answered within minutes.

I am not nor have I been working with the Minutemen. If you carefully read my story it was left very, very general. I have yet to get anyone at Sheriff's, BP or DHS to say this is false and here is my name and title. I stand by my story, as for others I cannot verify. I have refused to print updates until I get someone to go on the record- period. There have been more than 250 incursions into U.S. by Mexican military, according to Sheriff Sigi Gonzales - his words not mine. Nowhere in my brief story is there any numbers of Zetas, if they are still there, etc. I got word about this on Friday and sat on it until I had additional sources. I will not burn my LE sources as they would lose their jobs. My short story had more background information than actual event details. Do you really need a dead body to believe Zetas are crossing our borders? I stand by the story.

I wrote back to her, noting that she no direct evidence of any ranches being taken over, was ignoring the two local media outlets that dispute that such an event took place, the repeated disavowals from the Laredo PD, Web County Sheriff's office, Border Patrol, and FBI to multiple reporters and bloggers.

I noted she can't provide any evidence to support her story, and was not likely develop evidence to support it. I told her that at this point, she should issue a retraction, mentioning that her LE sources have made claims, but that they are contradicted by multiple agencies and Laredo media, both print and television.

Her response was even more telling.

I have not got anyone to tell me via phone or email - 'It did not happen, name and title.' They tell me they can neither confirm or deny. My LE was there. I'm not asking you to believe me or tell me I'm lying. It was a FYI story and I stand by it. Senior DHS brass have said it did not happen, but said that was off the record and no name. Why? So to me there is no proof one way or the other.

The bolding, of course is mine. Kimberly Dvorak, Examiner.com's San Diego County Political Buzz Examiner, doesn't have any proof, but she's going to stick by her story... because. So much for her ethics.

As for Digger, at Digger's Realm... dead silence. No response to email. No updates on his blog, and the last update citied Dvorak's post as "proof."

Dvorak is going to try to ignore her duty as a journalist and refuses to retract an article she cannot support with facts. Apparently, she is fine with destroying what reputation she has, and that is entirely her prerogative.

I hope that Digger is a bit wiser. Time will tell.

Update: It is rather sad, but no, he isn't.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:05 AM | Comments (3)

July 25, 2010

Howard Dean Calls White House Racist

Of course he didn't. He actually accused Fox News of being racist.

But the fun part of his blustery, overheated rhetoric is that it perfectly encapsulated the racist and racialist divisiveness of the Obama White House, an Administration that has put relations into a dedicated tailspin every time it has opened its mouth.

Even Maureen Dowd places the blame for Shirley Sherrod's firing squarely at the feet of the White House, not Fox. The White House had her ousted before Fox News played so much as one-second of tape.

Howard Dean has always been somewhat crazed, which is why his fellow Democrats couldn't stand the thought of him being their Presidential nominee. But to blame Fox for Obama's racism?

That's a long stretch, even by Deans' standards.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:15 PM | Comments (5)

What's Wrong With Laredo? Part II

As bizarre as the Invasion of Laredo is as a story, the most disappointing this about it thus far isn't that a handful of conspiracy theorists could concoct such a story, but that our federal government has created the conditions for such a flight of fancy to appear absolutely possible.

We are a nation governed by generations of Republicans and Democrats that desire an open border for nefarious political reasons, led by a President, U.S. Attorney General, and Congress that do not every pretend to care about the lives of American citizens or the sovereignty of our nation. We are citizens abandoned, adrift, and worried about our future, threatened by a very real and very violent war between Mexican authorities and powerful drug cartels.

Given all this context, all the evidence of failure of a government unwilling to protect our national sovereignty or our citizens, and it isn't difficult to understand how a story like the Laredo ranch invasion seems entirely plausible.

Barack Obama, Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder have failed us. This invasion may have been a hoax, but at the same time, it serves as a very real reflection of their incompetence.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:48 PM | Comments (14)

What's Wrong With Laredo? Part I

Tell Chuck Norris to stand down. Invasion USA never happened.

I contacted both the Laredo Police Department and the Webb County Sheriff yesterday and debunked claims that Los Zetas gunmen from the Gulf Cartel has crossed the border from Mexico and took over two ranches in Texas. The Laredo Morning News also refuted the claim. Pro 8 News, the NBC affiliate, didn't think enough of the absurdity to even comment on it... they found the installation of a new traffic light more newsworthy.

Absurdly, the same trio of sites that cried wolf are still sticking by their story, utter lack of credible evidence aside.

Cypress News publisher John G. Winder is sticking with the story, not because any additional evidence has been produced, but because the two sources for his version of the story, blog Digger's Realm and Examiner.com's San Diego (CA) County Political Buzz Examiner blogger Kimberly Dvorak are standing by their militiamen and anonymous police sources.

The original Cypress Times story? A re-publication of the original Digger's Realm story.

The Digger's Realm story? Two anonymous Laredo police sources and a San Diego California Minuteman named Jeff Schwilk who claims he got his information from... an anonymous Laredo PD officer.

San Diego County Poltical Buzz Examiner Kimberly Dvorak? She claims her information also comes from two anonymous Laredo PD sources.

Are we noticing a pattern here? Every bit of of this claim, which has now scattered far and wide across the Internet, can be traced back to two anonymous police department sources of a police department that does not even have jurisdiction where the alleged invasion is taking place.

I invite Digger and Kimberly Dvorak to provide me with the names and contact information of their anonymous police sources. Perhaps the officers will provide me with the answers to two simple questions that neither blogger has apparently thought to establish yet.

  • What are the physical addresses of the two ranches Los Zetas are said to have taken over?
  • What are the names of the ranchers that have been displaced from their ranches by Los Zetas?

It seems rather odd that the stories promoting this claim say that people were forced out, but that neither has thought to name, locate, or try to interview the best possible eyewitnesses. That is what you would expect from competent journalists. We're not seeing it here.

Instead, we're offered a conspiracy theory where law enforcement at every level, the media, and the citizens of Webb County are conspiring to cover up an invasion by a handful of drug dealers.

Laredo Truthers? I think we've found some.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:46 PM | Comments (2)

July 23, 2010

Tancredo Calls For Impeaching Obama

Whatever you think about Tom Tancredo, you can't accuse him of being shy to voice his opinion.

There is no higher duty of the federal government and our elected representatives than to protect our nation from invasion. Multiple reports and testimony before Congress by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have stated that a porous border with Mexico is "a path" terrorists will use if they can. Some would-be terrorists, including at least one associated with Hezbollah, already have. Recent reports of contacts between Hezbollah and Mexican drug cartels make it all but certain that terrorists intent on destroying us will come across our southwestern border. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for the administration to do everything in its power to keep Americans safe. Our safety is not a bargaining chip for another amnesty - or for any other political objective whatsoever.

Mr. Obama's refusal to live up to his own oath of office - which includes the duty to defend the United States against foreign invasion - requires senators and representatives to live up to their oaths. Members of Congress must defend our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Today, that means bringing impeachment charges against Mr. Obama.

Progressives, of course, are absolutely thrilled that Obama is laying waste to the Constitution to enact their agenda, and there is no chance at all of them impeaching President Obama. Because of the unspoken code of honor among political thieves, I suspect that even Republican landslides in November resulting in the GOP takeover of the House and Senate still wouldn't result in in impeachment proceedings.

They're all interested in furthering their own power, and thee is little hope that they care enough about the Constitution to set a precedent that might be used against them later.

Unless someone comes up with explicit criminal charges, the only thing that will end the Obama disaster before January 20, 2013 is an act of God... and frankly, I suspect he's got more important things to do.

Impeachment is a wonderful fantasy. It just won't happen.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:00 AM | Comments (12)

Shirley Sherrod Not Quite Post-Racial

After watching her now infamous full-length speech to the Georgia NAACP, I mentioned in my initial post about Shirley Sherrod that "she isn't a saint, just better equipped to put her racism aside in most instances."

Most instances. Not all.

And it isn't buried as deep as we all hoped it was, as this segment with Anderson Cooper proves:

Reacting to a question Anderson Cooper asked about a comment Andrew Breitbart made about her, Sherrod replied.

I think he would like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery. That's where I think he would like to see all black people end up again. And—

Cooper then interjected, "You think he's racist" and Sherrod continued:

—and that's why I think he's so vicious. Yes I do! Against a Black President. You know. He would go after me... I don't think it was even the NAACP he was totally after. I think he was after a black President.

Greg at Rhymes with Right (who tipped me to this video via email) ripped into Sherrod in response.

I wish that someone would tell this racist, race-baiting hate-monger that Barack Obama is not a black president. Barack Obama is the President of the United States, and that being the subject of harsh language and partisan attacks by one's opponents is a part of the job. That was the case with the holders of that office who happened to be white, and it still is the case when the holder of that office happens to be black.

The full-length NAACP speech left clues that Sherrod still harbors strong feelings about race and seems to have a rank-and-file leftist ideology, so it is not surprising to see her fall back on those beliefs, no matter how toxic they are.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:44 AM | Comments (28)

July 22, 2010

What Is With This "Old Speech" Lie?

Time and again I've seen Shirley Sherrod's now infamous "one of his own kind" speech referred to as an "old speech."

Let me put this in plain English: That speech was delivered March 27, 2010.

C-Span got it. The vast majority of bloggers got it.

If I didn't know better, I'd think there was a cabal of progressive journalists and pundits co-ordinating this disinformation.

But we know that would never happen.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:42 PM | Comments (2)

July 21, 2010

Beat Up All Over: Wake School Board Chair Calls NAACP "Sad," and "Irrelevant."

As someone who lives in in Wake County, has a child in Wake County Schools, and has watched William Barber's incessant grand-standing, I have to say Margiotta is more than likely right:

The head of the Wake County Board of Education on Wednesday called a disturbance and nearly 20 arrests at Tuesday's school board meeting "sad" and called the state NAACP "irrelevant."

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to recognize that there are other motivations other than what's going on in the Wake County Public School System," board Chairman Ron Margiotta said. "That's a sad commentary, because the ones that are being punished will be the children and the families of this county."

An estimated 1,000 people took to the streets of downtown Raleigh Tuesday morning in a rally organized by the civil rights group to protest the school board's decision earlier this year to do away with a policy that assigns students to schools based on socio-economics.

Nineteen people, including state NAACP President Rev. William Barber, were arrested during protests.

And more to the point:

Margiotta said he thinks Barber and the NAACP are using the school-assignment debate to generate headlines and keep their names in the news.

"I've tried to be nice. It's quite evident people have other motivations, other than what's going on in the Wake County Public School System," Margiotta said. "They're an organization trying to become relevant again."

Of the 19 protesters arrested at the meeting, only 4 were from Wake County.

The others were presumably bused in.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:44 PM | Comments (4)

The Sherrod Debacle

Like most of you, I've followed the Shirley Sherrod saga for the past three days. Unlike many pundits, I've been relatively quiet on the matter (except on Twitter).

There are plenty of opinions and mine is certain no more important than any of the others, but I would like to point out a few things.

  • Breitbart claimed context is everything, but then ran the video without much in the way of context
  • Shirley Sherrod did initially act as a racist. She admits that openly in the short video, and more importantly, the NAACP crowd approves of her sentiments
  • The NAACP acted rashly, and condemned Sherrod without knowing the facts
  • The White House acted rashly, and applied force to the USDA immediately, to the point Sherrod was forced to pull her car over and resign via Blackberry

David Frum is bizarrely blaming the conservative media for this trainwreck of a story, even as he cites a number of conservatives (and by no means all) who have condemned this story.

But here are the facts.

Breitbart may have over-reached and be unrepentant, but his sin was still relatively minor. He presented as much of the story as he had, and explained it the best he could based upon the information provided. Was it responsible to run that short video segment without context?

As you consider your response, think about how much news is run without the entire story being known at the outset.

It was the NAACP and USDA, acting under orders from Frum's idle idol in the White House, that over-reacted and pilloried Shirley Sherrod. They demanded her roadside resignation without giving her any chance to defend herself at all.

Now that the full video is up for everyone to watch, we can easily understand why Shirley Sherrod harbors some racism in her heart.

Her father was murdered, and she saw no hope of justice. Another relative was one of many blacks lynched by a corrupt white sheriff. She has every right to be bitter. She has every right to be racist, with that kind of abuse in her background. And undoubtably, her story starts off with that racism blinding her.

Ultimately, though, her story is one of someone seeking redemption. She overcame her racism to help that farmer and is now considered a family friend and hero. But there couldn't be redemption if she wasn't racist to begin with. She overcame it to a large extent, but as the full speech reveals, she isn't a saint, just better equipped to put her racism aside in most instances.

I am convinced, however, that Sherrod wasn't asked to resign over her own comments. I think the NAACP and White House came down on Sherrod as a scapegoat. They could not disciple the NAACP audience for their affirmation of the early part of her story where she admitted her racist feelings. They were terrified of being painted as hypocrites because of their continued attempts to portray Tea Party protesters as racists. They decided to act rashly.

They fired her, purely as an act of political gamesmanship, in hopes of protecting themselves from the backlash. And now, when it appears that that her racism and redemption aren't nearly as as inflammatory as they thought, they're considering asking her back... and looking like fools in the process.

She isn't sure she wants to be back. Can you blame her?

No one involved comes out of this looking good. Everyone involved made mistakes.

Hopefully, we can all learn a lesson here, about waiting for the full story to be revealed before rushing to judgement.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:21 PM | Comments (17)

July 19, 2010

Audit: Obama Killed Tens of Thousands of Jobs

Now needed: hope and spare change.

Last year, while the Obama administration seized two of the nation’s three main domestic auto manufacturers, it also shut down thousands of dealerships across the country, supposedly to stabilize GM and Chrysler. A new report from Neil Barofsky, the Inspector General of the TARP program, calls into question that decision. In a sharp rebuke to the White House, Barofsky says that the action needlessly cost tens of thousands of jobs and extended an already-disastrous downturn in employment:

Follow the link to Hot Air for the details, but you already know the big picture.

Barack Obama is the Jack Kevorkian of economics.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:57 PM | Comments (3)

July 18, 2010

Character Revealed

Tea Party activist Mark Williams says he's done discussing the controversy stirred up by his attack on the NAACP, accusing a fellow movement leader of turning the debate into "a World Wrestling style personality conflict."

The National Tea Party Federation, an organization that represents the Tea Party political movement around the country, has expelled Williams and his Tea Party Express organization because of the inflammatory blog post Williams wrote last week, federation spokesman David Webb said Sunday. In response, Williams announced in another statement on his blog that, "I am refusing all media requests on this" and canceled a scheduled interview on CNN to discuss the controversy Sunday evening, citing a last-minute change in travel plans.

Williams deserved his ouster from the Federation for his poor attempt at satire, though I'm perplexed as to why his entire organization was suspended. Should the entire group be purged because their leader is a failure?

If so, will the last person leaving Washington, DC please shut off the lights.

I find it amusing that real inflammatory speech such as Williams is so easily identified and dealt with, but that the NAACP and other progressive groups have to go the route of Think Progress and manufacture fake racism.

As there racists in the Tea Party? I assure you there are as many racists in the Tea Party as there are at Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Burger King, Harvard University, your local car wash and the NAACP. Any organization of any size will attract individuals with fringe, even radical beliefs. The measure of the culture and character of an organization is revealed after those radical elements are exposed, and the organization has to decide how to deal with those radicals.

The NAACP refuses to discipline their radicals. The Tea Party expels them.

That the Tea Party better represents the values and ideals most Americans revere is obvious to all.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:21 PM | Comments (2)

July 15, 2010

Arizona Immigration Law Faces First Legal Hurdle

Arizona governor Jan Brewer and supporters of Arizona's not-as-controversial-as-the-media-would-like-to-make-it immigration law have claimed that it merely mirrors federal law on the subject. If that is true, the judge hearing today's case brought by an Arizona police officer should have a fairly easy time dismissing this first challenge.

A Phoenix police officer's challenge to the new immigration law in Arizona could be settled in a court hearing Thursday.

Phoenix police officer David Salgado has sued Arizona's Gov. Jan Brewer and is asking a federal judge to stall the implementation of the law until it can be proved that it is constitutional.

Brewer has asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit.

The law is scheduled to go into effect July 29, if it survives this challenge and several others to be heard by the judge on July 22.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:10 AM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2010

Racists! Obama Compared to Two White Guys

Yeah, this is hyperbolic and over the top, but you have to know it is by design. People are talking and writing about it, aren't they?

Of course, Obama is nothing like Hitler or Lenin.

Both of them were demonstrably more competent in promoting their peculiar brands of socialism than the President, and garnered far more support from their countrymen, for a much longer period of time.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:09 AM | Comments (6)

July 13, 2010

NAACP Kicks Out Press, Kills Webcast To Discuss Tea Party Resolution

They're meeting behind closed doors because meeting under sheets has already been done.

You could have watched this collection of bigoted lickspittles discuss the proposed resolution to call the Tea Party racists, but the cowards have pushed the press out of the room and killed the convention webcast.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:20 PM | Comments (8)

A Simple Challenge to the NAACP

If you are going to issue a resolution smearing Tea Party protesters as a group as racists for the acts of a distinct minority shunned by the group at large, don't you also have an obligation to pass a resolution against your own organization for far more pervasive racist behavior?

NAACP officers and members alike have proven themselves guilty of racist rants against Jews, and as an organization, you seem to tolerate and (even promote) a pervasive hatred of minority conservatives, from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to Condoleeza Rice, to Kenneth Gladney, and beyond.

Do the honorable thing, and submit yourself to the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, if one hoping to change.

You don't just deserve that classification every as the Tea Party... With a longer, and more documented history of this kind of behavior, you deserve it far more.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:49 AM | Comments (4)

July 12, 2010

NAACP Considers Resolution Decrying Racist Elements in NAACP Movement

I'm kidding.

They'd never been honest enough to admit that their organization is run through with racists that automatically dismiss blacks with traditional conservative values as race traitors.

Instead, they're attacking the tea party again, for threatening to end their enslavement not to government handouts, but to a perpetual victim mentality. The NAACP long ago devolved from a champion of civil rights into just another mouthpiece constituency angling for whatever scraps of power and relevance that the Democratic Party will toss its way.

Until they take a sober look at their own house and put it in order, they are due the mocking and scorn that this hypocritical announcement so richly deserves.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:35 AM | Comments (6)

July 11, 2010

President Putt-Putt Goes on Vacation... Again

Maine, this time. Jim Hoft notes this is Obama's third vacation since the Deepwater Horizon disaster began.

There is no word yet on how many rounds of golf he will be playing on this vacation.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:38 AM | Comments (10)

July 10, 2010

More Counter-Tea Party Astroturf

First, there was the Coffee Party.

The there was the Other 95%.

Don't feel bad if you don't remember these groups. Despite media cheerleading, they were stillborn at the start. There is simply no vocal grassroots support for a government that consists of a series of cascading failures.

But leftists are intent on creating yet a third astroturfed counter to the grass roots Tea Party, progressives from some of the most thuggish leftist groups are coming together to form something called One Nation:

In dem Bemühen, die Tee-Party für den Erfolg, 170 liberalen und bürgerlichen Rechte Gruppen replizieren bilden eine Koalition, dass sie hoffen, die Bewegung der politischen Energie und Einfluss übereinstimmen. Sie versprechen "counter The Tea Party narrative" und helfen, die fortschreitende Bewegung zu finden, ihre Stimme wieder nach 18 Monaten der Bahn werfen.

Die groß angelegte Versuch, liberale Einheit, genannt "One Nation", werden versuchen, die Themen, die Spannung der progressiven Breitensport vor zwei Jahren neu zu beleben. In einer Wiederverwendung der alten Kampagne Barack Obamas Slogan, sind die Organisatoren fordern "alle ändern" für sie gestimmt haben - Sack im Weißen Haus ...

... "Nachdem mit dem Gespenst der Teeparty konfrontiert... Wir hielten es für dringend geboten, die Mehrheit in diesem Land, das im Jahr 2008 gewählt hat und zurück auf die Couch gegangen zu organisieren", sagte Benjamin Jealous, Präsident der NAACP . "Wir haben in verschiedene Richtungen gespalten."

Die beteiligten Gruppen repräsentieren den Kern der Erstwähler, die Präsident Obama - einschließlich des Nationalen Rates der La Raza, NAACP, AFL-CIO, SEIU und den Vereinigten Staaten Student Association unterstützt. (Der Aufwand ist unabhängig von der Demokratischen Partei den Plan 50.000.000 $ auszugeben versucht, dieselben Wähler zu erreichen.)

Oops. I forgot to translate that out of the original Deutsch.

In an effort to replicate the tea party's success, 170 liberal and civil rights groups are forming a coalition that they hope will match the movement's political energy and influence. They promise to "counter the tea party narrative" and help the progressive movement find its voice again after 18 months of floundering.

The large-scale attempt at liberal unity, dubbed "One Nation," will try to revive themes that energized the progressive grassroots two years ago. In a repurposing of Barack Obama's old campaign slogan, organizers are demanding "all the change" they voted for -- a poke at the White House...

..."Having been confronted with the specter of the tea party . . . we felt it urgent to organize the majority of this country, which voted in 2008 and has gone back to the couch," said Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP. "We've been split off in different directions."

The groups involved represent the core of the first-time voters who backed President Obama -- including the National Council of La Raza, NAACP, AFL-CIO, SEIU and the United States Student Association. (The effort is separate from the Democratic Party's plan to spend $50 million trying to reach those same voters.)

Nothing bad ever happens when you combine racial nationalists and savage union muscle, does it?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:32 AM | Comments (10)

July 09, 2010

Hayes Rips AG Holder, Calls For His Resignation

I don't recall how I got on Illinois Second District Isaac Hayes (R) mailing list, but man, he isn't pull any punches in this release, calling for U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to resign:

CHICAGO: Republican nominee for Illinois 2nd Congressional District Isaac Hayes released the following statement calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign after failure to prosecute the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation during the 2008 election.

"The Justice Department's refusal to prosecute the terrorist actions of the New Black Panther Party for its 2008 intimidation and threatening vitriol outside a Philadelphia polling place is criminal affirmative action. This selective justice paradigm was exposed during the testimony of J. Christian Adams – a former U.S. Prosecutor assigned to the Civil Rights Division, Voting Section, before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission – who testified he was told 'cases are not going to be brought against Black defendants for the benefit of White victims.'

"Attorney General Eric Holder has historically taken a partial approach to justice. It was in 2001 that he spearheaded the pardon of Marc Rich, a billionaire financier who had fled the country rather than face federal tax evasion charges.

"Mr. Holder was in full support of reading the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdumutullab, Miranda rights reserved for U.S. Citizens. He also supported the trying of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, 9-11 mastermind, as he would a shoplifter in an American courtroom instead of a military tribunal.

"In addition, Mr. Holder played the race card against Arizonans who are living under the constant threat of violence and kidnapping from illegal aliens who openly cross the U.S.-Mexico border. His charges of racism were not based on fact or substantive evidence because he admitted to not having read the bill. Sadly, his accusations were based on a philosophy that desires to 'create fairness and balance' by selectively picking winners and losers. From Mr. Adam's testimony the losers are White Americans.

"As a Black American I have experienced racism and prejudice. Hatred and violence directed toward any group is unacceptable and un-American. Racism should never be tolerated indiscriminate of who initiates it. Regrettably, the Department of Justice has engaged in an act of injustice by initiating racism of its own.

"I call on Attorney General Holder to step down because I no longer have confidence in his ability to be fair and impartial. Furthermore, his worldview that protects terrorists and criminals at the expense of U.S. citizens is in direct violation of his Constitutional oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'"

Eric Holder, Attorney General for Barack Obama, is racist, unfair, and breaching his oath of office?

Surely, you cant' be serious, Mr. Hayes.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:26 AM | Comments (2)

Oakland Riot After Mehserle Verdict

Reminds you of Congress, doesn't it?

The trouble Thursday boiled down to a racially diverse mob of about 200 people, many bent on destruction no matter what, confronting police after the day's predominantly peaceful demonstrations ended.

Sporadic conflicts were quelled quickly early in the evening, but by late night at least 50 people - and maybe as many as 100 - had been arrested as small groups smashed windows, looted businesses and set trash bins on fire.

The violence was contained for much of the early evening within a one-block area near City Hall by an army of police officers in riot gear, but around 10 p.m. a knot of rioters broke loose and headed north on Broadway toward 22nd Street with police in pursuit.

They smashed windows of shops including the trendy Ozumo restaurant, and one building was spray painted with the words, "Say no to work. Say yes to looting."

This was a bunch of progressives/socialists/anarchists bound and determined—regardless of what the jury decided in this case—to do to Oakland what our progressive Congress and President is doing to our nation.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:46 AM | Comments (8)

July 08, 2010

Hints of Conspiracy in Polish President's Crash Investigation?

When investigators start asking about the possibility of man-made fog and interference with the plane's instruments from a distance (a plane recently renovated by the Russians shortly before it crashed, I may add), we end up with the elements of a great conspiracy theory... or a Tom Clancy novel.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 07, 2010

BREAKING: Democrat Senators Still Not Dead

Wishing politicians dead is one of the most normal actions a human being can undertake. Sending out fake press releases announcing their deaths?


New, and annoying
:

At least three Democratic senators have been subjects of false reports of their deaths in the past two days, prompting the U.S. Capitol Police to open an investigation into the matter.

Several news outlets received a hoax e-mail news release, announcing the death of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Tuesday. Leahy, 70, who participated in July 4 events, is alive and well, according to spokesman David Carle.

"It was spoofed to look as if it had come from the office," Carle said.

A copy of the e-mail, posted on the Web site of Washington's WTOP radio, said Leahy had died of liver cancer.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), an 86-year-old appropriator who recently announced he is free from a form of stomach cancer, was also spoofed, his office confirmed.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who serves on the Judiciary and Appropriations committees with Leahy, was subjected to a hoax of the same kind on Monday, her office confirmed. Similarly, she was said to have died of cancer at her home.

You might assume all of these bogus messages are coming from the same person (and you'd probably be right).

Has anyone seen Helen Thomas lately?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:19 AM | Comments (5)

July 06, 2010

Holder's Injustice Department Sues Arizona... On Grounds of Embarrassment?

The bleating and whining from President Obama and his progressive allies that Arizona's new immigration law is blatantly unconstitutional has been exposed as so much bluster today, as the best the our anti-rule-of-law government can come up with is a weak case built up preemption:

The Justice Department has decided to file suit against Arizona on the grounds that the state's new immigration law illegally intrudes on federal prerogatives, law enforcement sources said Monday.

The lawsuit, which three sources said could be filed as early as Tuesday, will invoke for its main argument the legal doctrine of "preemption," which is based on the Constitution's supremacy clause and says that federal law trumps state statutes. Justice Department officials believe that enforcing immigration laws is a federal responsibility, the sources said.

The glaring weakness in the DOJ's claim is that the Arizona law precisely echoes the federal law, by design.

The reality of the case is that Arizona intends to enforce their version of the law, while Obama-led Executive Branch had no intention of enforcing the federal law.

I'm admittedly not close to being a lawyer, so perhaps my readers can explain something to me.

If this case is the Obama Administration's explicit admission that they do not intent to uphold the law, does that mean that Obama has breached his oath of office? Doesn't this case provided grounds for impeachment?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:57 PM | Comments (9)

British Methodists Sign Up to Help Islamists Build Ovens

And the sad thing is that these cattle don't seem to understand the first bit about the path they have chosen:

The decision last week by the Methodist Church of Britain to launch a boycott against goods emanating from settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem will send a shiver down the spine of anyone with a feel for where the rancid, global campaign against the Jewish state is currently heading.

The boycott will involve transactions of the church itself, and extends to encouraging all affiliated Methodists to follow suit. The Methodists boycott no other country.

The fact that an institution professing allegiance to values of love, truth and justice should have succumbed to an agenda of hatred, hypocrisy and barbarism is sadly emblematic of the degraded spirit of our times, and of the moral inversions which blow through them.

But who, these days, can really be surprised about such happenings in modern Europe? It is only the banality, to appropriate Hannah Arendt, of this particular evil that still has the power to shock us. For, in watching the discussions at the Methodist Conference which approved the boycott, there was little in the way of the visceral hatred of Israel which we have become so accustomed to seeing in academic settings or in the trade unions. Here was a group of almost stereotypically ordinary, middle-class, English Christians calmly reciting every hackneyed anti-Israeli calumny in the book.

I want to say that American Methodists and perhaps Presbyterians have either already adopted those measures or are flirting with them. Anyone know the answer to that?

It always amazes me how "good" people can not just turn a blind eye to evil, but actively participate in it by allowing themselves to be fed beliefs they should know not to be true.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:40 AM | Comments (10)

July 05, 2010

Paul Krugman...

... is an economic genius?


Today, American workers face the worst job market since the Great Depression, with five job seekers for every job opening, with the average spell of unemployment now at 35 weeks. Yet the Senate went home for the holiday weekend without extending benefits. How was that possible?

The answer is that we’re facing a coalition of the heartless, the clueless and the confused. Nothing can be done about the first group, and probably not much about the second. But maybe it’s possible to clear up some of the confusion.

By the heartless, I mean Republicans who have made the cynical calculation that blocking anything President Obama tries to do — including, or perhaps especially, anything that might alleviate the nation’s economic pain — improves their chances in the midterm elections. Don’t pretend to be shocked: you know they’re out there, and make up a large share of the G.O.P. caucus.

In Krugman's world, money does grow on trees. Otherwise, how could he responsibly advocate the government going ever deeper in debt, spending money it does not have at a time when experts are predicting that the policies of Congress and the President are plunging us from recession into depression?

I'm not an economist myself, and so I'm sure Mr. Krugman could come up with dazzling explanations full of expensive language to explain his position, but I'll simply counter him by pointing out some inescapable truths:

  • growing the size of government at the expense of the private sector is bad for the economy
  • increasing government control over specific industries makes it more difficult for new companies to penetrate that market sector, protects large incumbent companies in that sector, and stifles innovation
  • you cannot spend your way out of debt
  • poor people, dumb people, and lazy people don't create jobs
  • if government gets out of the way, wealth can be made from thin air

Let's look at those simply claims in a little more detail.

Growing the size of government at the expense of the private sector is bad for the economy.
Government does not create wealth. Government does not pay taxes. It is easy for even the simple layman to understand that when government job creation approaches private sector job creation, bells and whistles should go off in warning. You can never have parity between government and private sector jobs, and once the percentage of government jobs grows too high, there are not enough private sector dollars generating taxes to support the government.

At the present time, only government hiring is growing, along with government salaries in some areas. Why should we trust Democrats who want to grow the size of the government, when that position is entirely self serving?

Increasing government control over specific industries makes it more difficult for new companies to penetrate that market sector, protects large incumbent companies in that sector, and stifles innovation.
Recent regulations proposed to "save" or "regulate" the financial sector have no intention of protecting the people from the avarice of bankers. Quite to the contrary, Democrats are creating "reform" that rewards their campaign donors at the banks by making it harder for upstart banks to establish themselves or grow. With decreased competition, these existing large banks can grow ever more predatory, and borrowers will payer higher fees and penalties for declining levels of service.

You cannot spend your way out of debt.
Seems simple right? Many of us learned this the hard way in college, financing our nightlife on promises of easy credit. By the time we graduated, we have mountains of credit card debit that had nothing to do with the cost of tuition and textbooks. Faced with hard choices, we quit spending money and paid off out debts.

So why is the response of Democrats, including Mr. Krugman, to keep spending money we don't have, to sustain a lifestyle we can't afford?

Poor people, dumb people, and lazy people don't create jobs.
I've never been employed by someone who made minimum wage, and no company survives without intelligent and hard-working leadership. Democrats love to build up a strawman of the evils of the rich, but forget to address an obvious truth: the rich are rich because they seize opportunities to make money and work very hard to do the work others will not or cannot do. Their skills are in short supply, and so they come at a premium. On the other hand, the poor, unintelligent and lazy are guilty of perpetuating behaviors that ensure they remain poor. They have poor saving, investing and spending habits, tend to be impulsive, and think little about the long term impact of today's excess spending.

Sound like any political party you know?

If government gets out of the way, wealth can be made from thin air.
Bill Whittle of PJTV has made this point so eloquently on his show Afterburner many times. Ideas initiative and hard work has made men like Warren Buffett and Jay Z wealthy. They used their talents to make wealth from nothing.

But back to the point of Krugman's accusation that "heartless, the clueless and the confused" Republicans are acting irresponsibly. Republicans have simply asked for Democrats to stop extending unemployment benefits without paying for it, and even went so far as to find a way of paying for the extensions, using unspent stimulus money.

Krugman's friends in the Democratic majority refuse to pay for the benefit extensions with the unspent stimulus money they have in pocket. Instead, they attempt to add to our already out of control debt.

Tell us again Mr. Krugman... who is clueless and confused?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:55 PM | Comments (7)

July 02, 2010

Dull Steele

A new RNC Chair: now that's change i can believe in.

"Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama's choosing. This was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in," he said. "But it was the president who was trying to be cute by half by building a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he is such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan?"

We don't need a Chairman that gets his war advice from The Princess Bride.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:06 AM | Comments (14)

July 01, 2010

Scholars: Obama One of the Bestest Presidents Evar!!!

No... they're serious.

George W. Bush was no FDR, but Barack Obama could be.

That's the verdict of 238 of the nation's leading presidential scholars, who - for a fifth time - rated Franklin Delano Roosevelt the best president ever in the latest Siena College Research Institute poll.

In office for barely two years, Obama entered the survey in the 15th position - two spots behind Bill Clinton and three spots ahead of Ronald Reagan.

When asked for comment about the poll, noted Presidential Scholar researcher Richard James offered his own terse opinion.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:53 PM | Comments (10)

Which Country Was He Was Elected to Lead?

The Deepwater Horizon oil disaster continues nearly unabated. Our economy is in shambles, our national debt is exploding, our jobless claims are rising, home sales are slumping, and even liberal economists describing our financial situation as a depression.

How does our President respond?

By pandering to criminal aliens.

It would be nice to have a President who cared about the state of our nation, but this is what we deserve for electing a man running on a nebulous and empty slogan of change.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:36 AM | Comments (2)

June 30, 2010

Bloody Elena

Elena Kagan is making me start to wish... nah, I better not say what I think:

Before the Senate Judiciary Committee a short time ago, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan appeared reluctant to admit that she wrote a 1996 Clinton White House memo aimed at altering a key medical group's opinion of whether partial birth abortion is medically necessary. The memo, reported yesterday by National Review, has caused a stir in conservative circles because it appeared that Kagan, then a White House policy aide, put words in the medical group's mouth in order to soften its position on the controversial procedure. But when Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch brought the subject up with Kagan, he had a hard time getting her to admit that she did, in fact, write the document in question.

"Did you write that memo?" Hatch asked.

"Senator, with respect," Kagan began, "I don't think that that's what happened — "

"Did you write that memo?"

"I'm sorry — the memo which is?"

"The memo that caused them to go back to the language of 'medically necessary,' which was the big issue to begin with — "

"Yes, well, I've seen the document — "

"But did you write it?"

"The document is certainly in my handwriting."

Kagan doesn't want to admit that she is an pro-infanticide zealot, nor that she twisted the position of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) on late-term abortion to suit her political goals.

The inherent dishonesty in her character and her blood-thirsty ideological bent proves she is in no way suited for the Supreme Court. Senate Republicans and pro-life Democrats must filibuster Kagan.

A killer's accomplice is hardly fit to be judge.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:54 PM | Comments (6)

Elena Mengele Kagan

Power Line has what they describe as the "smoking gun" that should destroy Solicitor General Elena Kagan's bid for the Supreme Court, pointing to Shannen W. Coffin's explosive revelation at NRO.

While working for the Clinton Administration, Kagan committed intentional fraud, rewriting a statement from a medical organization to protect the beastly practice of partial birth abortion, a practice the medical experts said had no legitimate need.

The initial draft said that the ACOG panel "could identify no circumstances under which this procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman." That language horrified the rabidly pro-abortion Elena Kagan, then a deputy assistant to President Clinton for domestic policy. This is what Kagan wrote in a memo to her superiors in the Clinton White House:
Todd Stern just discovered that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is thinking about issuing a statement (attached) that includes the following sentence: "[A] select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which [the partial-birth] procedure ... would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman." This, of course, would be disaster -- not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the legislation. It is unclear whether ACOG will issue the statement; even if it does not, there is obviously a chance that the draft will become public.
So Kagan took matters into her own hands: incredibly, she herself appears to have written the key language that eventually appeared in the ACOG report.

Kagan's radical left wing ideology dictated that she commit brazen fraud to support the revolting practice of infanticide after medical experts declared there is no medical justification for partial birth abortion.

Elena Kagan lied. She took a report from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and distorted it to say precisely the opposite of what the group concluded.

Read the entire article. Read Powerline's conclusion.

Elena Kagan shouldn't be on the Court.

She should be on trial in front of one.

Republican and pro-life Democrat Senators have a sacred duty to filibuster Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court, and any Senator that does not standard against this monster's nomination should be targeted for replacement.

Elena Kagan is not judicial material. She's a zealot, and one utterly without morals.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:20 AM | Comments (7)

June 28, 2010

Off To that Great Klavern In the Sky

Well, "in the sky" might be a little too optimistic:

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the longest-serving senator in American history, died Monday at the age of 92, a spokesman for the family said.

Byrd, a Democrat who served in the U.S. Senate since 1959, had been plagued by health problems in recent years and was confined to a wheelchair. He had skipped several votes in Congress in the past months.

Jesse Jacobs, a family spokesman, said Byrd died peacefully at about 3 a.m. at Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va.

He was the oldest member of the 111th Congress and the last Exalted Cyclops in a long and embarrassing line of "reformed" Ku Klux members in the Democratic Party.

I may have edited that last line a little bit for the sake of accuracy.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:31 AM | Comments (8)

June 27, 2010

Let Them Eat Cake...

...or custard.

Vice President Joe Biden called the manager of a custard shop outside of Milwaukee, Wisc. a "smartass" after the man asked him to lower taxes. Biden made the comment after the Kopp's Frozen Custard shop manager told him that his dessert would be on the house if he lowered taxes.

"What do we owe you?" Biden is heard saying in footage captured by WISN-TV.

"Don't worry, it's on us," the manager replied. "Lower our taxes and we'll call it [the custard] even."

"Why don't you say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time," Biden said a few minutes later.

Biden had walked in to Kopp's mistakenly asking for ice cream instead of custard.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:54 AM | Comments (13)

June 26, 2010

President Putt-Putt Strikes Again

When U.S. President Barack Obama stepped off his helicopter in Huntsville on Friday, the first thing he said was, "You’ve got a lot of golf courses here, don't you?" Industry Minister Tony Clement told the National Post in an exclusive interview.

In the best of hands.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:07 AM | Comments (4)

Pelosi: Who Needs Reality? We're Democrats

Nancy Pelosi warned that if we don't continue trying to mask our current depression by spending money we don't have, then people might realize how badly they've ruined the country and toss her and other progressives off the nearest tall building.

Or something like that.

Pelosi, Reid, Obama and their leftist allies hell-bent are destroying this country. That is not up for debate. It is a quantifiable, mathematical fact.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:36 AM | Comments (3)

June 25, 2010

"They Have Only Intentions of Destroying"

At Verum Serum, progressive radical Elena Herrada takes to the stage to compare Border Patrol agents to the Ku Klux Klan.

The Obama Administration apparently feels much the same way:

The Obama administration has tapped an outspoken critic of immigration enforcement on the local level to oversee and promote partnerships between federal and local officials on the issue.

Harold Hurtt, a former police chief in Houston and Phoenix, has been hired as the director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of State and Local Coordination. Starting July 6, Hurtt will supervise outreach and communication between ICE, local law enforcement agencies, tribal leaders and representatives from non-governmental organizations.

"Chief Hurtt is a respected member of the law enforcement community and understands the concerns of local law enforcement leaders," said John Morton, the Homeland Security assistant secretary for ICE. "His experience and skills will be an invaluable asset to the ICEs outreach and coordination efforts."

But as a police chief, Hurtt was a supporter of "sanctuary city" policies, by which illegal immigrants who don't commit crimes can live without fear of exposure or detainment because police don't check for immigration papers.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:32 AM | Comments (6)

June 24, 2010

MoveOn.org Scrubs Infamous Ad From Site

Really, does it make the least little bit of difference?

Nothing has changed. MoveOn.org still hates the military, and General Petraeus in particular. They still feel anger that their terrorist friends were beaten in Iraq, and they're holding out hope that the Taliban will " teach us a lesson" in Afghanistan.

They are trying to hide who they are, but it is far, far too late.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:31 AM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2010

Obama Threatens to Issue Blanket Amnesty Via Executive Order?

Please tell me this rumor is absurd.

Several Senators have learned of a possible plan by the Obama Administration that would provide a mass Amnesty for the nation's 11-18 million illegal aliens. Led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), eight Senators addressed a letter to the President asking for answers to questions about a plan that would allow DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to provide an amnesty if they can't secure enough votes for a bill in the Senate.

The letter that was sent to Pres. Obama earlier today asks the President for clarification on the use of deferred action or parole for illegal aliens. The executive actions are typically used in special cases and are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but if 60 votes can't be secured in the Senate to pass a mass Amnesty, the Administration may use the discretionary actions as an alternative.

Go to NumbersUSA for the text of the letter Sens. Grassley, Hatch, Vitter, Bunning, Chambliss, Isakson, Inhofe, and Cochran sent to the White House.

Blanket amnesty for millions of illegal aliens would qualify as an obvious abuse of power by the Obama Administration and in my opinion, also qualify as a clear and present danger to U.S. sovereignty. Would such an executive order amount to treason by President Obama?

I'm sure President Kick-Ass will have his attorneys and sycophants claim that that he has the authority to issue pardons and parole, but that power was never, never intended to be used to grant millions of criminal aliens citizenship in direct contravention of U.S. law.

Michelle Malkin has more on this travesty, and her comment thread on this topic is worth reading.

We are saddled with a President who cares far more about the freedoms of criminal aliens, drug smugglers and terrorists than he does the rights of the American people.

I just don't see this nation surviving until January 20, 2013 with this duplicitous, dangerous man in the White House.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 PM | Comments (40)

June 22, 2010

President Kick-Ass Recalls General For Criticism

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has been recalled to Washington DC by President Barack Obama after McChrystal apologized for an interview that he did with Rolling Stone.

In the interview, McChrystal and his staff rip into his bosses including Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Obama envoy Richard Holbrooke, National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Vice President Joe Biden, and then committed the cardinal sin of insulting Barack Obama, calling him "unprepared" for their meeting, which McChrystal dismissed as a ten-minute photo op.

The simple fact of the matter is that McChrystal may be 100% accurate in his criticisms—and he probably is—but I don't think that the role of Commander in Chief can allow such commentary. It isn't insubordination, but it does popularize a rift between military commanders and their civilian boss that takes away from the appearance of a united front. It should end his command... but can Obama afford to let him go, freeing him to become even more open in his criticism of the Administration's ineptitude?

Perhaps McChrystal has simply had it with a bunch of incompetents above him and wants to go out on his own terms, telling it like it is.

You have to wonder... was this really a mistake, or was it a surgical strike designed to elicit a prescribed response? I'll be watching this story with great interest in hopes of finding out.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:50 AM | Comments (8)

June 21, 2010

Moron Alert: Leftists, Islamists Protest Wrong Ship

No one ever said you had to be bright to be a radical.


Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (1)

Party First. America Second.

There is no way an intelligent political blogger can write this out of ignorance, so we can only surmise Steve Benen means to defraud his readers:

BARBOUR: MORATORIUM WORSE THAN SPILL.... As part of the federal response to the BP oil spill disaster, the administration imposed a six-month moratorium on drilling new deepwater wells. The point, of course, was to prevent another crisis -- Deepwater Horizon had undermined confidence in the industry and its practices. Before companies start new drilling, it's reasonable to make sure the industry's doing it right.

Conservatives, and some regional Democrats, are less than pleased about the six-month pause. Yesterday on "Meet the Press," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) went so far as to argue that the moratorium is actually worse than the oil spill and its effects on the region. Seriously.

Benen's been busy practicing for the White House beer pong team, or is simply a reliable toady. I'm not sure that it matters which. What matters is that he is shoveling pure propaganda.

It is widespread public knowledge that is isn't Republicans that started griping about this, it was the experts that the Administration consulted and then ignored in order to exploit the crisis for Obama's political agenda:

Then there is Obama's decision to impose a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the gulf. This penalizes companies with better safety records than BP's and will result in many advanced drilling rigs being sent to offshore oil fields abroad.

The justification offered was an Interior Department report supposedly "peer reviewed" by "experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering." But it turned out the drafts the experts saw didn't include any recommendation for a moratorium. Eight of the cited experts have said they oppose the moratorium as more economically devastating than the oil spill and "counterproductive" to safety.

This was blatant dishonesty by the administration, on an Orwellian scale. In defense of a policy that has all the earmarks of mindless panic, that penalizes firms and individuals guilty of no wrongdoing and that will worsen rather than improve our energy situation. Ineffective thuggery.

President Kick-Ass can't be bothered to be dragged off the golf course long enough to do much other than attend fundraisers, parties or private concerts, but when addressing a major environmental disaster, he issues soundbites and platitudes. He exhibits zero leadership. It turns out he doesn't have any.

Being an ideologue instead of the intellect his allies like to pretend that he is, Obama and his dream team of cloistered stooges instead overrode the considered opinions of experts—and committed fraud to do it—and now purposefully intends to turn the environmental disaster of the Deepwater Horizon spill into an economic and energy disaster as well.

The Obama moratorium was purposefully designed to force rigs to leave the Gulf of Mexico, costing thousands of American jobs and increasing our dependency on foreign oil. The reason? To force Americans into shifting away from oil as a source of energy, purely as an ideological matter.

The unintended side effect? It means that the drilling rigs that remain are older, with fewer safety features. Obama and his whiz kids have created a situation where the likelihood of another environment-wrecking spill is increased because of their political gamesmanship.

Reliable little leaches like Steve Benen can be counted upon to cheer on Obama as he sucks the marrow out of the American economy. For them it is party first, and America a distant second.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:05 AM | Comments (4)

June 18, 2010

"Violent Bob" Etheridge Has History Of Assaulting Questioners

As so often happens when the media finally decides to stop turning a blind eye, the truth begins to leak out:

In the fall of 1996, when Leslie was a senior at Pinecrest High School, he said he met Etheridge at a Pinecrest football game. Etheridge - then the state superintendent of public instruction - was challenging incumbent Republican David Funderburk for his congressional seat. At the time, Moore County was part of the 2nd District, which Etheridge now represents.

Leslie said he introduced himself to Etheridge and asked him about his stance on a particular education program. He said Etheridge didn't answer his question, so he pressed him two more times.

"And that's when he grabbed me by the shoulders, he shook me, and I'll never forget it, he said, 'Son, you need to learn to respect your elders,'" he said by phone on Wednesday. "I was just so taken aback, I think my jaw just dropped, and he walked off."

It seems Bob Etheridge has felt he was too good to answer questions for a very long time, and that he is prone to letting his temper get the best of him.

Do we really want or need that kind of representation in the Second Congressional District, when our other option is a nurse that wants to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a health care plan that works?

Update: John Hawkins of Right Wing News scores an interview with Etheridge's opponent, Renee Ellmers.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (4)

Good News: Air Force Loses 17 Afghan Airmen on U.S. Soil

The good news? They started "losing" them two years, but they haven't lost any more for a full three months:

A nationwide alert has been issued for 17 members of the Afghan military who have gone AWOL from a Texas Air Force base where foreign military officers who are training to become pilots are taught English, FoxNews.com has learned.

The Afghan officers and enlisted men have security badges that give them access to secure U.S. defense installations, according to the lookout bulletin, "Afghan Military Deserters in CONUS [Continental U.S.]," issued by Naval Criminal Investigative Service in Dallas, and obtained by FoxNews.com.

The Afghans were attending the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. The DLI program teaches English to military pilot candidates and other air force prospects from foreign countries allied with the U.S.

17 partially or fully training pilots from the land of the Taliban and al Qaeda have been brought to the United States to further their training, and have been lost by the authorities over the past two years, and we're just now hearing about it? Yeah, that makes sense.

It's not like that has ever ended badly before.

The spin they are trying to cast on this SNAFU is is that they think the the disappearing Afghans are merely trying to escape to a better way of life, and that they do not have intentions of using their training and military security badges to commit terrorism. I sure hope they are right.

As for why the program has continued without better security since these airmen started going AWOL, there doesn't seem to be an immediate answer, and I don't know if there is one.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:11 AM | Comments (3)

June 17, 2010

"Language Expert" Tries to Excuse Obama's Sub-Par Address

Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor, says that Barack Obama's Oval office speech that was panned by virtually everyone didn't fail because it lacked substance, direction, or leadership, but because it sounded too "professorial" for us uneducated hicks:

President Obama's speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday.

Tuesday night's speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.

Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence "added some difficulty for his target audience," Payack said.

He singled out this sentence from Obama as unfortunate: "That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation's best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge -- a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation's secretary of energy."

I would have pointed out that the real problem in that sentence was that President Obama appointed a physicist to handle a problem best addressed by geologists, but then, I'm not looking to excuse the President's abysmal performance in this disaster.

[Of course, you dimwits won't understand that sentence, either. It has a grade level of 11 on Flesch-Kincaid and uses 41 words, which is far more complex than the President's speech that us public folks just can't understand.]

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:17 AM | Comments (12)

June 16, 2010

Beyond Petroleum

Like most of America, I had something better to do with my time last night than watch Barack Obama's flailing Oval Office address.

A few masochists tuned in to watch the President attempt to spin or explain the failure of his administration to provide anything like leadership on day 57 of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It did not go well.

Even his most sycophantic apologists—Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann—ripped the President. Olbermann said, "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days." Matthews compared Obama to the most ineffective President of the 20th century, Jimmy Carter. Even faithful toady Eugene Robinson was forced to admit it was a failure.

Though his supporters are not yet ready to admit it, Obama's utter inability to lead is symptomatic of America's greatest ever experiment with the Peter Principle.

Barack Obama wasn't completely horrible at community organizing, and so became a state senator. He wasn't completely incompetent at that (even though he was laughed at by his peers on more than one occasion), and became a candidate for U.S. senator. He won his race because his original Republican opponent, Jack Ryan, was even more incompetent, and had to withdraw from the race he would have easily won because of a sex scandal. Obama was a completely unmemorable and undistinguished U.S. senator, and won the Presidency because his Democratic primary opponents and Republican doormat of a challenger were even more incompetent than he was. Oh... and because he promised "change."

Well, we asked for change, and we got it.

Like them or loathe them, All the previous Presidents of my lifetime (with the exception of Carter) have been able to project a veneer of competence in the Oval Office. I haven't always agreed with them and was sometimes outraged by their positions, but be they Democrat or Republican, I never doubted that they were leaders.

There is no leadership available to be harvested in the character of Barack Obama. He is from time-to-time a brilliant orator. He can excite a crowd and inspire them. He has the capacity, when he has the inspiration, to be a great cheerleader for a cause. But with every photo-opportunity, tightly choreographed public appearance, and perplexing hesitancy to act, more and more Americans are awakening to the horrifying fact that the man we elected to lead our nation for four years does not have it within his character to lead anything.

Sadly, we did this to him, and to our nation.

At no point in his life had Barack Obama ever show signs of competent executive experience. The one attempt he made to lead prior to the Presidency was an experimental school program that ended in abject failure after wasting tens of millions of dollars. Was it really fair of the American people to expect for him to succeed at the most important executive position on this planet with no prior experience of note on record?

Granted, the fault does not lie entirely with us.

The same ideological cheerleaders and pundits in the media that are now tearing down Barack Obama can only do so because they built him up and sold him to the American people in the first place. They created him not because of who he was or what he could do, but because of the opportunity he represented for them to feel better about themselves. The media created the myth of Barack Obama and protected their creation fiercely. They savaged or silenced those who asked inconvenient questions about his qualifications and experience, or utterly ignored to entertain the possibility that he was anything less than their progressive messiah.

Poor Barack Obama.

His erstwhile allies built him up to impossible heights, feeding his already substantial ego, telling him he was not just the best man for the job, but perhaps the best man for the job in recent memory. How easily that construct collapses. A hole a mile below the seafloor billowing oil has corrupted both the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the carefully crafted illusion of the President's competency as a leader.

Soon the same new critics of the President will "discover" that the man they supported for so long and who has failed as a leader during this environmental disaster has failed to deliver on his other promises as well. He has pushed his allies for a radical agenda but not put his own neck on the line for them, meaning they absorb the brunt of the public's ire, threatening the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. Obama has adopted many of the practical policies of his predecessor that the media spent eight years attempting to destroy, forcing them into uncomfortable and hypocritical silences.

The media made him by sheltering Barack Obama and creating a towering myth around him, but such appreciative mythology does not come without expectations, or a price. Out of a sense of self preservation his biggest champions are well on their way to becoming Barack Obama's greatest critics.

They have now begun pointing out the inadequacies of his Administration and his failures of leadership in dealing with the complexities of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

There will be no lower limit to his fall from grace once the media and his other Democratic allies reveal that his incompetence ranges far beyond just this one disaster.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:46 PM | Comments (6)

June 15, 2010

McCain Bores Petraeus Unconscious

It's like listening to his campaign speeches, all over again:

Michelle Malkin has what may be a slightly more accurate depiction of events.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 AM | Comments (7)

Arizona Seeks to Pass Law Denying Citizenship to Illegal's "Anchor Babies"

Quite frankly, it makes perfect sense.

A proposed Arizona law would deny birth certificates to children born in the United States to illegal immigrant parents.

The bill comes on the heels of Arizona passing the nation's toughest immigration law.

John Kavanagh, a Republican state representative from Arizona who supports the proposed law aimed at so-called "anchor babies," said that the concept does not conflict with the U.S. Constitution.

"If you go back to the original intent of the drafters ... it was never intended to bestow citizenship upon (illegal) aliens," said Kavanagh, who also supported Senate Bill 1070 -- the law that gave Arizona authorities expanded immigration enforcement powers.

The proposed law is sure to draw howls of protest from the Mexico and the American left, both of which will ferociously fight the law and claim it is unconstitutional.

But is it? Does the law really conflict with the intent of the Founders?

I'd be very interested to see any evidence that our Founding Fathers has any intention of giving citizenship to the children of criminals that sneak into our nation to give birth and siphon monies and services that should be providing care for American citizens that are in need.

Critics of the law are certain to point out the text of the 14th Amendment, which reads in part:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Any honest person will be forced to admit that the context of the Amendment was to make sure that slaves freed after the end of the U.S. Civil War and their children could not be denied citizenship. It was never intended to allow criminal aliens to gain a contrived legal foothold to stay in this nation.

While Democrats and other supporters of criminal immigrants like to claim that Arizona's proposed law is unconstitutional, the simply fact is that the specific constitutionality of such a direct and targeted law has never come before the Supreme Court.

If Arizona passes this law, I fully expect that liberals will scream and wail. What will be very interesting to watch is how fast and far they are willing to push with court challenges to test the law.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:03 AM | Comments (13)

June 13, 2010

How Should We Treat a President That Pathologically Lies?

President Obama's preposterous claim was such a bald faced-lie that I'm not sure how Lori Montgomery managed to get past the first paragraph of her article without collapsing from laughter:

President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters" and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.

It was a load of crap when Obama made this exact same claim in October of 2009, a load of crap when House made the same claim in December of 2009, it is a load of crap now, and will be a load of crap in six months or a year when he asks for billions yet again.

Barack Obama has not saved the jobs of teachers, police and firefighters; he's saved the jobs of mid-level politicos, inefficient bureaucrats, and blustery, blundering public-sector stooges.

The current bureaucrat bailout is a stop-gap measure to preserve—for purely political reasons—the size and scope of government, to add to the size of government, and to keep our increasingly fictional unemployment figures from spiraling into the earth.

Despite wasting billions of taxpayer dollars, the Democratic Party has done nothing to help the economy. We shouldn't be too hard on them, however; you can't expect them to be able to help the economy, because liberals don't understand basic economic principles. Their buggered thinking tells them that more and bigger government solves problems, and they are simply not wired to understand that the massive tax liabilities and and billion-dollar mandates are detrimental to economic growth.

Telling a Democrat to pass more legislation to help the economy is like telling a lamprey to suck harder to help the fish. The parasites will do everything they can to work harder, but the simple fact of the matter is they are not built to help. They are build to suck the life out of their hosts.

Teachers, firefights and police officers are vital public servants. Their jobs are secure, and we all know it.

Barack Obama lies about the real purpose of this bill—funding useless bureaucrats—because he knows you will not tolerate such waste. He can't help himself, though.

Parasites are parasites by nature, and it is useless to expect them to change.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:57 PM | Comments (9)

June 11, 2010

Beastly Thoughts

Is Tina Brown trying to say that in her little world, women aren't women if they don't share her views?

Former New Yorker editor Tina Brown appeared on Thursday's Good Morning America to deride the mostly Republican women who won primaries on Tuesday as "wingnuts" and to sneer that they represent a "blow to feminism."

GMA's "Morning Mix" segment featured Brown and journalist Catherine Crier, part of a panel that usually includes reporters agreeing with each other over liberal talking points. After Stephanopoulos recited the numerous women who won nominations on June 8, the current Daily Beast editor dismissed, "...The only trouble with this one is, it almost feels as if all these women winning are kind of a blow to feminism."

I'd really like to hear Brown expound upon why she thinks that the success of conservative women is a blow to feminism.

I rather suspect she means it is a blow to the contrived and utterly useless liberal feminist ideology of victimhood... it certainly isn't a blow to equality.

And isn't equality what real feminists desire?

Update: Cassy Chesser calls Brown and her co-conspirators "fascist feminists." I think her label is probably dead-on.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:34 AM | Comments (9)

June 10, 2010

Bush-Hating Lefty Assaults Tea Party Protestors

Fox8 has the details:

A protest in Greensboro turned violent Tuesday when a former candidate for Congress and NC Senate was punched in the face.

Nathan Tabor, a business owner and head of the Forsyth County Republican Party and a former candidate for public office, says he and 25 other people were protesting government bailouts in front of Rep. Mel Watt's (D-N.C.) Greensboro office on Tuesday.

"We were just there to do our constitutional right to have a peaceful protest." Tabor said.

Tabor says they were protesting a proposed amendment that would give companies money to help with rising credit card fees. He says he was videotaping the event when Govenor Spencer, of Greensboro, approached the protest.

"About that time a gentleman walks around the corner and walks into the middle of the crowd saying it's all George W. Bush's fault. It's all Dick Cheney's fault." Tabor said.

The video shows Spencer and at least one protester arguing. Tabor says he stopped recording as the protest began to conclude and walked over to the sidewalk where his wife and 5-year-old daughter were standing.

"As I walked around the corner this gentleman pushed me. And when he pushed me the first time I turned my camera on and brought my camera up. I said please don't push me. And when I said that he slapped my camera." Tabor said. "He pushes me again. In the video you can see my body fall back. And I did not say anything to him, I didn't engage him. I was going to, until he touched me wife."

Tabor says Spencer pushed his wife and he pushed Spencer back. The video shows Spencer then punching Tabor in the face.

Once again, video shows political violence from the left, and the dying liberal media ignores it.

Update: Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft notes that the assailant "is a union organizer, a socialist and a black liberation activist."

He also noted Spencer's car sported a Black Liberation Army sticker. for those of you who aren't familiar with the group, they were a militant Marxist organization that committed bombings, robberies and prison breaks.

If that sounds a bit like like the behavior of Barack Obama's mentors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn it should; the Weather Underground and BLA worked together in the Brinks Roberry in Nyack New York that gunned down cops and security guards. Dohrn actually did some jail time for her refusal to help in the case, and she was rumored to be a co-conspirator.

It should probably be mentioned that this was going on while Ayers and Dohrn were in Manhattan while a young Barack Obama was at Columbia, attending many of the same protests.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:33 AM | Comments (15)

He's No Innocent

Remember the Mexican teen that was shot earlier in the week by a U.S. Border Patrol Officer trying to make an arrest? It turns out he a known human smuggler and on a Border Patrol Most Wanted list.

I find myself having less and less sympathy for Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka and his family, which apparently profits from human smuggling... and who knows what else.

Does his criminal past justify his death? Of course not. Whether his assault on a federal law enforcement officer justified his shooting is a matter for authorities.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:24 AM | Comments (6)

June 08, 2010

How Fed Up Are Some Americans With Mexico? Very.

Polls have showed strong support for Arizona's immigration law even in blue states, but I was under the apparent delusion that people were drawing a distinction between illegal aliens from Mexico in the United States and Mexicans in Mexico.

If the commenters responding to this Yahoo! News account of a Mexican teenager begin shot to death by a U.S. Border Patrol Officer are any indication, I was way, way off.

Scanning through the first two pages of comments (which now number more than 1,200), it seems that many Americans have had it with Mexicans, period. Deluged with a constant stream of news about drug cartel torture, rape and murder, illegal immigration, and a hypocritical Mexican government that champions illegal immigration of the U.S. while violent crushing it on their own southern border, it isn't hard to understand their negative opinions. Our most common recent perceptions of our southern neighbor aren't flattering (to put it mildly), and Mexico has directly brought that negative attention onto itself.

Many commenters seem to care less whether or not the shooting was legally justified, and some seemed actually thrilled that the teen was dead. That Mexican authorities may have been captured on video crossing the border into the U.S. to retrieve the shell casing—perhaps to try to frame the U.S. officer as being inside Mexico by placing the casing on their side of the border—certainly doesn't help issues.

The incompetence of the Mexican government to handle corruption and criminality along the border has led to "corrective action" before.

The Mexicans need to get their house in order before a 21st Century America determines another punitive expedition is in order, and finds their own Patton to to cheer.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:25 PM | Comments (6)

Durbin Creates "Bailout" for BP, Walmart, Etc.

Politics is a dirty business... we all know it.

That understood, there are practical limits to what the American people can stand, and Illinois Senator Dick Durblin seems to have jumped far over that line, listening to lobbyists who want to shift the cost of credit card transactions directly to the consumer:

The Durbin amendment imposes a price control scheme on the fees oil companies and retailers pay when they accept payment by credit cards. The amendment was conceived and pushed for by lobbyists for big oil companies and big retailers like BP and Wal-Mart. Their goal is simple — shift the costs of accepting credit cards from their bottom line to the consumers.

Durbin admitted that he offered the amendment after detailed discussions with a big retailer CEO. The bottom line is that the Durbin amendment will put billions of dollars into the pockets of Wal-Mart, big oil companies like BP and other big box retailers who depend on consumers and their credit cards for revenue. It's unfathomable that while the government has opened a criminal investigation into BP, the US Senate wants to hand them a massive check. Under the Durbin "BP Bailout" amendment, giant corporations will no longer be required to pay their fair share of the costs of receiving these services. Consumers will now pay those costs.

Democrats have long tried to claim the mantle of the "party of the people," but they have the problem of being as deep or deeper in debt than Republicans to big business interests, corporations and especially unions. Durbin's amendment is nothing more or less than an attempt to push the cost of doing business from the corporation to the consumer.

I wonder how much he cost.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 PM | Comments (7)

Was this Really Necessary?

An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal discusses the results of a poll of 4,835 adults that shows that the more liberal/progressive your politics are, the less you are able to square your belief system with a basic grasp of economic principals.

Doesn't watching our 535 Senators and Congresspeople on Capitol Hill, plus the cluelessness of the executive branch, prove the exact same thing with theri all-too-real impact on our actual economy?

Daniel Klein writes about a poll that provides evidence for an academic theory. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are proving that theory with deadly efficiency.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:30 AM | Comments (3)

Punk POTUS: Tough Talk, No Action

Obama Seeking "Ass To Kick" Over Oil Spill

There isn't but one person at the top, "Slick."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:07 AM | Comments (7)

June 07, 2010

Good News: Birther Could Wreck California GOP Ticket

Oh, Orly Taitz, why won't you just go back to Poland:

Orly Taitz is an Israeli émigré who has spent the past two years filing lawsuits challenging President Barack Obama's right to be president on the grounds that he was born in Kenya. In the process, she has earned herself $20,000 in court fines.

Now she's running for the GOP nomination for secretary of state, and with her establishment-backed primary opponent mounting a less-than-stellar campaign against her, operatives say there's a chance she could win.

"It'd be a disaster for the Republican party," says James Lacy, a conservative GOP operative in the state. "Can you imagine if [gubernatorial candidate] Meg Whitman and [candidate for Lt. Gov.] Abel Maldonado — both of whom might have a chance to win in November — had to run with Orly Taitz as secretary of state, who would make her cockamamie issues about Obama's birth certificate problems at the forefront of her activities?"

My view of the matter is that if the California GOP can't find a candidate for secretary of state that will beat a crackpot dentist, then they probably deserve to lose.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:22 PM | Comments (4)

June 04, 2010

SEIU Thugs Target Red Cross, Threaten Blood Supply

In any sort of threat-focused reality, SEIU bosses would be tracked by Predator drones and union membership lists simply rolled over into terrorist watch lists.

This is just the latest example why.

Is there any low to which the SEIU won't stoop? Now it's interrupting blood donations in a strike against the American Red Cross. The Boy Scouts and Baptist churches are also on unions' enemies list.

Demanding higher wages and better benefits, the Service Employees International Union on Wednesday launched a three-day strike against the Red Cross' blood donation operations. The job action comes as the nonprofit, in a realistic response to the weak economy, is cutting salaries, ending bonuses and reducing pensions.

SEIU thinks its members should not only be exempt from the Red Cross' efforts to live within its means, but actually get a raise.

But it's not about the money, you see. It's really about safety. "Cutting jobs, slashing wages and benefits of employees and cutting corners are affecting the safety of the blood supply," the union's Frank Hornick told the Parkersburg (W.Va.) News & Sentinel.

So SEIU's way to get a safe supply is to pay higher union wages? It's hardly compassion for consumers to hold 40% of the nation's blood supply hostage.

Threatening the blood supply is a threat to this nation's infrastructure, and the ringleaders of this plot should be thrown in jail. People's lives are quite literally at risk.

It's good to know that in such a time of crisis, our nation's leadership will respond to the challenge by focusing all their energy on doing that which is most important... yeah, I'm kidding.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:53 PM | Comments (28)

June 03, 2010

Congressional Black Caucus Members Try To Quash Ethics Office

It seems as if the corrupt don't want to be found out:

Stung by a series of inquiries, nearly half the members of the Congressional Black Caucus want to scale back the aggressive ethics procedures that Democrats trumpeted after gaining control of Congress.

Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, and 19 fellow black lawmakers in the all-Democratic caucus quietly introduced a resolution last week that would restrict the powers of the new independent Office of Congressional Ethics. The office, formed by Congress in 2008, is run by a panel of private citizens.

If I were a prosecutor, the list of co-sponsors for this bill would get more than their fair share of attention. Could they proclaim any louder that they have something to hide?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:32 AM | Comments (1)

May 28, 2010

400 Temps Swarm Beach for Obama Oil Spill Photo Op, Then Disappear

Pathetic.

Even more pathetic? Knowing that the White House will cite every one of these temps as jobs created in their next round of fantasy employment statistics.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:52 PM | Comments (8)

May 27, 2010

Obama Makes Bad Move in Alleged Sestak Job Offer

President Obama said at his press conference today that he "can assure the public that nothing improper took place" in conversations between the White House and Rep. Joe Sestak, who suggested earlier this year he was offered a White House job in exchange for dropping his primary challenge against Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter.

And Nixon said he wasn't a crook, either.

As others have pointed out, there aren't too many scenarios here, and none are good from Democrats. Either Sestak is lying, or someone in the Obama Administration seems to have committed a felony.

But by responding to these charges himself, Obama can no longer pretend to be above the fray, and has involved himself as an actor in any potential scandal that could erupt from the possible crime, or the presumptive cover-up.

It wasn't a very smart move on Obama's part.

But then, so few things in his Administration have been anything resembling smart.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:26 PM | Comments (7)

May 26, 2010

Fleeing the Scene: Obama Doesn't Want to Be Tied to Obamacare

It appears that the White House objected to ABC's Jake Tapper referring to Obamacare as Obamacare, considering it a pejorative.

Hey, the rest of us hear "Obamcare" and think of plenty of pejoratives as well, but since you forced this down our gullets, Barack, own your mistake.

You are admitting Obamacare is a mistake, yes?

If it isn't a mistake, then why aren't you proud of it, this legislation you wanted so badly to be your legacy?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:04 AM | Comments (1)

May 25, 2010

Spending-Crazed Congress About to Pass Bill That Creates Billions in Taxes, Billions More in Spending, And Wrecks the Economy... Media Deathly Quiet

Hot Air posted on this, or I would have missed Keith Hennesey's deconstruction of this monstrosity entirely:

The bill:
  • increases infrastructure spending by $26 B over ten years;
  • extends a raft of expiring tax provisions, mostly for one year
  • provides funding relief for certain employer pension plans;
  • raises a bunch of taxes, mostly on businesses and a certain kind of partnership income called "carried interest;"
  • extends unemployment insurance benefits, increasing federal spending by $47 B over the next two years;
  • increases Medicare payments for doctors for eighteen months at a $63 B cost;
  • increases health insurance subsidies for the unemployed (through "COBRA") by $8 B over the next two years; and
  • increases federal Medicaid spending by $24 B for a six-month policy change.

CBO gives us the net budgetary effects of the bill over the 11-year period 2010-2020:

  • $40 B net tax increase;
  • $174 B spending increase;
  • $134 B deficit increase.

I count at least four reasons this bill deserves the title The Hypocrisy Act of 2010.

Make certain you read the entire thing, so that you understand Nancy Pelosi's radical Democrats are ramming through yet more health care spending by cramming in and adding to provisions of Obamacare, erasing even the pretext of the lie that Obamacare saves money.

How much more of this graft, tax and spend Congressional abuse can the economy stand before imploding?

I can only hope that when all is said and done, and this nation's economy collapses under the weight of their ever-present greed, that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama get their just desserts.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:01 PM | Comments (8)

The Thugs Want Their Cut; and They'll Wreck The Nation to Get It

A Democratic senator is introducing legislation for a bailout of troubled union pension funds. If passed, the bill could put another $165 billion in liabilities on the shoulders of American taxpayers.

The bill, which would put the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation behind struggling pensions for union workers, is being introduced by Senator Bob Casey, (D-Pa.), who says it will save jobs and help people.

As FOX Business Network's Gerri Willis reported Monday, these pensions are in bad shape; as of 2006, well before the market dropped and recession began, only 6% of these funds were doing well.

Although right now taxpayers could possibly be on the hook for $165 billion, the liability could essentially be unlimited because these pensions have to be paid out until the workers die.

Labor and the Left have been using their political power for years to extort exorbitant benefits out of companies, and they've done as good of a job in managing their pensions as they have the government. As the article states, 94% of these union pensions were in trouble before the recession.

Now Democrats want their incompetent constituencies bailed out by the taxpayers—again—and the bailout is, as the article states, unlimited. If passed, we will have to pay for this forever.

Not just no, but Hell no.
I don't know if it is arrogance, stupidity, or simply corruption, but Democrats can't seem to fathom that the public trough is not bottomless. They seem to think that they can keep appropriating funds that don't exist, and that if they pass laws, money will magically appear from somewhere to pay for it all.

Its amazing that so many on the left ridicule those of us who believe in God, and yet stake the entirely of their future on hopes of a fiscal miracle.

Washington is an addictive culture, and now more than ever before, Democrats operate like drunken sorority girls, living completely in the moment, doing whatever feels good without any thought towards the future, hoping that when they wake up in the morning, mom and dad will be there to settle up for all the damage they've caused.

Quite frankly, the collective actions of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, Senate, and White House could not be any more of a threat to this nation if it tried. Their fiscal irresponsibility is a far greater threat to this nation's future than collective actions of al Qaeda, Iran, and North Korea.

If we do not radically change the behavior of both parties in Washington (and the Democrats in particular), this nation will collapse, just as Greece and the European Union seemed destined to do in coming days.

Despite warnings sounded around the globe, free-spending enemies of our way of life such as Senator Bob Casey continue to push our nation towards insolvency at a quickening pace. No one in government or depdent on the government is willing to stop them... nor will they be, as the get rich off the labor of the taxpayers.

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.

The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs.

Most Americans hope that the elections in November will allow us a chance to save our nation via the ballot box.

Sadly, if we can't find a way to shut down the reckless spending of our current crop of politicians and force them towards the path of fiscal accountability and restraint before the mid-terms, any resulting change in personnel may come to late to save our way of life, or our nation's future.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:01 AM | Comments (7)

May 21, 2010

Breaking: Mexican President Calderone Lied to Congress

Let's not let a little thing like a huge lie get in the way of self-serving rhetoric (my bold below):

"There is one issue where Mexico needs your cooperation. And that is stopping the flow of assault weapons and other deadly arms across the border," Calderon said to a standing ovation from U.S. lawmakers.

Calderon said the increase in violence in Mexico had coincided with the 2004 lifting of a U.S. assault weapons ban.

The 10-year ban on the sale of assault weapons to civilians expired without being extended by Congress. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said the administration favors reinstituting the ban, though guns rights groups oppose it.

Calderon said he respects Americans' Second Amendment right to bear arms but said many of the guns are getting into the hands of criminals.

SEIZING GUNS

Mexico has seized around 75,000 guns and assault weapons in the last three years, Calderon said. He said more than 80 percent of them came from the United States and noted there were more than 7,000 gun shops along the border.

This was part of the same speech where Democrats gave Calderone a standing ovation for criticizing laws meant to protect Americans from his predatory citizens.

Calderone's claim that more than 80% of guns came from the U.S is a bald-faced lie.

The actual figure is less than 18%, and the number of guns purchased from dealers that made their way to Mexico was only eight percent; the majority of guns traced to the United States were stolen.

The bulk of firearms in the hands of the cartels are military weapons purchased on the black market, with a sizable percentage purchased or stolen from the Mexican government itself.

Corruption in Calderone's own government has provided far more machine guns to the cartels than he could ever dream of getting from U.S. gun stores.

That is the uncomfortable truth that he would rather ignore.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:20 AM | Comments (12)

May 20, 2010

Coward In Chief

Physical evidence proves that a North Korean homing torpedo sank the south Korean frigate Cheonan on March 26. Despite the fact that 46 sailors were killed in the attack, our gutless administration refuses to faces the incident honestly, refusing to call the sinking of the Cheonan an act of war.

Administration officials would not go so far as to label the attack an act of war -- White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he would not get into "hypotheticals" when asked if the dispute could lead to war. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States is focused on supporting its "strong ally" while at the same time considering "stability in that region."

Mirroring his bosses, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates also refused to state the obvious:

The Pentagon's top leadership refused on Thursday to label the sinking of a South Korean ship an act of war.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the United States supports the finding that North Korea sank a South Korean warship in March. South Korea announced the finding this week.

Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, say the next move is up to South Korea. They would not discuss what options the U.S. might have, even though the U.S. is a close ally of the South and maintains tens of thousands of troops on the North Korean border to defend the South.

We are governed by an administration who cannot honestly address events out of fear of having to act issue a strongly worded statement if they admit out loud what occurred.

One day this President's craven acquiescence to evil is going to get people killed.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:49 PM | Comments (10)

Rand Paul's Dilemma

As soon as he won the Republican primary in Kentucky, Rand Paul was accused of being a racist by those on the political left. Ben Smith got his digs in at Politico, and of course, Think Progress ratcheted up their outrageously outrageous outrage up to "11," and their usual talking points-following crowd immediately followed suit.

Paul has trapped himself in an untenable position thanks to being a fairly rigid libertarian, and James Joyner does an excellent job of explaining how a non-racist libertarian such as Paul can paint himself into such a corner.

Paul’s views are identical to those I held when studying Constitutional Law as an undergrad and not all that far removed from my current position. There's no question in my mind that private individuals have a right to freely associate, that telling owners of private businesses whom they must serve amounts to an unconstitutional taking, and that it's none of the Federal government's business, anyway. Further, in the context of 2010 America, I absolutely think that business owners ought to be able to serve whomever they damned well please — whether it's a bar owner wishing to cater to smokers, a racist wanting to exclude blacks, or a member of a subculture wishing to carve out a place for members of said subculture to freely associate with only their kind out of purely benign purposes.

The problem, circa 1964, was that there really was not right to freely associate in this manner in much of the country. Even once state-mandated segregation was ended, the community put enormous pressure on business owners to maintain the policy. That meant that, say, a hotel owner who wished to rent rooms without regard to color really weren't free to do so. More importantly, it meant that, say, a black traveling salesman couldn't easily conduct his business without an in-depth knowledge of which hotels, restaurants, and other establishments catered to blacks. Otherwise, his life would be inordinately frustrating and, quite possibly, dangerous.

In such an environment, the discrimination is institutionalized and directly affecting interstate commerce. It was therefore not unreasonable for the Federal government to step in using their broad powers under the 14th Amendment. I'm still not sure parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (especially the issue in question here) or the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (especially treating individual states differently from others) are strictly Constitutional. But they were necessary and proper in the context of the times.

Paul's position may very well be accurate, but as Joyner points out, the probable unconstitutionality of portions of the law had to be weighed against standards of reasonableness in the context of the times in which the law was passed. The strict view Paul has taken is probably a constitutionally correct libertarian interpretation, but that is utterly irrelevant to the rhetorical campaign being waged against him.

In short, these stories do not seem to show that Rand Paul harbors racist sentiments or sympathies, but that his libertarian values are being used against him. I suspect that Democrats may try to keep pushing this issue or raise it again in the fall. Paul is going to have to come up with a less wonky response to this emotion-driven issue.

Right now, he doesn't seem to have one.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:37 AM | Comments (4)

May 19, 2010

Much Ado About Something

Arlen Specter was knocked out in his first run as a Democrat, even with President Obama's support. Blanche Lincoln faces a runoff against her Democratic Primary opponent, both of which are currently being handily beaten in polls by the Republican opposition. Ron Paul's son claims a Tea Party victory in Kentucky. Jack Murtha's seat in Congress was saved for the Democratic Party by the greed of his pork-addicted constituents.

You can find pundits on both sides to spin the results as a victory or a disaster (just as long as you sign their checks), but the simple fat of the matter is that last night's votes don't really amount to much, and November is very, very far away.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:30 AM | Comments (5)

May 18, 2010

"Family Values" Rep. Souder Quits in Disgrace Over Affair

There are few things more galling than someone claiming the moral high ground when they are actually bottom feeders. I feel sorry for Souder's family, and the family of his promiscuous staffer, but the two of them actually involved in this apparently long-term affair deserve whatever humiliations come their way.

The most shocking thing about this affair is that the other person was, in fact, a woman.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:19 AM | Comments (5)

Stolen Valor: Democrat Senate Candidate Falsely Claims Vietnam Vet Status

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal stepped in it, big time:

"We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam," Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. "And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support."

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.

Blumenthal eventually joined the Marine Reserves and served in a civil affairs unit, but never went to Vietnam during the war.

Hopefully, Connecticut's voters will treat him with the disdain he deserves.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:05 AM | Comments (3)

Jeremiah Wright Comes Out Swinging

"I am 'radioactive,' Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!"

You and about 300 million other Americans, pal.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:34 AM | Comments (3)

May 17, 2010

Woody Allen Supports Obama for Dictator

And yes, the aging pedophile was dead serious:

In an interview published by Spanish language newspaper La Vanguardia (that we translated), Allen says "I am pleased with Obama. I think he's brilliant. The Republican Party should get out of his way and stop trying to hurt him."

But wait - there's more!

The director said "it would be good…if he could be a dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly."

In other news, Barack Obama thinks he's brilliant, that the Republican Party should get out of his way and stop trying to hurt him, and that he would make an excellent dictator.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:16 PM | Comments (5)

May 16, 2010

Left-Wing Think Progress Advocates Stripping Citizens of Constitutional Rights Without Benefit of Trial, Conviction, or Notice of Even Being A Suspect

Think Progress, the propaganda mill for the radical progressive left, is seeking to strip away the Constitutional rights of Americans by doing what they do best: engaging in deception and perversion of the facts to serve a anti-American political agenda.

Their latest attempt is to use the fear of terrorism (without, of course, naming Muslims as the primary cause of terrorism, as that would not be politically correct) to advocate for the government to have the power to strip away the right of American citizens and resident aliens to purchase and own firearms with nothing more than the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen.

They couch their plea in an incredulous and deceptive pitch, asking:

"...if those on the terrorist watch list should be able to purchase firearms..."

The immediate, instinctive, and entirely emotional response for most people is going to be of course not. Luckily, our Founders sought to create a nation based upon the rationality of laws and not the swirling emotions of men.

Keeping real suspected terrorists form obtaining weapons is an admirable goal, but the simple fact of the matter is that the terror watch lists are ever-expanding, bloated, inefficient, and arbitrary. Children, the elderly, actors, soldiers, and even some of our most famous politicians (including Ted Kennedy) have been placed on these hastily-constructed and poorly maintained terror watch lists, and once on them for whatever imagined offense, it is very difficult to get your name of of them.

What Think Progress advocates is stripping Americans of their rights without the benefit of even being accused of of a crime. You will have no trial. you will have no judge, and no jury. You will have a Constitutional right merely done away with based upon a computer or some harried and incompetent Department of Homeland Security drone connecting your name to another person, or place, or thing that someone, somewhere, thinks might have in some way been related to some criteria they have decided is suspect.

Will keeping everyone on the terror watch list from purchasing guns stop, or even slow Islamic terrorism? As the most lethal attacks on American soil have all been committed with easily acquired objects (box cutters, household and industrial chemicals) the obvious answer is a resounding no.

Think Progress and their progressive, anti-American allies in the White House and Congress hope to erase our Constitutional protections by fiat and fear-mongering because they cannot convince Americans to give up their rights though honest discourse.

Marx, Obama and Alinsky must be proud.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:55 AM | Comments (13)

May 14, 2010

Red State: Kagan's Thesis Proves She's A Socialist

Not sure what a college thesis proves since many young academics without real world experience experimented with socialism before they matured, but a) Erick makes the case that the thesis is in line with her later writings, and; b) Barack Obama has surrounded himself with socialists and Marxist/Leninists his entire career, so a judge that currently supports socialism would certainly be someone he would find attractive as a nominee.

It is valid evidence by itself? Certainly not. Does it help paint a broader picture of her beliefs to augment her quite thin resume? Perhaps. Will it make a difference? Doubtful.

Baring a real stunner of a scandal hiding in the wings, get ready for Justice Kagan.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:24 PM | Comments (1)

Going Postel

The left-wing media are desperate to create some sort of smear to delegitimize the Tea Party movement, and having failed at false charges of racism, and false charges of violence, they're now stuck with pathetic attempts using minor academics to toss out absurd comparisons that Dan Rather would have the common sense to avoid.

Birchers? Klansmen?

Really?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:15 AM | Comments (6)

May 13, 2010

In the Best of Hands...

Just because you're the Attorney General of the United States doesn't mean you should actually read a short ten-page law before condemning it... does it, Eric?

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who has been critical of Arizona's new immigration law, said Thursday he hasn't yet read the law and is going by what he's read in newspapers or seen on television.

Also going by what he's seen on television, Holder has appointed Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs to run the interrogation unit at Guantánamo Bay due to his near 100% success rate in obtaining vital information from captured suspects while at NCIS.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:10 PM | Comments (4)

Laughter At McCain's New Border Stance

McAmnesty isn't fooling anyone:

Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) couldn't contain himself Thursday when he saw footage of Sen. John McCain's (R) latest campaign ad.

In the ad, the Arizona senator says that the state has to "complete the danged fence" along the Arizona-Mexico border. A sheriff walking with him responds, "Senator, you're one of us."

In an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Shadegg, who is retiring, could be seen laughing along with hosts Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, and Mika Brzezinski.

Hopefully, this will be McCain's last campaign.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:59 PM | Comments (2)

May 12, 2010

President Jerk

Some government officials remember that they represent not just themselves, but an entire nation, so they try to act at all times with class and decorum.

Barack Obama will never be confused with those people:

When President Obama was asked if he would play a round of golf with his talk-radio nemesis Rush Limbaugh, the response, relayed by a top Democrat, was: "Limbaugh can play with himself."
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:57 PM | Comments (7)

May 11, 2010

You're Fat and Stupid: White House Manufacturers Another Epidemic Requiring An Intrusive Big Government Response

They can't stop meddling:

A White House report warns, "The childhood obesity epidemic in America is a national health crisis."

The review by the Task Force on Childhood Obesity says one out of every three children is overweight or obese. The task force is a key part of First Lady Michelle Obama's campaign to solve the problem of obesity within a generation. President Obama ordered the comprehensive review of the issue.

The report includes familiar themes, emphasizing the importance of improved nutrition and physical activity. It also calls for some new and dramatic controls on the marketing of unhealthy foods.

The task force wants junk food makers and marketers to go on what amounts to an advertising diet. It says media characters that are often popular with kids should only be used to promote healthy products. If voluntary efforts fail to limit marketing of less healthy products to young viewers, the task force suggests the FCC should consider new rules on commercials in children's programming. It also challenges food retailers to stop using in-store displays to sell unhealthy food items to children.

The advisory panel proposes better food content labeling on products and vending machines. Restaurants and vending machine companies are urged to display calorie counts. The experts say the FDA and USDA should cooperate with the food and beverage industries to develop a standard system of nutrition labeling on the front of packages. The study also suggests that restaurants should re-evaluate portion sizes, improve kids' menus and list more healthy food choices.

Are there really people over the age of 12 with working brain cells that don't yet know that high-fat, high-sugar, high-calorie meals are unhealthy?

Like Obamacare, this latest initiative is about control, not health. It is the latest attempt by progressives to usurp power over even the most mundane parts of our lives, and turn a once-free nation into obedient servants.

Michelle Obama is joke of a face for this campaign. Her last paying job was to find a way to dump hospital patients back on the street, and her parenting skills include subjecting her daughters to a racial supremacist church.

Don't tell us how we should raise our kids, Michelle, when you've set such a horrible example for your own.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:26 PM | Comments (8)

May 10, 2010

Bill and Ted's Excellent Arson Adventure

Someone in Montana doesn't like medical marijuana.

For the second time in as many days, a medical marijuana business in Billings, Mont. has been the target of an attack.

This, as the city council in Billings is set to vote tonight on whether to place a moratorium on medical marijuana businesses.

This morning, a rock was used to break the glass of Montana Therapeutics, and a beer bottle filled with gasoline was lit and thrown inside. The attacker spray-painted "NOT IN OUR TOWN" on the storefront.

Another account cites video evidence that the arsonists in at least of of the attacks were a pair of young men. The question of the hour has to be, "what motivated these young men?"

Were they strongly against medical marijuana? Or are we looking at a couple of angry young drug dealers who didn't want legal stores cutting their profits?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:51 PM | Comments (7)

Campos: Is Kagan Obama's Harriet Miers?

I'm not a SCOTUS expert and won't pretend I'm remotely familiar with Elena Kagan's record, but Paul Campos looked it over, and found it very, very thin:

Yesterday, I read everything Elena Kagan has ever published. It didn't take long: in the nearly 20 years since Kagan became a law professor, she's published very little academic scholarship—three law review articles, along with a couple of shorter essays and two brief book reviews. Somehow, Kagan got tenure at Chicago in 1995 on the basis of a single article in The Supreme Court Review—a scholarly journal edited by Chicago's own faculty—and a short essay in the school's law review. She then worked in the Clinton administration for several years before joining Harvard as a visiting professor of law in 1999. While there she published two articles, but since receiving tenure from Harvard in 2001 (and becoming dean of the law school in 2003) she has published nothing. (While it's true law school deans often do little scholarly writing during their terms, Kagan is remarkable both for how little she did in the dozen years prior to becoming Harvard's dean, and for never having written anything intended for a more general audience, either before or after taking that position.)...

[snip]

...At least in theory Kagan could compensate somewhat for the slenderness of her academic resume through the quality of her work. But if Kagan is a brilliant legal scholar, the evidence must be lurking somewhere other than in her publications. Kagan's scholarly writings are lifeless, dull, and eminently forgettable. They are, on the whole, cautious academic exercises in the sort of banal on-the-other-handing whose prime virtue is that it's unlikely to offend anyone in a position of power.

If Campos' critique is accurate—and I'm going to proceed as if it is—we need to ask ourselves a very simple two-part question:

  1. What is the minimum level of competence, experience, intellect, and scholarship that we should expect in someone nominated to a lifetime position on the Supreme Court?
  2. Does Obama Administration nominee Elena Kagan meet these minimum standards?

I have no problems with Kagan being the nominee based upon her record, because she doesn't have a record to criticize. She is utterly unspectacular as a nominee in every way.

More than partisan loyalty, I suspect most Americans want the sharpest, most penetrating legal minds to serve this nation on the Supreme Court even, even when we disagree with their stances. Elena Kagan has shown no evidence of having that sort of intellect. She seems to be a competent if pedestrian academic, but aren't there thousands of Americans, if not tens of thousands, equally qualified at that level?

I'd rather the President nominate a brilliant mind I utterly oppose than a middling, if inoffensive candidate.

Americans deserve to have our best on the Supreme Court. I would like to see anyone make the serious argument that Elena Kagan is the best we can nominate for the highest court in the land.

Bueller? Anyone?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:09 AM | Comments (4)

May 09, 2010

PJM Exclusive: High School Where Flag Flap Occurred Hides Racist Secret

If you are a high school principal or assistant principal that has authorized a racial supremacist/seditionist group to have a presence on your school campus, you should probably not draw attention to yourself by castigating students who merely want to wear patriotic clothing.

If the administrators at Live Oak High School who allowed MEChA on campus aren't on administrative leave by the end of the week, then something is extremely wrong with the Morgan Hill Unified School District. That applies to any other school district that allows this group to sow racist sedition, for that matter.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:56 AM | Comments (6)

May 08, 2010

Blow Still Huffing and Puffing About Tea Partiers

Poor Charles Blow.

Like every other leftist op-ed writer in the NY Times stable, he continues to beat the drum touting the Tea Parties as racist, gosh darn it, even if he can't provide any direct evidence of that at all.

The irony lost on Blow and his comical compatriots is that they are wedded to disparaging a group that doesn't exist, and has never existed. They describe a Tea Party of knuckle-dragging Klansman manufactured in their fever dreams, not the congenial protests typically organized and run by moms and grandmothers.

There is hate surrounding the Tea Party. But it comes from Blow and his absurd leftist allies that long ago lost an unsupportable narrative.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:14 AM | Comments (3)

May 07, 2010

Corrupt Chicago Public Servant Throws Self Under Bus Train

Embattled Metra Executive Director Phil Pagano, under investigation by his own agency for financial issues, threw himself in front of a Metra train this morning and was killed, sources said.

It happened in an unincorporated area near Crystal Lake just after 8 a.m.

"It's very sad day for Metra," Metra board member Jack Schaffer said after emerging from a canceled meeting this morning that was to deal with Pagano's job status.

Pagano, executive director of the commuter rail service since 1990, was put on paid administrative last week amid a probe that he paid himself an unauthorized $56,000 bonus. The probe expanded to look at "more serious allegations of official misconduct," according to the attorney hired to conduct Metra's inquiry.

Pagano's salary was just under $270,000/year, and he still couldn't stop himself from (apparently) stealing.

He's the third corrupt Chicago politician to commit suicide in recent months.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:21 PM | Comments (6)

May 06, 2010

It's Time For Radical Steps to Rid Us of Illegals

I just watched a man (I didn't get his name) on Fox & Friends relate how his niece was brutally murdered by an illegal alien in 2005. She was one of more than 2,200 people murdered every year by illegal aliens.

At a time where spoiled basketball millionaires protest against the safety of American citizens, it is time to consider radical action to deplete and deport the criminal aliens that infest this nation.

Obviously, locking down the border should be our primary concern. Governors in border states have called upon the White House to deploy the National Guard; Bush, and then Obama, have turned a deaf ear. Congress, likewise, refuses to provide the funds needed to secure our borders. Our Department of Homeland Security? A joke more interested in confiscating toy guns and strip searching grandparents that protecting our citizens.

Our first actions should include attempts to impeach elected and appointed officials for violating their oaths of office. This should apply uniformly to Democrats and Republicans that have stood in the way of of border security.

As this occurs, state governors should attempt—again—to pressure the President to call out the National Guard to serve along our borders as aides for the border patrol, and those units with engineering capabilities can be put to work immediately hardening the border itself.

State and federal elected officials should allow residents and legal aliens an opportunity to be rewarded for pointing out the criminal aliens in our midst, but offering them bounties for the capture and deportation of illegals. Ensuring that bounties will be paid only for successful deportation and enforcing laws against filing false statements will make the information actionable, and provide American citizens a financial reason to do the right thing. Bounties of $250-$500 per illegal may not sound like much, but it will be enough to make a difference.

Most importantly, there needs to be a zero-tolerance policy for employers of illegal aliens. Businesses that are found to have intentionally skirted immigration law and who make a practice of knowingly hiring illegal aliens should not be fined. They should be shut down entirely. Make it unprofitable for employers to hire these criminal aliens, and even the underground economy of illegal day laborers will find themselves quickly out of a job.

If the federal government continues to refuse to act responsibly on this matter, states will be forced to act in their own best interests, just as Arizona has.

We are a proud nation of immigrants, and we respect and desire legal immigration and assimilation into our diverse society. We do not condone criminal immigration nor the radicalized segmentation preferred by pro-criminal alien radicals, and must protect our borders from those who would leach us dry.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:34 AM | Comments (8)

May 05, 2010

WaPo Upset Tea Party Groups Are "Battling Perceptions of Racism"

I imagine their alternate title was "How much longer must we toil to make this stick?"

As several states with active "tea party" groups prepare to hold important primary elections this month, the movement is struggling to overcome accusations of racism that are tinting perceptions of this loose network of conservatives.

The challenge is made tougher by one of the defining elements of the tea party movement: No one person controls it. There is no national communications strategy. And incidents of racist slogans and derisive depictions of President Obama continue to crop up, providing fuel for critics who say the president's skin color is a powerful reason behind the movement's existence.

Amy Gardner and Krissah Thompson are among the cohort of Obama loyalists that create accusations of racism by constantly insinuating that there is a problem of racism, without ever providing evidence much beyond imagery provided by LaRouche Democrats. Racist invective hurled at black Republicans has long been a staple of so-called "progressives," and the most "derisive depictions" of President Obama pale in comparison to the constant steam of caricatures, effigies, and threats directed at President Bush that these same journalists ignored for the proceeding eight years.

"Racism" is the charge brought up by progressives in the media and their elected allies because identity politics is all they have left. As more and more Americans realize that conservative fiscal policies are our best way out of this recession and that shrinking the government that the current Administration is so feverishly attempting to grow, sowing division—even where none exists—is the last desperate attempt to keep a real grass roots movement from enveloping and thwarting a radical President and his radical allies in Congress. Statists dream of establishing the ever more powerful, ever more controlling government that they seek to rule. Progressives want an easily led public with skin-deep diversity masking ideological conformity.

No wonder real ideological diversity, without strawman leaders to objectify and demonize, terrifies progressives so thoroughly.

Update: The progressive narrative continues to collapse.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:57 AM | Comments (11)

May 04, 2010

An Ideology of Naked Bigotry and Hate

Barack Obama purposefully described millions of American citizens with a sexually-explicit slur. Left-wing MSBNC shill Contessa Brewer is upset that the Times Square attempt couldn't be blamed on Tea Party protesters, and laments the fact that she can't ignore that most terrorists are indeed Muslims.

There has to come a point where the vicious partisanship shared by Brewer, Obama, and other progressives has to be recognized as nothing less than first-order bigotry and hatred that is antithetical to the hopes and dreams of what Americans aspire to be. Far from being able to carry out Dr. King's dream of being able to judge people just on the content of their character, we are instead saddled with a "progressive" movement blind to character, that uses the imagery of minority status as a cudgel, and which demands rigid ideological conformity from it's followers with no dissent allowed.

If you doubt this—even for a second—find a progressive forum and politely question any part of their orthodoxy.

Suggest that gays should be entitled to a co-equal status to marriage, but not actual marriage. Ask sincerely why adoption is not preferable to abortion. Mention that while you didn't agree with his Presidency, you think that George Bush was a good man who sincerely cared about people. Mention that you just "don't get" all the anger directed at Sarah Palin.

Then duck.

Such thinking—such questioning—is not allowed. Dissenters are brutally mocked and ridiculed. Internal conformity is demanded. Their hatred of the Other has spawned a movement less tolerant than the Klan and no more ideologically variable than the Khmer Rouge.

The ultimate irony, of course, is that they think they have diversity on their side. Perhaps they do have a point. They do have a diversity of color.

Just no diversity of acceptable thought, or any tolerance for those that would think for themselves.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:40 PM | Comments (9)

May 03, 2010

Violent Leftists Riot in Asheville May Day; National Media Silence Results

Imagine, if you will, what would happen if a group split off from a Tea Party protest and went on a rampage, smashing windows and vandalizing cars. Eleven are arrested, and some of those have known ties to right wing militia groups.

Don't you think that dozens of stories would have flooded network news and talk shows, and that government officials—perhaps Obama himself—would decry the right wing violence?

Well, that likely would occur if the violence was right wing in origin, but when a group of radical leftists split off from the main crowd at a pro-communist May Day parade in Asheville, NC over the weekend and went on a rampage, the national media utterly ignored it.

I've found only a handful of local stories about the violence, and none dare identify it as left wing in origin, though the Mountain Express comes closest.

Last night around 10:45 p.m., vandals shattered glass at several businesses around the Battery Park Avenue area, including the Eye Center, Bella's, the Asheville Citizen-Times, the entrance to the Grove Arcade, Cucina 24, an RBC Centura ATM and the glass etching landmark across the street from the Arcade. Several cars in the area were also damaged. Reports at the time described around 20 people wearing dark clothing, breaking windows.

"The subjects were wearing masks and face coverings and are estimated to have damaged at least eight vehicles and five businesses," an announcement from the Asheville Police Department reads. "Officers from all districts responded, as well as a K-9 unit and Forensics staff."

So far, 11 people have been arrested by the APD. Most are from outside the Asheville area. They are:

Jordan M. Ferrand-Sapsis, 24, of Oklahoma City, Okla.; Naomi Rachel Ullian, 26, of West Chestnut St. Asheville;
 Marshall Rogers Tingler, 24, of Oklahoma City
; Daniel Heinz Regenfcheit, 26, of Carrboro; Karen Leigh Alderser, 19, of Carrboro.; Alissa Marie Batzold, 18, of Carrboro; Havely Carolyn Carsky, 23, of Meadow Lake Road, Asheville; Randall Duncan Stezer, 17, of Graham; Wyatt Sherman Allgeier, 19, of Mount Pleasant; Cailin Elizabeth Major, 25, of Milwaukee, Wis.
; and Nicholas Ryan Entwistle, 19, of Kansas City, Mo.

The article goes on to mention that two of those arrested are anarchists, affiliated with known radical left-wing groups. You won't find any mention of the politics of those arrested, even though their leftist radicalism seems to be at the heart of their violent rampage. The evidence is too circumstantial, I'm sure the media would suggest, even though Ferrand-Sapsis helps publish a radical prison newsletter routinely censored for incitement, and Major is being sued for civil rights violations for attacking churchgoers as part of militant pro-gay group Bash Back.

Don't look for Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann to froth with outrage over the violence; it comes from their side. Don't expect Janet Napolitano to issues vague warnings about left wing terror. Don't expect Congressional liberals to express faux "concern."

You see, left wing political violence doesn't exist... even when it does.

Update: Ed Morrissey notes a similar riot—and anemic media response—in Santa Cruz, CA.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:42 AM | Comments (12)

May 01, 2010

National Enquirer Ready to Break Obama Cheating Scandal... That I Wrote About Two Years Ago

Go to the Enquirer for the taste of exploitive naughtiness and rumors of video, and then to this October 29, 2008 CY story for the details the Enquirer left out of their teaser.

Keep in mind that I interviewed the driver (who is not a professional limo driver, but the National Operations Director for a PR firm Obama had hired for his 2004 Senate race), published the story here, and then offered the source's contact info to the MSM so that they could do their own investigations... but ABC News and NBC News had already interviewed the driver, and chose to squash the story.

Other media outlets also apparently knew of the affair and the willing witness, and sat on the story as well.

Let's be very frank. If any of these new organizations had printed the truth regarding Barack Obama's affair with Vera Baker just a week prior to the election, he would not be our President.

The lesson here?

If you have important information about a political candidate for the most powerful elected position on planet Earth and need it to be dissiminated, make sure you make your first call to a reputable news organization without a partisan axe to grind... like the National Enquirer.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:01 PM | Comments (7)

April 30, 2010

Dems: "Show Me Your Papers"

Let me see if I understand this logic.

The pro-criminal immigrant lobby is crying that Arizona's self-defense immigration law is the equivalent of Nazi Germany and other totalitarian states requiring people to carry onerous documentation everywhere they go, drudging up the ominous imagery of MP40-toting German soldiers demanding, " show us your papers."

The Democratic response?

Something even more intrusive:

Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure...

[snip]

“The cardholder’s identity will be verified by matching the biometric identifier stored within the microprocessing chip on the card to the identifier provided by the cardholder that shall be read by the scanner used by the employer,” states the Democratic legislative proposal.

The American Civil Liberties Union, a civil liberties defender often aligned with the Democratic Party, wasted no time in blasting the plan.

"Creating a biometric national ID will not only be astronomically expensive, it will usher government into the very center of our lives. Every worker in America will need a government permission slip in order to work. And all of this will come with a new federal bureaucracy — one that combines the worst elements of the DMV and the TSA," said Christopher Calabrese, ACLU legislative counsel.

It sounds crazy, right? Not hardly. You just need to understand their agenda.

The government-loving nanny-state left wing would want more control over the lives of our nation's legal citizens... even as the proposed law would do absolutely nothing to stop criminal immigrants that work in the underground economy, off the books, as millions of criminal aliens already do.

The simple fact of the matter is that importing as many criminal aliens as possible and converting them into voters is the long-term survival strategy of the Democratic Party, and they will never champion laws that protect the integrity of our nation's borders or strengthen our national defense if those run counter to the needs of the Party.

The Democratic Party—and I wish to clarify that I mean the progressive left wing that currently runs the Party—are driven entirely by their desire to grow their power and exert control over this nation's citizens through intrusive government, and are quite content to use invaders who are not citizens as pawns in that game.

This latest stunt is just one more example of their strategy, and another reason the left wing must be destroyed to restore this nation to the land of opportunity our Founders intended.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:44 AM | Comments (12)

April 29, 2010

Obama Shows His Marx

Via Hot Air comes Mark Levin, catching Barack Obama going off-teleprompter for a moment and letting his socialism slip out:

We're not, we’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.

Previous leaders of our Republic have proudly boasted of this nation as a land where anyone can grow up to be anything they aspire to be with hard work and determination. Barack Obama is the first to attempt to saddle that dream and denounce that aspiration, saying "no, you've had enough."

What an arrogant, anti-American bastard we have saddled ourselves with as President.

And what shallow, easily-led fools were are for putting him there.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:01 PM | Comments (8)

Violent, Racist Senator Discovered... Guess Which Party?

Oh, come on... you already know:

It looks like the circus and childish antics are rearing their ugly head once again in Albany.

It started as an angry blow-up, and then it escalated. A state senator with a history of anger management issues says his race-based rant was part of his fight against the "evil of white supremacy."

Brooklyn State Senator Kevin Parker is a well-documented hothead, and on Wednesday he took to the airwaves to unapologetically defend his latest shouting match.

"It's par for the course for what we have to do in Albany – fighting the forces of evil," Senator Parker said.

Parker shockingly identified the "enemies" he's fighting as other senators.

"These long-term, white supremacist, you know, Republican senators," he said.

Don't ask Parker to rationally explain why state senators doing their jobs are white supremacists... he can't give you a rational answer, because there isn't one. The best he can do is claim minority status and perpetual victimhood in an embarrassing display of the intellectual bankruptcy that has paralyzed modern "progressive" thought.

If that wasn't bad enough, consider this wasn't his first temper tantrum. He may soon face jail time because of his violent, childish behavior.

There have been other temper tantrums involving the senator. Last year he was accused of felony assault after doing $1,000 in damage to the car of New York Post photographer William Lopez and smashing his camera after he snapped Parker's picture.

Two years ago, an aide filed charges against Parker, claiming he pushed her during an argument and smashed her glasses. In 2005, Parker was accused of punching a traffic agent in the face. The charges were dropped after parker[sic] agreed to take anger management classes.

Senator Parker is due in court next month on the assault case. Sources tell CBS 2 his attorney is trying to cut a no-jail deal, but the district attorney isn't buying it.

Of course, I'm probably a racist for pointing this out.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:14 AM | Comments (5)

April 28, 2010

In Praise of Profiling

Arizona's law targeting criminal immigration has drawn tremendous amounts of fire for giving law enforcement officers in that state the procedural tools to require citizens prove who they are, and that they are in the country legally, if (and only if) they are stopped for suspected law-breaking.

Criminal immigrants, their support organizations, and various groups that seek to profit from these criminals are trying to claim that the law is illegal and unconstitutional "racial profiling," and that it will unfairly focus law enforcement on minority populations by targeting the criminals that reside in or transit this nation illegally.

Jamelle Bouie provides us with a typical anger-filled example of this thought pattern:

One of the most objectionable things about Arizona's law is the blatant racial profiling, but that doesn't seem to phase most conservatives. Jonah Goldberg doesn't see a problem with it. George Will doesn’t see a problem with it. Byron York doesn't even understand that it is racial profiling (note to Mr. York: the difference between flashing your ID at the DMV and being asked for your papers is that the latter will only happen if you're brown). There's a straightforward explanation behind this tacit support for racial profiling in Arizona; simply put, conservatives have long been defenders of racial profiling in law enforcement.

You only have to look back five months — after the failed "underpants bombing" — to see conservatives voice their enthusiasm for anything that would give extra scrutiny to brown people. Tom McInerney, a retired Air Force general, proposed that we "be very serious and harsh about the profiling," especially if "you are an 18 to 28-year-old Muslim man," in which case "you should be strip-searched." The National Review's Andy McCarthy endorsed the view of the Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens, who argued that profiling was necessary given that "suicide bombing is a purely Islamic phenomenon." Even conservative elected officials are willing to voice their enthusiasm for profiling. In an Armed Services Committee hearing on Fort Hood, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) declared that he "believes in racial and ethnic profiling."

In fact, the conservative enthusiasm for racial profiling goes beyond national security and immigration. Conservatives tend not to see a huge problem with the fact that African-Americans are disproportionately stopped and searched by law enforcement.

There is a simple reason that humankind has used profiling techniques for thousands of years: they work. And there is another unpleasant fact that some would rather ignore:

This nation has been in a long emotional discussion concerning the use of profiles by law enforcement officers. Unfortunately, this debate has been entitled, "racial profiling." There is a saying in debating, "If you can define the terms, you win the contest." Utilizing the term, "racial profiling," ensures that the debate will be negative in tone and divisive in nature. I propose that instead of inflaming emotions, we take a look at what actually is being done in this area of enforcement. This issue is so important to law enforcement and its efforts to interdict drugs and terrorists that a dispassionate examination is essential.

No government agency or law enforcement association, in their interdiction training, teaches that race is a characteristic of criminals. Not the Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Customs, The International Association of Chiefs of Police or any national police association, period. Officers are taught to look at the individual for characteristics or indicators of criminal activity. These characteristics, when seen in clusters by trained officers, have been recognized as a valid investigative tool by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Those who purport to be shocked that ethnic groups are over represented in the population arrested for certain criminal activities must have been in a prolonged coma. The fact is that ethnic groups control the majority of organized criminal activity in the United States. They also tend to hire as their underlings and couriers others of their same group. Why? Because these are the people they grew up with, feel comfortable around and because it's human nature.

The truth is, if you work criminal interdiction in this country, you will not arrest the same percentages of ethnic groups as represented in the U.S. general population. People may not like it but that is the reality.

Profiling certain groups for certain types of criminal activity is legal, justified, and proven under fire in the justice system.

Jamelle Bouie may not like reality, but reality doesn't change based upon what is convenient or easy, or because the community-based reality would rather not address empirical truths.

It is an unquestioned statistical fact that black males are more likely to be arrested, incarcerated, unwed fathers, school dropouts, and victims of violent crime than any of their peers in any other significant ethnic group not because of some bias against them, but because they drop out of school more frequently, embrace cultural norms that devalue the family structure, fatherhood, emotional maturity, and responsibility, and they commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes (often at the expense of their peer/victims) with weapons that can lead to serious injury or death.

Likewise, because of our geography and sociopolitical dynamics in this hemisphere, is it far more likely that criminal immigrants will be from nations in Central and South America, and therefore, of the native and/or Hispanic ethnicities that dominate those regions. Obviously, ethnicity is not the only criteria that law enforcement officers use in building a profile. They also look for indicators and characteristics that may indicate illegal behavior or criminal affiliation, and it these additional markers that often make the difference between a simple speeding ticket and a more detailed investigation that may lead to criminal arrest.

But to pretend that there is anything wrong, immoral, or unconstitutional in recognizing ethnicity as part of an overall profile is absurd.

Profiling—think of it as characteristic clustering—has been used and refined around the world for thousands of years, because it is an effective tool that catches criminals and cuts down time wasted interrogating law-abiding citizens who have done nothing wrong.

If one didn't know better, one might think these liberals were champions of criminal behavior. But that couldn't be right. Could it?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:31 PM | Comments (11)

Dingy Harry: Defying My Will is "Un-American"

November can't get here soon enough:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) accused Republicans of being "anti-American" by demanding changes to a Wall Street regulation bill before it's debated openly on the Senate floor.

Speaking to reporters just before the Democrats' third attempt to break a GOP filibuster on the issue, Reid said that Republicans "keep stalling, keep stalling." He charged Republicans with trying to pick apart the bill before it even comes to the floor where both sides could offer amendments and openly debate the measure.

"Even some Democrats would like to offer amendments on this bill," Reid said. "All of this talk from Republicans about wanting to do something about this bill before it gets on the floor is really anti-Senate and anti-American."


Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:26 PM | Comments (2)

Reuters Confirms: AZ Law Targeting Illegal Aliens Is Likely to be Very Effective

Granted, that was probably not the intent of this article lamenting the personal concerns of several illegal aliens, but that is nonetheless exactly what they reveal. They interviewed three of these criminals (you do remember that all illegal immigrants are criminal by definition, don't you?). One said he would stay, but try to keep a low profile. Another said he would return home to Mexico. The third said he would leave for another state.

While grossly too small to represent anything approaching a useful sample size, this anecdotal evidence strong suggests that many criminal aliens will leave Arizona as a result of their new law.

If the law survives the legal challenges that are sure to come, it may have the effect of relieving some pressure on overburdened social services, will free up positions for lower-skilled citizens that need work, and presumably lower crime rates as well.

If those hypothetical results turn out to be verifiable facts, how quickly do you think other states will adopt similar measures?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:57 AM | Comments (4)

April 27, 2010

Who Should You Believe, The Spectator or the Actuary?

The American Spectator claims that the White House and Health and Human Services hid the true cost of Obamacare prior to the vote.

Medicare's Office of the Actuary denies the report was delayed. Some are attempting to parse the wording of his statement into a non-denial denial, but it seems rather straightforward on first read.

The American Spectator sources inside HHS—and they do appear to be multiple sources—indicate they and the White House has the report well in advance of the report, while the Actuary is claiming they didn't release the report until after the report.

We have a conflicting stories here, both claiming to come from insiders. Who to believe? My answer: both of them.

I think it is probably 100% accurate that the Actuary did not release the final and official report until after the vote.

I think it is also quite possible—actually, probable—that the Actuary was working on their report drafts with the draft versions of the Congressional legislation the entire time, and that HHS and the White House were privy to these late-stage report drafts and knew what the final report would say well in advance of the vote.

The question that a responsible news media needs to ask the Actuary is whether or not they were working on late-stage drafts of their report based upon the Democratic legislation in the weeks before the vote, and whether the White House, Congress and Health and Human Services were aware of those draft reports, and what kind of figures these drafts were suggesting.

The Medicare Actuary's denial in no way clears the Democrats in Congress and the Obama Administration, it merely suggests that they are practiced enough in their duplicity to not be caught red-handed.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:58 PM | Comments (2)

Supporters of Illegals are Siding with Criminals

What a joke.

Linda Greenhouse and the rest of the shrill Reds at the New York Times are quite welcome to their own opinions about Arizona's recently passed immigration laws, but they are not entitled to make up their own community-based realities that for all intents and purposes are lies.

Despite her hysterical cry that Arizona is a police state, the simple fact of the matter is that Arizona needs better policing. In case you've been head-down in a cave, you might have heard that there is a full-scale drug war going on just over the border between drug cartels and the Mexican government, and that the gangs are not only financing their war through drugs smuggled across this border the federal government won't defend, but also by kidnapping people inside the United States and holding them for ransom.

Where are the drugs coming across the border?

Where are the kidnappers infiltrating?

Where are they taking hostages?

Where are they running drugs?

The answer to all of these is, of course, Arizona.

I suspect if Linda Greenhouse had her community under constant threat of violence from heavily-armed drug dealers, had to worry about her friends and relatives being snatched off the street for ransom, and had to worry about the potential for facing a hail of gunfire from a skittish human smuggler as a part of her life, then her opinion of Arizona's law would change, and change quickly.

Arizona isn't becoming a police state, it is merely defending itself from becoming a police-less state. Their former governor and current Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has forsaken them. She has not protected Arizonans or America from the drugs and drug violence raging over the border, and her boss, Barack Obama, does not care either... perhaps content that his own illegal alien aunt lives in Boston, supported by American taxpayers.

Never have I seen such rage and resistance to protecting something as common-sense and fundamental as our nations' territorial integrity and our national sovereignty.

Illegal aliens do not belong here. They are here—see if you can follow—illegally.

Liberals and radicals are supporting criminal behavior by opposing Arizona's immigration law, which had to be passed because of the shameful actions of the federal government.

There is good news for illegals, though. It looks like they'll be welcome in San Francisco.

I trust they can find their way across the state border.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:17 PM | Comments (19)

Updated: White House, HHS Hid Report Exposing Cost of Obamacare

This merely confirms the fact that Barack Obama and his administration chose to deceive and defraud the American people in order to further their statist goals:

The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama's health care "reform" law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius's staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.

"The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote," says an HHS source. "Which is actually the point of having a review like this, you would think."

The analysis, performed by Medicare's Office of the Actuary, which in the past has been identified as a "nonpolitical" office, set off alarm bells when submitted. "We know a copy was sent to the White House via their legislative affairs staff," says the HHS staffer, "and there were a number of meetings here almost right after the analysis was submitted to the secretary's office. Everyone went into lockdown, and people here were too scared to go public with the report."

58% of voters already support repealing Obamacare. News that Obama and his allies deceived the American people by hiding this report will only push that number higher, while it simultaneously adds to the number of Americans who simply won't trust an Administration that has proven itself to be inherently corrupt and deceptive.

Update: Actuary denies the report was delayed. My thoughts on what this denial means are here.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:34 AM | Comments (1)

April 26, 2010

Breitbart: Audio Shows John Lewis, Andre Carson are Liars

He's right, you know.

If they weren't lying they'd stick to their guns instead of trying to hide or change the subject. There is a certain amount of disgust one must have for Civil Rights veteran John Lewis, Andre Carson, and other Representatives and hangers-on of the Congressional Black Caucus who apparently hoped to incite Tea Party protesters, failed, and then later decided to lie and claim racial epithets were hurled because their attempt at bigotry trolling failed.

John Lewis, who spent his life presumably fighting for equality, now seems little better than racists such as David Duke, Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton.

Indeed, it's amusing to watch liberals fume and huff over Duke's most recent comments about the Tea Party, but absolutely refuse to address the cesspits of racial hatred of their own racially-exclusive caucus and it's most recent orchestrated attempt to smear law-abiding citizens peaceably assembled to protest flawed legislation.

Until these faux liberals can admit the racism in their own midst, admit that minorities can be racist, and indeed, that some of the minorities who are the worst offenders hold positions of power in this Democratic Congress in general and the Congressional Black Caucus in specific, then they are simply not worth our further time or attention.

Breitbart has exposed real racists on Capitol Hill. Watch the liberals scatter as they try to avoid admitting that the bigots and liars are their own ignorant brethren.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:16 PM | Comments (2)

Framing the Coming Immigration Battle

"'Nobody wins' on immigration reform" blares the Politico headline. And they're right... immigration reform
shouldn't even be an issue until immigration enforcement is rock-solid.

The simple fact of the matter is that the Democratic Party prefers lax immigration enforcement and prefers to have a high influx of illegal aliens streaming over the border, regardless of crime they bring or the drain on social services meant for American citizens. These illegals naturally gravitate towards the politics of the party that will grant them the ill-gotten services illegal immigrants need to survive here, instead of forcing them to return home.

Democrats hope to then convert these millions illegals into Democratic voters by offering them amnesty and citizenship without terms.

Sadly, many Republicans seem scared of championing enforcement efforts out of political cowardice, fearing they will be branded racists... and to a certain extent they are correct, as illegal aliens and their Democratic allies have tarred every supporter of enforcement as bigots.

But respect for American values and law is on the side of the right, and this is a fight that must be waged.

Liberal Democrats are attempting to work this building political battle by casting it as a reform effort.

Conservatives and independents need to make sure that they speak the language of the enforcement of laws and respect for legal residents. Legal citizens far outnumber the coffer-draining tens of millions that the Democrats would conscript as political allies.

Americans respect the law, and revile criminals that steal from the hard work of others. Every illegal alien is a thief, taking services meant for American citizens and legal visitors to this Republic.

Republicans must wage a battle to secure the finances and manpower to enforce existing laws, and make certain that this is the battle that is waged. Democrats don't want reform. Democrats don't want to protect our nation's borders. They desire power, and they don't care how many citizens are denied services or are forced to pay more than their fair share because of these foreign invaders.

We demand that the government builds an effective physical border that makes it far more difficult for illegals and drug runners to invade out nation without detection. We required that it be staffed with as many law enforcement officers as it take to capture those trying to sneak into our nation. We will accept no amnesty. Any alien captured should be stripped of their assets to pay for the cost of deportation. Employers that refuse to comply with existing laws against hiring illegals must be shut down.

We don't need "reform" that only enriches the electoral hopes of Democratic party politicians. We need real enforcement that stands up for the rights of all Americans.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:01 PM | Comments (3)

Wannabe Cop, Wannabe Assassin?

Sunday afternoon law enforcement officers arrested an armed Ohio man who said he wanted to meet President Obama. Was this a poorly-organized murder plot?

An armed man spotted at a North Carolina airport parking lot just after Air Force One departed Sunday told an officer he wanted to see the president and had a car equipped with police gear, including a siren and flashing lights, authorities said.

Joseph Sean McVey, 23, of Coshocton, Ohio, is charged with going armed in terror of the public, a misdemeanor, said Asheville Regional Airport Police Capt. Kevan Smith.

Security was heightened at the airport because President Barack Obama was leaving after spending the weekend vacationing in Asheville. He was headed to a memorial service for 29 West Virginia coal miners killed in an explosion.

At about 2 p.m., airport police saw McVey get out of a maroon car with Ohio plates and that he had a sidearm, Smith said. Both airport police and the Secret Service questioned him and he was taken into custody. The suspect was nowhere near the president's plane, which had just departed, and was in a rental car return lot that is open to the public, Smith said.

His car was equipped with clear LED law enforcement-style strobe lights in the front and rear dash, Smith said. The car also had a mounted digital camera in the front window, four large antennas on the trunk lid, and under the steering wheel was a working siren box. Smith said McVey was not in law enforcement.

"Going armed in terror of the public" is a bizarre and quite frankly idiotic North Carolina law. It is legal to carry a weapon openly on your hip in North Carolina, until it scares someone. If someone complains, or feels threatened for any reason at all (even if the person carrying the gun is making no threatening mannerisms or gestures) then cops can charge the otherwise legal gun carrier with going armed in terror of the public.

It is a stupid law, and the only law that I aware of that converts an otherwise legal activity into a crime based upon a third party's irrational fears instead of criminal behavior. North Carolinians have been trying to repeal this law for years, but a gun-hating Raleigh Democrat has bottled up in committee in the state legislature.

Anyway, going armed in terror of the public is a odd law to bring against a potential assassin, so the most rational explanation for it is that cops wanted a reason to hold on to him so that they can further investigate McVey's background and determine how much of a threat he might be, or if he even is a serious threat.

I'm not sure what the laws are regarding impersonating police officers, or if McVey ran afoul of other firearms laws, but I imagine we'll her more later today.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:25 AM | Comments (2)

April 24, 2010

Remember, Remember...

Jim Treacher has spanked Michael Scherer for his bed-wetting in Time's Swampland over the new (and brutally effective) ad from the Republican Governor's Association and their new site, RememberNovember.com.

Scherer bleats:

The politics and substance aside, this strikes me as a remarkable bit of political messaging, not just for its cinematic quality. The RGA, under the control of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, is clearly stepping out of the stodgy, safe territory it normally inhabits. It is aiming to tap into the vast well of anti-government fury now coursing through the nation. Who would have guessed that Barbour would embrace the symbolic value of the same would-be mass murderer as the Wachowski brothers?

It's amusing to consider how the left absolutely adored the anti-government message of V for Vendetta when it came out during the start of George W. Bush's second term as they attempted to portray him as a fascist, but are now offended that anti-statist rhetoric is proving effective against the real statist bent of the Obama Administration and the corrupt liberal Congressional leadership.

There isn't anything, of course, remotely close to a call for violence in the RGA message, just a rallying cry to raise funds for electoral justice.

That liberals such as Scherer are reduced to trying to message an effective ad into something else is merely a measurement of just how effective the ad truly is.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:46 AM | Comments (2)

April 23, 2010

Brewer to Hopey McChange: Eff Off

I'm sure you heard it elsewhere first, but Arizona's legislature passed a bill requiring law enforcement to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally. the bill was in more or less direct response to the federal government refusing to do their job of defending the border.

Arizona governor Jan Brewer had three options today:

  • veto the bill
  • let the bill pass without signing it
  • sign the bill

It was rumored that Brewer wasn't in favor of the bill and may have even wanted to veto it, and she was certainly getting a lot of pressure to do just that. At most, there was an expectation that she might allow the bill to become law without signing it.

And then Barack Obama had to open his mouth, calling the legislature and people of Arizona "misguided," and made the not at all subtle threat of directing his Justice Department to see what they could do to overturn it.

Obviously, that didn't sit well with Governor Brewer, who decided her citizens needed real hope and change, not empty rhetoric:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a controversial bill that seeks to crack down on illegal immigration.

The sweeping measure will make it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. It will also require local police officers to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are in the country illegally.

It takes effect 90 days after the current legislative sessions end in the next several weeks.

Before signing the bill, Brewer called the measure "another step forward in protecting the state of Arizona."

She said the bill "represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis that we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix -- the crisis caused by illegal immigration."

That Brewer signed the bill—and chose to follow up the signing with the rhetorical shot across Obama's box—seem to be in direct response to his attempt to bully the Governor into vetoing the bill.

One of these day he might learn to keep his mouth shut when all it can do is get him in trouble... but I doubt it will be any time soon.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:07 PM | Comments (11)

Obamacare Kills 2,500

Jobs, not people... at least for now.

The Sallie Mae layoffs are a direct result of the student loan takeover Democrats shoved into Obamacare.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:08 PM | Comments (5)

A Shock to None: Democrats Lied About the Cost of Obamacare

Most Americans knew that the unrealistic constraints placed upon the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) by the leftists that authored the bill meant that the CBO cost estimate of Obamacare was a fantasy.

The Health and Human Services Department just confirmed what we've known all along:

Economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department concluded in a report issued Thursday that the health care remake will achieve Obama's aim of expanding health insurance — adding 34 million to the coverage rolls.

But the analysis also found that the law falls short of the president's twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years. That increase could get bigger, since Medicare cuts in the law may be unrealistic and unsustainable, the report warned.

It's a worrisome assessment for Democrats.

It should be worrisome, but hardly unexpected. Democrats sold their political futures on cheap rhetoric and top-down bullying against the will of the majority of the American people.

There is a price to pay for that, and we'll know the exact cost in November.

Update: Obamacare's cuts to Medicare are already adding to health care costs in Kansas.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:56 AM | Comments (7)

April 22, 2010

An Updated Southern Strategy in the City of Brotherly Love

Philadelphia, you're... something.

17 years ago, Tom Hanks played the role of a real-life gay man (Geoffrey Bowers) attempting to survive AIDS and bitter anti-gay bigotry in 1987.

In 2010, incumbent Democrat Rep. Babette Josephs is cynically attempting to use homosexuality in her bid to stay in office... in a rather unusual way:

Veteran Rep. Babette Josephs (D., Phila.) last Thursday accused her primary opponent, Gregg Kravitz, of pretending to be bisexual in order to pander to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters, a powerful bloc in the district.

"I outed him as a straight person," Josephs said during a fund-raiser at the Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant, as some in the audience gasped or laughed, "and now he goes around telling people, quote, 'I swing both ways.' That's quite a respectful way to talk about sexuality. This guy's a gem."

Josephs' attempt to brand her opponent as not gay enough is just a slightly more palatable form of bigotry than that that drives supremacist groups around the world. Certainly, nothing in Joseph's remarks can be miscast as a call to violence, but her message is clear, he isn't one of us, and he can't be trusted.

So much for tolerance.

(H/T Allah)

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:32 PM | Comments (1)

File This Under "Duh." Tea Party Protesters More Peaceful Than Left Wing Protesters

Over at Newsbusters Candance Moore highlights a Christian Science Monitor story that notes Tea Party protesters may be getting preferential treatment because they are far better behaved than the left-wing rabble that typically bring violence to protests.

Predictably, the CS Monitor laments that the preferential treatment afforded to Tea Party protesters isn't fair, and may be unconstitutional... though they don't really do a good job of explaining why treating each protest group based upon the makeup of the crowd and their threat potential is anything other than common sense police work. Instead they cite "experts" and activists that try to claim that the police may be engaged in "viewpoint-based discrimination," which would mean they establish and enforce rules unevenly based upon whether or not they agree with the protesters.

They ultimately fail to establish that this bias is anything other than a pet theory, however, and leave the field open to the more logical conclusion that police agencies see less violence potential out of a group of mature adults than a crowd of militant 20-something anarchists.

The media is left labeling common sense as bias.

How far they've fallen.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:24 AM | Comments (1)

April 21, 2010

AZ House Passes Anti-Birther Bill

I doubt the state has the legal authority to ask candidates for birth certificates, but let's grant that it does for the sake of argument.

When asked for proof, Obama will merely turn over the same certificate of live birth that he's previously shown, and that meets the standard the Arizona House requires.

Whether by intent or incompetence, this is an anti-birther bill that will validate any state's recognized birth certification document as evidence of eligibility to run for President.

Can you say, "d'oh"?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:15 PM | Comments (5)

FBI & IRS Raid NY State Senate Majority Leader

Hello, corruption:

Federal authorities raided a government-funded clinic run by the state Senate's majority leader, one day after New York's attorney general accused him of siphoning money from it.

About a dozen FBI and IRS agents appeared Wednesday at the Soundview Healthcare Network in the Bronx, where a big canopy above the front door lists Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. as its president and CEO.

The agents removed Espada campaign posters and other items from an 8-foot-tall, 25-foot-long storage container behind the building. They also stacked boxes on the grass, and agents wearing blue or green gloves leafed through the contents and wrote notes.

Espada spokesman Steve Mangione didn't immediately respond to requests for comment left on his cell phone and through e-mail.

FBI spokesman Jim Margolin said only that the search was part of an ongoing investigation.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced a lawsuit accusing Espada of siphoning $14 million from the clinic. It said the money was used for lavish restaurant meals, trips to Las Vegas and Espada's campaign.

After hours of searching, investigators were still unable to recover Espada's party affiliation.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:18 AM | Comments (1)

April 20, 2010

Bill Clinton: Child Torturer and Killer

I'd never heard this before.

CS gas was used at the compound, in order, as senior White House adviser George Stephanopoulos said, echoing senior Justice Department statements, to "try and pressure" those in the compound. It was hoped, he said, that as this "pressure was increased, the maternal instincts of the mothers might take over and they might try to leave with their kids" (Washington Times, April 23, 1995).

But the FBI knew beforehand that adults in the compound had gas masks; the gas therefore would not put pressure on them. On whom, then? If the FBI knew that the adults had gas masks, but went ahead with the gas attack anyway, it is plain that this "pressure" was brought directly against the children because, as the FBI knew, they could not fit into adult– size gas masks. "Maternal feelings", the FBI hoped, would be unleashed in the mothers by watching their children choking, gasping and blistering from the gas.

The plan Reno approved and took to President Clinton for approval contemplated the children choking in the gas unprotected for forty-eight hours if necessary, to produce the requisite "maternal feelings". By taking aim at the children with potentially lethal gas, their mothers would be compelled, according to the FBI plan repeatedly defended by the Clinton administration afterwards as "rational" planning, to flee with them into the arms of those trying to gas them. [Emphasis added.]

An independent report on Waco written by the Harvard Professor of Law and Psychiatry, Alan A. Stone, for the then Deputy Attorney General Philip Heymann, says it “is difficult to believe that the US government would deliberately plan to expose twenty-five children, most of them infants and toddlers, to CS gas for forty-eight hours”. Unfortunately, however, that appears to have been exactly the plan.

The effect of CS gas on an unprotected infant exposed for only two to three hours is discussed in the report; in that case report, dating from the early 1970s, the child’s symptoms during the first twenty-four hours were upper respiratory; but, within forty-eight hours his face showed evidence of first degree burns, and he was in severe respiratory distress typical of chemical pneumonia. The infant had cyanosis, required urgent positive pressure pulmonary care, and was hospitalized for twenty– eight days. Other signs of toxicity appeared, including an enlarged liver.

Professor Stone's report is measured, careful and damning.

There is more at Volokh, and Dr. Stone's report suggests that some of the infants, toddlers, and children died as a direct result of suffocation caused by the CS gas.

President William Jefferson Clinton signed off on a plan that he knew would cause innocent babies and children to suffer the effects of CS gas... in fact, the entire plan hinged upon their torture and suffering.

Someone please explain to me why Clinton should not be brought up on felony charges and spend the rest of his life in prison for agreeing to a plan that counted on the torture of 25 innocent infants and children. Convince me that he shouldn't face the death penalty for those that suffocated to death because of his decision.

Clinton had the audacity to try to tell us Sunday to be wary of another Timothy McVeigh. Evil bastard that he was, McVeigh's plan didn't hinge on the torture and abuse of children. Bill Clinton's did.

His life should end in a federal prison.

Sadly, we all know that will never happen.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:49 AM | Comments (12)

April 19, 2010

More Thuggish Threats of Teabagger Violence

That is what you call it when Democrats are arrested for threatening Republican politicians with violence, right?

A 66-year-old man was arrested Sunday for threatening Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.) last month, the FBI said.

The man, Erik Lawrence Pidrman, was arrested by FBI and local law enforcement agents Sunday afternoon.

Pidrman left a voice mail at Brown-Waite's district office saying, "Just wanna let you know I have 27 people that are going to make sure that this ***** does not live to see her next term."

Pidrman was a $250 Democratic donor to the 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign and a self-described blackout drunk.

Sounds like he'd be right at home in the State Department.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:17 PM | Comments (4)

Organized Thuggery Getting More Organized in NC

The Washington Post notes this morning that North Carolina Democrats are attempting to create a hard-left third party to oust those NC Democrats who voted against Obamacare. The State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC) is building an organization called North Carolina First in order to punish Democratic Reps. Larry Kissell, Heath Shuler and Mike McIntyre for their "no" votes on Obamacare.

It is worth noting that SEANC is a part of SEIU, the purple-shirted thugs that have assaulted people at several town hall meetings. SEANC is only marginally less bullying, as a family friend and a prison guard found out when blue-shirted SEANC members shouted down and intimidated attendees at a health care townhall meeting in Greenville, NC, last August 11th.

SEANC and SEIU are cut from the same dirty cloth, and so there should be little doubt that North Carolina First is actually Democratic Party First, Union Power Second, North Carolina Third (or Lower). I guess the more accurate DPFUPSNCTOL was a bit unwieldy and hard to fit on a sign.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:11 AM | Comments (6)

...And He Still Doesn't Understand

Bill Clinton took to the pages of the New York Times yesterday with an op-ed entitled What We Learned in Oklahoma City.

The former President laments the lives lost when Timothy McVeigh detonated a massive truck bomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah federal building 15 years ago today. He struck the right notes as we remember and mourn those who died in this act of mass murder.

But Clinton showed that he still doesn't understand the heart of the nation he led, nor its purpose or dreams with one telling paragraph:

Finally, we should never forget what drove the bombers, and how they justified their actions to themselves. They took to the ultimate extreme an idea advocated in the months and years before the bombing by an increasingly vocal minority: the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them. On that April 19, the second anniversary of the assault of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, deeply alienated and disconnected Americans decided murder was a blow for liberty.

Clinton is dead wrong when he questions whether or not the greatest threat to American freedom is our government. Of course it is. The Federal government is a far greater threat to our liberties than any external threat.

Protected by the breadth of the two great oceans and the world's most dominate air and naval forces and the most experienced, combat-capable Army and Marines in world history, there simply is no threat of foreign military invasion. Nor is any nation likely to challenge our economic might externally, as the American economy is the economic engine of the interconnected world... if it collapses, it hurts them as well.

It is a literal fact that the only significant and constant threat to our liberties is government, and especially the over-reaching federal government.

Clinton was always admired by liberals and reviled by conservatives for his ability to tell the American people a lie with the greatest sincerity. Perhaps that is still his greatest asset, as he tries to tell us just weeks after a far-left Democrat Party rammed through legislation that mandates we purchase a product of their choosing or face fines, that our public servants seek protect our freedoms, when it is obvious to us all that they abuse them.

He goes on to mention almost in passing the most telling thing about our would-be tyrants, when he nearly whispers:

Americans have more freedom and broader rights than citizens of almost any other nation in the world, including the capacity to criticize their government and their elected officials...

We almost have more freedom.

We almost have more rights.

What the former President will not mention is that our freedoms are declining under our current radicalized President and Congress. We now rank eighth in economic freedom, with "notable decreases in financial freedom, monetary freedom, and property rights."

The sad fact Clinton himself intentionally contributes to oppression, with this very op-ed attempting to draw parallels between today's peaceful protests against a power-crazed federal government, and the Oklahoma City terrorist attack that was a response to his Justice Department's inept handling of the Branch Davidian siege that left dozens of men, women and innocent dead.

The former President strays back on message almost accidentally, if for but a moment, when he mentions that, "Criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy," and "Civic virtue can include harsh criticism, protest, even civil disobedience. But not violence or its advocacy."

The sad fact of the matter, however, is that neither the explosively-tempered Clinton nor our notoriously thin-skinned current President or liberal Congress can handle even the most mild criticism without waging full-scale counterattacks in response. There has been precious little violence except that committed by leftists. There hasn't even been civil disobedience.

Instead, we have a former President hoping to tie an act of domestic terrorism 15 years ago to freedom-loving groups often led by genial mothers and grandmothers today. Why? Because they've organized protests, and have made remarks critical of his preferred ideology.

Bill Clinton's government was responsible for killing more American civilians on American soil than any President alive, and he seeks to chide Tea Party protesters for pithy signs espousing a return to the core principles of our Founders.

Have a Coke and a smile, Bill, and quit attempting to smear your fellow Americans for desiring freedom instead of government control.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:58 AM | Comments (25)

April 18, 2010

Why the Sudden Anti-Gay Hysterics From the White House?

I don't know the first thing about Judge Elena Kagan and couldn't care one bit about her sexuality preferences, anymore than I care about Samuel Alito's sex life.

The Obama White House, however, certainly made a scene when it got hysterical over Ben Domenech's claim that possible Supreme Court nominee was openly gay. Kagan's preference is apparently common knowledge on gay blogs, but apparently not something the White House wants broadcast.

Domenech eventually retracted his claim under pressure, but not before vehement White House denials made it appear that a charge of being gay was on par with child molestation.

I'm not really sure what message the Obama Adminstration is trying to send by telling everyone they support gay rights on one hand, only to turn around and make being gay sound like the most objectionable sin possible on the other.

At the very least it is bad optics, and quite possibly, evidence of their own underlying bigotry.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:58 PM | Comments (1)

April 16, 2010

Obama: Let Them Eat Cake

We learned during the 2008 Presidential campaign with his "bitter clingers" comment that Barack Obama's true feelings seep out when his guard is down in front of a friendly crowd.

It came out again last night at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Miami:

President Barack Obama said Thursday he's amused by the anti-tax tea party protests that have been taking place around Tax Day.

Obama told a fundraiser in Miami that he's cut taxes, contrary to the claims of protesters.

"You would think they'd be saying thank you," he said.

Point One: Obama is lying about cutting taxes. Sure, he's cut a few, but he's raised others, and the massive spending bender he and his allies in Congress have gone on since the 2008 elections mean that a significant increase in taxes is now mandatory... and we aren't even talking about the billions in unfunded liabilities Democrats are tacking on to the federal deficit that will drown future generations.

Point Two: How tone-deaf can a politician be? The very day that hundreds of rallies are held across the nation, with tens of thousands of protesters drowning out the scattered voices of his supporters, he chooses to mock the concerns of growing number of Americans. That goes beyond mere arrogance to outright stupidity.

"You would think they'd be saying thank you."

History will remember that with those sneering words, Barack Obama further alienated the liberal wing of the Democratic Party from Main Street America and converted on-the-fence conservative Democrats and independents into tens of thousands of new Tea Party Patriots.

Thank you, Barack Obama. Every time you utter gems like these, you move us one step closer to restoring this Republic to the principles our Founders held dear.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:50 AM | Comments (38)

April 15, 2010

Tea Party Crashers With A Sense of Humor

I suspect that as coverage unfolds throughout the day that we're going to discover that the bulk of individuals and groups trying to "crash" Tea Party protests are going to be young and surly and obviously out of their element, but at least one group at the Washington, DC Tea Party yesterday last year had a great sense of humor... and a nice flair for the dramatic.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:30 AM | Comments (1)

Another Lie Bites The Dust

That members of the Congressional Black Caucus lied about the use of racist language during their walk through a crowd of Tea Party protestors prior to the Obamacare vote is all but certain. Only the handful of black Congressmen—who took an unusual path to Congress through the crowd in a thinly-disguised attempt to provoke a response—claim that "n*gger" was screamed at them.

Dozens of videos were shot that day, at the time and location where the delegation trolled through the crowd. No one took the bait. The Caucus' own camcorder-toting underlings could not capture one slur. Men once championed as civil rights icons for standing against racism against blacks were revealed as cynical bigots who will use race as a weapon for the cheapest of political stunts.

Recently, so have tried to reignite the lie, claiming that Democratic Rep Heath Shuler (NC) walked with the Caucus and heard the imagined slurs.

That has now been debunked as well.

But he wasn't there. He was near Barney Frank, and did hear already documented slur uttered at his expense (though somehow missed the alleged f-bomb the foul-mouthed Frank uttered to elicit that response).

Heath Shuler was nowhere near the race-baiting liars of the Congressional Black Caucus when they slandered thousands.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:55 AM | Comments (3)

April 14, 2010

Marine Closes "Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots" Page After Controversy Erupts

When you join the military you agree to abide by the rules and regulations noted in your enlistment contract. While I am aware of regulations that prevent service members from certain kinds of advocacy, I wasn't aware it was meant to go this far:

A Camp Pendleton Marine has removed his Facebook page after his comments fueled a free-speech debate about whether troops are allowed to criticize President Barack Obama's policies while serving in the military.

Sgt. Gary Stein said he was asked by his superiors to review the Pentagon's directive on political activities after he criticized Obama's health care reform efforts and then was asked this week to talk about his views on the MSNBC cable TV channel.

Stein said his supervisor told him of his right to an attorney about the matter. He said he decided to close his Facebook page and review his military code obligations. He also contacted private attorneys who told him he had done nothing wrong.

[snip]

Camp Pendleton spokeswoman Maj. Gabrielle Chapin said the Marine Corps is not considering filing charges and simply wanted him to be aware of the rules so he did not break them.

The Pentagon's directive states that military personnel are not allowed to write anything to solicit votes for a political cause, sponsor a political club or speak before any gathering that promotes a political movement.

I don't know the regs. Did this Marine cross the line, or not?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:46 PM | Comments (15)

Setting the Stage For An American Neda

When I wrote on CrashTheTeaParty.Org for Pajamas Media I thought it was vile that so-called "liberals" were organizing to smear and misrepresent Tea Party protesters as crazies and racists.

I privately suspected that the Democratic Party approved of such behavior with a wink and a nod, but never has any suspicion that they may get directly involved in such underhanded scheming.

Apparently, my expectations of Democrats were set too high.

New Hampshire Democrats are engaged in a statewide search for liberal activists willing to attend so-called tea parties on Thursday and carry signs expressing racist or fringe sentiments, a Democratic source with knowledge of the effort tells NowHampshire.com.

According to the source, who sought anonymity for fear of reprisals, the Dems last minute scramble reflects a growing obsession among party leaders that they need to discredit the tea party movement soon or it will overwhelm them come the November election.

Former Democratic State Party Chairman Kathy Sullivan is heading up the search, the source said. Sullivan has been calling and e-mailing liberal activists trying to get them to attend tea parties in different parts of the state and hold signs denying the authenticity of President Barack Obama's birth certificate and make racially disparaging comments to reporters.

"This is Kathy's [Sullivan] project," the source told NowHampshire.com. "She is absolutely obsessed with painting the tea party people as racists."

Liberals are open—even proud—about their plots to foment false charges of racism and misappropriate Social Security numbers and other personal information, championing identity theft to harm Tea Party protesters.

If they are willing to proudly go to these extremes in their public statements, it is only logical to wonder if they are plotting violence in private, like the Molotov cocktails liberals planned to hurl at cops and delegates of the 2008 Republican National Convention before that plot was thwarted.

The Iranian people became rightly inflamed when Neda Agha-Soltan was callously shot in the heart by a thug supporter acting on behalf of the Iranian regime.

If Democrats think that the Tea Party has little use for them now, imagine what the sentiment will become if some bomb-throwing left-wing sociopath splashes a peaceful group of Tea Party protesters with homemade napalm.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:13 AM | Comments (5)

April 13, 2010

Fool House

Too perfect:

In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the law may have significant unintended consequences for the "personal health insurance coverage" of senators, representatives and their staff members.

For example, it says, the law may "remove members of Congress and Congressional staff" from their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, before any alternatives are available.

The confusion raises the inevitable question: If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?

See what they did there, right at the end? That is what you call a rhetorical question.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:15 AM | Comments (1)

April 12, 2010

Get That Man A Spine

How many times has this occurred now? Three? For someone who tries so hard to cultivate the image of a intellectual and sophisticate, he seems doggedly determined to cast himself as an unteachable buffoon, once again bowing to a foreign dignitary that is his equal.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:48 PM | Comments (43)

Great Depression Ended Because Roosevelt Died and Couldn't Extend It

That's the soundbite take-away from this WSJ article that runs counter to the great liberal myth that make-work government programs do anything other than prolong economic downturns and stifle the prospects for recovery.

FDR had every intention of ramming through "New Deal II," and after he expired, Truman asked Congress to carry out his wishes.

Congress said "no" and instead undertook strategic tax cuts that spurred the private sector growth that finally pulled the nation out of the Roosevelt-lengthened Great Depression. That's something to keep in mind as we head into 2010.

The President can propose any budget he wants, but it is ultimately Congress that makes the laws and has the power to cut taxes and repeal or de-fund bloated federal spending.

If we want to power our way out of our current economic malaise, our best course of action is to elect fiscally responsible representatives that favor cutting bloated federal programs and taxes, no matter which party they represent.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:10 PM | Comments (11)

Stoner Obama Quoted Reggae Artist In Nuclear Arms Screed

Wow. He's so deep.

In his article Obama praised the nuclear freeze movement and celebrated the work of two groups: Arms Race Alternatives and Students Against Militarism. By Obama's description of them, the groups were among the "useful idiots" promoting the Soviet line on Reagan's build-up: "These groups, visualizing the possibilities of destruction and grasping the tendencies of distorted national priorities, are shifting their weight into throwing America off the dead-end track."

Obama expressed and dismissed a possible reservation regarding the "narrow focus" of the groups, citing the deep wisdom of Peter Tosh that "everybody's asking for peace, but nobody's asking for justice." Heavy, man.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:05 AM | Comments (13)

Finally! Audio Exposes Racist Comments Hurled at Black Prof During Obamacare Debate

Unlike the faked cries of racism ginned up by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, these were actually recorded.

A related article is also worth your time.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:18 AM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2010

Planned Parenthood: Don't Tell Anyone you Have HIV. Just Do It.

Patterico has found just another facet of the Responsibility-Free Lifestyle™ that the left always champions, where no one should have to account for their actions and everything becomes a "right," from the "right" to marry whoever you want to the "right" to health care to the "right" to affordable housing to the "right" Planned Parenthood is trying to create, the "right" of HIV-positive people to have sex with someone without informing them that their life may be put at risk.

CNS News cites the shocking claim:

"Some countries have laws that say people living with HIV must tell their sexual partner(s) about their status before having sex, even if they use condoms or only engage in sexual activity with a low risk of giving HIV to someone else," the guide states. "These laws violate the rights of people living with HIV by forcing them to disclose or face the possibility of criminal charges." Under the heading "Sexual Pleasure and Well-Being," the guide declares that it is a human right and not a criminal issue as to whether a person decides if or when to disclose their HIV status, even if they engage in sexual activities.

According to this most favored and revered of liberal institutions, it is your "right" to put someone else's life at risk for your pleasure.

Warped?

Beyond belief.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:06 PM | Comments (6)

April 10, 2010

So Who Really is More Dangerous for America?

A fraudulent showman who twists people's emotions with falsehoods in order to get rich as Bob Cesca alleges, or a radicalized neophyte ideologue with his own extensive record of fraudulent and deceptive statements and a residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Glenn Beck might bankrupt a handful of true believers. Barack Obama seems intent on bankrupting 300 million. If Bob Cesca wants to spend time targeting who is more dangerous for America's future, he needs to change his target.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:58 PM | Comments (13)

A: Crips, Bloods, and the NJ Teacher's Union

Q: Who wants New Jersey Governor Chris Christie dead?

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's take-no-prisoners demand for education cuts got him a whole lot more than he bargained for -- a death wish.

It was in a controversial e-mail sent by the Bergen County Teachers Union to its members asking that Christie be "taken" by the Lord.

In seven years as the Garden State's pugnacious U.S. Attorney, Christie got only two death threats -- from the bloods and the crips.

It took only three months as governor for an adversary to wish him six feet under.

"To have the leader of the Bergen County Teachers Union send out an e-mail to their 17,000 members asking them to pray for my death I think just goes beyond the pale," Christie said.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:55 AM | Comments (6)

President Kaczynski, Other Gov't Leaders Killed in Crash

All 96 aboard were killed when the Russian-built Tu-154 crashed short of the runway in heavy fog:

Russian and Polish officials said there were no survivors on the Soviet-era Tupolev, which was taking the president, his wife and staff to events marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police.

On board were the army chief of staff, national bank president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers, the Polish foreign ministry said.

Russia's Emergency Ministry said there were 96 dead, 88 part of a Polish state delegation. Poland's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Piotr Paszkowski, said there were 89 people on the passenger list but one person had not shown up for the roughly 1½-hour flight from Warsaw's main airport.

"We still cannot fully understand the scope of this tragedy and what it means for us in the future. Nothing like this has ever happened in Poland," Paszkowski said. "We can assume with great certainty that all persons on board have been killed."

This is not the sort of blow the crash of Air Force One would have on the United States since most of the domestic duties of their government are handled by the Prime Minister. Commander-in-Chief duties will be taken over by the Speaker of the Parliament, who was running for the Presidency in elections this fall and projected to win.

May prayers go out to the families of the victims and to the Polish people.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:30 AM | Comments (3)

April 09, 2010

Obama Questions Palin's Nuclear Wisdom

He simply doesn't know when to shut up:

President Barack Obama on Thursday made clear he was not going to take advice from Republican Sarah Palin when it comes to decisions about the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Palin, the former vice presidential candidate, has not been shy about criticizing Obama's policies and this week weighed in on his revamped nuclear strategy, saying it was like a child in a playground who says 'punch me in the face, I'm not going to retaliate.'

"I really have no response to that. The last I checked, Sarah Palin is not much of an expert on nuclear issues," Obama said in an interview with ABC News.

Palin's view of nuclear weapons was shaped by her stint as the commander in chief of the Alaskan National Guard, our first line of defense against Soviet nuclear weapons. Obama has held his same views since he was a stoner college student and has showed no signs of maturing.

Which of the two would you trust?

Update: I stand corrected. Palin does not have any experience with the AANG. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion AANG, Fort Greely is (literally) the first line of defense against Soviet nukes with 25-30 anti-ICBMs, but they do not report to the governor.

Obama? Still utterly untrustworthy, and getting more so every day.

Update: And she zings Dear Leader... again:

"Last I checked, Sarah Palin's not much of an expert on nuclear issues," he said.

Palin shot back in her comments Friday, mocking the president for "the vast nuclear experience that he acquired as a community organizer." She said that his alleged experience had not helped him make progress in the issue with Iran and North Korea.

What dim-witted liberals cannot seem to grasp is that Obama simply isn't any more competent than Palin... or almost anyone else. Nothing in his self-promoting career gave him any leadership experience, nuclear, or otherwise.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:33 AM

Breaking: Stupak Retiring

Good riddance:

Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan tells The Associated Press he'll retire from Congress rather than seek a 10th term this year.

Stupak has drawn stinging criticism from opponents of the recently enacted health care overhaul after leading a bloc of anti-abortion Democrats whose last-minute support was crucial to its approval by the House.

The target of Tea Party groups gunning for his seat, Stupak claimed he could have won reelection if he tried.

Uh-huh.

His retirement came over the objections of Democratic Party leaders:

President Barack Obama called Stupak on Wednesday and asked him not to retire. Stupak, 58, also resisted entreaties from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the dean of the Wolverine State delegation.
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:57 AM | Comments (10)

April 07, 2010

President Who Has "Known Islam on Three Continents" Removes References to Islamic Extremism From National Security Strategy Document

It appears that the White House is once again putting political correctness above all:

President Barack Obama's advisers will remove religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the U.S. national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.

The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century."

As for the quote i cited in the headline, take it up with the author, who we presume in this instance is not Bill Ayers.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:08 AM | Comments (6)

April 05, 2010

So Easily Drawn In

This is just the latest example of stupid politics from a thin-skinned lightweight of a President:

Obama's shot at Limbaugh and Beck demonstrates that a long-running White House effort to undermine influential elements of the Republican coalition remains in effect.

Asked generally about the "level of enmity that crosses the airwaves," Obama slammed Limbaugh and Beck by name.

"Well, I think that when you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, it's pretty apparent, and it's troublesome, but keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out," Obama said. "It happens often when you've got an economy that is making people more anxious and people are feeling like there is a lot of change that needs to take place. But that's not the vast majority of Americans. I think the vast majority of Americans know that we're trying hard, that I want what's best for the country."

Anyone—and I do mean anyone—knows that you never address your critics directly if they hold a lesser status than you do, because doing so diminishes your status while acknowledging them and their credibility as a critic. Obama's been blasted on this before and has to know better... he just can't seem to help himself.

In response, Limbaugh and Beck have the chance to cast themselves as the victims of a vindictive and petty White House.

This is dumb politics. No wonder the rest of the world recognizes our President as a rube.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:45 AM | Comments (13)

April 03, 2010

He's the One The Call Dr. Feelgood Bullsh*t

Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a "wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care" package.

"We are overtaxed as it is," Doris said bluntly.

In response, the Great Manipulator rambled for 17 minutes and 12 seconds... and to the best anyone can tell, still didn't provide an answer.

A simple "I have to raise your taxes to cover the trillions I'm forcing you to spend," would have been enough.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:21 AM | Comments (10)

April 02, 2010

Racist Black Congressman Runs Away From Spitting Lie; Constituents Shrug Shoulders and Do Nothing

Let the record show that the Congressional Black Caucus members who attempted to goad Tea Party protestors into making racial slurs in advance of the Obamacare vote failed in that tawdry enterprise, and when they failed, they then lied. They claimed they were spat upon, or heard cries of "n*gger."

The congressman who heard the slur now claims that he never heard anyone utter the slur (an anonymous staffer gets the blame), and now his fellow race-baiter Emanuel Cleaver is trying to blot out the lie that he was intentionally spat upon.

I am getting tired of Democrats attempting to use false cries of racism as an excuse or cover for their behavior, and I'm even more disgusted with the constituents that continue to allow their representatives to continue to act this way.

Do these voters have any sense of community or personal pride? Why do they allow continual racist demagoguery on their behalf? Are they never embarrassed by the blinding ignorance or transparent stunts of those they elect?

True equality means wanting to be judged based upon the merits of your intellect and strength of your character. Instead, we see whoring politicians attempting to provoke reactions to their skin color instead of their inept championing of flawed ideology.

Blacks in America have claimed for years that they want equality.

Until they start electing representatives from their communities that can rise above their most base and vile instincts, take that claim with a grain of salt.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:08 PM | Comments (6)

Kutner Kills Himself Off (Again)

This time he did it to get out of the White House.

Who needs Washington when you can have White Castle? Kal Penn's reps confirm that the actor will leave his post as Barack Obama's associate director of public engagement to return to his acting career. First up for the actor: a new Harold & Kumar movie, this one with a Christmas theme. New Line Studios has confirmed that the movie, to be directed by newcomer Todd Strauss Schulson, will begin filming in late June with an eye on a holiday 2011 release.

How bad must the White House have been for Penn to bail on the Obama Adminstration in favor of a stoner movie?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:39 PM | Comments (3)

FBI Warns of Threats From "Sovereign Citizens" Group

Letters sent to more than 30 state governors from members of the "sovereign citizen" movement are getting the attention of state and national law enforcement authorities.

The letters—addressed to Democrats and Republicans alike—warn the governors to step down within three days or be removed. Authorities do not see threats of violence in the letters, but "fear the broad call for removing top state officials could lead others to act out violently."

The group that sent the letters calls itself "Guardians of the Free Republics" and their Web sites reek of the kind of tin-foil nuttery you would expect from the 9/11 Truthers, Obama birthers, chemtrail conspiracy theorists and Alex Jones-followers that the broader movement represents.

I've met and (once worked with) believers true believers in this stuff and agree with the FBI's apparent assessment that the people themselves are loony, but mostly harmless.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:43 AM | Comments (4)

April 01, 2010

Party of No to be Visited By Party of D'Oh

The Politico reports that a trio of groups representing the lowest common denominators of left-wing politics is staging an utterly absurd public relations stunt:

Three liberal groups will drop off a petition at the Republican National Committee's headquarters Thursday, urging conservative leaders to "take responsibility" for threats and incidents of vandalism against Democrats.

The event is being organized by the Brave New Foundation, MoveOn.org, CREDO and Color of Change.

The groups say about 330,000 people have signed their petition, which urges Republicans to "apologize for your hate-spewing proxies in the Tea Party Patriots. It is not acceptable for you to build your party's political fortunes by encouraging and defending bigotry and hatred among your supporters."

Reader comments are running 26-1 against this coalition of the shilling as I write this, and I suspect the event merely serves as a useful reminder of just how radical the fringe is that these groups represent.

Presumably, these group will themselves accept responsibility for the murders of innocents that occurred because of left wing rhetoric during the Bush Administration, the countless threats they and their drones issued, and for the compatriots attempted terrorist attack on the 2008 Republican National Convention that was spurred on by their rhetoric.

What... You think they won't?

In that case, I'd advise that RNC staffers keep their hands in their pockets where they'll be safe.

I'd also advise any RNC staffers avoid coming into close proximity to the group, to avoid beat-downs like the one their thugs gave Kenneth Gladney after shoutinging "What kind of n*gger are you?"

For the sake of diversity, of course.

And make sure that you keep them away from anything flammable, since burning people singly (or sending a few tens of millions to concentration camps) is also part of their belief system... anything for the "greater good."

Lastly, after they leave, the RNC should have bomb disposal teams on hand in case the group plans on leaving something behind other than a petition.

I'm not saying all liberals are violent, but with their documented track record, we can't afford to take chances.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:51 PM | Comments (1)

When It Hits the Fan

Despite my chosen title, this isn't about healthcare (At least for those outside the potential blast radius). This is an article about a significant volume of crap generated outside of Washington, DC.

This quote makes the entire article worthwhile:

Last year, a hog farmer in Hayfield, Minn., was launched 40 feet into the air in an explosion caused by methane gas from a manure pit on his farm. He sustained burns and singed hair.

Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia is watching the situation closely, worrying that if the bubbles in the hog lagoon get too large, Indiana could tip over.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:49 AM | Comments (4)

March 31, 2010

Promises, Promises

It seems that every blogger on Earth is responding to the news that the Obama Administration is considering opening offshore drilling areas. near Alaska, in the Gulf of Mexico, and along part of the East Coast.

Predictably, most bloggers on the right find this to be welcoming news and a vindication of the GOP's energy policies, while the eco-left is whipping itself into a lather of outrage and indignation... which isn't really news, since they'll go nuclear when the barista gets their order wrong.

Among all the wailing and high-fiving, I think only Dan Riehl has it figured out.

This is nothing.

It is an empty promise of what could be if the Interior Department at some date in the distant future deems it acceptable. It says so right here:

But as a result of the Obama decision, the Interior Department will spend several years conducting geologic and environmental studies along the rest of the southern and central Atlantic Seaboard. If a tract is deemed suitable for development, it is listed for sale in a competitive bidding system. The next lease sales — if any are authorized by the Interior Department — would not be held before 2012.

It's a fake concession, designed to buy Democrats a chance at avoiding a total collapse in November, and perhaps for his 2012 Presidential run.

To borrow from the Bard:

...it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:56 PM | Comments (12)

March 30, 2010

Hope, Change, and $300-$500 More a Year in Taxes

I wonder just how much young liberals are going to like it once they figure out that it is going to be their money that is going to be redistributed.

Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That's when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17 percent on average, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis of the plan conducted for The Associated Press. The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.

The higher costs will pinch many people in their 20s and early 30s who are struggling to start or advance their careers with the highest unemployment rate in 26 years.

It's real easy to be a liberal when you're still sponging off mom and dad. Once you start paying your own bills, and see the government leaching away the fruits of your hard work to provide for others that can't (or more infuriatingly, won't), then socialism loses its shine.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:43 PM | Comments (3)

An Impassioned Defense From the Incompetence-Based Community

There is a deep and abiding hatred for mom and pop America on the political left, an anger born out most vividly on the op-ed pages of the New York Times and Washington Post by writers unable to tolerate the fact that most Americans remain opposed to the heath care rationing bill rammed through Congress by the bribery, threats, and coercion of the Democrat Party.

The most recent manifestation of that hatred is Eugene Robinson's latest outburst in the Washington Post, where the writer attempts to claim that the fetid swamp in which he wallows is actually high ground.

But for the most part, far-left violence in this country has gone the way of the leisure suit and the AMC Gremlin. An anti-globalization movement, including a few window-smashing anarchists, was gaining traction at one point, but it quickly diminished after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. An environmental group and an animal-rights group have been linked with incidents of arson. Beyond those particulars, it is hard to identify any kind of leftist threat.

By contrast, there has been explosive growth among far-right, militia-type groups that identify themselves as white supremacists, "constitutionalists," tax protesters and religious soldiers determined to kill people to uphold "Christian" values. Most of the groups that posed a real danger, as the Hutaree allegedly did, have been infiltrated and dismantled by authorities before they could do any damage. But we should never forget that the worst act of domestic terrorism ever committed in this country was authored by a member of the government-hating right wing: Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

It is dishonest for right-wing commentators to insist on an equivalence that does not exist. The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction -- the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day -- and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies -- is calibrated not to inform but to incite.

Like all members of the community-based reality, Robinson is blind to the constant incitements to violence from the political left, and purposefully mute when those calls for violence bear fruit.

Like all lefties, he reflexively cites McVeigh's horrific attack in Oklahoma City, utterly ignoring the fact that the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building is only the worst domestic terrorist attack because President Obama's long-time mentor Bill Ayers was incompetent. Ayer and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, the co-hosts of Obama's first fundraiser, were part of a bomb-happy leftist radical group that failed in their most violent attempts. One was an attempt to bomb a police station across from a crowded diner. An even more ambitious attack to destroy a dance at Fort Dix was thwarted only because Ayer's girlfriend and her fellow left wing terrorists prematurely detonated themselves with the bombs they were building in the basement of a Greenwich Village townhouse instead.

When left-wing Indymedia writer Andrew Mickel ambushed and killed Red Bluff Police Officer David Mobilio as he sat in his car on November 19, 2002, he did so for the exact same reasons that authorities attribute to the Hutaree. Mickel was trying to start a civil war as well, one that he hoped his fellow socialists and communists would support.

"Hello Everyone, my name's Andy. I killed a Police Officer in Red Bluff, California in a motion to bring attention to, and halt, the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country. Now I'm coming forward, to explain that this killing was also an action against corporate irresponsibility."

Mickel now sits on death row, and the solitary Washington Post story that tells his sad tale is one of the few references to his crime that can be found in a media that refuses to admit that left-wing calls to violence and savage paranoia are routine. And Mickel's violence is hardly isolated.

Carlos Hartmann, a radical liberal from Michigan, was so incensed by the Netherlands supporting the Iraq war that he traveled there with the express intent of murdering Dutch or American soldiers. Unable to find a suitable military target for his rage, this deranged liberal did the unconscionable, and brutally slayed a Dutch student with an axe at the Roosendaal trains station. That story, like Mickel's, was all but buried by an American media with a vested interest in down-playing the violence committed by their co-conspirators.

And the left-wing violence continues, unabated.

A middle-aged MoveOn.Org radical bit the finger off of a senior citizen he provoked a fight with, and remains at large. Thugs belonging to labor unions loyal to the President have beaten up and intimidated numerous protesters, and some of those thugs await trial. A three-time cancer survivor was assaulted by an Obama supporter just three days ago. And of course, two-time Obama campaign contributor and Jew-hating loon Norman Leboon was just arrested for death threats leveled at Republican Eric Cantor and his family.

The left is awash in a sea of blood and threats. It always has been, and always will be. Such must be the mindset of those who champion the supremacy of state over the rights of the individual. The only thing surprising is that more don't call Robinson and his ilk on their lies.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:59 AM | Comments (45)

March 29, 2010

It's Always Nutty in Philadelphia

An arrest has been made in one of the cases of nutjobs threatening Republican Congressman Eric Cantor. This guy seems like a real winner.

Michelle Malkin has all the details, including pictures of the suspect, one Norman Leboon, who claims to be the 12th imam when he's not threatening American Jews.

Oh... and he's apparently a two-time Obama donor.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:33 PM | Comments (6)

March 27, 2010

Harry Reid's Last, Best Hope Facing Felony Charges

It is really difficult to con people into thinking you represent their values and siphon off their votes when you're sitting in prison. Unless you're a Congressman's wife.

But we're talking about fake Tea Party Senate candidate Scott Ashjian, who doesn't look like he'll be politically viable.

Sorry, Harry.

A Nevada asphalt contractor who faces a legal challenge to his Tea Party of Nevada candidacy for U.S. Senate was hit Friday with felony theft and bad check charges in Las Vegas that allege he bounced a $5,000 business check last year. Scott Ashjian is one of a record 22 candidates, including 12 Republicans, running for the seat held by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is seeking a fifth term.

Bernie Zadrowski, head of the Clark County district attorney's office bad check unit, said he would seek an arrest warrant Monday in Las Vegas Justice Court. Ashjian could face up to 14 years in state prison if convicted.

The tea party movement is a disparate coalition of conservative groups angered by federal spending, rising taxes and the growth and reach of government. Other tea party activists have been distancing themselves from Ashjian, and an ad targeting him has been sponsored by the Tea Party Express, one of the most visible factions of the national tea party movement.

The Tea Party of Nevada is a fake grassroots organization led by a Democratic lawyer and conspiracy theorists that hoped to split away enough Republican votes to give Harry Reid a chance of remaining in office.

It doesn't appear that strategy is going to work.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:13 AM | Comments (1)

March 26, 2010

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I don't have the vocabulary to describe how reprehensible this is:

Mark Duren told News 2 the incident happened around 4:30p.m., while he was driving on Blair Boulevard, not far from Belmont University.

He said Harry Weisiger gave him the bird and rammed into his vehicle, after noticing an Obama-Biden sticker on his car bumper.

We all get angry at politicians (if you didn't, you wouldn't be reading political blogs), but attacking a stranger on the street over something as innocuous as a campaign bumper sticker is not just criminal, it crosses the line into insanity.

The attacker, a retired real estate developer named Harry Weisiger, is charged with felony reckless endangerment. I think the district attorney would get bipartisan support if the charges were upgraded to two counts of attempted murder.

Update:Weisiger's wife died of brain cancer just over a month ago.

It certainly doesn't do anything to absolve or mitigate his assault, but does it provide a hint of a motive?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:47 PM | Comments (53)

Krugman Almost Gets One Right

The old Southern aphorism "Even a blind hog can find an acorn every one in a while" is analogous to cliche of broken clock being right twice a day. It seems in his latest dim rant, blind hog Paul Krugman actually did manage to stumble into making a relevant comment, even if it wasn't intentional:

...if you care about America's future, you can't be happy as extremists take full control of one of our two great political parties.

Amen, Mr. Krugman!

Conservatives have been saying that for the better part of a year as we've watched the destructive policies and corrupt deal-making of the Progressive wing of the Democratic party set the nation on a path toward economic ruin, all to satiate their childish dreams of "economic justice." Leftists—and their economists—refuse to face the fact that true economic justice is best served by capitalism, where justice is derived in free markets as higher value and in demand products succeed, while those that are obsolete or substandard fail.

But Krugman isn't talking about economics, which is good, considering how little he actually knows about the subject (much like the raft of university professors who teach business classes even as they've failed in the market themselves).

No, our smug Times editorialist valiantly takes up the fight against his favorite opponent, the strawman.

What has been really striking has been the eliminationist rhetoric of the G.O.P., coming not from some radical fringe but from the party's leaders. John Boehner, the House minority leader, declared that the passage of health reform was "Armageddon." The Republican National Committee put out a fund-raising appeal that included a picture of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, surrounded by flames, while the committee’s chairman declared that it was time to put Ms. Pelosi on "the firing line." And Sarah Palin put out a map literally putting Democratic lawmakers in the cross hairs of a rifle sight.

All of this goes far beyond politics as usual. Democrats had a lot of harsh things to say about former President George W. Bush — but you'll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials.

No, to find anything like what we're seeing now you have to go back to the last time a Democrat was president.

Krugman's mock collapse onto the fainting couch is imminent.

Help! Help! Republicans are using literary devices!

No sane or sober person could equate metaphors used with enticing violence, but Krugman struggles mightily to make the non-existent connection.

No, if we want to take an honest look at descents into violent threats and fantasy, we merely need to watch how rank-and-file liberals have acted over the past eight years. You can and should include the murder committed by radical leftists like Andrew Mickel in the left's bloody tally. The Indymedia journalist turned death row resident assassinated a police officer in hopes of triggers a war against capitalism in 2002. Somehow, I don't think we can blame Sarah Palin for that.

Liberal Carlos Hartmann of Michigan was so outraged that the Netherlands provided troops for what he saw as "Bush's War for Oil" that he flew across the Atlantic in hopes of killing Dutch soldiers. Unable to find a soldier at the train station where he plotted to carry out his attack, Hartmann vented his rage by hacking a student to death with an axe. I'm pretty sure John Boehner didn't inspire him.

Other left-wing sociopaths—as yet uncaptured—sabotaged Florida Republican Eddie Adams truck during his campaign, and nearly burned him to death. I know...blame Bush!

These are just some of the acts of radical left wing violence the media does its very best to avoid covering... there are many, many more, from assaults and intimidation by SEIU union thugs to the biting off of fingers from MoveOn.Org antagonists to acts of vandalism, gunfire, and arson by the left-wing domestic terrorists Janet Napolitano tries very hard not to see.

Krugman wants to talk about extremism dominating political parties? Let me provide the details he ignored in his eight-year amnesia.

Even his lord and savior Barack Obama has direct ties to two of the worst domestic terrorists of the past half century, a man and woman who led an organizationthat has been implicated in murders, armed robberies, and attempted to blow up a soldiers' dance as they fantasized about murdering what they estimated to be 25 million Americans in concentration camps if they were ever able to seize power.

Indeed, Americans have watched one of its two political parties go to extremes.

Krugman just doesn't want to admit belonging to it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:24 AM | Comments (25)

March 25, 2010

A Tale of Four Polls: Public Still Overwhelmingly Against Obamacare Cram-down

Via the Senate Republicans Communications Center (so liberals will immediate ignore/discount it for intruding on their community-based reality), but still simply citing the facts:

QUINNIPIAC POLL APPROVAL OF HEALTH CARE BILL:

Mostly Approve: 40%

Mostly Disapprove: 49% (Quinnipiac University Poll, 3/22-23/10)

BLOOMBERG POLL APPROVAL OF HEALTH CARE BILL:

Favor: 38%

Oppose: 50% ("Bloomberg National Poll," 3/19-22/10, P.1)

CBS NEWS POLL APPROVAL OF HEALTH CARE BILL:

Approve: 37%

Disapprove: 48% ("CBS News Poll," 3/18-21/10, P. 4)

CNN OPINION RESEARCH POLL APPROVAL OF HEALTH CARE BILL:

Favor: 39%

Oppose: 59% ("CNN Opinion Research Poll," 3/19-21/10, P.2)

No matter which one of these polls you look at, support for the Democrat's health care rationing scheme never exceeds 40%.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:08 PM | Comments (10)

And Shots Rang Out: Lies of Congressional Black Caucus Lead To Gunplay

At least, that is how the headline would read if the New York Times, Newsweek, or the rest of the media were as far right as they are left, but let's face facts: John Lewis and the other CBC members that alleged racism against tea party protesters will never be held accountable for the death threats their false charges created, such as this:

Yes, uh. Yeah, I'm glad, uh. the president passed healthcare, yeah. Funky-ass, racist-ass Republicans hate that, don't you? Jean [sic] Smith, when you got hit by that car or when you fell or whatever, you should've broke your back, b***h. You, and Boehner motherf***er, that Mitch McConnell -- all you racist f***ing Republicans. Why don't you just change y'all's party name to "racist"? 'Cause if one of those little f***ing Teabaggers would've spit on me, I would have socked them in the f***ing face with my f***ing .09 mm. F*** all you racist motherf***ers.

That particular threat was left at an office of Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio).

Someone else thought mere threats were not enough, and actually fired into Eric Cantor's office.

Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor said Thursday that his Richmond campaign office has been shot at and that he's received "threatening e-mails" -- but at the same time the House minority whip accused top Democrats of trying to exploit the threats they've been receiving for "political gain."

Cantor said "a bullet was shot through the window" of his campaign office. The incident happened Monday, Fox News has learned, the latest in a rash of apparent threats and acts of intimidation against members of Congress.

The Democratic thuggocracy has, without a doubt, underestimated the American public's resolve to stand up to their Alinsky tactics and lies designed to fan the flames of racial discord. They've simply played this card too many times, without justification or reason, for anyone but the true believers and besotted special interests to believe any claim they make.

Perhaps when our next left wing radical detonates a bomb or assassinates someone (again) these leftist thugs will stop inciting violence from their followers, but based upon their long and bloody history, I'm not getting my hopes up.

Update: In what can only be described as good news, preliminary ballistics from the Richmond PD seem to indicate that the shot that hit Cantor's office window was probably a shot that was fired into the air from a distance. This would indicate that this incident was probably not a targeted attack.

This in no way absolves the CBC of intentionally stirring up racial hatred merely for the purposes of cheap political theater. Leftists have a well-documented propensity for violence, whether bombs or bullets, or arson and sabotage, and intentionally inciting them should be recognized as a criminal act.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:56 PM | Comments (12)

Should House Democrats Be Censured Over False Charges of Bigotry?

Video evidence confirms that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO)was not intentionally spat upon. John Lewis didn't hear anyone anyone call him a charged racial epithet. Barney Frank, who was called a name, was called that after uttering a shocking profanity at protestors first, a fact the media failed to report, and may have conspired to cover up.

In every one of these instances, Democrats conspired to lie or misrepresent Obamacare protesters, slandering the thousands of Americans in attendance and the millions that share their views. The deserve to be censured for their behavior now that the truth has been revealed.

Just don't expect it from the most corrupt congress in recent memory.

Update: Add Russ Carnahan to the list of gutless Congressional Democrats slandering Obamacare protestors.

Update:Politico updates to paste over Carnahan's lies.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:53 AM | Comments (3)

A Special Prosecutor for Barack?

Rep. Darrell Issa of the House Oversight committee is on the verge of asking for a special prosecutor to investigate the Obama Administration for a blatant attempt at bribery:

Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight committee, told CBS News Wednesday that he will call for a special prosecutor to investigate the White House if it does not address Rep. Joe Sestak's claim that he was offered a federal job in exchange for dropping out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary.

"If the public doesn't receive a satisfactory answer, the next step would be to call for a special prosecutor, which is well within the statute," Issa (pictured) told Hotsheet.

The California Republican has been pushing for the White House to provide details of conversations between Sestak and administration officials in the wake of Sestak's comment during a radio interview last month that he was offered a high-ranking administration job in exchange for dropping his primary challenge against Sen. Arlen Specter.

Asked if that job was secretary of the Navy, Sestak declined to comment. His press secretary told CBS News that the lawmaker stands by his original statement that he was offered the job in exchange for an administration post.

Only complete criminal ineptitude by President Obama's inner circle would end up indicting him directly in the alleged scheme, but then, we are dealing with a very arrogant and corrupt Administration, led by a neophyte and staffed by bullies and thugs. If there is significant evidence of an attempted quid pro quo agreement in order to rig the Pennsylvania Senate primary, President Obama would almost certainly face impeachment. If Democrats lose a significant number of seats in November and the evidence is strong enough, Obama and members of his Administration could be out of office—and on the way to a federal prison—by 2011 or 2012.

All of this hinges, of course, on whether or not there is evidence of a specific crime. Considering the great lengths the White House has gone to to repeatedly duck the issue, evidence beyond the public statements of the man they tried to bribe would seem to exist.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:29 AM | Comments (4)

...And We're Back

During a series of late night/early morning votes designed to keep the public's eye of the behavior of Democrats, the Senate parliamentarian discovering a pair of rule violations that will send Obamacare back to the House for another contentious round of voting:

As an exhausted Senate labored past 2 a.m. on a stack of GOP amendments, Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told reporters that Republicans consulting with the chamber's parliamentarian had found "two minor provisions" that violate Congress' budget rules.

[snip]

Democratic aides said the problematic provisions deal with protecting students from future cuts in their grants if Congress does not provide enough money for them. They violate budget rules because they do not produce savings, one aide said.

Procedurally, this is merely a bump in the road for Democrats, but it is going to be explosive politically. After days of harsh words and threats from irate constituents, the House is going to have to vote on Obamacare again, under far more pressure.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:10 AM | Comments (4)

March 24, 2010

Rules of Engagement

If you are an American and value your individual liberties and the responsibilities that go with them, this week has been a very troubling one. Using bribes, coercion, bullying and lies, a disgraceful Democratic Congress and President have passed a law that usurps power over one-sixth of the economy, and now eagerly plots their next power grab.

Predictably, many in this nation of 300 million have taken this transformative undermining of the Republic quite seriously, and harbor righteous anger towards the corrupt and powerful who made this unconstitutional law.

Several Congressional offices have been vandalized. These were acts to be condemned, though understood.

But a line was crossed in Virginia last night, and such behavior cannot be tolerated:

Law enforcement authorities are investigating the discovery of a cut propane gas line at the Virginia home of Rep. Tom Perriello's (D-Va.) brother, whose address was targeted by tea party activists angry at the congressman's vote for the health care bill.

An aide to the congressman confirmed to POLITICO that a line to a propane tank behind his brother's home near Charlottesville had been sliced.

[snip]

"While officials are not willing to characterize the exact nature of the incident because of the ongoing investigation, it did not involve an immediate threat to occupants of the residence. However officials are taking the incident very seriously and conducting a vigorous investigation," the statement said.

The cutting of the line—a thin, flexible tube that delivers propane from the bulk tank—was not an immediate threat as the Fire Marshal investigating the incident makes clear, but it was a threat, and a threat against innocents that had nothing to do with making or passing the law.

No matter what you think of Obamacare and the craven ideologues that passed it, is totally unacceptable to threaten their relatives or friends and put them in danger.

Go to your Congressman's office and scream at him in the most colorful language possible. Hang him in effigy at protests. If you're willing to do the time for the crime, have a swing at him.

Better yet, throw a shoe... after all, the left values such behavior as a form of "vigorous dissent," and will no doubt ask for any charges against you to be dropped.

Perhaps one day stronger action will be required if Progressives continue to trample on our liberties in their blind quest for power. But that time is not now.

At this time, I suspect Shikha Dalmia's call for massive civil disobedience is the correct path. Show your anger. Make sure those who have trampled your liberties are stuck down by ballots. With your help, the Democratic Party's assault on the Republic can be undone.

The right way.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:37 PM | Comments (31)

DemCong: Obamacare a Law Written "...to Control The People"

Via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, we find John Dingell of Michigan having a Freudian slip and admitting that the purpose of Obamacare is to control the American people:

Let me remind you this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

And therein lies the defining philosophical difference between statists and free men.

Democrats—I no longer see the utility of separating them rhetorically from the radical progressives that drive them—are convinced of their own intellectual and moral superiority. They are certain that society at large is too ignorant to survive and thrive on it's own, and must be overseen and controlled... "for their own good." Their default worldview is that people are children barely more competent than dumb animals, and they need to be controlled. They, of course, set themselves above the crowd, and imagine themselves benevolent protectors.

Conservatives and Libertarians—I care little for the lesser statist views of many modern Republicans—have a set of beliefs that is diametrically opposed to that of Democrats. We acknowledge that man will make mistakes and sometimes work against his own best interests, but we believe that the freedom to make decisions—including mistakes—is essential to the future of humanity. Without freedom, without liberty, imagination and innovation die. We believe that the pioneering, exploring spirit of man is to be celebrated and rewarded, that failures are to be seen as learning experiences and not traumas to be avoided.

Statism crushes the souls of men, emasculating them. It reduces and enslaves them, and punishes those who dare to dream and aspire to be more than average.

Liberalism requires mediocrity. It rewards complacency. In a world exploding with life, possibilities, and color, it desires to be beige.

We deserve better. And we shall never submit to being controlled.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:35 AM | Comments (10)

March 23, 2010

Obamacare-Related Jobs Massacre to Begin

The media is doing it's damnedest to ignore the damage that Obamacare will have on small businesses, ignoring anecdotal stories of small businesses that will be forced to lay off workers.

It will be a bit hard to hide when they come 2,500 at a time.

SLM Corp. may cut 2,500 jobs as a result of education loan provisions contained in health-care legislation passed yesterday by the U.S. House of Representatives.

"We are profoundly disappointed that thousands of student loan originators will soon lose their jobs -- although the Senate has the power to change this," the McLean, Virginia- based lender known as Sallie Mae said today in an e-mailed statement.


Manufacturing groups are also lamenting the damage that the short-sighted political power grab will do to their businesses, making it difficult for them to keep from cutting health benefits.

"This legislation is fundamentally flawed...an could cost as much as $2 trillion over 10 years once it takes full effect," said NAM. The group said manufacturing has lost 2.2 million jobs since December 2007.

"America's manufacturers will continue to advocate for real health care reform that lowers costs, improves care and does not impede our ability to create jobs, grow our economy and remain competitive in a global market," stated the group.

The Medical Device Manufacturers Association has also issued concerns about the healthcare bill, citing how the $20 billion device tax provision will impact patient care, innovation and small businesses.

"If eliminating the tax is not possible, structuring it to provide relief for smaller companies is critical. Under the current structure, many companies will owe more in taxes than they generate in profits, requiring companies to layoff employees, cut R&D budgets and slow the development of new therapies that will improve the quality of care for all Americans. Moving forward, these issues must be addressed before the tax takes effect in 2013," the group stated in a statement.

In addition, Obamacare was created with the intention of undermining and destroying the private health care insurance market, which will begin affecting them immediately, and which will force thousands of people out of work.

On the bright side, Obamacare will create thousands of new jobs for IRS workers and in the mortuary industry.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:57 PM | Comments (30)

For The Dumb and Uneducated, Obamacare "To Be Like Christmas"

I pity DeCarlo Flythe, a local man without insurance, or much in the way of smarts:

"It's just going to be like Christmas," said DeCarlo Flythe, who lost health coverage for his family when he was laid off almost three years ago. "It's going to be great. You know, no worries (about) the bills. We are going to go ahead and pay our co-pay and be alright."

For dim souls like Flythe, Obamacare certainly seems to be an answer to their worries. In the short term, IRS agents will confiscate monies from those of us who pay taxes to pay for his inability to take care of his own family. Obamacare will pay for his diabetic medicines, and his eventual blindness. After all, with me and you picking up the tab, there is little incentive for Flythe to change his behavior to help regulate his diabetes.

What Flythe and his slow-witted allies in the dependency lobby don't grasp is that the quality of service consistently goes down in nations where socialized medicine has been tried, even as costs go up. Rationed care is an inevitability. Flythe will eventually die of his diabetes, once his poor lifestyle choices and the illusion of Obamacare's protections conspire to render him as one of those simply not worth treating as a cost-benefit matter.

Then again, Flythe might not die of diabetes and neglect.

He very well may die of one of any number of other health problems as Obamacare drives medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors out of business.

Jobs are being lost already. Promising lines of research will stagnate and new cures to diseases affecting millions will never be developed.

I've read the plodding thoughts of liberal blog commenters in recent days that Obamacare will provide care to those with pre-existing and congenital conditions. What they know better than the promise is that Obamacare will lead to the development of new treatments, new cures or make fatal illnesses and conditions curable.

The simple fact of the matter is that Obamacare promises a near stasis in medical care. Research and development will necessarily slow as the very companies that create new techniques and tools for the betterment of man face crippling taxation to pay what should be the obligations of un-men like DeCarlo Flythe and other dependent wards of the welfare state.

Cancer treatments will come years later, or not at all, terminating the lives of millions before their time. Cures for cystic fibrosis, AIDS, autism and spinal cord injuries will simply not have the funding to continue in the private sector. Chronic, but non-life threatening conditions will continue to debilitate millions.

I'm not promising that our existing medical research would find cures for each and every malady if left alone, but there simply are no credible claims that Obamacare or any other iteration of socialized medicine leads to future medical innovation, and plenty of data to suggest it cripples progress.

Obamacare, as others have noted both in the House chamber and on the street, is not about patients. It's about politics.

We can only wonder how many will die unnecessary deaths before figuring that out.

Update: Even Lefty Jane Hamsher of firedoglake admits that people such as Flythe are idiots for thinking they'll get something for nothing (or next to nothing), and that a lot of people are going to get screwed by Obamacare (and not in the way Obama screwed Vera Baker).

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:59 AM | Comments (22)

March 22, 2010

Standing in the Fallout

Where do we go from here?

That was the question on the minds of Americans this morning as they awoke to find that Democrats have overridden overwhelming public opposition and forced through a massive entitlement program for the first time in our nation's history, purely along partisan lines.

Obamacare passed not because it reforms the health care system and reduces costs—it will create trillions in debt—but because of backroom deals, bribery, arm-twisting, deceptive accounting schemes, and outright lies from the majority party.

The select few who think they will benefit from this affront to liberty are giddy this morning with the prospect of what has transpired overnight. Most Americans however, awoke to a feeling of dread.

They know entitlement programs always cost far more than Democrats claim. They know that forcing employers to provide health care for all of their workers means that these employers are forced into the uncomfortable position of being bullied into providing health care they can't afford and watching their company's decline, or of letting go valued employees in the worst of times.

The first casualties of Obamacare are already rolling in. A commenter at WRAL lamented that the small business where his wife was employed was forced into firing 35 of their 60 part-time employees this morning because they would not be able to afford their health care. His wife was one of those let go. There will be tens, if not hundreds of thousands more that will lose their jobs. The economy will suffer as a result.

And Democrats are quietly pleased, because more will become dependent on the nanny state they would create and lord over.

America is angry. Americans feel betrayed. And yet the question remains.

Where do we go from here?

Some are calling for the armed revolt against this encroaching tyranny. It was for this specific reason, after all, that our Founders made sure Americans would not be denied the use of arms.

Some misguided souls seem to already be responding to this affront to liberty with violence. I fail to find the usefulness or utility of such symbolic and largely impotent acts. This sort of petty vandalism is not what the Founders sought to protect.

They sought to protect our right to replace—yes, overthow—would-be tyrants and rouges that history has taught us always eventually arrive to usurp power and run roughshod over the rights of the people.

As we have been told countless times by philosophers and statesmen, tyranny is always seeking power and it comes in many guises. Sometimes sunlight is enough to dissuade those who would enslave others. In other instances, the mechanisms of justice can undo such wrongs. Thankfully, the final mechanism our founders instill to protect us from tyranny has not had to be used since an isolated event 64 years ago.

We live in a nation full of freshly-experienced combat veterans and graying patriots alike that still remember their oaths to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The taste of liberty is much sweeter for them, having been to parts of the world where such things cannot be taken for granted. Pray that we are not required to call upon their service in a struggle against our own countrymen. God protect us all if we are forced to such extremes by a power-mad clique intent on transforming citizens into dependent subjects.

I have some hope that the courts will respond favorably to the many states suing to eradicate this unconstitutional scheme, or that November's elections will destroy the Democratic majority and lay the ground for a full repeal of a bad law designed purely for one party's political gain.

The thought of the morally-required alternative is almost too much to bear.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:31 AM | Comments (47)

March 21, 2010

Media Matters Irate That I Stated An Obvious Truth

Media Matters is furious that I dared challenge the farcical Democratic claim that health care is a "right." when I wrote on my Twitter account:

the next one of these jackasses that calls #healthcare a "right" deserves to be drawn and quartered.

I proudly stand by that comment.

A handful of elitists spoke on the House floor this evening, arrogantly insisting that it was our financial obligation (yours and mine) to pay for the medical care of others, and insisting it is their "right" to be provided medical care.

It most certainty is not.

According to Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi (who just so happened to be the Democrat speaking when I wrote that tweet, but was assuredly not the first), it is my obligation to pay for your "right." I will be forced to pay for coverage, whether I want it or not. I will be forced to pay for the coverage of others, whether I want it or not.

I stand by my comment that the Democrats who crammed this unwarranted bill down the throats of the American people who clearly and overwhelmingly opposed it deserve to be drawn and quartered.

As Wikipedia notes, having someone "laboring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of coercion" is the very definition of involuntary servitude... slavery. We are Americans, and will be slaves to no man, no Congress, and no President.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:14 PM | Comments (50)

Be Sure Thank your Congressional Reps For Obamacare

The votes are in, and Obamacare passed using the so-called "nuclear option" of a reconciliation vote, without a single Republican in favor of the bill, and 34 Democrats voting against our slide into tyranny.

The New York Times has publicized a helpful list of who cast their votes for continued freedom and who voted to force you into socialized medicine, raise your taxes, and create more unemployment.

Be sure you thank them in person.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:36 PM | Comments (6)

"Hell No You Can't"

John Boehner Sums up the problems with Obamacare.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:45 PM | Comments (2)

NOW Freaking Over Obama Executive Order; Stupak's Political Cover Compromised in an Hour

Every Obama promise comes with an expiration date. Stupak's promised executive order is dying already.

National Organization for Women President Terry O'Neill issued a statement Sunday afternoon slamming President Obama, saying that he had broken his faith with women by agreeing to issue an executive order that prohibits federal funding for abortions.
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:59 PM | Comments (4)

Those Who Refuse to Learn From History...

Every once in a while I'll get an email or a link to the words of Kitty Werthmann, an Austrian-born naturalized American citizen that watched Austrians give themselves to Hitler's creeping fascism, only too recognize their mistake after their freedoms were extinguished.

Today, her warning is haunting, and seems to echo what we see unfolding before us.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:16 PM | Comments (3)

Stupak Joins Scheme Allowing Pro-Abortion Obamacare to Pass

Bark Stupak and his so-called "pro-life" Democrats are going to try to pull a fast one on the American people, and will vote for the pro-abortion Obamacare bill.

Health reform holdout Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan announced Sunday that he and fellow anti-abortion Democrats have reached an agreement with the White House to defuse the controversy over abortion in the health care bill and will now vote "yes" – which Stupak said gives Democrats enough votes to pass the sweeping overhaul by day’s end.

The move came just after the White House announced that President Barack Obama will sign an executive order reaffirming a ban on federal funding of abortions.

Stupak's "out" is a lie, which he knows in advance of the vote. Both the President and the Congress know—and have always known—that an executive order cannot override written law.

The scheme was concocted to allow Stupak and his allies to claim they were acting in good faith when they cast their votes for Obamacare, even though it finances abortion. The truth is that Stupak and his allies know that the Executive Order will be quickly struck down by the courts.

Stupak and the rest of the pro-life Democrats have abandoned their professed life-long ideals and principles in order to placate their leaders.

May history and judge them harshly for their cowardice.

Update:


House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) calls out the deception:

"The law of the land trumps any Executive Order, which can be reversed or altered at the stroke of a pen by this or any subsequent President without any congressional approval or notice. Moreover, while an Executive Order can direct members of the executive branch, it cannot direct the private sector.

"Because of Roe v. Wade, courts have interpreted the decision as a statutory mandate that the government must provide federal funding for elective abortion in through federal programs. In other words, no Executive Order or regulation can override a statutory mandate unless Congress passes a law that prohibits federal funding from being used in this manner."


Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:29 PM | Comments (2)

Reconciliation Off the Table if Senate Bill Fails to Pass?

Seems to good to be true, but is the House reconciliation bill dead on arrival? That what the Senate Republicans have claimed via email:

BREAKING: “FIX” BILL MAY NOT ADVANCE IN SENATE

Senate Democrats Refuse Bi-partisan Meeting With Parliamentarian Until After House Votes


WASHINGTON DC – Senate Democrats have balked at a bi-partisan meeting with the Senate Parliamentarian to discuss a rule violation that could doom the entire House reconciliation proposal.

DON STEWART, McCONNELL SPOKESMAN: "Republicans have been trying to set up a meeting with Senate Democrats since yesterday to discuss this fatal point of order but have been met with nothing but silence. We suspect Democrats are slow walking us so as to have the House vote first. Since Senate Democrats refuse to meet with us and the Parliamentarian, we’ve informed our colleagues in the House that we believe the bill they’re now considering violates the clear language of Section 310g of the Congressional Budget Act, and the entire reconciliation bill is subject to a point of order and rejection in the Senate should it pass the House."
BACKGROUND

DEMOCRAT LEADERSHIP RELEASE: "The Congressional Budget Office estimate of the health care legislation shows an increase in Social Security revenues… CBO projects that the resulting increase in wages will generate $29 billion in additional FICA contributions to the Social Security Trust Fund." ("Health Care Reform Update," Office of Rep. Steny Hoyer, 3/21/10)

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET ACT: "LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any reconciliation bill or reconciliation resolution reported pursuant to a concurrent resolution on the budget agreed to under section 301 or 304, or a joint resolution pursuant to section 258C of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, or any amendment thereto or conference report thereon, that contains recommendations with respect to the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program established under title II of the Social Security Act." (Congressional Budget Act Of 1974, Sec. 310g, P. 31)

This is only noteworthy if the House can't pass the Senate Bill. If Pelosi gets the votes to pass the Senate Bill—which is very much in doubt at this moment—then Obamacare will go to the President and be law by nightfall.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:35 PM | Comments (1)

Pelosi is Falling Short?

The so-called "conventional wisdom" on today's health care rationing vote (Obamacare) seems to be indicating that if the pro-life Democratic block of Bart Stupak cannot be bought off in the final hours before the vote, then Nancy Pelosi will fall 2-3 votes short of passing Obamacare.

Two Tennessee Demcorat that have decided to cast no votes have put the Speaker in "a major bind."

This now running in red on Drudge:

FLASH: Senate Republicans found a provision in the new House health care bill that likely makes it ineligible for expedited 'reconciliation' procedures in the Senate. Dems refused to meet with GOP and Parliamentarian.... Developing....
It also appears&mdash according to a Drudge teaser—that House Democrats are gun-shy of being the deciding vote. Drudge has Pelosi saying to Steny Hoyer, "'Steny, we have to get to 217. None of these members wants to be the deciding vote'."
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:40 PM | Comments (1)

Did Black Representative Lie About Racial Slurs?

The Dana Show posts video of John Lewis (D-GA) through a crowd of Tea Party protesters yesterday, and the audio suggests that nothing remotely like a racial slur was hurled at him.

They video is only 22 seconds long, but in our camera-saturated society, other videos will pop up today of Lewis, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) going through the crowd as well.

I'm sure that if recordings prove that no slurs were directed at them, Lewis, Clyburn, and Cleaver will contritely apologize for slandering the protesters.

Yeah, right.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:29 AM | Comments (12)

March 20, 2010

Same Liberals that Routinely Use Sex Slur Against Protestors Get Vapors Over Dubious Allegations That Coarse Language Was Used Towards Their Congressmen

After more than a year of hearing liberals spit out the derogatory word "teabagger" at Tea Party protestors, I couldn't give a crap if a handful of Democrats claimed—without any corroboration—that bad language was hurled their way.

Just be thankful it wasn't the tar and feathers they deserve.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:40 PM | Comments (6)

Ready to Riot?

I ran out on some errands this morning, and noticed several things.

The gun store downtown was doing what I suspect was unusually brisk business for an early Saturday morning outside of hunting season. This same gun store's parking lot was overflowing mid-afternoon yesterday shortly after 3:30 PM, with traffic filling the lot, the nearby on-street parking filled, and overflow parking spilling into the gravel lot next door.

I've also seen a minivan with a warning/threat against Obamacare written in red paint on the windows (I didn't get a great look at it as it was moving in the opposite direction, but I got the gist of it).

This is hardly the equivalent of militiamen forming on the village green, but there seems to be a distinct undercurrent of frustration and rage building against the federal government in general, the tricks of Democratic Party in specific, and tomorrow's Obamacare may be the catalyst.

I don't sense any organization, but strong sentiment appears to be brewing. Is anyone else seeing similar behavior where they live?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 AM | Comments (14)

House Dems Claim Memo that Accurately Reflects Their Plot Is a Fake

Yesterday blogs and other news outlets posted a memo provided by Republicans that was said to have been circulated by Democrats. The memo outlined a scheme to lie about (or direct attention away from) the true cost of Obamacare, and then pass separate laws later in the year that would drive the overall cost of the plan even higher.

Talking Points Memo is being very careful handling this, and they should; whether or not the memo originated from a Democratic staffer or strategist or was a dirty trick is utterly irrelevant. The source isn't what matters. The memo accurately reflects known positions of previous iterations of Obamacare that Democrats were begrudgingly forced to temporarily drop to get enough votes to make the bill passable.

It is entirely credible—and in fact likely—that Nancy Pelosi's House leadership are plotting to do precisely what the memo outlines.

Interestingly enough, Republicans won't cite the source for the memo. Democrats are claiming that it is a fake generated by Republicans.

It is more likely that the memo is a sanitized version of actual Democratic plans, passed along to Republicans by House Democrats opposed to the costs, plots, and rationing associated with the dishonest socialist attempt to grab for themselves power that rightfully belongs to the people.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:57 AM | Comments (5)

March 19, 2010

Passing Obamacare Will Cost American Jobs

That is the only honest takeaway you can have reading this article from Chicago Breaking Business News:

Caterpillar Inc. said the health-care overhaul legislation being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives would increase the company's health-care costs by more than $100 million in the first year alone.

In a letter Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Caterpillar urged lawmakers to vote against the plan "because of the substantial cost burdens it would place on our shareholders, employees and retirees."

Caterpillar, the world's largest construction machinery manufacturer by sales, said it's particularly opposed to provisions in the bill that would expand Medicare taxes and mandate insurance coverage. The legislation would require nearly all companies to provide health insurance for their employees or face large fines.

The Peoria-based company said these provisions would increase its insurance costs by at least 20 percent, or more than $100 million, just in the first year of the health-care overhaul program.

"We can ill-afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus our global competitors," said the letter signed by Gregory Folley, vice president and chief human resources officer of Caterpillar. "We are disappointed that efforts at reform have not addressed the cost concerns we've raised throughout the year."

Business executives have long complained that the options offered for covering 32 million uninsured Americans would result in higher insurance costs for those employers that already provide coverage. Opponents have stepped up their attacks in recent days as the House moves closer toward a vote on the Senate version of the health-care legislation.

If Obama passes:

  • Companies that already pay health insurance will have to pay higher rates, meaning less profitability, higher costs, and fewer jobs
  • Companies that don't currently pay health insurance will have to pay high health insurance rates, meaning less profitability, higher costs, and fewer jobs.
  • Companies that cannot withstand the high costs of forced health care will simply shut down.

In all three situations, job loss—or at least the absence of job creation—is a certainty.

If Democrats really want to save or create jobs they'll vote against Obamacare.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:27 AM | Comments (2)

Fraud, Treason, and Violence

12 hours after first reading Jeffrey Anderson's revelation that the real ten-year costs of Obamacare, I'm having a hard time getting my mind around the scale of the duplicity:

To see the bill's true first-decade costs, we need to start the clock when the costs would actually start in any meaningful way: in 2014. The CBO says that Obamacare would cost $2.0 trillion in the bill's real first decade (from 2014 to 2023) — and much more in the decades to come.

But $2.0 trillion wouldn't be the total ten-year costs. Instead, that would merely be the "gross cost of coverage provisions." Based on earlier incarnations of the proposed overhaul, the total costs would be about a third higher (the exact number can't be gleaned from the CBO's analysis, which is only preliminary and is not a full scoring) — making the total price-tag between $2.5 and $3 trillion over the bill's real first decade.

"...making the total price-tag between $2.5 and $3 trillion over the bill's real first decade."

Don't bother trying to wrap your mind around the specific figures involved, because they are far too large to be viewed in anything but the abstract .

Instead, focus on what the Democratic Party has done to conceal those numbers. Focus on what they've done in order to lie to you.

Steny Hoyer and House Democrats crowed yesterday morning when they revealed that the Congressional Budget Office scoring of Obamacare put the cost of the program at "just" $940 billion.

What House Democrats and their allies in the media will not tell you is that the CBO is constrained to using strict instructions and parameters provided by Nancy Pelosi and the House leadership.

As briefly noted yesterday, the CBO was handcuffed by House Democrats, and forced to use bogus figures and timelines and other unrealistic constraints as the Democratic Party carried out an orchestrated campaign of fraud unprecedented in cost. Sadly, these Democrats dragged the non-partisan CBO into the scheme as unwilling accomplice.

The real coss of Obamacare over ten years is $2.5 to $3 trillion, or $1.5 to $2 trillion more than the Democratic Party is claiming.

Now, let's make this next point very, very clear.

Barack Obama knew in advance the real cost of the legislation that bears his name. He embraced the lie, has lied, and will continue to lie to your face about the cost.

Nancy Pelosi knows the real cost of the legislation, and along with other Democratic leaders in the House, was instrumental in purposefully deceiving the American people by hiding this cost.

Likewise, Harry Reid and other Senate Democratic leaders were well aware of the conspiracy to deceive the American people, well before the scheme went into motion.

The 44th President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama, 60th Speaker of the House Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi, and 24th Senate Majority Leader Harry Mason Reid conspired to hide the true cost of Obamacare, and have attempted to defraud the people of the United States. They think you are idiots. They think they can fool you. They think you'll take it lying down.

And maybe they are right. So they've made a calculated risk.

Obama, Pelosi, Reid and their accomplices know that they will never see the inside of a court of law for perpetrating this fraud. Hell... they write the law. They always provide themselves with an out.

But what is legal and what is moral are often quite different things, and never are the two further apart than when we're discussing politics.

The fraud Obama, Pelosi, and Reid and engaged in is a clear economic threat to the future of the United States, one which may bankrupt the nation. Their attempt to fundamentally transform our Republic through trickery and deceit are no less an affront to this nation that was the deception carried out by General Benedict Arnold when he attempted to hand over West Point to the British.

Does their fraud and conspiracy meet the legal definition of treason? No documents or conversations currently known to the public could support such a charge. But I defy anyone to proclaim that a conspiracy of politicians to seize one-sixth of the most powerful economy in the history of the planet by means of deception and lies is not morally a capital crime.

Nor do I suspect the Founding Fathers would have stood idly by as the Republic they envisioned was subverted into a lesser state where people became unwilling subjects to a greedy and ever-hungry government.

They would fight. They would kill, if they had to. They did.

I cannot forecast the future, and do not know if Sunday's vote on Obamacare will bring about a momentary respite from encroaching tyranny of our present government or usher us ever faster towards the precipice.

Like you, though, I am a student of history. We know that tyrants are never sated by small bites of freedom. They will continue to consume liberties until they are driven off, are killed, or are victorious.

Violence is in our nation's future. It remains to be seen if it will be violence towards tyrants, or violence towards liberty.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:31 AM | Comments (8)

March 18, 2010

Actual Cost of Obamacare: $2+ Trillion

Lying. Rat. Bastards.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:47 PM | Comments (2)

Fired Teacher Hangs Obama in Effigy... In Classroom

Superintendent Frances Gallo, the administrator who fired all the teachers at Central Falls High School when they refused to work slightly longer hours to help their students (at $30/hr), found an unlikely backer in President Obama. The fired teachers will complete this semester, but will not be back in the fall.

Now, the teachers—mostly Democrats—are peeling the Obama campaign stickers off their cars, and some are doing worse. Gallo was forced to sneak into Central Falls High in the dead of night to find just how far one teacher had gone to denounce Obama:

Gallo knew Obama's endorsement would create further uproar. She just didn't know how bad it would get.

She continued making her way through the school, clearing the first two floors. She was disheartened by the newspaper postings but relieved she hadn't found the offensive item.

One floor to go.

She climbed the steps and entered a classroom.

There it was.

"You couldn't miss it."

An Obama doll, about a foot tall, hung by its feet from the white board; the doll held a sign that said, "Fire Central Falls teachers," she says.

Racists.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:05 PM | Comments (5)

You Lie! CBO Report On Health Care Merely Garbage In, Garbage Out

Leave it to tax-and-spend liberals to trumpet a $940 billion boondoggle as some sort of cost-savings measure.

Especially since the numbers don't really exist
.

But let's go with the lie for a moment.

Hey, if I drive competent people out of an entire sector of the economy and replace them with dim-witted drones (think TSA airport screeners with access to your most personal information), I can trumpet "savings" of a sort as well.

You just won't like the result.

Of course, the Democrats can claim deficit reduction in the CBO's numbers because the Congressional Budget Office merely calculates the data they are given; they do not weigh in on whether those figures are arrived at by honest data or data which has been manipulated.

As is so often the case, the numbers provided the CBO by House Democrats is more rigged with more tricks than Dolly Parton's superstructure.

The CBO figures trumpeted by Democrats is based on junk, because junk is what they fed them.

Here are some graphs that represent the true costs of health care reform. They don't represent the latest tweaks in the House bill, but instead were compiled from a nearly identical House plan and the Senate plan.

First, a graph based upon an earlier CBO report of a previous version of the House Bill (source).



Now the Senate Bill (source).



One thing you'll note in any honest representation of the Democratic health care rationing scam is that it is going to cost us hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars to create a system when none are turned away, but all are equally miserable.

There can be health care reform. There will be health care reform. But it can be done without bankrupting our nation, or growing a federal government already intent on devouring our individual liberties.

Let's scrap this trainwreck, and start over with a bill that make sense, that all Americans can get behind.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:07 AM | Comments (2)

Obama Not Bothered by Possibly Un-Constitutional "Procedural" Deem-and-Pass Scheme; Dem House Leaders Set Selves Up For Future Ethics Charges

Just win, baby:

The president, in an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, responded for the first time to the controversy over a plan to use a parliamentary maneuver to allow the House to pass the Senate's health care bill without forcing members to vote for it directly.

The esoteric procedure has drawn fierce protest from Republicans, who say Democrats are trying to avoid accountability. But the president said there will be no doubt about where lawmakers stand on health care reform.

"I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or Senate," Obama said. "What I can tell you is that the vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform."

At Volokh, experts suggest that using deem-and-pass (or "demon pass" as some have dubbed it) will bring the Constitutionality of the legislation in question, as it would assume a controversial law passed without directly voting on it, seemingly in clear violation of the Constitutional requirement. While supporters of the Demcratic scheme are quick to point out that deem-and-pass has been used previously by both Democrats and Republicans, the simple fact of the matter is that it has never before been used to force through legislation that did not have clear majority support.

Deem-and-pass has been used to pass legislation unpopular with voters but with scant opposition in Congress; using it as a trick to avoid possible rejection in an open vote is clearly against what the Founders intended, and arguably grounds for ethics charges to be brought against Democratic leaders who are clearly acting in bad faith.

While there is little chance that the current Congress would bring up Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Louise Slaughter, and other Democratic architects of the scam up on charges, the possibility exists that a November revolt that returns the House to Republican control could see such charges pursued. Based upon the public's strong opposition to the current health care rationing bill, such ethics cases would likely find overwhelming public support.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:13 AM | Comments (3)

March 17, 2010

Obama Tea Bags Kucinich for Health Care Vote Switch

The first rule about Air Force One Mile High Club is not to talk about Air Force One Mile High Club.

But it worked.

When reached for comment, the President said:

"mfoown mmm um hmm do ohhhhh..."

Congressman Kucinich later claimed the experience was the most fun he's had in the air since the last time he was abducted by aliens.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:44 AM | Comments (2)

AP: Goods News! Your Insurance Premiums Will Rise Under Obamacare

Even the Associated Press is forced to admit that Obama is purposefully misleading the American public on the costs of Obamacare:

Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.

Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don't look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help millions of people who can't afford the cost now.

[snip]

"There's no question premiums are still going to keep going up," said Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research clearinghouse on the health care system. "There are pieces of reform that will hopefully keep them from going up as fast. But it would be miraculous if premiums actually went down relative to where they are today."

The statistics Obama based his claims on come from two sources. In both cases, caveats got left out.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:08 AM | Comments (1)

MA Treasurer: Obamacare Could "Wipe Out" The National Economy In Four Years

He should know. As he notes in Businessweek, he's living it:

The Massachusetts treasurer said Tuesday that Congress will "threaten to wipe out the American economy within four years" if it adopts a health care overhaul modeled after the Bay State's.

Treasurer Timothy Cahill -- a former Democrat running as an independent for governor -- said the 2006 law has succeeded only because of huge subsidies and favorable regulatory changes from the federal government.

"Who, exactly, is going to bail out the federal government if this plan goes national?" He asked.

In a nation of more than 300 million only half of us pay taxes, and Democrats would force upon us to pay for the health insurance of all. A child can see that simply isn't a sustainable model, especially with the debt load of existing entitlement programs weighing down on us.

Simply put, a vote (or a shifty and probably un-Constitutional "deeming") in favor of Obamacare is irresponsible and unsustainable. We can only hope that Democrats in Congress are more loyal to their nation than Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:26 AM | Comments (3)

Hawaii Considers Birther Smackdown

Dear Birthers: Hawaii has had it up to here:

Birthers beware: Hawaii may start ignoring your repeated requests for proof that President Barack Obama was born here.

As the state continues to receive e-mails seeking Obama's birth certificate, the state House Judiciary Committee heard a bill Tuesday permitting government officials to ignore people who won't give up.

"Sometimes we may be dealing with a cohort of people who believe lack of evidence is evidence of a conspiracy," said Lorrin Kim, chief of the Hawaii Department of Health's Office of Planning, Policy and Program Development.

So-called "birthers" claim Obama is ineligible to be president because, they argue, he was actually born outside the United States, and therefore doesn't meet a constitutional requirement for being president.

Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino issued statements last year and in October 2008 saying that she's seen vital records that prove Obama is a natural-born American citizen.

But the state still gets between 10 and 20 e-mails seeking verification of Obama's birth each week, most of them from outside Hawaii, Kim said Tuesday.

I've never quite understood the logic of those who claim Barack Obama was born somewhere other than the United States.

Claiming that he was born in Kenya is simply absurd and doesn't pass a smell test; why on Earth would a very pregnant woman with decidedly limited funds make an international flight to a third-world country so close to her due date? A competing claim that he was instead born in Canada is more plausible logistically, but you still run into the eternal question: why? Why would Stanley Dunham leave her husband and family while pregnant to go to another country to give birth?

Who does such a thing?

No doubt about it; Barack's mom was a strange duck who was just as nutty politically as her son grew up to be, but there is no indication she was insane. I don't see any reason to suspect she gave birth anywhere but in Hawaii, and I've yet to hear a single plausible explanation to the contrary.

Barack Obama is an idiot, and incompetent, and arguably an embarrassment to the nation, but he's our mistake.

It's time to deal with that truth.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:50 AM | Comments (22)

March 16, 2010

You Can Lead the House to Slaughter, But You Can't Make Them Think

The political tension and suspense is building on Capitol Hill as Democratic leaders try to find ways to bribe, blackmail or bully enough House Democrats into casting their votes for Obamacare. If they fail to muster enough votes, House Democratic leaders are considering a short-circuiting of the required voting process through procedural trickery that could force a Constitutional crisis (or not).

We've been looking at health care reform for over a year, but all Congress has come up with is the underhanded theft of a sixth of the economy, supplanting it with yet another unfunded bureaucracy that will follow Social Security and Medicare into insolvency and potentially trigger national bankruptcy.

If I were to speak to Representatives today who was still trying to decide how to vote on this pending legislation, I'd ask them to answer the following questions for themselves:

  • Will imposing more bureaucracy improve patient customer service and satisfaction?
  • Will imposing more bureaucracy be more likely to increase or decrease the quality of care?
  • How much will the imposition of this new bureaucracy slow the research and development of new treatments and cures?
  • What is the probability that this new bureaucracy would provide services less expensively and more efficiently than the private sector?
  • Can you assure us that you completely understand the implications of taking over one-sixth of the nation's economy?

It is very hard to believe that any Congressperson could truthfully conclude that forcing Obamacare upon Americans would result in better customer service, better care, and the continued drive to find new cures in a cost-effective manner, without posing a significant threat the nations' economic future.

They therefore have to conclude that this is horribly flawed legislation, and it most be voted against if the best interests of their constituents are really what Representatives have in mind.

The only question now is whether House Democrats will show integrity and stand up to their cynical leaders, or if they will instead cave to an ideological agenda that compromises the trust of their constituents.

I fear the later, but would love to find myself surprised by a rare display of spine.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:53 AM | Comments (1)

March 15, 2010

More White House Duplicity: Cancer Patient Not Threatened With Home Loss

Obamacare has been an incompetently-run, dishonest enterprise from the beginning, so I guess it should come as no surprise that just as the President has lied about lied about the dire need for this flawed legislation, he's lied about the lack of options for his newest political prop:

Natoma Canfield, the cancer-stricken woman who has become a centerpiece of President Obama's push for health care reform, will not lose her home over her medical bills and will probably qualify for financial aid, a top official at the Cleveland medical center treating her told FoxNews.com.

Though Canfield's sister Connie Anderson said her sibling is afraid she'll lose her house and Obama warned at an Ohio rally Monday that the patient is "racked with worry" about the cost of tests and treatment, she is already being screened for financial help.

Lyman Sornberger, executive director of patient financial services at the Cleveland Clinic, said "all indications" at the outset are that she will be considered for assistance.

[snip]

...Sornberger said that even if Canfield doesn't qualify for charity care or Medicaid, "there's probably eight to 10 options that a patient has" to find payment.

"It doesn't stop there," he said.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:51 PM | Comments (2)

Dear Mr. President: Thank You For Creating Natoma Canfield's Problems

When Barack Obama delivers his upteenth "the time for talk is over" speech about Obamacare in Ohio today, he will try use the story of cancer patient Natoma Canfield as a heart-wrenching anecdote to justify the government seizing control of 20% of the nation's economy. What he will not do is explain is tell the truth about what Natoma Canfield cannot find affordable insurance, which is a problem that he and his fellow politicians artfully created.

In what appears to be White House boilerplate, there are stories being run by various legacy media outlets today lamenting Ms. Canfield's condition and her loss of insurance.

Once again, President Obama and his serially dishonest allies will try to slander an insurance company as being heartless and greedy, a soulless, profit-seeking entity that exists to wring as much money away from people as possible before tossing this infirm away as a discarded husk. In today's particular bit of theater, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield will play the villain, but only the name changes from one episode to another. Democrats have latched on to the strategy of trying to convince Americans that it is the insurance companies at fault for higher health care.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Like any major industry in the United States, the health care industry exists to provide a much-needed service in exchange for profit, and it employs millions of Americans towards that end. Those employed directly or indirectly by the industry are your friends and neighbors, sons and daughters. 1 in 6 jobs is related to the health care industry.

The insurance industry is a major component of the health care industry, and a vital part of making health care affordable by sharing costs. But health care insurance is becoming less affordable for many Americans. That we can't deny. What politicians—and liberal Democrats in particular—are desperate to conceal is the undeniable fact that they are directly responsible for making health insurance so expensive by creating barriers to competition and driving prices up.

What Barack Obama will not mention in his speech in Ohio today is the truth. He will not lay the blame for the rising cost of insurance at the feet of his fellow politicians and bureaucrats that have created mountains of laws and regulations that have crippled the ability of insurance companies to compete with each other in a free market system for your dollars. He will not admit that his allies have created blockages to bringing your health care costs down. Red tape, callousness, inefficiency and bloat are the signatures of government intrusion into the private sector, and power-hungry politicians such as Mr. Obama are the root cause of the increasing price of insurance. They are not the solution.

Barack will not mention this truth. Barack cannot acknowledge this truth. In the bizarro insular world he inhabits, more government is good. Bureaucracy equals efficiency. Tight government control is superior to individual initiative, ingenuity, and drive.

When Barack Obama uses Natoma Canfield as a prop today, he will see her as justification for intrusion, not as a person. To him,and those like him, Canfield represents a dim and anonymous Public That Must Be Taken Care Of instead of individuals with dreams and aspirations. In his perfect future world, she and we will be numbers in the system to be cost-justified and managed from cradle to grave.

If Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and the Democratic party were remotely interested in decreasing the cost of health care and increasing its quality, they would be creating a bill of deregulation, freeing companies to seek efficiencies and compete for your health care dollars across state lies, undercutting each other to as they compete for your business much as Geico competes with State Farm competes with Allstate for your car insurance.

Has anyone you know ever been bankrupted by the cost of car insurance?

Wouldn't it make far more sense to let health insurance providers have the freedom to compete that car insurance companies have?

But Barack Obama isn't in Ohio to make insurance cheaper for Natoma Canfield. He hasn't been on a year-long campaign of subterfuge to make coverage better, or the process and bureaucracy less tedious. Obamacare isn't about any of those things.

Above all, Obamacare is about growing government, asserting control, and forcing submission to an ever-growing nanny state. Barack Obama is in Ohio today to tell the world he knows better than you do what you need.

But Obamacare isn't the solution.

Obamacare is the cancer.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:24 AM | Comments (13)

March 12, 2010

Blunt Enough for You?

A little honesty on the Democrat's death panel from one of their own trying to stop it:

"Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered." The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, "are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party."

What are Democratic leaders saying? "If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That's one of the arguments I've been hearing," Stupak says. "Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we're talking about."

Maybe Democrats can find a nice token of appreciation for those who abort their useless, too costly children.

The last bunch enamored with this concept desired a little more pageantry with their savagery. They liked passing out yellow stars to their victims.

Democrats treat the unborn with even less respect. Just a figure on a ledger.

One they would prefer to round off as a mistake.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:08 PM | Comments (4)

Shock: CNN Promotes Sanka Party

Talk about a "made for TV movie."

CNN is touting the Coffee Party as an alternative to the Tea Party movement, noting the number of CP followers on Facebook already outstrips that of the Tea Partiers.

Funny, I don't recall hearing of any actual Coffee Party protests. As for the group out of central casting that CNN interviewed, I thought they were as diverse as any pair of film directors organizing their third fake grass roots campaign could hope to find.

Update: On second thought, calling them the Kopi Luwak Party is probably more appropriate than Sanka, considering their desire to swill massively overpriced crap that no person in their right mind would ingest, and which would bankrupt anyone who swallowed it regularly.

Update: More on one of the CP members from Tim at Left Coast Rebel.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:28 PM | Comments (6)

You Know What We Need To Pass Health Care? Bundling in the Government Takeover of Student Loans

The Democrats don't have the votes in the Senate to force through an attempt to drive banks out of the student loan business, so someone decided they could avoid debate and defeat by adding the loan legislation to Obamacare's health care rationing scheme.

Democrats believe that what will make America a better place is turning it over to bureaucrats, and are so enamored with their superior beliefs that they intend to ram them through any way they can, no matter how duplicitous. One can only imagine the other items Democrats have hidden away in their economy-killing boondoggle.

They simply must be stopped, before they bankrupt us all after seizing every bit of freedom and self-determination they can.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:25 PM | Comments (1)

March 11, 2010

Signs of No-mentum

I haven't given it much thought myself, but Michelle Malkin brilliantly skewers Barack Obama when she notes that his "time for talk on health care is over" tour just keeps going.


Poor baby. It sounds like the job is just too much for him sometimes, doesn't it?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:08 PM | Comments (2)

Holder, Wrote, Hid Brief in Support of Terrorist Plotting to Kill American Civilians

Attorney General Eric Holder, you are scum:

So the Attorney General, while he was in private practice at a firm that openly bragged about its "pro bono" representation of numerous Girmo detainees, chose during our war with al Qaeda to file a brief on behalf of an al Qaeda operative who tried to kill lots of Americans. So he argued that such people ought to be treated as criminal defendants swaddled in the Bill of Rights rather than enemy combatants detained for interrogation and war crimes commissions. So what? What, are you, like, saying that the positions Holder voluntarily took as a private lawyer zealously representing unpopular clients might shed some light on the policies he would implement in the completely unrelated role of top Justice Department official.

Apparently Holder "forgot" he wrote such a brief, repeatedly, up until and including the time more than a half dozen attorneys in Justice were criticized for representing terrorists.

Of course, what really has potential to get him in hot water is the fact that he refused to disclose the existence of the brief during his confirmation hearings.

Pundits have asserted in the last month that Obama was looking for an excuse to push Holder "under the bus." I wonder if someone in the White House might have been part of getting this significant nondisclosure brought to light.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:22 AM | Comments (4)

Happy Little Tyrants

It seems the more power so-called liberals think they have, the more control they want:

If State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has his way, the only salt added to your meal will come from the chef's tears.

The Brooklyn Democrat has introduced a bill that would ban the use of salt in New York restaurants - and violators would be smacked with a $1,000 fine for every salty dish.

"No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food," the bill reads.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:59 AM | Comments (6)

What Did Pelosi Know About Massa, And When Did She Know It?

The Washington Post is reporting this morning that Speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi's office had been alerted to allegations of predatory behavior by (now former) Democratic Congressman Eric Massa back in October of 2009.

Did Pelosi sit on this information for months before the House Ethics investigation?

Quite frankly there simply isn't enough information in the public eye yet to know who knew what, when, but if Pelosi's office was aware of Massa's predatory behavior towards young gay staffers, she needs to be the focus of her own ethics investigation. If it is found that she was indifferent to Massa's hunting of staffers for sexual assaults, then she should resign her Speakership, and perhaps her seat.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 AM | Comments (2)

March 10, 2010

Atlantic - Naval Massa Had Keen Interest in Main Masts and Poop Decks, Too

Other than commenting on how politically incompetent it was for Democrats to force him out at a time they did in the Health care debate, I've pretty much avoided the story of (former) Congressman Eric Massa, the Democrat apparently run out of office in a gay sexual harassment scandal involving his own aides.

It now appears that Massa's interest in his fellow man goes back at least to his Navy days, when he was repeatedly rebuffed by junior officers for his attempts to play hide the torpedo with them.

Massa's bombastic, self-serving (and entirely amusing) excuses for his forced retirement means the end of the House ethics complaint against him. I sincerely hope that other investigations into his behavior are forthcoming to make sure his is not a predator.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)

Slaughter's House Rules

Unable to competently draft a health care rationing bill that Democratic majorities in the House and Senate can agree on, House Rules Chairman Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is attempting to concoct an unconstitutional rule that would consider the bill voted upon, even though it is has not been:

The twisted scheme by which Democratic leaders plan to bend the rules to ram President Obama's massive health care legislation through Congress now has a name: the Slaughter Solution.

The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to get the health care legislation through the House without an actual vote on the Senate-passed health care bill. You see, Democratic leaders currently lack the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill through the House. Under Slaughter's scheme, Democratic leaders will overcome this problem by simply "deeming" the Senate bill passed in the House - without an actual vote by members of the House.

They are attempting to declare victory without a vote, governing by fiat.

Please pay attention, my fellow Americans.

Governments that begin trying to rewrite rules that have worked for hundreds of years in order to seize a temporary advantage quickly become drunk on that power if they are allowed it, and the result is always unpleasant.

Slaughter's subversive House rules are just one avenue that leftists are pursuing in a frenetic quest to seize as much power for themselves as possible before many of their number are thrown out of office in November. The problem, of course, is that if they find that they can simply rewrite the rules to suit them, then even the sting of electoral defeat may no longer be a threat to their ambitions.

Watch them closely.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:59 PM | Comments (4)

The Punk White House

Having a sense of decorum and has never been a requirement for the Presidency. It is a pesky, almost irrelevant detail the Founders wisely chose not to include becuase it could be abused to exclude otherwise qualified candidates from seeking the office. That said, having a President without a sense of decency and respect for the Office is painfully embarrassing for the nation, both domestically, and in the eyes of the world.

Barack Obama's presidency has been an unending trainwreck this far, from serial protocol gaffes that disrespected foreign heads of state, to attacks against the media that debase the office, to his recent and embarrassing attack against the Supreme Court that overshadowed his first State of the Union address. Justices are required by protocol and tradition to sit stoically throughout the Address. Obama's assault on them over an unconstitutional law they overturned was the equivalent of kicking a defenseless dog on a chain.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts diplomatically attempted to answer questions about the breach of decorum by simply calling it "very troubling."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, a perfect representative for the most thin-skinned of presidents, did not have the grace to let even that innocuous comment slip by without going into attack mode. Instead, Gibbs magnified the breach of decency and it's measured response by launching into an attack on the court yet again:

"What is troubling is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour money into elections - drowning out the voices of average Americans," Gibbs said. "The President has long been committed to reducing the undue influence of special interests and their lobbyists over government. That is why he spoke out to condemn the decision and is working with Congress on a legislative response."

The push back against the Supreme Court header from the White House seems almost unprecedented in its directness, though White House officials claim previous administrations expressed equally public criticisms of the court. Undoubtedly, it's bound to spur another round of debates over what constitutes proper decorum between the two branches.

Gibbs' answer is filled with lies and hypocrisy—the White House has appointed lobbyists with reckless abandon and allows the special interests they represent to write policy on everything from education, to climate change, to recreational fishing—but what is most troubling is the inability of this President and his staff to respectfully represent the Office of the Presidency that they temporarily inhabit.

Perhaps Obama is simply lacking in class and decency. Perhaps his thuggish mentors and allies did not adequately teach him to respect his position or his nation. Whatever the excuse, Barack Obama and his closest allies are an international embarrassment as the continue to engage in the petty and banal.

This behavior is beneath the Office, and if Obama and his lackey's can't respect that, one can hope they develop the political sense to at least go mute.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:28 PM | Comments (7)

Comical: NAACP Calls for Resignation of School Board Head Who Called People "Animals"... For The Way The Crowd Treated a Black Speaker

Perhaps the most obvious thing about the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the decades since the Civil Rights era is that "advancement" doesn't seem to be their goal in many instances. Instead, they often tend to fall back into a defensive mode, circling the wagons to defend ineffective or even destructive situations in the name of political expediency and patronage politics.

We have a perfect example of that idiocy developing here in central North Carolina, after a slate of candidates swept into office on a reform platform began to attempt to fix the faltering Wake County schools.

One of the proposals supported by voters and the new school board they sent to shake things up was the return to a community schools model. The proposal is simple. Instead of busing students all over the county to enforce diversity artificially, most parents and the school board desire to limit the amount of time students spend commuting. The hope is to send students no further than five miles away from their homes to school.

As the parent of a child that faces a 45-minute one-way commute every day (admittedly by choice to a centralized magnet school), I can certainly understand why parent would like to have their kids closer to home.

But North Carolina NAACP head Rev. William Barber did what the NAACP always does. Instead of debating the philosophy or statistics of the change, he instead immediately attempted to cry that the attempt to change a broken system was designed to hurt minorities.

To try to bolster his weak cries of racism, he has attacked (and continues to attack) Wake County School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta for comments he made in a meeting earlier this month.

After U.S.House candidate Bill Randall spoke in favor of ending the current busing policy—a speech that was consistently interrupted by outbursts by supporters of a failed status quo—Margiotta growled "Here come the animals out of their cages, " as he braced for an onslaught of opposition to the plan that was based on politically and racially-motivated fear-mongering instead of facts.

Despite the fact the crowd was indeed mob-like and disruptive, Margiotta was probably out of line to speak of opponents so dismissively. But he simply wasn't singling out one group or entity. He was responding to a contentious, diverse, and disorderly crowd.

Rev. Barber—a defender of patronage politics designed to infuse people such as himself with power—is using his position as the President of the state NAACP to bring the national organization to bear against Margiotta, trying to get him to step down by misrepresenting his non-racial comment.

Barber's goal is clear: use false charges of racism to undermine the clear will of the majority of Wake County voters.

But is is clear that there was no racism in Margiotta's outburst, even if he was in a foul temper by that point. Congressional Candidate Randall was trying to make a speech, and opponents tried to drown him out.

Barber and the NAACP are welcome to debate the merits of various approaches to education policy, and they are welcome to file lawsuits if the feel they the new policy will negatively impact children in Wake County schools.

But trying to claim there is racism when it clearly does not exist is the petty act of an organization that has long outlived its originally function and utility, and the state and national leaders that stoop to this level are the leaders that desperately need to be replaced.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:18 AM | Comments (5)

March 08, 2010

And Bush Was The Idiot?

A year ago, Barack Obama had strong personal favorability ratings and very good poll numbers, a supermajority in the Senate, and an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives.

In the course of little more than a year, he's destroyed his favorability ratings and illusion of competence, has abdicated his role as leader and ripped apart the Democratic Party and the House and Senate to the point no one trusts anyone. Now, the biggest story of the day on the eve of yet another push to pass his health care rationing bill is a claim by a Democrat that he was framed by House leaders in a gay sex scandal so that he would resign and not be a vote against the bill, a bill in which Obama has unwisely invested all of his political capital.

He's now reduced to stump speeches attacking American businesses in the feeble hope of salvaging his wounded pride.

How far he has fallen, and how little he has to show for his zealotry.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:52 PM | Comments (5)

The Lazy Unemployed

Steve Benen writes that THE GOP STILL JUST DOESN'T LIKE THE UNEMPLOYED....

My immediate response to the headline was the snarky thought, "...as opposed to the Democrats, who are doing everything in their power to make everyone unemployed."

But I clicked through anyway, to see Benen trying to set up his argument by citing Tom DeLay:

It's astounding, but in the midst of an unemployment crisis, prominent Republicans continue to castigate those struggling to find jobs.

Yesterday, for example, disgraced former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) argued that unemployment benefits are a bad idea, because, as he sees it, they discourage people from entering the work force.

"You know," DeLay said, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions of these unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs." When CNN's Candy Crowley described his argument as "a hard sell" to the public, DeLay replied, "It's the truth."

Crowley followed up, asking, "People are unemployed because they want to be?" DeLay again said, "Well, it is the truth."

After citing other examples of no-doubt evil Republicans making similar comments, Benen then concludes:

As a matter of conscience, having prominent Republicans chastise those struggling to find work during an unemployment crisis is just callous and cruel.

And as a matter of politics, who, exactly, is going to be impressed by Republicans attacking the unemployed as lazy? Since when is "screw struggling families, let's worry about corporate tax cuts and the estate tax" an effective election-year message during difficult economic times?

I can only assume Benen chooses to turn a blind eye to the phenomena of funemployment, the breezy, recreational abuse of unemployment benefits that has a become a lifestyle of its own, with Web sites and blogs dedicated to it.

This is the kind of abuse that DeLay and other Republicans are targeting, and I cannot see how any sane person can defend making unemployment benefits to those who choose to abuse the system instead of finding a way to become a contributing member of society.

Then there are the purposefully underemployed, those that could be working full time jobs—often with benefits—but at lower salaries that they previously made. They choose to remain unemployed because they are arrogant and feel entitled and would rather be unemployed than take a position they feel is beneath them.

These people, again, are those that continue to sponge off the taxpayer as they sit on their plump backsides watching The View because they system is broken and allows them to live a life without accountability (or at least with reduced accountability) for their inaction.

Unemployment should be a safety net, not a plush feather bed or even a futon.

It's a simple concept: If you don't work because you won't work, you don't eat.

It's so simple, even a liberal can grasp it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:55 AM | Comments (8)

Lazy and Unqualified

Surely, they can't be serious.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:35 AM | Comments (0)

March 05, 2010

Obama To Dems: It's All About Me

For the first time in his life since the last time, Barack Obama reminds America that his Presidency isn't about leading America, but about satisfying his ego:

President Obama's message to progressives who are dissatisfied with the Senate health care bill is two fold: First: Don't forget about the uninsured. Second: Don't forget what failure to pass this bill would do to the party and my presidency.

Wow. ...and my presidency.

I want to ask a simple question: are there still citizens that believe that Barack Obama cares more about the uninsured than he does about how he will be remembered?

And are there still Democrats who think he won't hang them out to dry in his raw pursuit of self-glorification?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:41 AM | Comments (22)

Pentagon Attacked by Anti-Bush Nut/ 9/11 Truther

Patterico has the details.

Two police officers were wounded in the attack. The shooter was fatally shot during the attack. His name was John Patrick Bedell of Hollister, CA. According to MSNBC, he had prior arrests for cultivating marijuana and assaulting cops.

Update: The shooter was a registered Democrat, not that the fact will keep dishonest, ideologically-driven propagandists such as Peter Grier from attempting to smear those on the center right..

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:18 AM | Comments (1)

March 04, 2010

More Incompetence From Obama

Despite the headline, Barack Obama is almost certainly not selling judgeships to secure heath care votes.

For starters, holding on to the appointment until after the vote would have been Obama's power play, and it is also rather difficult to claim that Scott Matheson isn't a good candidate for the position.

But any politician—even a neophyte city councilman—simply has to know how bad the optics of this appointment are at this time. While the appointment is probably perfectly legitimate, even amateurs know better than to create the appearance of possible bribery, especially leading into a close-run and controversial vote on a high-profile piece of legislation with little public support.

Supporters claim that Barack Obama is refreshingly smart and cerebral compared to our last President.

How much longer do we have to wait until he shows it?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:29 AM | Comments (4)

March 03, 2010

The Kind Of Leadership We Need...

...can't be found in Washington, DC.

People always want something for nothing, and politicians, being the craven creatures they are, always try to provide it even when their actions create crushing debt on future generations. They trade long-term prosperity for temporary power, and the political class we've been cursed with has abused the system's holding capacity for such incompetencies to its quite generous limits.

We live in a time where we see states and entire nations on the verge of bankruptcy, and yet the people who have caused this problem think the proper response is not just to continue a pattern of chronic spending abuse, but to make it worse. They'll go so far as to completely ignore the pleas of those they swore to serve, threatening the solvency of the very union they should protect and defend with their lives.

As others have noted, it's all about ego for a generation of elected representatives that has convinced themselves they are something akin to a ruling class. November cannot come fast enough.

We must purge ourselves of those politicians that revel in their own sense of importance and believe that they, not the American people, are the source of this nation's greatness.

We've suffered these condescending fools and their scheming for too long. We can only hope they don't cause irreparable damage before they are dragged or driven out.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:03 PM | Comments (7)

SPLC's Interesting Ideas of "Right Wing Hate"

I'll let others dissect liberal Mark Potok's increasingly irrelevant claims about the growth of right wing hate, and instead focus on what the group claims about my home state of North Carolina.

My first observation is that our typically "red" state that many urban liberals like to mock for being part of the Old South has less than half the listed hate groups (29) of "tolerant" California. Bigots.

But what I find especially interesting is that in their report on right wing hate, they link to their so-called "hate map" as if to imply all groups listed are right wing.

They most certainly are not.

Of the 29 hate groups the SPLC lists in North Carolina, 8 are black separatist groups, including chapters of the Nation of Islam, the New Black Panther Party, and two branches of The Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ.

While I'm not at all familiar with the last group, the Nation of Islam and New Black Panther Party both tie themselves closely to the Democratic Party and many left-wing initiatives, including advocating the Presidency of Barack Obama. The Nation of Islam's leader was and is openly praised and accepted at Obama's church and among his closest mentors in Chicago.

By the SPLC's standards of guilt by loose association, the Obama Administration should clearly be listed as a black separatist hate group operating with branches in Chicago and Washington, DC, if not nationwide. Of course, this same loose standard was applied and Obama-supporting groups were documented, then Potok would have to explain the explosive growth of left wing hate groups... and Potok is not about to document that.

Certainly, most sensible people would view the way the SPLC pigeonholes groups on vague and arbitrary standards as absurd.

But then, people with sense don't fund the SPLC.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:29 AM | Comments (3)

March 01, 2010

Obama is Not a Drunk

The Guardian made it appear that President Obama was told to moderate his drinking (suggesting he drinks too much), a story that quite a few bloggers have reported on.

Unfortunately, a copy of Obama's medical exam released to the press confirms that he cannot blame alcohol abuse for his Presidency.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:03 PM | Comments (4)

Pelosi To House Democrats: I'll Sacrifice You For Obamacare

Hear the words of a true believer:

Ms. Pelosi was asked what she would say to House Democrats who were "in real fear of losing their seats in November if they support you now."

"Our members, every one of them, wants health care," Ms. Pelosi said. “They know that this will take courage. It took courage to pass Social Security. It took courage to pass Medicare. And many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill."

"But," Ms. Pelosi continued, "the American people need it. Why are we here? We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress. We're here to do the job for the American people, to get them results that give them not only health security, but economic security."

I'm sure it comes as a surprise to no one that Nancy Pelosi is a radical zealot willing to sacrifice as "lesser" red state Democrats to advance her drive to socialism. That she sees the bankrupting nightmares of Social Security and Medicare as the kind of program Obamcare should aspire to be simply clarifies she is far more interested in growing the power and influence of government than she is helping the poor taxpayers saddled by the debt she keeps attempting to increase in billion dollar bites.

Pelosi and her dim-witted allies can't seem to grasp the basic concept that government cannot provide cradle-to-grave everything, nor does she understand it does almost nothing well. Nor do she and her allies seem to grasp that the United States doesn't have an infinite supply of money, even as her home state edges ever closer to bankruptcy because of the exact same kinds of economy-killing liberal programs she champions.

Her run as Speaker may be over in November.

Let's hope the damage she can do to our nation in the meantime is negligible.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:58 AM | Comments (10)

February 26, 2010

These Clowns Can't Quit

It seems some BDS-afflicted souls will never tire of the witch hunt:

Senior Democrats and watchdog groups demanded Friday that the Justice Department investigate the disappearance of e-mail messages by Bush lawyers who drafted memos blessing harsh interrogation tactics, saying their absence cast doubt on an ethics report that cleared the lawyers of professional misconduct.

The lost e-mails cover a critical period in 2002 when Justice Department attorneys labored under heavy pressure on a memo that gave the CIA a green light to use simulated drowning, sleep deprivation and other since-repudiated interrogation techniques against al-Qaeda suspects.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), at a hearing Friday, pressed authorities for answers. "Why were these critical records deleted? Why were they kept from investigators?" he asked.

Here's a hint, Pat: The missing emails are being kept in a vault between Obama's "real" birth certificate and Bush's TANG records.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:57 PM | Comments (7)

February 25, 2010

Keith Olbermann Has Daddy Issues

I never watch Keith Olbermann for the same reason I ignore Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly— I can't stand their drama-queen antics. But while I ignore O'Reilly and Beck for their theatrics, it is a bit harder to turn your back on Olbermann's rhetoric, especially when his frothing hatred and bigotry is on such violent display as it was last night.

Brad Wilmouth suffered through Olbermann's latest attempt to dehumanize his critics at Newbusters:

On Wednesday's Countdown show, in his latest "Special Comment," MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, after recounting some of the heartrending details of his father's current health problems, went on to slam Sarah Palin, Betsy McCaughey, and ObamaCare critics, especially those who have used the term "death panels," calling such national health care opponents by the names "subhumans," "ghouls," and "fiends." He went on to "damn" to "hell" those who use the term "death panels." Olbermann: "It's a life panel, and damn those who call it otherwise to hell!"

Actually, Mr. Olbermann, the kind of health care rationing system that you and your fellow liberals would force upon America is the equivalent of "death panel" triage, with a deadly combination of apathy and accountancy leading to appalling care.

As Barack Obama and his socialist allies in the Democratic Party engage in political theater this morning to try to revive their attempt to intrude into your family's health care decisions, I want you to turn to this dreadful cautionary tale of what Britain's attempt at socialized medicine has done to its population.

The Democrats simply cannot be taken seriously when they claim to be against torture while attempting to implement a health care rationing scheme that isn't as good as the care detainees get at Gitmo.

Patients were routinely neglected or left "sobbing and humiliated" by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care.

An independent inquiry found that managers at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs.

The inquiry report, published yesterday by Robert Francis, QC, included proposals for tough new regulations that could lead to managers at failing NHS trusts being struck off.

Staff shortages at Stafford Hospital meant that patients went unwashed for weeks, were left without food or drink and were even unable to get to the lavatory. Some lay in soiled sheets that relatives had to take home to wash, others developed infections or had falls, occasionally fatal. Many staff did their best but the attitude of some nurses "left a lot to be desired".

This is the kind of care Keith Olbermann wants for his own father?

It sounds like somebody has daddy issues:

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:02 AM | Comments (11)

February 24, 2010

I Hate It When The Politico Screws Up a Story

Under the headline Exclusive: White House privately plots 2012 campaign run, Mike Allen writes:

President Barack Obama's top advisers are quietly laying the groundwork for the 2012 reelection campaign, which is likely to be run out of Chicago and managed by White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, according to Democrats familiar with the discussions.

Allen needs to get his ears checked.

I suspect that what sources have told him is that Obama's top advisors are laying the groundwork because they expect to be run out of Chicago in 2012 when Obama loses the White House after a constant string of broken promises, gaffes, and policy failures.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:59 AM | Comments (1)

February 22, 2010

Reid: Out of Work Men Become Abusers

It sounds like Landra will be in for a tough December.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:07 PM | Comments (4)

Removing All Doubt: Obama the Socialist

His pedophile mentor Frank Marshal Davis was a radical communist. His neighbor, alleged book doctor, fellow board member and fundraiser Bill Ayers is a murderous Marxist who hoped to put tens of millions of Americans in concentration camps in the American southwest. His pastor and mentor of more than two decades is a racial separatist and socialist, as is another one of his Chicago allies, the lynching-advocate Michael Pfleger.

So I'm not the least bit surprised to find that Barack Obama has announced a health care rationing solution on par with what you would expect from a petty tyrant like Castro or Chavez.

President Obama will propose on Monday giving the federal government new power to block excessive rate increases by health insurance companies, as he rolls out comprehensive legislation to revamp the nation's health care system, White House officials said Sunday...

[snip]

...By focusing on the effort to tighten regulation of insurance costs, a new element not included in either the House or Senate bills, Mr. Obama is seizing on outrage over recent premium increases of up to 39 percent announced by Anthem Blue Cross of California and moving to portray the Democrats' health overhaul as a way to protect Americans from profiteering insurers.

When someone as moderate and even-keeled as James Joyner lambasts the Obama plan as "much more radical" than the Congressional plan Americans already hate, you know it must be extreme.

Existing government over-regulation in California led Anthem Blue Cross to loose customers, and kept them from finding new markets to keep their rates low for existing subscribers. As a last, desperate bid to remain solvent, they were forced to raise their rates an astronomical amount. Obama won't let insurance agencies compete and lower prices through competition for your business, and instead wants them regulated until they are choked out of existence and the American people scream for relief.

A corrupt politician from a corrupt political machine, Obama's "solution" seems patterned on the protection racket you see in organized crime, squeezing companies and the American people dry as he tries to profit from a problem he and his political allies created.

Every idea he has, and every bit of legislation he supports, reinforces the fact that Barack Obama simply doesn't like America as it is, and loathes capitalism.

He has no faith in the American people or in our ingenuity, and sees only more regulation and more government power as a solution.

He is pathetic, and easily the worse American President in history. It's simply a shame we have to wait until 2012 to boot him out into the street.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:44 AM | Comments (11)

February 21, 2010

Conspiratorial Crank Wins CPAC Presidential Straw Poll

Never underestimate the power of crazy people to warp the outcome of small group events.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:12 AM | Comments (13)

February 19, 2010

Bishop Defense: Elitist Entitlement Syndrome

Like we didn't all see this coming:

Roy W. Miller, the court-appointed attorney for Amy Bishop, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that his client has severe mental problems that appear to be paranoid schizophrenia. Miller discussed the case hours after hundreds of mourners attended the first funeral and memorial services for Bishop's slain co-workers.

Authorities said three more people were hurt when Bishop pulled out a handgun and started shooting during the routine meeting with colleagues last Friday. Charged with capital murder and attempted murder, she is being held without bond.

Miller said Bishop's failure to obtain tenure at the University of Alabama in Huntsville was likely a key to the shootings. Bishop, who has a doctorate from Harvard University and has taught at the University of Alabama in Huntsville since 2003, apparently was incensed that a lesser-known school rejected her for what amounted to a lifetime job.

"Obviously she was very distraught and concerned over that tenure," Miller said. "It insulted her and slapped her in the face, and it's probably tied in with the Harvard mentality. She brooded and brooded and brooded over it, and then, 'bingo.'"

So Bishop's defense is going to claim paranoid schizophrenia, even as it admits that the real trigger wasn't mental illness, but the arrogance and sense of entitlement Bishop acquired along with her Harvard degree.

It's the "I'm better than you" defense.

I somehow doubt that is going to win her freedom.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:58 AM | Comments (11)

February 18, 2010

How Do They Define Terrorism?

When Timothy McVeigh used a truck bomb to target the Alfred P. Murruh Federal building, the world swiftly and correctly identified the crime as a case of domestic terrorism.

Even after an online manifesto revealed the pilot's motives for driving a small plane into a building housing IRS offices, the White House is refusing to call the suicide crash an act of terrorism.

Other than scale, what makes Joe Stack's assault on a federal building any less a terrorist act than Timothy McVeigh's?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:41 PM | Comments (12)

Domestic Terror, or Criminal Insanity?

Joseph Andrew Stack, an apparently out of work engineer and conspiratorial anti-government crank, burned down his house today before taking off in a small plane and crashing it into a building in Austin, Texas, apparently in a bid to wipe out an IRS office:

Officials are investigating whether a small plane that crashed into an office building in Austin, Texas, Thursday morning was an intentional act, an NTSB official told Fox News.

An NTSB spokesman, however, told FoxNews.com that "we can't confirm any of that."

Authorities said they have identified the pilot as Joseph Andrew Stack, a 53-year-old software engineer who lived in Texas.

The small single-engine plane crashed into a seven-story office building in Austin around 10 a.m. local time Thursday.

Stack left behind an rambling rant on the web site http://embeddedart.com/, reproduced in full below:

Well Mr. Big Brother IRS man... take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

If you're reading this, you're no doubt asking yourself, "Why did this have to happen?" The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn't enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was "no taxation without representation". I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a "crackpot", traitor and worse.

While very few working people would say they haven't had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don't see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political "representatives" (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the "terrible health care problem". It's clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don't get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.

And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!

How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly "holds accountable" its victims, claiming that they're responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law "requires" a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not "duress" than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.

How did I get here?

My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early '80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having 'tax code' readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful "exemptions" that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the "best", high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the "big boys" were doing (except that we weren't steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two "interpretations" for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their "freedom"… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of "paying my dues"), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.

On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I'm sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.

The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.

In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be "healthier" eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn't quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn't trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.

Return to the early '80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a 'wet-behind-the-ears' contract software engineer... and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.

(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.

Note:

· "another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.

· "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.

· "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you.

Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it's not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can't believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my 'pocket change', and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their "freedom". Oh, and don't forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren't going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.

Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to "shore up" their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.

Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, 'special' facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.

By this time, I'm thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I'll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I've never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn't give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.

To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn't have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn't notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.

So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I'd never enter another accountant's office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.

When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl's unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn't have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.

This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.

I remember reading about the stock market crash before the "great" depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn't it ironic how far we've come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn't have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s "business-as-usual". Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn't that a clever, tidy solution.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

I know I'm hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn't limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at "big brother" while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won't continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn't so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

You'll note the last written words of Stack's life were an apparent praise of communism and concurrent attack on capitalism, which followed an attack on the previous administration, which he singled out as "recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies."

I don't think enough definitive evidence points to this being an attack motivated by left wing politics, but Stack was certainly no fan of capitalism.

Update: Stephen Spruill makes a nice catch that I'd missed, when he notes that among the many things Stack was angry about was the Democrat's failure to pass government health care:

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it's time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country's leaders don't see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political "representatives" (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the "terrible health care problem". It's clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don't get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.

Despite that, I'm leaning toward the conclusion that Stack's motivations were intensely and almost entirely personal, and that the various anti-government statements he issued were designed to give himself cover for his own failures.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:02 PM | Comments (7)

Much Ado About Nothing

HuffPo writer Sam Stein is having a hissy fit because an unidentified speaker at a Washington state Tea Party meeting engaged in a bit of flippant hyperbole, stating that she wanted to treat Senator Patty Murray like the character Jake from Lonesome Dove, and have her hung for running with the wrong crowd.

Was the speaker really calling for a lynching? No honest person can watch this video clip and come away feeling that this woman was actually advocating Murray to be hung. It was obvious hyperbole, and a bit of political theater... nothing more.

Could Stein have argued that this exercise of free speech was over the top, without casting it as a death threat? Certainly.

But that wouldn't mesh with his goal of trying to smear all Tea Party activists for the words of one speaker.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:33 AM | Comments (8)

February 17, 2010

The Hundred Jobs Challenge

Barack Obama is attempting to claim that his $787 billion pork-laden stimulus is a success.

Many critics consider it a costly waste.

So here is a simple challenge to President Obama.

Please provide America with a list of one hundred different permanent full-time private sector jobs that can directly attributed to specific provisions of the stimulus.

You claim that the stimulus will create 1.5 million jobs, and that it has "saved or created" 2 million more, so documenting just 100 should be fairly simply, shouldn't it?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:43 PM | Comments (2)

Biden Blames Our System of Government For Failures of Liberal Ideology

Our government is the oldest continuously functioning in the world. Since the United States has been founded, France has gone through five Republics, Russia evolved from monarchy to communist state to its current iteration, and and every other nation on earth has watched it's form of government die, transform,or be reborn.

But according to Joe Biden, our form of government is broken:

In an interview with CBS "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith, Biden was blunt about the nation's political system. "Washington, right now, is broken."

Having served in the Senate for more than 30 years, Biden has seen a fair share of gridlock in Congress, but the current version is the worst ever, he said.

"I don't ever recall a time in my career where to get anything done, you needed a supermajority, 60 out of 100 senators. You can block anything with 60 (votes).

"I've never seen it this dysfunctional," he said.

Biden is merely echoing a new talking point that liberal Democrats have issued in an attempt to explain away their failure to ram through unpopular legislation. According to the meme, it is the fault of our system of government that our socialist President and progressive Senate and House leaders have been unable to push through an economy-crippling cap-and-trade bill, a disasterous health care rationing bill, and a second costly, pork-laden attempt at stimulus.

Democrats, trapped in a community-based reality, simply refuse to acknowledge the fact that the same failed radical leftist policies that they have attempted to ram through multiple times in the past fifty years. They are part of a bankrupt ideology that has never worked, no matter how many times it has been tried.

But instead of admitting their own failures, Democrats arrogantly insisted these failures are the fault of the American people, or a problem of communication. They cannot admit that they belong to an intellectually stagnant movement devoid of new ideas.

It is no wonder that they stand on the threshold of squandering their attempt to lead yet again.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:12 PM | Comments (14)

February 16, 2010

Another Day, Another Obama Tie to Terrorism

Yeah, that's hyperbole... I don't think that Dear Leader would openly consort with a new terrorist every single day, and frankly, don't think Osama bin Laden could make that claim these days.

Even so, Rashad Hussain is at least the fourth or fifth terrorist or terrorist sympathizer that the President has had far too close for comfort:

President Obama's new envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, Rashad Hussain, is at the center of a controversy over remarks attributed to him defending a man who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a terrorist group.

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs quoted Hussain in 2004 as calling Sami al-Arian the victim of "politically motivated persecutions" after al-Arian, a university professor, was charged in 2003 with heading U.S. operations of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The United States has designated the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a foreign terrorist group as far back as 1997. At the time of al-Arian's arrest, then Attorney General John Ashcroft called it "one of the most violent terrorist organizations in the world."

Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to aid Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was sentenced to more than four years in prison.

Hussain may not actually meet the lower threshold of being "close" to the President, especially when compared to terrorists with which Barack Obama has directly spent time such as Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, or PLO sympathizer Rashid Khalidi, but the President is long past the point where he deserves the benefit of a doubt.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:37 PM | Comments (2)

Family: Bishop Obsessed with Obama

Yes we cantankerous:

A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was "obsessed" with President Obama to the point of being off-putting.

This familial admission of her politics buttresses claims made by students, one of which claimed "she is a socalist but she only talks about it after class." Another student wrote that Bishop, "She's a liberal from 'Hahvahd' and let's you know exactly how she feels about particular subjects."

A liberal college professor who wore her politics on her sleeve and who was unable to deal with reality? Surely, you can't be serious.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:39 AM | Comments (5)

February 15, 2010

Tea Party of Nevada: Real Third Party, or False Flag?

I've seen several articles today and have read some comments about the formation of the Tea Party of Nevada and their intention to run an unknown against struggling Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

As others have noted, there isn't a great deal of information online about the group or its principles... but there is enough to start wondering whether the group is remotely serious, or just a bunch of cutups.

You need look not further than Barry Levinson to know that the group is a farce. Levinson, former attorney for John Wayne Bobbitt is the Secretary of the organization, and holds a seemingly bizarre pedigree for a Tea Party patriot. According to his own blog, Levinson is a disgruntled Obama supporter:

America is falling apart and we are watching it crumble. Obama is just another politician and not the savor we all thought. His idea of CHANGE is a band aid. Maybe, Americans need to rethink the way our government is run.

He's also a Bush-hating conspiracy theorist:

I was thinking that if Osama bin Laden was captured early on or killed early in 2002 then, Bush's policies would have come to a halt.

Bush's administration lied to the public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). How can we trust anything else they said? Maybe, the government is keeping his capture or death a secret?

Why?, in order to further the patriot act; other agendas; spy on US citizens and to create a cloud of fear and distrust. Since, the bombing of Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden has not personally claimed any other acts of terror. Why?

Now, I'm certain that there are a representative sample of disgruntled Obama fans among tea party attendees and certain there are conspiracy theorists, but I've not heard of many that were pro-Obama tea party supporters spouting radical left wing "Bush lied, people died" conspiracies.

There is also a Larry Lathum[sic?] listed in the filing. There is a Larry Latham in Las Vegas with a conspiratorial mindset to match Levinson's. Is he the At-Large Executive Committee member that runs this web site and rabid supporter of Zeitgeist: The Movie, a veritable cornucopia of conspiracy theories including 9/11 trutherism and allusions to a shadowy network of "international bankers" running the world? I'm not sure... but he fits the conspiratorial profile Levinson mirrors, so it seems possible, if not probable.

Others listed among the officers are more difficult to pin down online, but I'm going with a preliminary conclusion that if this group isn't a false flag operation designed to split the opposition to Harry Reid and mock the tea party movement, then it is a sad, silly example of why third party runs are doomed to failure.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:26 PM | Comments (25)

February 13, 2010

Guy Who Likes Palin Arrested For weapons Violations

It's a damn good thing they got this potential terrorist now, before he did something really dangerous, like try to bomb a dance, or host a fundraiser.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:46 AM | Comments (5)

February 12, 2010

Empty Symbol Of Camelot Retires

Rep. Patrick Kennedy—like most Kennedys, better known for his name and substance abuse than any real achievements—is retiring his seat after eight terms. His desire to do something else was no doubt due in part to the fact that polls indicated that the possibility of him being reelected was very slim, especially in a climate that saw his famous father replaced by Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

His retirement will leave the Congress Kennedy-free for the first time since 1962.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:19 AM | Comments (2)

February 11, 2010

Are they Really This Dim?

Just as a people-watcher, reading the blogosphere's responses to David Broder's op-ed about Sarah Palin is fascinating.

I haven't read what Broder has to say, finding it far more interesting to watch as left-leaning bloggers find new and creative ways to both insult Sarah Palin and the significant number of Americans that do not like how this country is presently being run.

Do they think their inability to mask an abiding contempt for their fellow Americans is really going to help their part remain in power?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:36 PM | Comments (19)

February 09, 2010

Ripping Birtherism in the Media

The birthers remind me of the freaks who occasionally show up in court with long diatribes about how the Federal Reserve, in conjunction with the Trilateral Commission, is acting unconstitutionally under their idiosyncratic view of the 16th Amendment, which all boils down to meaning that they don’t have to pay taxes. Oh, and the gold fringe on the flag in the courtroom makes it a flag of admiralty, meaning the court has no jurisdiction over them. The judge usually nods, and the deputies haul the "sovereign citizen" off to jail. And I laugh.

Kurt Schlichter at Big Journalism is dead-on accurate.

The handful of Birthers in fringe media outlets undermine and dilute legitimate criticism of the Obama Administration, and those outlets that aspire to keep the fever-dream alive should be marginalized and then ignored.

Love him or hate him, Barack Obama was duly elected by a solid majority of our fellow citizens. You can't revise that history, but you can take on his policies and head on... and those who insist on muddying the waters as they indulge conspiratorial fantasies should be ashamed of their obstructionism, if nothing else.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:05 AM | Comments (27)

NPR Drone Hopeful That Bush Billboard is Ironic

I find his attempt at deflection amusing:

At first glance, it would seem to be from some person or group who isn't thrilled by President Barack Obama's performance so far -- unless it's a more ironic message from those who didn't think too much of Bush and want to remind voters about him.

The message he is referring to is a billboard along the side of I-35 that contains the photo of a smiling George W. Bush and the simple question, "Miss me yet?"

The message is long-running internet meme against the perceived incompetencies of Barack Obama's administration, with variations of the saying with the same image of Bush being very simple to find online. Several minutes of Internet research would have should that this message is firmly directed against the Obama Administration.

Apparently, due diligence isn't to be performed if it obstructs your goal of muddying the waters in favor of "your guy."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:29 AM | Comments (3)

February 08, 2010

Murtha Dead

It's a shame. I was hoping he'd last long enough to at least get indicted, and apologize to those Marines he smeared.

From the comments: "I wonder if Obama will speak of his time as a member of the Marine Corpse"

Update: ABSCAM Jack.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:51 PM | Comments (5)

February 07, 2010

The Night The TEA Party Ended

I think he's on to something.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:35 AM | Comments (17)

February 04, 2010

Gotta Love That Vaunted Harvard Education

There's a world of difference between a corpsman and a corpse-man.

For most people.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:09 PM | Comments (20)

February 03, 2010

Apology Unacceptable

As I noted yesterday, Tim Shriver of the Special Olympics simply isn't in a position to accept Rahm Emanuel's apology for calling the netroots "f—ing retarded."

Thanks to Allahpundit, I now know that Shriver gets this, even Emanuel isn't bright enough to figure it out on his own, and apologized again.

He's... uh...

Nevermind.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:39 PM | Comments (3)

Mixed Messages

So I've noted the approving left-wing applauding of Admiral Mullen's stand on repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," allowing gays to open serve in the military. For the record, Mullen's thoughts on the matter more eloquently reflect my own general belief that we should thank and applaud anyone willing to serve in our nation's military.

But have you noticed that many of the same characters that applaud the possible end of DADT are those who have stood solidly against our servicemen being used in actual wars?

Somehow, I doubt their motives.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:01 PM | Comments (3)

February 02, 2010

A Trumped-Up Appeal to Authority

Ben Smith notes that Sarah Palin wants Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel fired for calling progressive critics "F—ing retarded" at a weekly strategy session.

Emanuel seems to think he's absolved of the insensitivity of his comment because he called Tim Shriver, chairman and CEO of the Special Olympics, to apologize.

I'm sure Shriver was gracious in taking Emanuel's call, but who elected Shriver to a position where he has the authority to absolve Emanuel for his insult?

I find the White House's attempt to dismiss this juvenile outburst with a faux-sincere call far more insulting than the initial offense. It asserts that Shriver is somehow a spokesman for an entire slice of the American population, and that his acceptance should nullify the anger of families and caregivers upset over his choice of words.

The Obama Administration has the ability to make bland speeches and write economy-crippling budgets, but it does not have the power to pass out absolute moral authority to individuals they intend to use as props.


2/4 Update: Heh. One of the rocket scientists at left-wing snark blog Sadly, No has shrieked "Ah-hah!" because he discovered that if you Google this site for the word "retarded," you get 80 hits.

Oh, the hypocrisy!

Of course, if you actually look at the the search she ran, you'll see that the vast majority of the hits were from comments people left on the blog—and the majority of those came from liberals.

I didn't bother to read all the results, but scanning over them, it appears that the only times I used the word was to use the verb form to denote something or someone with slowed mental acuity or growth, such as this example that they cited (and of course truncated):

I've long thought that the mental acuity of the average leftist was highly retarded by a wall of anti-Bush agi-prop (hence the tagline, "liberalism is a persistent vegetative state"), but even still, I was blown away by the blatant paranoia, open delusions, and thinly-veiled hatred of American soldiers manifested on liberal blog Talk Left, regarding the killing of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The only other time I've used the term that I can find was when I criticized one of the local news media outlets for using the verb version in a way I thought was somewhat insensitive.

In essence, Sadly No! based an entire blog entry on the facts that:

  • they lack the reading comprehension to understand my problem with Rahm Emanuel wasn't so much his use of the term "retarded," but how he sought to cover himself politically with an appeal to authority
  • they are either too lazy to differentiate bloggers from blog commenters, or are too dim to understand the difference, and
  • they can't can't tell a noun from a verb.

I don't expect much from the formulaic schtick writing of Sadly, No, but this is a sad effort, even for them.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:01 PM | Comments (14)

February 01, 2010

Call Him Jack

Since he's a bower.


AP Photo/Edmund Fountain, Pool

The Mayor of Tampa Pam Iorio looks more Presidential than Barack Obama. Then again, she has far more leadership experience and actually likes those she works for, so maybe that has something to do with her having the gravitas Obama so obviously lacks.

Someone please try to beat some protocol into our moron President's brain. He's an embarassment to himself, and to the Office he temporarily holds.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:39 AM | Comments (14)

January 28, 2010

Obama's SOTU

I purposefully didn't blog last night's State of the Union last night, because I didn't want to miss any of the nuances of President Obama's speech nor the audience reactions looking down at my laptop to type. Instead, I ended up still missing much of what happened during the address as I rolled my eyes.

After waiting through the night and half the next day to digest it all, it still comes back to my gut reaction:


It wasn't a speech. It was an excuse.

The main take away from the SOTU is that Barack Obama is utterly unwilling to give credit for success to others, thinks he can do no ill, and that all the problems of the nation can be blamed upon the previous administration.

When does the buck stop with Obama? When will the Democratic Congress finally take responsibility for its actions? The short answer seems to be "never," as our angry child-president presented us with a world where every problem is a manifestation of Bush's third term.

Real leaders don't make excuses, and they don't make a career out of bashing the men who came before them, by scolding other branches of government (and lying in the process).

Barack Obama spent 90 minutes making excuses for himself last night. I'm still waiting to hear about the state of the Union.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:37 PM | Comments (6)

January 27, 2010

Obama's First STFU Address Erupts Tonight

No, that acronym isn't a typo. Tonight, in his first State of the Union message, Barack Obama will try to distance himself from himself, and recast his Presidency as that of a crusading populist, leading a government that's here to help.

Good luck.

The problem with that approach is the condescending nature of it. He's been extremely combative with those who have not bowed down to his radical agenda since the early days of his campaign, and the sudden attempt to transform into something he most certainly is not is insulting to the entire nation.

It is an insult to the fanboys and girls who hang on his every word with rapt adoration, it's insulting to those of us who view him as an elitist schmuck in way over his head, and it's insulting to everyone in between.

I do not see this address satisfying anyone, and quite possibly irritating the majority of those who bother to tune in.

In other worse, a B+.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:43 PM | Comments (5)

The Most Political of Marriages Ends At The Most Political of Times

John and Elizabeth Edwards separate, just in time to try to knock down some of the headlines of an aide's book about them.

I'm sure there are other political couples as calculating, but few could be as calculating all the way through the end of their relationship.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:18 PM | Comments (2)

January 26, 2010

Bayou Watergate

I guess every generation or so someone has to learn that trying to tap telephones for political gain rarely ends well.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:24 PM | Comments (12)

Former Surgeon General Koop Warns Seniors of Obamacare Rationing

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Politico story providing this video is absolute conviction of Koop's critics that there simply isn't rationing involved in the various schemes being floated out there as iterations of Obamacare.

Such a childlike faith is a wonder to behold, isn't it?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:58 PM | Comments (5)

January 25, 2010

False Choices

Allah notes that Obama would rather be an awesome one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. Of course, those aren't the only choices out there, and not the one way his presidency is currently trending.

I'd like to hear someone question him about the reality of being a mediocre first year president, but suspect any answer he would provide involves the words "alone" and "waffle."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:13 PM | Comments (5)

Shrieking at the Mirror

This angry huff of pixels isn't a commentary about the economy or a scolding of Americans as much as it is a plea for faith in a dying religion.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:50 PM | Comments (5)

Baa, Baa, Baa...

RealClearPolitics posted an article by an Obama-voting independent yesterday who says she now regrets casting her vote for our under-performing President.

Predictably, some of my peers are hammering her like they purchased an hour of her time, and not without reason.

But as self-centered, ignorant, and easily led Jill Dorson proves herself to be be then and now as a voter and media consumer, the sad fact of the matter is that there are millions of Americans that would write an almost identical piece if given the pixels, and millions more who have even less understanding of how they were taken in.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:05 AM | Comments (7)

January 21, 2010

Targeting the Gun Industry

Glenn Reynolds notes this post on PointOfLaw.com where the author speculates that the Obama Justice Department might be targeting the gun industry. I can't say that would be very much of a surprise.

President Obama lied about the number of American weapons flowing into Mexico, but the facts undermined his case before he could use his doctored numbers to push for gun laws. He appointed a "wise latina" who believes cities and states can overrule the Second Amendment to the Supreme Court. And long before he had name recognition outside of Illinois, Obama was a director of the anti-gun Joyce Foundation as the funneled millions to anti-gun groups and attempted to subvert academic scholarship in hope of destroying the Second Amendment.

Time and again, Barack Obama has proven to be a radical ideologue with no problem using unethical means to further his agenda. That he would use his political power to aim his Justice Department at executives in the firearms industry and attempt to decapitate it from the top-down should hardly be surprising.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:06 PM | Comments (3)

January 19, 2010

So Tell, Me, Mr. Olbermann...

How do those teabags taste? *


Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:37 PM | Comments (17)

January 18, 2010

Still Blaming Bush

While most of the others (perhaps spurred by Drudge )are focusing on this Hotline article because Rep. Patrick Kennedy apparently thinks that the dismal candidate he was campaigning for is "Marcia" or perhaps "Marsha" Coakley, I was more interested in the fact that Democrats keeping repeating the same excuse for their unpopularity:

As audience members streamed out of Pres. Obama's rally on behalf of AG Martha Coakley (D) here tonight, the consensus was that the fault for Coakley's now-floundering MA SEN bid lies with one person -- George W. Bush.

"People are upset because there's so many problems," Rosemary Kverek, 70, a retired Charleston schoolteacher said as tonight's rally wrapped up. "But the problems came from the previous administration. So we're blaming poor Obama, who's working 36 hours a day ... to solve these problems that he inherited."

Patrick "I don't know who I'm campaigning for" Kennedy echoed the same sentiments.

Do these people, and Democrats in general, really think that people are so angry with a Democrat-controlled federal government because of what the last President did, a year after he left office? If so, they are simply not paying attention.

Americans know that the previous administration made mistakes and they do hold them accountable for those, but we are angry with our President, his cronies, and Congress because of what they have done to forward a radical, financially irresponsible agenda over the past year.

Democrats aren't being held to account for Bush's mistakes. They're being held to account for their own arrogance and ineptitude. If they continue to fail to deal with that inconvenient truth, they'll see every future candidate become a bewildered Coakley, losing elections without ever understanding why.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:04 AM | Comments (7)

January 15, 2010

Danny Glover Is An Idiot

While it is fashionable (and correct) to slam Pat Robertson for his idiotic comment that the Haitian earthquake was because of a rumored pact made with the Devil hundreds of years ago, why aren't more people mocking this moronic actor for claiming that global warming was responsible?

What's next, Sheryl Crow insisting that it would have been a less powerful quake if Haitians had used less toilet paper?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:24 AM | Comments (23)

Coakley Putting Out Bids For Dead Girl, Live Boy

The way she keeps plummeting in the polls, and keeps finding new ways to alienate voters, Democratic Senate candidate/Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley needs some sort of a scandal to draw attention away from her incompetence, willingness to keep innocent people in prison (and the guilty out), and her willingness to allow people to die for a temporary legal advantage.

Too bad Tiger Woods slept with everyone.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:27 AM | Comments (1)

January 14, 2010

Witch: Coakley Kept Innocent Man in Prison to Enhance her Career

I was in my teens when the waves of daycare sex abuse hysteria swept the nation. The case that was closest to us was the Little Rascals case. It was full of absurd accusations, including satanic ritual abuse, murder, and the immolation of children. It was all quite preposterous an an obvious with hunt, but it destroyed lives and people all the same.

Martha Coakley, the woman who would be the next Senator from Massachusetts, played her own role in this dark wave of inquisitions, keeping an innocent man in prison to further her political career.

Danile Weaver reveals Coakley's detestable role in keeping an obviously innocent Gerald Amirault in prison. Coached children with fantastic imaginations accused Amirault of things that simply could not be:

The charges were some of the most heinous ever made. However, they were also ludicrous. Supposedly Gerald dressed up as a clown and assaulted the children in a secret or magic room. Some children claimed to be sodomized with two foot knives and lobsters. Some of the acts allegedly took place on the front lawn in full view of the highway.

And yet, when the Parole Board voted unanimously to pardon Amirault, Coakley did "everything in her power" to keep the innocent man in prison, including sending an assistant DA to oppose his release at the hearing.

Make sure you read the whole article, including the citation from Whores of the Court.

Martha Coakley didn't put Gerald Amirault in prison, but she did everything in her power to keep him there, for what appears to be purely political reasons. That isn't just wrong. That isn't just poor judgment.

That is evil.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:00 AM | Comments (3)

January 13, 2010

Thug Life: Democrat Roughs Up Reporter

Poor Martha Coakley.

The hand-picked machine politician selected as the heir to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat is having a tough time as of late. Ahead by double digits weeks before before the election, Coakley's campaign has been steady beat-down by revelations of her failures as a prosecutor to treat child predators aggressively, an arrogant, yet timid public facade, dumb political statements (still uses tired Bush/Cheney arguments, claims there are no terrorists in Afghanistan), and now, there emerges on-tape video evidence that someone associated with her campaign knocking down a journalist politely asking a simple question:

A photographer from the Associated Press got a good shot of the guy with Coakley's campaign that knocked down John McCormack of The Weekly Standard as Coakley looks on with her hands in her pockets and walks away.

McCormack has now revealed that the thug-on-loan is Michael Meehan, who seems to have been sent by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to "help" Coakley as she desperately met with DC lobbyists to raise money and hopefully save her dying campaign in a state that her staff can't even spell.

It's amazing how political fortunes can change so quickly, but when intense public scrutiny of the campaign put Coakley in a position where she had to perform, she cracked.

I think the revelations of the past few weeks is great news for the people of Massachusetts. They now have a much better idea of the kind of lockstep, "me-too" Senator she would be if elected, and the kind of Senator Scott Brown will be if elected to the people's Senate seat.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:53 AM | Comments (8)

January 12, 2010

The More You Know

Do You know what the differences between Newsweek journalist Michael Isikoff and WorldNet Daily columnist/martial artist/actor/pitchman Chuck Norris are?

Norris has proven he's at least a moderate talent at more than one thing. Also, when Norris publishes what some consider a conspiratorial fantasy, people don't die.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:56 PM | Comments (0)

Pro-Terrorist Obama Ally Invites Muslim Brotherhood to "Join Us in Cleansing Our Country."

You remember Jodie Evans, don't you?

She's a co-founder of Code Pink, an apologist for Osama bin Laden, and bundler for Barack Obama that gets direct access to the White House.

She now inviting the group that spawned some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world to join Code Pink in &quut;cleansing our country.&quut;

In a more sane time in American history, Jodie Evans, Medea Benjamin, and other leaders of Code Pink would be viewed with the same scorn as the copperheads, but now they are instead embraced and consulted by the President himself.

We shouldn't be surprised that Barack Obama embraces radicals that hate America, as he has done that consistently his entire life. We retain the right, however, to be utterly appalled.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:11 AM | Comments (3)

January 11, 2010

Money Bomb

As I'm typing this, Republican Scott Brown is in the later stages of his attempt to raise $500,000 in his run for Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat. He seems to be doing okay. He's raised more than $836,000, and the night isn't over.

Rather obviously, this race isn't just about filling a vacant Senate seat. It has become something of skirmish over the health care rationing scheme known as Obamacare.

That Brown is raising so much in one day in an off-year special election is a clear warning to Democrats that November will be bloody, indeed.

Update: Brown broke $1,000,000 well before 11:00 PM ET.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:39 PM | Comments (6)

January 07, 2010

Globe Columnist Tees Off on Martha Coakley

Ouch. Brian McGrory is not pulling his punches:

If you're a registered voter in Massachusetts, your friendly Democratic Senate candidate, Martha Coakley, is sticking her thumb in your eye.

Coakley, in exquisitely diva-like form, is refusing all invitations to debate her Republican opponent in the race, Scott Brown, unless a third-party candidate with no apparent credentials is included on the stage. She may also require a crystal bowl of orange-only M&Ms in her dressing room, but we haven't gotten that far yet. Her demands have led to an astonishing result: there will be just one -- that's one -- live televised debate in the Boston media market this general election season.

It gets mushy in the middle, but it ends strong.

If the Globe keeps hammering Coakley, will enough Massachusetts Democrats stay home to give Republican challenger Scott Brown an outside chance of winning Ted Kennedy's old seat? I still find it improbable, but Coakley's ineptitude, a continued withering assault from the typically left-leaning Globe, and the idea that some make use the race as a referendum against the health care rationing scheme seem to be making what should have been Coakley's race to win race more uncertain every day.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:35 AM | Comments (1)

White House Refuses to Address Obama Health Care Lie

Shocking, I know.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:59 AM | Comments (1)

January 06, 2010

Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie

Barack Obama, via Breitbart, promising on eight separate occasions to televise the health care debate.

Barack Obama is a liar. That isn't a slanderous accusation, just a well-documented fact. It rather makes you wonder what else he may have lied about.

Doesn't it?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:40 AM | Comments (21)

Trouble for Coakley in Massachusetts

Before becoming a U.S. Senate candidate that expected to waltz into Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat merely for having a "D" behind her name, Martha Coakley was a prosecutor. The left-leaning Boston Globe is far from content with what would normally be their obvious choice over Republican candidate Scott Brown.

Maybe it's because she seemed so ambivalent about prosecuting child rapists:

In October 2005, a Somerville police officer living in Melrose raped his 23-month-old niece with a hot object, most likely a curling iron.

Keith Winfield, then 31, told police he was alone with the toddler that day and made additional statements that would ultimately be used to convict him.

But in the aftermath of the crime, a Middlesex County grand jury overseen by Martha Coakley, then the district attorney, investigated without taking action.

It was only after the toddler's mother filed applications for criminal complaints that Coakley won grand jury indictments charging rape and assault and battery.

Even then, nearly 10 months after the crime, Coakley's office recommended that Winfield be released on personal recognizance, with no cash bail. He remained free until December 2007, when Coakley's successor as district attorney won a conviction and two life terms.

Even as an isolated case this looks bad for Coakley, but I could understand how sympathetic people might consider her giving her the benefit of the doubt for having a bad case. OH, if it were only one bad case. But Winfield wasn't the first rapist she'd been soft on.

As Jules Crittenden notes, Coakley was also the prosecutor who allowed John Geoghan, the poster boy for Catholic priest pedophilia, to secretly plead to a probation deal in 1995. Geoghan molested at least 130 victims before finally being sentenced to prison.

I'm sure that there are voters in Massachusetts who can hold their nose, find a comfortable rationalization, and cast a vote for Coakley knowing her past.

But I imagine there quite a few more that now look on her with richly deserved suspicion.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:58 AM | Comments (2)

Obama: Screw You, America, And Screw Transparency. Let's Ram Through This Bill

The veneer has shattered. Despite pleas from America (and the media) to keep his word, President Obama is calling for House and Senate Democrats to ram through Obamacare in a panicked rush:

President Barack Obama is prodding House and Senate Democrats to get him a final health care bill as soon as possible, encouraging them to bypass the usual negotiations between the two chambers in the interest of speed.

Obama delivered the message at an Oval Office meeting Tuesday evening with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his No. 2, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., joined in by phone.

They agreed that rather than setting up a formal conference committee to resolve differences between health bills passed last year by the House and Senate, the House will work off the Senate's version, amend it and send it back to the Senate for final passage, according to a House leadership aide, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the private meeting.

Obama himself will take a hands-on role, convening another meeting with congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday, the aide said.

The aim is to get a final bill to Obama's desk before the State of the Union address sometime in early February.

Nationwide, Democrats are dropping like flies, with two U.S. Senators and governor dropping out of planned re-election bids within the past 24 hours. This is presumably due to a combination of the bullying political tactics of the Democratic leadership for radical and rushed pork-laden expenditures, and the realization that their constituents are sick and tired of unethically-purchased and tyrannical legislation.

The Obama Administration and Democratic Congress have abandoned the concept of "representative" democracy, in that they have no interest in listening to the overwhelming majority of Americans who do not want this bill rushed through recklessly. As we are all painfully aware, health care comprises 20% of our national economy, and any legislation concerning it deserves careful and open deliberation to make sure that it meets the needs of the American people, without it being an undue burden on future generations.

It becomes more apparent with every passing day, however, that the radical leaders of the Democratic Party have no interest in making laws that help the American people. They are only interested in usurping as much power as they can for themselves.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:07 AM | Comments (3)

January 05, 2010

Massachusetts Senate Race Tightens. Is Obamacare The Cause?

A new Rasmussen poll out this morning shows that Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown (a member of the MA state Senate) trailing Democrat Martha Coakley (the state Attorney general) by only nine percentage points in the special election being held to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat:

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Coakley ahead of Brown 50% to 41%. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

The special Senate election will be held on January 19 and special elections typically feature low turnout. That’s one reason the race appears to be a bit closer than might typically be expected for a Senate race in Massachusetts. Kennedy carried 69% of the vote when he was reelected in 2006.

I think this is a far closer race an anyone had any reason to suspect, but this may be because of a grassroots effort by Republican, conservative, and Tea Party activists (not always the same folks) to try to make this race a referendum on the national health care rationing bill known as Obamacare.

I doubt Brown will score an upset victory even with Coakley rather arrogantly taking a vacation just before the election, but if he makes it relatively close, that may be seen as a prelude to the kind of treatment Democrats might expect from voters for their attempts to bully through a dangerously flawed and poorly understood bill.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:38 AM | Comments (5)

January 04, 2010

Vegas Courthouse Gunman Upset Over Social Security Cut

It looks like we have a motive for today's shooting at a Las Vegas courthouse.

A 66-year-old Las Vegas retiree, disgruntled over cuts in his Social Security benefits, opened fire this morning in the lobby of the federal courthouse here, killing a court security officer and wounding a deputy U.S. marshal, authorities said.

The gunman, identified as Johnny Lee Wicks, 66, was shot in the head and died on the scene, according to law enforcement sources. The deputy marshal was in stable condition at a local hospital. The names of the marshal and court security officer have not been released, though the security officer was a 65-year-old retired policeman, according to local media outlets.

Wicks was a recent retiree who was suing the U.S. government because his Social Security benefits were apparently denied or reduced, a law enforcement official said. He was living in a Las Vegas-area retirement home.

According to Fox News, the case was filed in 2008 but formally thrown out in September of 2009.

What he perceived as an unfair reduction in benefits was enough to send this retiree over the edge. I can only imagine the furor that will erupt when the entire Social Security system collapses under the weight of millions of Baby Boomers.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:32 PM | Comments (4)

December 31, 2009

All Charges Dropped Against Blackwater Guards in Nisoor Square Shooting

I'm sure that liberal heads are just spinning as they try to come up with a convoluted explanation of how Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Eric Prince kidnapped and waterboarded the judge's schnauzer to let this happen, but the simple fact is that this prosecution was always more suspect than the media let on. The investigation devolved into a politically-driven witch hunt before the echoes of the last shots went silent, with the Iraqi government seemingly destroying evidence at the scene and U.S. presecutors seemingly more driven by a desire to find a scapegoat than to determine the facts of the case.

And now it looks like that pig-headed mentality did the case in:

In a 90-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ruled that the government violated the guards' rights by using their immunized statements to help the investigation. The ruling comes after a lengthy set of hearings that examined whether federal prosecutors and agents improperly used such statements that the guards gave to State Department investigators following the shooting on Sept. 16, 2007.

"The explanations offered by prosecutors and investigators in an attempt to justify their actions and persuade the court that they did not use the defendants' compelled testimony were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility," Urbina wrote.

I don't think that this dismissal means that these contractors were necessarily innocent, but the political focus of the investigation means we long ago lost any chance there was of ever determining if there was any justification for the guards to open and then maintain their fire.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:07 PM | Comments (7)

Obama Finally Issued First Veto

Predictably, it doesn't matter.

At this point the great difficulty in describing the Obama Presidency is determining whether the theme is that of a tragi-comedy or a horror film.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 AM | Comments (1)

December 28, 2009

Question His Judgment

Mr. Obama, Dr. Whitaker and others had been golfing at the Luana Hills Country Club for about an hour when they suddenly jumped into the presidential motorcade and made a dramatic, high-speed departure. The unexpected move triggered concerns about whether the president was injured, particularly after an ambulance with flashing lights sped to the compound. The White House at first did not explain the incident out of concern for the privacy of the Whitakers, but later sent Mr. Burton to tell reporters the first family was uninjured.

The ambulance left after about 15 minutes at the compound, followed by a black sedan. Mr. Obama returned via motorcade to the golf course. An administration official said no stitches were needed.

Our President risked his own safety, the safety of his family, his friends and the lives of the Secret Service staff for an impromptu dash across the island so that a friend could attend to a very minor injury. I wonder if this egress was high speed, and if any side streets were hastily closed with seconds to spare so that the Presidential motorcade could pass by unimpeded.

I wonder if local police officers placed their lives on the line to race out in front and provide security. Officers have died escorting Hillary Clinton and George Bush, but we begrudging accept the lives lost as the cost of protecting those running for President and those currently in office.

Nobody elected Erik Whitaker, or his son. Barack Obama put God-knows how many lives at risk and abused his office to spare his friend a few minutes of travel time and uncertainly... all for a trifling boo-boo. It is a case of unnecessary dramatics, of tremendous effort and expense, wasted needlessly, when a less rushed and practical approach would have been both less dangerous and more productive.

But that's becoming the signature of his entire term in office, isn't it?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:26 PM | Comments (14)

December 23, 2009

Defining "Dictators"

The final hurdle to passing the Democratic Senate's version of government health care rationing is a challenge by Republicans that a requirement in both the House and Senate versions that Americans must buy government-mandated insurance is unconstitutional.

Conservative critics contend that the provision violates the Constitution's "takings clause," which says "private property [cannot] be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Democrats counter that the mandate is necessary to make the planned overhaul of the health-care system work, and ensure that as many people as possible participate in the system. Under the Senate bill, individuals who don't purchase coverage would face a financial penalty up to $750.

Democrats say the courts have given Congress wide authority to impose rules under its powers to regulate interstate commerce.

"We feel very sound in our position," Mr. Reid said.

Interesting. Reid doesn't even attempt to claim that his health care bill is constitutional, just that people must be forced to purchase it or the scheme won't work (utterly leaving out the fact that no large-scale government-run program has ever worked, fiscally). He only comes as close as saying that he has his bets on the courts allowing such a scheme, based upon hotly-disputed precedents.

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barack OBama and all their radical allies in the Democratic Party are literally declaring that they have the power to force you to buy a specific product or a specific service. The only qualifier—according to Reid himself—is that the product or service must be necessary according to the arbitrary and capricious decisions of Democratic policymakers.

They are in word and deed dictators, dictating what we must buy in order to support and increase their control over us. This isn't the American dream. It is the beginning of an American nightmare.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:38 PM | Comments (16)

"F" Obama: Is Race The Only Thing Keeping This President From Being Rated The Worst Ever?

No, you won't see it on White House organ MSNBC, the dinosaur media, or CNN, but the British have noticed that despite the fact our arrogant neophyte gives himself a grade of "B+" for his first year in office, the American people gave him an F:

Barack Obama gave himself a B+ on Oprah Winfrey's White House Christmas Special on ABC, but the American public is far less generous. The latest influential Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll of likely US voters gives Obama a thumping 56 percent disapproval rating – an F grade by any measure. 46 percent strongly disapprove of the president’s job performance, while just 25 percent strongly approve. That’s a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 percentage points, a staggering figure for a president just 11 months into his term of office.

These are historically low approval ratings for a US president, that concur with those released by several other pollsters, including NBC News/Wall Street Journal, who recently reported a 47 percent approval for Obama, and Quinnipiac and Marist, both at 46 percent.

The article then goes on to cite specific examples of just how bad fairs in comparison to other post-war Presidents (hint: not good), but what was really intriguing were the comments associated with the article.

The Telegraph is a UK paper and presumably most of the comments are therefore left by Brits and they are excoriating Obama's Presidency.

Among the more interesting claims was this one:

It is really far worse when you look at the breakdowns. Obama's STRONGLY disapproval is over 52% among the crucial swing independent voters and his strongly approve is only 47% among Democrats. When you consider that 98% of blacks still approve of his performance, and if they weren’t basically making their judgement on race alone, his actual approval amongst non-racially biased voters is close to a dismal 40%.

Are there any polling experts out there able to pass judgment on the accuracy of that claim?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:07 AM | Comments (13)

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut...

...And if so, this lady is for you:

Kristy Lee Roshia, 35, was charged with threatening a family member of the president and assaulting a federal agent after being arrested Saturday less than two miles from the Kailua home where the Obama family planned to stay during a holiday visit later this week.

Roshia called the Secret Service's Boston office last month and told a receptionist, "I will kill Michelle Obama" and "I will kill Marines," according to a Secret Service affidavit.

During the same call, she said she would "blow away" Michelle Obama, the document states.

A message left at the federal public defender's office in Honolulu was not immediately returned.

Roshia has a history of leaving rambling messages and sending poems, love letters and photographs of herself to the Secret Service, according to the affidavit.

As early as 2004, she told the agency that "although her mission is to assassinate the president, she has no desire to hurt him," the document states.

As Obama wasn't a blip on anyone's radar in 2004, we can only assume she was sending death threats throughout the Bush Presidency as well, and that the Secret Service simply didn't consider her any sort of a credible threat until she traveled to Hawaii.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:33 AM | Comments (7)

Build-A-Bear Tries to Terrify Kids With Climate Change in Cartoon

Be sure to read the entire article by Maura Flynn at Big Government for the background and the transcript, but if you want to cut to the case, jump to 1:07 in the video below.

Any company that tries to scare the crap out of kids and put the thought in their heads that Christmas might not be coming because of [insert cause here] deserves to go out of business, just on the general principle that it isn't okay to terrorize children.

If you're irritated about this—and I can't imagine any reason any parent wouldn't be—you can dash off an email to the company by clicking this link.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2009

Americans Strongly Opposed to Taxpayer-Funded Abortion in Democrat's Senate Bill

The American people overwhelming don't want to pay for abortions with the tax dollars Democratic Senators want to extort from them, a fact reflected in the 72 - 23 split in the latest Quinnipiac University national poll.

As the Senate prepares to vote on health care reform, American voters "mostly disapprove" of the plan 53 - 36 percent and disapprove 56 - 38 percent of President Barack Obama's handling of the health care issue, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Voters also oppose 72 - 23 percent using any public money in the health care overhaul to pay for abortions, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

[snip]

"While the Senate leadership reportedly has the votes to pass a health care overhaul plan this week, outside the Beltway there appears to be weak support, both to what voters understand as the plan, and the need to pass that plan now," said Brown. "Although a small majority favors abortion rights, allowing the use of public money for the procedure under a national health care plan, which has been a matter of some dispute in both houses of Congress, is extremely unpopular."

A super-majority of Americans do not want to pay for procedures that many equate to the murder of an innocent child. If Democrats continue to try to ram through such heinous legislation against the will of the American people, they have only themselves to blame for all they will lose as a result.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:22 PM | Comments (1)

Tyranny in the Senate

Via the John McCormack and Erik Ercikson this morning comes the disturbing news that the Democrat-controlled Senate is moving—unconstitutionally—to impede or entirely block any future Congress from repealing the Independent Medicare Advisory Board—the death panel Democrats claim doesn't exist—created by Harry Reid's health care rationing bill.

The language of Section 3403 seems rather explicit:

SUBSECTION.—It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.

Ed Morrissey's take is that Congress lacks the Constitutional authority to bind the decisions future Congresses can make, which would including passing new laws, amending existing laws, or repealing laws. Reid is demanding not just power over the current Congress, but any future Congress as well.

Democrats deny that the death panels exist, but then take explicit steps that undermine the Constitution to make them unaccountable and untouchable.

Erickson says in his post that we are no longer a nation of laws, and cites the Declaration of Independence.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We are not yet to the point where a rebellion against or a separation from the current government is necessary, but those in power seem amazingly fixated on pushing this nation towards having to make that decision.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:44 AM | Comments (11)

December 21, 2009

Is There a Breaking Point?

To say that the American political landscape has become highly polarized is to describe our nation's current state of affairs mildly. Debates over health care, climate change, the economy, terrorism and war have revealed increasingly great divides not just between the radicals on the left and right, but the vast rift between the citizenry and a political class that seems to fancy itself as a permanent ruling class.

The debate over health care is just one example how radically different the left and right view the essence of the United States. The widening gap between the will of people of this nation and actions of our elected representatives is an example of this gaping void.

Conservatives, moderates, and independents are overwhelmingly against the current rushed scheme of Obamacare, where votes are purchased with publicly-funded bribes, with one senator reaching into our wallets to pay off the vote of another. The American people wold rather no vote pass than a rushed hidden bill that no Senator has read, but the political class doesn't care. The big debate in Congress and the Senate between Democrats and Republicans isn't specifically against stealing our tax dollars, but instead over how much to steal, and how long they think they can tax us before we break as a nation or revolt.

We all read blogs (or you wouldn't be here) and follow news stories from the major media, many of which have comment sections. Increasingly, calls to violence and cries for revolt are becoming more commonplace. People rightly fear a federal government that seems to be usurping our freedoms at a great pace, and with a growing appetite.

The very government feeding on this corruption has responded by labeling those who feel this way as fringe extremists, and attempts to marginalize them. It appears that the rhetoric will only get worse on both sides... but will it stop at rhetoric?

As we are all well aware, there has been a tremendous surge in the sale of firearms and ammunition that started in mid to late 2008. Part of the reason for the surge is a growing desire for personal security at a time where the economy is faltering and criminal activity is on the rise. But a significant number of the firearms being purchased—and much of the ammunition being hoarded—are potentially military in nature. Semi-automatic rifles based upon the world's most popular military arms are sold out in many locations, and those stores with access to AR-15 and AK-47 clones are busy filling orders for customers that don't even seem to blink at the premium prices these firearms demand.

In a time where the real unemployment rate is north of 17% (and the official number is still more than 10%), people are buying weapons that regularly approach or exceed $1,000, only to follow that up by stockpiling thousand-round cases of ammunition. It is a pattern that has continued now for more than a year, and shows only little sign of slowing.

Americans are armed to the teeth, are increasingly marginalized by their government, and rightly fearful of the sweeping changes being pushed with a breakneck pace by legislators who don't even bother to read the massive and costly plans for encroachment and expansion they pass. Presently, Democrats are attempting to seize one-sixth of the U.S. economy and put it under government control. Could this massive power grab of the health care system by Democrats trigger violence? Could the economy-killing cap-and-trade legislation become a trigger? Something else?

The simple fact is that it is almost impossible to know the future. No one understands beforehand the precise moments where grumbling dissent becomes open revolt, governments collapse, and nations fall. Nor can anyone predict what kind of state and governance would arise in the aftermath of such an upheaval.

We simply don't know if we are close to a breaking point, because such events are rarely predictable. What we do know is that governments that begin to treat armed citizens as servants are typically faced with the choice of disarming them or being deposed by them. It's been quite a few years since blood has been shed is a major revolt on American soil, but it has happened, and there is no reason to think it will not eventually happen again.

When. Why. How... We simply don't know. But we do know in our guts as a nation we are flowing towards a confrontation, and we can only hope that it stops with a war of words, and the use of ballots instead of bullets.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:21 PM | Comments (15)

December 20, 2009

All I Want Is A Byrd Dropping For Christmas

Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) has seen far better days, and is often little more than a warm body when he is helped into the Senate. Granted, lucidity and coherence is not a priority among Senate Democrats, but Byrd is an embarrassment even for a party that regular drafts the imaginary or dead to vote.

Robert Byrd has been around a very long time, and his many decades of service have made West Virginia a wonderful state in which to manufacture methamphetamine or frame the locals for murder*. But it's time for Senator to do the right thing, and expire.

It isn't too much to ask for Byrd to step off for that great klavern in the sky before the Senate vote that may force this nation to accept government-rationed health care. Even a nice coma would do.

Without his frail, Gollum-like body being wheeled into the Senate's chambers to cast the deciding vote, the Senate cannot curse our children and grandchildren with crushing debt and rationed, substandard healthcare.

I suppose some will be shocked and appalled that I'd wish for the former kleagle to die on command. I'd remind them that the party wheeling in a near invalid to vote in favor of this unread monstrosity of a bill is the one that should feel shame.

12-21 Update: Dana Milbank of the Washington Post notes I'm not the only person to think this way with the lede of his most recent op-ed:

Going into Monday morning's crucial Senate vote on health-care legislation, Republican chances for defeating the bill had come down to a last, macabre hope. They needed one Democratic senator to die -- or at least become incapacitated.

At 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon -- nine hours before the 1 a.m. vote that would effectively clinch the legislation's passage -- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) went to the Senate floor to propose a prayer. "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray."

It was difficult to escape the conclusion that Coburn was referring to the 92-year-old, wheelchair-bound Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) who has been in and out of hospitals and lay at home ailing. It would not be easy for Byrd to get out of bed in the wee hours with deep snow on the ground and ice on the roads -- but without his vote, Democrats wouldn't have the 60 they needed.

Final Update: Some amusing revelations about our liberal visitors.

* As noted by a commenter, the death of the census worker that left-wing bloggers blamed on right-wing extremists (but that was actually a suicide banking on the predictable left-wing hysteria for an insurance payoff) occurred in Kentucky, not West Virginia. My apologies.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:46 PM | Comments (80)

December 14, 2009

Shovel Ready

I have to give it to the Democrats: they can create a villain out of thin air at a moment's notice. This time, they decided to finger Joe Liebermann as some sort of a backstabber with renegged on a deal, even though his publicly announced position has never changed, and there is no indication that he had agreed to anything.

This would seem to suggest that the Democratic attempts to take over healthcare are in serious trouble in the Senate. The various schemes may not be dead yet, but they do seem to be in very serious trouble.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:16 PM | Comments (6)

Obama Gives Himself a B+

You know, Mr. President, you may have been following the right path when you decided to keep then American public in the dark regarding your grades, because when they see how you grade yourself, they're all going to laugh at you.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:16 PM | Comments (10)

December 12, 2009

Lefty Blogger Jane Hamsher Lobbies For Her Own Death

Jane Hamsher of firedoglake says she has survived breast cancer three times, but she is organizing a campaign against the Susan B. Komen Foundation because, "Hadassah Lieberman – wife of Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) – is currently a compensated 'Global Ambassador'" for the group.

Why? Because Senator Joe Lieberman stands against the costly and potentially deadly incompetencies in the Senate version of Obamacare. Of course, it runs deeper than that. Hamsher's Lieberman Derangement Syndrome is so bad that she infamously mocked Senator Lieberman in blackface during the last campaign, despite the obvious racial insensitivity of such distasteful displays.

And now Hamsher's hatred of all things Joe Lieberman now extends to his wife—and apparently anyone else facing breast cancer.

Hadassah Lieberman uses her status as the wife of a famous Senator and former Vice Presidential candidate to help wage war against a deadly form of breast cancer, but Hamsher can't let herself see beyond her own anger and hatred of Lieberman. She'd rather Komen waste their time and precious money responding to her frivolous politicized anger and give up a precious asset... all because Hamsher hates the politics of her husband.

That Hamsher is campaigning for an approach to health care that is far more dangerous for people with cancer seems to be irrelevant to her. That she might already be dead if she forced to be a victim of the very socialist medicine she champions simply doesn't seem to matter to this hate-filled ideologue.

Attacking those she hates is far more important for Jane Hamsher than any good work Hadassah Lieberman may do in the fight against breast cancer.

It seems she'd rather die... and put your loved ones at risk as well.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:16 AM | Comments (11)

December 10, 2009

Ice Rubes Upset With Obama, But They Have Only Themselves to Blame

Just the latest in along line of arrogant gaffes:

"The American president is acting like an elephant in a porcelain shop," said Norwegian public-relations expert Rune Morck-Wergeland. "In Norwegian culture, it's very important to keep an agreement. We're religious about that, and Obama's actions have been clumsy. You just don't say no to an invitation from a European king. Maybe Obama's advisers are not very educated about European culture, but he is coming off as rude, even if he doesn’t mean to."

It isn't that complicated to understand. When someone is given an award or honor they clearly don't earn, it holds little meaning for them—it is a devalued trinket, and little more.

The Nobel committee whored itself to the unearned image of a political pop-star.

They do not deserve to be surprised or offended when he acts like one.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:15 AM | Comments (7)

December 08, 2009

Krauthammer: EPA Totalitarianism May Leave A "Revolution on the Administration's Hands"

Great. I'd hate to think Americans have been hoarding cases of ammunition and pallets of "assault rifles" for nothing.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:10 PM | Comments (19)

Obama's Prestige, Job Approval Sinking Fast

And down she goes:

President Obama's job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.

The new low comes as Obama enters the home stretch in his push to enact his signature initiative, an overhaul of the nation's health care system, and escalates America's involvement in the Afghanistan war.

That's only a fraction of his problems.

As Obama's blind faith in the anthropogenic climate change cult threatens to decimate what remains of our economy, expect his approval to dive even further beneath the waves. Resistance will deepen against his Administration's attempts at totalitarianism.

It's just starting to get ugly.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:54 AM | Comments (4)

Beta-Male Throws Tomatoes at Palin, Hits Cop Instead

What kind of outcome did this loser expect?

A man was arrested for throwing tomatoes at Sarah Palin during her book signing on Monday at the Mall of America.

Jeremy Olson, 33, allegedly threw two tomatoes from the second balcony, however did not come close to hitting Palin.

Bloomington Police report that Bloomington Commander Mark Stehlik was struck in the face with one of the tomatoes and may face charges for assaulting a police officer. Olson was booked at the Bloomington jail. He was arrested for suspicion of assault and disorderly conduct.

Even as a best-case scenario, this guy hits Palin with some produce and still ends up in jail. Not a very bright guy.

I'll be very interested to discover if Olsen's attack had political motivations, or if he was just some nut looking for a few moments of infamy.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:24 AM | Comments (4)

December 07, 2009

Obama's EPA Declares Naturally-Occurring Air Gases Are "Pollutants;"
Asserts Sweeping Power To Regulate Every Aspect of American Life

These radical left-wing zealots constitute a clear and present danger to our way of life:

The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded greenhouse gases are endangering people's health and must be regulated, signaling that the Obama administration is prepared to contain global warming without congressional action if necessary.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson scheduled a news conference for later Monday to announce the so-called endangerment finding, officials told The Associated Press, speaking privately because the announcement had not been made.

In short, the unelected Lisa Jackson—with Barack Obama's blessing—has just declared herself to be more powerful than Congress, laying the groundwork for the Obama Administration to dictate business emissions, vehicle use, energy use, punitive taxes or penalties and even the kind and numbers of livestock that can be raised. Frankly, this declaration would seem to leave the EPA as the most powerful part of the federal government not specifically trained in how best to kill people.

This is underhanded, anti-democratic, and a serious threat to our economy, our way of life, and standard of living.

By the way, Lisa Jackson, you produce CO2 every time you exhale. Be a leader.

You stop first.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:22 PM | Comments (13)

Let's Put That Treason Charge Where it Belongs

Late last month Andrew Breitbart earned the ire of a couple of excitable left-wingers when he tweeted:

Capital punishment for Dr James Hansen. Climategate is high treason.

If you've been hiding in a cave for much of the past few years, Hansen is the chief climate change evangelical leader at NASA, and a serial contributor to the belief system of the climate change cult.

Now, those who got infuriated with Breitbart did so because they did what lefty bloggers typically do: they exaggerated Breitbart's tweet and focused on the capital punishment part of it and utterly ignored that charges of high treason lead to a trial, and it is the result of the trial that can lead to capital punishment.

Was Breitbart guilty of a little hyperbole? Perhaps, but certainly less than it took for those lefty bloggers to start screaming that Breitbart tweet was attempting to incite Hasen's murder by vigilantes.

The thing is, Breitbart may be on to something. If we have learned anything in recent weeks, we have learned that the "science" underlying claims of climate change was highly politicized and almost certainly corrupted by scientists that willfully doctored data to provide an end result they had already predetermined.

In the immediate-term, this constitutes massive fraud. Multiple communications from multiple climate change scientists also strongly support the case for criminal racketeering, and RICO investigations in the United States and equivalent investigations in other countries. The investigations will not only presumably indict the researchers, but journalists, activists, and politicians that conspired with them when they either knew the data was purposefully corrupted, or when they should have expected it was fraudulent.

The international climate change conference in Copenhagen that started today should also be considered as the basis for treason charges for any signatory of any treaty that comes out of the meeting in the face of overwhelming evidence that the basic science of climate change is completely compromised and represents a threat to national security no less dire than espionage, no less dangerous than a terrorist attack.

Andrew Breitbart had the right idea when he tossed out the idea of trying those responsible for their roles in climate change fraud, but Hansen and other scientists are powerless to actually cause any real damage, and should instead face only prison sentences if they are indeed guilty as it appears. Not, the weighty charge of treason will fall entirely upon the shoulders of the politicians attending Copenhagen with a dream of establishing more control and restraints over the lives of their people.

Politicians that embrace Copenhagen's rush to judgement amid the recent and ongoing revelations will deserve charges of treason if they willfully ignore the unmasking of scientific fraud to commit a political swindle. If they are willing to betray their nations, they deserve to be placed on trial and potentially forfeit their lives.

Nothing More.

Nothing Less.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:06 PM | Comments (9)

December 06, 2009

Curtains for Obama?

Injured British soldiers refused to meet with Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he came to visit them at a hospital because of complaints that his government doesn't support troops fighting in Afghanistan. Those unable to physically leave their hospital beds requested for their privacy curtains to be drawn shut.

After President Obama's speech at West Point where he promised to implement a surge before self-imposed defeat, will American soldiers and Marines wounded in the conflict give their coldly-calculating Commander in Chief the same treatment?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:13 PM | Comments (8)

December 04, 2009

Palin Goes Birther? Probably Not, But Expect to Hear It Repeated

I've not always been a fan of Sarah Palin the politician, but I've been warm to what I can divine of Sarah Palin the person. I've been disgusted with how she has been unfairly savaged by the lip-service feminists of the progressive left, and an army of critics in the media that have made a cottage industry of ripping every aspect of her life—personal, political, or manufactured—to shreds.

I find her authentic "Caribou Barbie" schtick to be refreshing, and her pre-fame accomplishments as a politician to be impressive, just as I find her work-life balance to be admirable. While it infuriates elites and wannabes, she seemed to be the epitome of the "local girl done good." Palin became successful by sticking to her principles, being herself, and working hard. I think she'd make an above-average public servant in the House of Representatives, the Senate, or maybe even the White House... after all she was far more technically qualified for the position than either Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or John McCain, being the only one of the bunch with any executive experience in either the private sector or government.

But as much as I'd like to be able to get behind Sarah Palin and be a real supporter, stuff like this simply makes it difficult for people such as myself to put their faith in her.

I don't care if she really believes the validity of President Obama's birth certificate is fair game for debate. I find it entirely possible that she simply mangled an attempt to point out that any "debate" over Obama's birth certificate was as nutty as the "debate" over whether Trig is her son... but I'm not sure.

To stand a chance against the vicious left-wing media, Palin has to be perfect, all the time. She won't get the continual burying of gaffes the media affords the President, and instead of burying her shortcoming as they do his, they'll magnify and echo every mistake.

She can't give them any ammunition. She can't afford to even hint at supporting conspiracy theories. This comment, hopefully taken out of context, will hurt Palin. She can't do this again, and she better explain herself quickly and forcefully.

I'd like to find a politician worth listening to, and those that play to conspiracy theories won't be getting my support.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:46 AM | Comments (31)

December 02, 2009

Obama Splits the Baby

The key to mimicking Solomon-like wisdom is to understand when the great biblical king was making an absurd suggestion to prompt truth, and when he was being direct.

The President's speech at West Point was anything but wise; it was instead the purest display of strategic incompetence and political pandering of an arrogant and self-serving career.

He put more troops in harm's way and conceded defeat in just three paragraphs.

Obama does not have the intestinal fortitude to win the war, nor the character to declare that the war (in his opinion) is not worth fighting. Nor does he have the courage to admit he lied to the American people as he campaigned, when he repeatedly said Afghanistan was the war we must fight and win.

Instead, our Commander in Chief abdicates his responsibility to the men and women who serve this nation in uniform, and commits 30,000 more American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines to a war he has already conceded.

Every wound and death in Afghanistan from this moment on is blood spilled needlessly by a craven coward who lacks the basic integrity and leadership required of the office of the Presidency.

Damn him.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:57 AM | Comments (9)

December 01, 2009

The Real Climate Change Deniers

Claims of pending catastrophic destruction caused by man's influence on the climate is far older that the technology you a reading this blog on.

Long before Macs and PCs were commonplace and decades before the World Wide Web, there were the equivalent of pseudo-scientific madmen screaming to anyone who would listen that a massive, sudden ice age was about to descend and snuff out humanity if we didn't dramatically change our ways.

And yet, the planet survived the decade of disco and the AMC Pacer without either destruction or investing heavily in snow boots, and the crazies were mercifully ignored. They retreated back to their dusty hovels to lick their wounds and find another sky that was about to fall. The better part of a generation later, the faithful reemerged, convinced that it wasn't massive cooling that was going to kill us all, but massive warming. They were off by 180-degrees, that's all.

And so in the 90s and up until recently the cult has grown louder and more insistent, braying that the science is "settled" and if we didn't do something immediately, they would fail to get rich on their investments in unproven alternative energy sources and Denver would be awash with whales.

Of course, those of us who have even a minimal amount of exposure to science or computers know that the "settled science" is anything but, and recent disclosures have proven that both the data and the computer models have been fudged to the point of completely invalidating them as legitimate evidence of anything other than fraud. As it was before with global cooling, global warming (now called climate change since the warming, uh, failed to happen) has been exposed as a matter of faith among some, funding among others, and opportunism by nearly all of it's adherents.

President Barack Obama likes to style himself as an intellectual—even as he refuses to let anyone see his transcripts—and tries to cultivate an aura of Vulcan sobriety and reason as he stumbles from gaffe to gaffe. Next week he will attend a summit in Copehagen Denmark with many other world leaders, and they will do what politicians always do, and attempt to arrogantly insert themselves into matter they lack the education or experience to understand.

If Obama is actually the intellectual he pretends to be, he'll use his time on the world stage to discuss the recent disturbing revelations about the leading proponents of the climate change theology. He will bring up their destruction of the raw data that forms the very foundation of the movement, serial manipulation of data to achieve a desired result, conspiracy to silence or stonewall critics, and the utter corruption of computer data models riddled with manual "adjustments" to create climate change on paper even as it stubbornly refused to manifest in the climate of the real world.

But we know better than that, don't we?

For some it is far more important to ignore the science undermining their ideological position, and these climate change cultists are the sad souls truly in denial.

Sponsored link: casino online

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:13 PM | Comments (2)

November 30, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 AM | Comments (6)

November 27, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:14 PM | Comments (7)

November 25, 2009

"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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:59 AM | Comments (27)

Obama's Cracker Support Crumbles

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

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:07 AM | Comments (1)

November 24, 2009

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."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:26 AM | Comments (19)

November 23, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:14 PM | Comments (2)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:37 AM | Comments (6)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:34 AM | Comments (8)

November 21, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:20 PM | Comments (19)

November 20, 2009

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?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:43 PM | Comments (1)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:18 AM | Comments (14)

November 19, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:34 PM | Comments (2)

Womb Raider Vows Return to Normalcy

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

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:34 AM | Comments (3)

November 18, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:54 AM | Comments (59)

November 17, 2009

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

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:59 AM | Comments (17)

November 16, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:40 PM | Comments (34)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:44 PM | Comments (2)

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?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:09 AM | Comments (10)

November 14, 2009

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...

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:38 PM | Comments (21)

November 13, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:30 PM | Comments (2)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:13 PM | Comments (1)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:09 AM | Comments (4)

November 12, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:02 PM | Comments (15)

November 10, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:38 PM | Comments (11)

November 06, 2009

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?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:17 PM | Comments (18)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:09 PM | Comments (8)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:41 AM | Comments (2)

November 05, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:22 PM | Comments (12)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:24 PM | Comments (1)

November 04, 2009

A Year in American Politics (Abridged Version)

Obama '08!
Oh, Crap! '09

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:46 AM | Comments (5)

November 03, 2009

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.
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:26 PM | Comments (10)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:41 PM | Comments (3)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:17 PM | Comments (13)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:56 AM | Comments (5)

November 02, 2009

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:09 PM | Comments (37)

"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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:38 PM | Comments (4)

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.



And this is reality
:

"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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:59 PM | Comments (6)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:05 PM | Comments (8)

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.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:24 AM | Comments (6)

October 30, 2009

Propping Up The Dead

In a more barbaric portion of our nation's past, it was not uncommon to prop up the bodies of the newsworthy dead to take pictures with them. It is a vile act still practiced by some crude thugs in one particularly callous and self-serving sect. You know them as the Democrats.

Whether tripping over each other to use caskets as a lectern at the funerals of a Wellstone or a Kennedy, there is never a moment too solemn for liberals to soil if the slightest political opportunity presents itself.

Our odious President Barack Obama is as feckless and sociopathic as his political brethren, and carted up a helicopter full of photographers and journalists to take to Dover Air Force Base. He wanted to use the bodies of those who died in Afghanistan as a photo op, in a move so blatantly calculated that even the New York Times was forced to comment on it.

A small contingent of reporters and photographers accompanied Mr. Obama to Dover, where he arrived at 12:34 a.m. aboard Marine One. He returned to the South Lawn of the White House at 4:45 a.m.

<…>

The images and the sentiment of the president's five-hour trip to Delaware were intended by the White House to convey to the nation that Mr. Obama was not making his Afghanistan decision lightly or in haste.

Predictably, the Times edited away the offending truth, but no before it was already documented.

Only one family of 18 would allow Obama his cheap theatrics. 14 suffered through a meeting with the President and his surrounding entourage during what should have been a solemn moment of reclamation. Four families, apparently, were able to escape the White House-orchestrated circus entirely.

But liberals rotted to the core and rooted in the past instinctively returned to their traditional primal howl, with something called a Blue Texan at firedoglake using Obama's irreverent, calculated photo op to attack—who else?—George Bush.

At Blackfive, a real American, a soldier who understands the solemnity of service and loss, explains to the jackals:

Turning a solemn occasion into a photo op that becomes about you is not respectful, it is sorry. President Bush knew that and chose to show his respect in private to the people who really matter, the Gold Star families.

President Bush met with families individually and in groups, crying with them, praying with them, often with tears streaming down his cheeks. Those moments were private and respectful.

The left wants the bodies of the fallen stacked into a podium, cameras flashing, reporters intruding upon the dead and grieving so that they can project a false sincerity.

We're forced to ask: if the 18th family had refused to have their son's casket photographed, would Obama have shown up at all?

Sadly, I suspect we all know the answer.

Update: Like most liberals, Blue Texan can't understand why Obama's photo-op the other night in Dover was so loathsome.

Her sophomoric response an attempts to invokes a version of the "your guy did it too!" defense, trying to hide Obama's craven cynicism behind President Reagan's 1983 visit to Andrews Air Force Base to meet the bodies of Americans killed in a terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

Context, of course, is paramount.

Reagan's visit—as a transcript of the radio address Blue Texan cited attests—was part of the government response to a significant terror attack directed at one of our embassies. Reagan's purpose was to unite American resolve in support of freedom and liberty:

More than ever, we're committed to giving the people of Lebanon the chance they deserve to lead normal lives, free from violence and free from the presence of all unwanted foreign forces on their soil. And we remain committed to the Lebanese Government's recovery of full sovereignty throughout all its territory.

<...>

The scenes of senseless tragedy in Beirut this week will remain etched in our memories forever. But along with the tragedy, there were inspiring moments of heroism. We will not forget the pictures of Ambassador Dillon and his staff, Lebanese as well as Americans, many of them swathed in bandages, bravely searching the devastated embassy for their colleagues and for other innocent victims.

We will not forget the image of young marines gently draping our nation's flag over the broken body of one of their fallen comrades. We will not forget their courage and compassion, and we will not forget their willingness to sacrifice even their lives for the service of their country and the cause of peace.

Yes, we Americans can be proud of these fine men and women. And we can be even prouder that our country has been playing such a unique and indispensable role in the Middle East, a role no other single nation could play. When the countries of the region want help in bringing peace, we're the ones they've turned to. That's because they trust us, because they know that America is both strong and just, both decent and dedicated. Even in the shadow of this terrible tragedy in Beirut, that is something to remember and draw heart from. It is also something to be true to.

I know I speak for all Americans when I reaffirm our unshakeable commitment to our country's most precious heritage—serving the cause of peace and freedom in the world. What better monument than that could we build for those who gave their all that others might live in peace.

President Reagan's visit was meant to inspire a nation.

President Obama's visit was meant to salvage his reputation.

Big difference.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:15 AM | Comments (44)

October 29, 2009

The Taxpayer Option: 1,990 Pages

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

A bill can only get this bloated when Congress isn't conscientious enough, or diligent enough, to craft concise and thoughtful legislation that accomplishes a specific task with a clear purpose and logical mechanisms for implementation and enforcement.

This is a trainwreck, authored by the lazy and incompetent, and should be aborted instead of the children the bill would require taxpayers to kill.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:39 PM | Comments (4)

October 26, 2009

Senate On Verge of Health Care Plan That Will Dramatically Increase Number of Unemployed Low-Income Workers

Democrats in the Senate should call this precisely what it is—the Screw The Poor Compromise:

Details of the legislation could change, but its broad outlines are becoming clear. Employers with more than 50 workers wouldn't be required to provide health insurance, but they would face fines of up to $750 per employee if even part of their work force received a government subsidy to buy health insurance, this person said. A bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee had a lower fine of up to $400 per employee.

The bill to be brought to the Senate floor would create a new public health-insurance plan, but would give states the choice of opting out of participating in it, a proposal that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada backed last week.

Translated into English, what this means is that employers will have to pay far more in payroll taxes, meaning they will have far less money to actually hire workers. Like always, it will be those employees on the lower end of the scale—typically minorities—that will be the most greatly affected by the change, and when I say "affected" I mean like Jody Foster was affected in The Accused.

Phillip Klein at The American Spectator notes the disaster in the making:

The major problem with this disastrous proposal should be obvious to anybody with an inkling of understanding of economics. If you make it more costly for businesses to higher lower-income workers, they won't hire as many. Simply put, if the federal government set out to create a program designed to increase the unemployment rate among the working poor, it would be hard to come up with anything better than this.

There is a reason Reagan warned that the scariest words in our language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help," and the health care proposals being offered by Democrats are a perfect example of the unintended consequences of massive, complicated bills that Congress votes upon without even making an attempt to understand them.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:20 PM | Comments (7)

Groups That Forced Banks to Accept Sub-Prime Borrowers Now Protesting Banks for Expecting Sub-Prime Borrowers to Repay Their Loans

You've got to be sickened by the gall of the SEIU, AFL-CIO, and Americans For Financial Reform.

In league with bullying liberal politicians in the House and Senate—and of course, their child sex slavery supporting allies at ACORN—these thugs forced banks to provide mortgages to people with bad credit by extorting them with empty charges of "racism." They are now screaming bloody murder that the banks are engaged in profiteering and preying on these same people.

Why?

For actually giving them the loans they extorted, and then having the temerity to expect these loans to be repaid. God forbid that they are treated like adults and expected to meet the financial obligations they made the decision to take on.

You can't fix stupid, apparently, but you sure as Hell can get them bused to a protest.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:00 AM | Comments (3)

October 24, 2009

Obama: Let's Wreck This Economy For The Fictional One I Support

"From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to produce and use energy," he said. "The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I am convinced of that. And I want America to be that nation."

A reasonably bright teenager can tell you that a country that powers itself exclusvely by "clean energy" simply for the sake of being green puts itself at a severe disadvantage against those economies that go with a with a less-restrictive approach that leverages existing technology. It is common sense.

Sadly, you can guess which small-minded ideologue has very little of that.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:43 PM | Comments (34)

October 23, 2009

Obama's War on the Media

Considering last night's failed attempt to censor Fox News, it wouldn't be irresponsible to wonder if the Obama White House had a direct hand in this Media Matters memorandum dedicating resources to the destruction of the only significant dissident mainstream media outlet in the United States.

An official at a Democratic-leaning organization sends on a memo the group Media Matters is circulating today to progressive groups, calling Fox "a lethal 24/7 partisan political operation" and rallying a coalition of groups to join the White House assault on the network.

"The danger to progressive causes and the institution of journalism has become too significant to ignore," says the introduction to a memo by Media Matters founder David Brock. "At Media Matters, we believe it is of paramount importance that progressive leaders have the information necessary to understand exactly what Fox News has become. We hope this brief memorandum will assist you in reaching your own decision on how best to engage this threat."

A co-worker asked me to explain to him why the White House was targeting Fox.

Essentially, the White House views FOX as a gateway between the distributed network reporting being done by the blogosphere and the traditional media.

Fox amplified the charges against Van Jones, leading to his ouster from his White House appointment before other media even reported on the controversy. Fox also promoted the investigation of a pair of filmmakers that exposed a series of ACORN offices as being supportive of tax fraud for the purposes of child sex trafficking. The embarrassing string of videos—with more waiting in the wings that have yet to be broadcast—forced the Democrats in Congress and private donors alike to sever ties with the group, which was trained by the President himself and with which he maintains close ties. Likewise, Fox has helped to focus attention on other radicals in Obama's government with profiles of Administration officials and hangers-on that the President would prefer unreported.

Along with a handful of other responsible watchdog media, Fox News has been the conduit that led these scandals from the political blogosphere to the mainstream news, and the Obama Administration is attempting to retaliate against Fox News in the strongest possible way. The goal is to both stop Fox News from reporting stories damaging to a floundering Presidency, and to warn other news outlets that they will be targeted by Obama and his allies if they step out of line and report those news stories deemed detrimental to the President.

Leaking the Media Matters memo to the Politico was no accident. It is a carefully-calculated assault designed to terrorize journalists, pundits, newspapers and networks into silent obedience. The goal is to censor all speech against the Administration, by threatening retaliation against critics by the deep-pocketed activist groups that function as shock troops.

In their hearts, the President and his allies share the distaste of a free press which stains all would-be tyrants. They will push back hard against being exposed, and the plot to pummel Fox News into silence is only a small part of a Administration's larger plan to bully the media into submission.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:45 PM | Comments (8)

October 22, 2009

White House Tries to Ban Fox News From Press Pool

Honestly? I never thought they'd take it this far.

Today the White House stepped up its attack on Fox News, announcing that the network would no longer be able to conduct interviews with officials as a member of the Press Pool. The Pool is a five-member group consisting of ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC organized by the White House Correspondents Association. Its membership is not subject to oversight by the government.

Before an interview with "Pay Czar" Kenneth Feinberg, the administration announced that Fox News would be banned from the press pool. This marks the first time in history that an administration had attempted to ban an entire network from the press pool.

I cannot recall any Administration in my lifetime so desperately intent on restricting and controlling the media's access to information. This is a blatant attempt at censorship by exclusion.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:06 PM | Comments (18)

Obama: Republicans "Do What They're Told"

More of that famous Obama post-partisanship:

"Democrats are an opinionated bunch. You know, the other side, they just kinda sometimes do what they're told. Democrats, y'all thinkin' for yourselves."

Yes, he said Democrats—the same group that demands lock-step conformity from the media and their own followers or else starts a war with them—are the party that thinks for themselves.

Wow.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:47 PM | Comments (13)

October 21, 2009

Farrakhan Angling for Obama Cabinet Position

Nutty statements are a prerequisite, right?

Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan told an audience in Memphis he believes the H1N1 flu vaccine was developed to kill people, a witness said.

Farrakhan, 76, spoke for nearly three hours Sunday at a gathering to observe the religious group's Holy Day of Atonement, which also marked the 14th anniversary of the Million Man March in Washington, the (Memphis) Commercial Appeal reported, citing a source who attended the speech.

"The Earth can't take 6.5 billion people. We just can't feed that many. So what are you going to do? Kill as many as you can. We have to develop a science that kills them and makes it look as though they died from some disease," Farrakhan said, adding that many wise people won't take the vaccine.

The medical research community hasn't exactly covered themselves in glory in the past, but asserting there is a widespread genocide being perpetrated under the public's already supicious eye is borderline insane by any measure.

Which I guess means he'll end up formulating the administration's economic policy...

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:22 PM | Comments (2)

It's Time to Question the Depth of Democratic Party Involvement

Remember the claims of ACORN officials that the string of sex-slavery sting operations perpetrated by a fake pimp and prostitute getting advice from ACORN on how to commit fraud were isolated incidents, and that James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles were thrown out of ACORN offices in other cities such as Philadelphia?

Update: Updated with new link.

Alternative, but very slow (due to heavy traffic?) video link at HopeForAmerica.

Eh, not so much "thrown out" as "welcomed with open arms."

ACORN Philadelphia Office Director Katherine Conway-Russell flat-out lied on camera to the media. ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis continues to lie to the media, claiming that these incidents are isolated. The media repeated their claims unquestioningly.

Now that ACORN has been exposed—yet again—as lying about their willingness to support the creation of brothels for the purpose of juvenile prostitution, will the media outlets that repeated those falsehoods decide to re-report on the truth of this story? Will they issue corrections?

Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe have shown the unedited footage from every ACORN visit they've made, from Baltimore, Washington DC, New York, San Bernardino, San Diego, and the unedited video from Philadelphia will soon be released. Other videos from other ACORN sting operations are rumored to be lurking in the wings.

How much longer can supporters of this criminal enterprise continue to insist they are being unfairly maligned, when every single meeting that Giles and O'Keefe had with ACORN officials led to cooperation in the furthering of a plot to establish a facility for the explicit purpose of juvenile sex slavery?

ACORN is a cancerous product of the Democratic Party, and cannot be separated from it. It has been trained and given advice from the President of the United States himself. It is closely tied to the SEIU thugs that have attacked and intimidated American citizens. ACORN is a criminal enterprise that has been accused of countless acts of voter registration fraud, and which has been accused of stealing elections. It's officials have participated in embezzlement, fraud, intimidation, and cover-ups. As this latest sting video shows, ACORN is little better than the mafia, willing to accept even the most depraved criminal activity.

The Americans public must demand that independent prosecutors be appointed and given the resources necessary to thoroughly investigate ACORN, and yes, that is a serious problem for the Democratic party, both politically and perhaps criminally.

ACORN has invasive, perhaps inseverable ties to the very highest level of the Democratic establishment. If the Obama White House and Justice Department continue to refuse to investigate ACORN, then we will have little choice but to assume that they are guilty of collusion and racketeering themselves...

But then, there isn't much doubt, is there?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:00 AM | Comments (3)

October 20, 2009

Justice Department: African-Americans in NC Town Aren't Smart Enough to Vote Without Help

Enjoy the post-racial present, where a African-American Attorney General reporting to a mixed-race President can tell a majority-black community that they are too dumb to vote in their own self-interest.

Voters in this small city decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party.

The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters' right to elect the candidates they want.

This is a highly insulting and abusive overreach of power from the Holder DoJ, and an arrogant one as well. In no uncertain terms, Holder's DOJ is insisting that their poor dumb country cousins can't figure out how to vote "right" without the visual cue of a party affiliation to guide them.

Presumably, the inherent racism in the DOJ position assuming that African-Americans must vote Democrat to be voting in their own self interest goes utterly unnoticed.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:31 PM | Comments (3)

Bloody Chicago

This morning, with the image of a honor student Derrion Albert being beaten to death by a Chicago mob still fresh in out minds, we discover that Chicago's police have all but stopped hiring new officers to fill almost 600 vacant positions:

To save $10 million, Daley's 2009 budget slowed police hiring to a crawl -- with only 200 officers expected to be hired all year.

But, as city revenues plummeted, City Hall opted not to maintain even that snail's pace. Only one class of 46 officers entered the police academy this year.

As of Oct. 9, the Chicago Police Department was 591 officers short of its authorized strength of 13,500 -- and that's not counting hundreds of other officers on duty- and non-duty disability.

As citizens are barred from defending themselves by restrictive gun control, expect the decline in the number of officers to be taken advantage of by criminals.

Things will get worse in Chicago before they get better, and the citizens will have no one to blame but themselves for becoming willing victims.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:34 AM | Comments (5)

October 19, 2009

A White House Comfortable with Genocide?

You cannot expect to hold a person responsible all the actions and/or beliefs of their associates, but it is certainly fair to wonder about their judgment if the actions or beliefs are both particularly heinous and part of their core character.

That was part of the reason so many people were concerned about President Barack Obama's long-running association with terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, a relationship that may have extended as far back as the 1980s, when Dohrn, Ayers, and Obama were part of the same community in Manhattan (Obama was a student at Columbia and beginning to explore political activism at the time Ayer's was at Bank Street College of Education. Bernadine Dohrn? She was sent to prison for a short time for refusing to cooperate with authorities and tell them what she knew about the 1981 Brinks armored car robbery across the Hudson River in Rockland County that left two police officers and a security guard dead).

Ayers and Obama are better known for their collaboration on multiple projects in Chicago, including the Woods Fund and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama's first an only executive experience prior to winning the White House (and a verified failure), and for Ayers and Dohrn hosting Obama's very first political fundraiser in their home.

Through all of their relationship, Ayers and Dohrn were minor celebrities for their terrorism within the welcoming confines of Hyde Park's liberal elite. Obama knew Ayers and Dohrn were leaders of a terrorist group. He knew they had literally declared war against the United States. And he more than likely knew that Ayers, Dohrn, and the other terrorist leaders of the Weather Underground had dreams that included the imposition of communism on the United States, and the genocide of 25 million Americans in concentration camps.

It turns out Ayers and Dohrn aren't the only associates of Barack Obama comfortable with genocide. We can also include one of his closest four advisers, Anita Dunn. Victor David Hanson is among those outraged over Dunn's admiration of the greatest ">mass killer in human history:

I am not a big fan of saying that officials should resign for stupid remarks. But interim White House communications director Anita Dunn's praise of Mao Zedong as a "political philosopher" is so unhinged and morally repugnant, that she should hang it up, pronto.

Mao killed anywhere from 50 million to 70 million innocents in the initial cleansing of Nationalists, the scouring of the countryside, the failed Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Tibet, and the internal Chinese gulag. Dunn's praise of a genocidal monster was no inadvertent slip: She was reading from a written text and went into great detail to give the full context of the remark. Moreover, her comments were not some student outburst from 30 years ago; they were delivered on June 5, 2009. Her praise of Mao's insight and courage in defeating the Nationalists was offered long after the full extent of Mao's mass-murdering had been well documented. Mao killed more people than any other single mass killer in the history of civilization.

Once again, someone close to the President is found to be an admirer of political genocide. In that context, perhaps the Oath Keepers aren't so radical after all... at least as it comes to being willing to resist unlawful orders.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:54 AM | Comments (3)

October 16, 2009

Re-grinding the Lancet

Reality Check:

Iraq’s government said at least 85,000 Iraqis were killed from 2004 to 2008, officially answering one of the biggest questions of the conflict - how many perished in the sectarian violence that nearly led to a civil war.

What remains unanswered by the government is how many died in the 2003 US invasion and in the months of chaos that followed it.

A report by the Human Rights Ministry said 85,694 people were killed from the beginning of 2004 to Oct. 31, 2008 and 147,195 were wounded. The figures included Iraqi civilians, military and police but did not cover US military deaths, insurgents, or foreigners, including contractors. And it did not include the first months of the war after the 2003 US-led invasion.

The Associated Press reported similar figures in April based on government statistics obtained by the AP showing that the government had recorded 87,215 Iraqi deaths from 2005 to February 2009. The toll included violence ranging from catastrophic bombings to execution-style slayings.

The infamous Lancet study cited by every major media outlet and liberal blog was only off about half a million. I'll be expecting apologies for pushing this politically-concocted propaganda any minute now...

I wonder how many of the Lancet guys dabble in global warming research...

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:37 PM | Comments (5)

White House to Use Hollywood For Propaganda Push

By itself, this isn't unexpected:

President Barack Obama will return to Texas today for the first time since taking office nine months ago, sharing the stage with former President George H.W. Bush in a forum designed to "engage the nation" in a renewed conversation on volunteerism.

Volunteerism is a great thing and I strongly believe in it. I'm glad that a former and current President can get together to promote the idea of volunteerism.

But like so many things that President Obama has his hands on, there is a perverse selfishness and ideological opportunism associated with this effort.

Big Hollywood has now linked the Administration with the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) in a bid to use 60+ television programs to push for people to volunteer... for left wing political advocacy.

Here is a listing of the shows, by network, that have signed on to participate in stealth propaganda campaign organized by the White House and their allies in the entertainment industry.

We thought it was bad when the White House tried to use the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to push progressive political propaganda.

Obviously, they've set their sights on casting a much greater net, trying to co-op network and cable television to indoctrinate both adults and children.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:02 AM | Comments (1)

October 15, 2009

53 House Republicans Call for Jennings Ouster

They see him pushing a pro-homosexuality agenda in his un-elected, un-vetted role as "safe school czar."

I find Jennings unfit for failing to report the serial statutory rape of one of his students, especially since his later activism at least hints that Jennings allowed the rape to go unreported because the 15-year-old male student was having a homosexual affair with a much older man. One is left to wonder if sympathy for their shared preference led him to cover up the crime, whereas he might have turned in heterosexual offenders.

If Obama keeps Jennings on-board, the public will likely remember him for the new position he will represent.

That of Home School Czar.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:06 PM | Comments (3)

October 14, 2009

Climate Change Zealots: Stop Breathing, America!

I'm not sure anymore... should this be categorized as religion, politics, or humor?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:20 AM | Comments (4)

October 13, 2009

He's a Buddhist?

Apparently someone in Lakeville, MA decided that vandalizing a golf course was the best way to vent their disgust with President Obama, carving into the green " I 卍Obama."

But even a casual glance at the defaced green immediately tells you something is off: The swastika is facing counterclockwise.

Instead of insisting Obama is a stealth Muslim, are some on the fringe now contending he is a Buddhist?

Symbols, like words, mean things.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:44 PM | Comments (4)

If Your Senator Vote For The Baucus "Bill," Tar and Feather Them

Let's be very accurate about what the Senate is about to vote on today. They are not voting on a health care bill. There is no legislative language. They are voting on nothing more or less than a tentative and vaguely-designed wishlist that they will then back-fill after the fact.

I don't care if you are a Democrat. I don't care if you are a Republican. I don't care if you favor one of the various current health care proposals being offered, or if you'd rather prefer someone come up with a more workable idea.

Regardless of your politics, you should be outraged that the Senate Finance Committee (and the Senate as a whole) thinks it can get away with this confidence game. It is fraud, a classic bait-and-switch. They intend to vote on vaporware, and then design a substandard product after the fact.

We deserve better than this. We deserve to have real legislation to discuss and debate. Instead, these cowards want to vote on vague generalities so that they can deny their complicity later when it all falls apart. It is gutless, and a blatant betrayal of the citizens they were elected to represent.

Any Senator who votes for the so-called Baucus "Bill" should be dragged into the street, stripped naked, covered in boiling tar, then feathered. I suspect that with the miracles of modern medicine, a good many of them may even survive the procedure.

Unless, of course, their health care plan doesn't cover that.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:10 PM | Comments (3)

October 12, 2009

Obamacare Wonders "What's in Your Wallet?"

Don't you just have an extra $4,000 a year just lying around?

After months of collaboration on President Obama's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.

Obamacare is premised on the model of socialized medicine that is failing throughout the world, promises to make treating specific diseases less survivable, and will compound it all with increasing government bloat and inefficiencies.

No thanks.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:14 PM | Comments (7)

No, Jennings Did Not Claim Killing Over Name-Calling is Acceptable

"Safe Schools Czar" Kevin Jennings is a trainwreck for the Obama Adminstration, having hidden sexual abuse of a minor while a teacher, and then hero-worshipping a known member of NAMLA, a perverse group that advocates sex between perverted old men and underage boys. For these incidents alone any Presidential Administration with any sense of decency would ask Jennings to resign, so it is perhaps unsurprising that he still works for the Obama Administration.

But as morally compromised Jennings is, the latest complaint being aired against him is a false allegation that can only come about from a misreading of the point Jennings was attempting to make.

Jennings was not attempting to say that killing someone over a sexual smear is acceptable. He was condemning it.

Read the paragraph in full:

We need to own up to the fact that our culture teaches boys that being "a man" is the most important thing in life, even if you have to kill someone to prove it. Killing someone who calls you a faggot is not aberrant behavior but merely the most extreme expression of a belief that is beaten (sometimes literally) into boys at an early age in this country: Be a man—don't be a faggot.

Jennings was clearly disgusted with the events he was writing about. He's claiming that a society that promotes murder as an acceptable response to name-calling is abhorrent. And in this one instance, he's right.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:40 AM | Comments (12)

October 11, 2009

Remembering Learning of the Battle of Oxford

Until I saw this linked on Instapundit, I never knew such an event took place:

On Tuesday, Oct. 1, Oxford, Miss., will be coming to terms with one of the major events of its past. Forty years ago on that day, in the early morning, a force of nearly 30,000 American combat troops raced toward Oxford in a colossal armada of helicopters, transport planes, Jeeps and Army trucks.

Their mission was to save Oxford, the University of Mississippi and a small force of federal marshals from being destroyed by over 2,000 white civilians who were rioting after James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran, arrived to integrate the school.

The troops were National Guardsmen from little towns all over Mississippi, regular Army men from across the United States and paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions.

They had to capture the city quickly; the F.B.I. had intelligence that thousands of Klansmen and segregationists from California to Georgia may have set off for Oxford, many of them armed.

The first troops to reach Oxford found over 100 wounded federal marshals at the center of campus, 27 of them hit by civilian gunfire. Packs of hundreds of rioters swarmed the city, some holding war dances around burning vehicles.

Snipers opened fire on the Army convoys and bricks struck the heads of American soldiers. Black G.I.'s in one convoy were ambushed by white civilians who tried to decapitate them in their open Jeeps with metal pipes....


...The Army troops restored order to the school and the city, block by block. A girl watched a team of infantrymen under attack on the Oxford town square and, according to a reporter at the scene, wondered aloud, "When are they going to shoot back?" Except for a few warning shots, they never did.

This is just another dark chapter in American history that the "higher powers" in our education system preferred us not to know about growing up, like the Battle of Athens or the Wilmington Insurrection.

The claim has always been that " history is written by the winners," but have we lost knowing ourselves when both the winners and losers refuse to acknowledge what occurred?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:27 PM | Comments (17)

Daughter Saves Mother After Death Panel Sentences Her to Starve To Death

But don't worry, folks.

It could never happen here.

And no, the reality of socialized medicine killing patients isn't limited to Britain.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)

October 09, 2009

Ig-Nobel

In a travesty out of Oslo, hope defeated change as Presidential candidate Barack Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize today for precisely no accomplishments. Obama took office less than two weeks before the February 1 nomination deadline.

Noel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland was pressed by the media to explain why Obama deserved the award, and could only offer this defense.

As to whether the prize was given too early in Mr. Obama’s presidency, he said: "We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future but for what he has done in the previous year. We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do."

The prize committee said it wanted to enhance Mr. Obama's diplomatic efforts so far rather than anticipate events in the future.

Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for President.

Good. Grief.

Update: With their typical dissembling, Media Matters links to this post and claims it represents "open disdain for American achievement under Obama. "

I, along with the rest of the world, can only ask, what achievement under Obama?

If the President had actual accomplished something of note in the twelve days of his Presidency before the Nobel nominating deadline passed, he would have at least some argument in favor of his award. As it presently stands, he was given the award for rhetoric. This awarding of the Peace Prize to Obama dishonors those who have done far more in the cause of peace than running a self-serving political campaign full of empty promises.

Even Obama—ever the narcissist—admits he is unworthy of the award:

I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize.

Being a liberal, however, he gladly took what he admittedly didn't deserve.

It would have been a mark of class if the President agreed with the rest of the world and declined an honor he admittedly didn't earn as an acknowledgment to those who risked so much more in the name of peace.

But that is asking too much of a man who has delivered so little.

Update: Verum Serum brings the Media Matters lapdog to heel, while the DNC wets themselves.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:24 AM | Comments (24)

October 08, 2009

WONDERFUL: Obama Administration Too Stupid/Lazy to Understand COIN; Now Waffles

It seems that the most brilliant President evah and the rest of his Administration are now claiming that they bought into counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine for Afghanistan without, uh, bothering to understand what it meant:

To some civilians who participated in the strategic review, that conclusion was much less clear. Some took it as inevitable that more troops would be needed, but others thought the thrust of the new approach was to send over scores more diplomats and reconstruction experts. They figured a counterinsurgency mission could be accomplished with the forces already in the country, plus the 17,000 new troops Obama had authorized in February.

"It was easy to say, 'Hey, I support COIN,' because nobody had done the assessment of what it would really take, and nobody had thought through whether we want to do what it takes," said one senior civilian administration official who participated in the review, using the shorthand for counterinsurgency.

The failure to reach a shared understanding of the resources required to execute the strategy has complicated the White House's response to the grim assessment of the war by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, forcing the president to decide, in effect, what his administration really meant when it endorsed a counterinsurgency plan. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's follow-up request for more forces, which presents a range of options but makes clear that the best chance of achieving the administration's goals requires an additional 40,000 U.S. troops on top of the 68,000 who are already there, has given senior members of Obama's national security team "a case of sticker shock," the administration official said.

Government officials could be forgiven for not understanding what COIN entails... in 2003. But a model of COIN doctrine similar that proposed for Afghanistan has been tested and proven in Iraq over the past several years. There will be some specific tweaks to the doctrine proposed for Afghanistan based upon differing human factors and tactical and strategic goals, but the basic components, theories, manpower levels and logistics are not dissimilar.

Now claiming that they didn't understand the cost of COIN reveals that the Obama Administration simply failed to do their due diligence:

This is a damning indictment of the President and his lack of preparation for the job, but it goes farther than that. Obama has essentially been "on the job" since the transition, which started eleven months ago. Considering the priority of any policy that puts American men and women in battle, Obama should have worked to understand the implications of his COIN solution from Day 1 in the transition, if not Day 1 of his term in office. He appointed McChrystal for this specific purpose in the spring without bothering to understand the concepts and the resources required for COIN.

In other words, Obama has half-assed it, and has gotten caught.

Laziness and a "can do... nothing" attitude is steadily becoming the hallmark of an Administration that seems far more interested in appearing on talk shows or making campaign speeches that exerting actual leadership decisions.

The Peter Principle Presidency continues to underperform.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:27 AM | Comments (7)

October 07, 2009

The CBO Non-Estimate of the Baucus Non-Bill

Democrats in the Senate and the media keep talking about the so-called "Baucus Bill," Sen. Max Baucus' attempt at something vaguely like a Senate health care bill. But is isn't a health care bill; it's merely an outline.

There is no substance to it, no legislation to vote on, a fact made abundantly clear in the first paragraph of the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of this pipe-dream:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have completed a preliminary analysis of the Chairman’s mark for the America's Healthy Future Act of 2009, incorporating the amendments that have been adopted to date by the Committee on Finance. That analysis reflects the specifications posted on the committee's Web site on October 2, 2009, corrections posted on October 5, and additional clarifications provided by the staff of the committee through October 6. CBO and JCT's analysis is preliminary in large part because the Chairman’s mark, as amended, has not yet been embodied in legislative language.

In plain English, the CBO released a fantasy estimate based upon non-existent legislation. With no actual language in place, the CBO estimate is worthless as budget document, even if it has proven a very useful diversion for those trying to force socialized health care upon a nation that clearly doesn't want it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:59 PM | Comments (1)

October 06, 2009

Blogger: Ayers Admitted Authoring Obama's Dreams from my Father

The meeting seems semi-verified by the existence of the photo.

Ayers blurting out that he wrote Dreams to the first conservative blogger he ran across seems much more suspect, but still plausible if Ayers merely wanted to jerk Anne Leary around.

Actually, seriously claiming authorship?

I doubt it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:21 PM | Comments (0)

October 05, 2009

Forget the Baby Steps Towards Fascism: Obama Administration Attacks Free Speech at United Nations

The old belief was that totalitarianism was effected in small bites, cutting off the fringes until only a tiny center remained, which was quickly overwhelmed. Such a thought was behind the famous construct of "First they came for..."

Our present Administration is foregoing that approach to totalitarianism. Instead, they've gone full-bore against our most cherished right, joining with an oppressive Egyptian regime to craft a resolution limits freedom of speech.

The Obama administration has marked its first foray into the UN human rights establishment by backing calls for limits on freedom of expression. The newly-minted American policy was rolled out at the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council, which ended in Geneva on Friday. American diplomats were there for the first time as full Council members and intent on making friends.

President Obama chose to join the Council despite the fact that the Organization of the Islamic Conference holds the balance of power and human rights abusers are among its lead actors, including China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. Islamic states quickly interpreted the president's penchant for "engagement" as meaning fundamental rights were now up for grabs. Few would have predicted, however, that the shift would begin with America's most treasured freedom.

For more than a decade, a UN resolution on the freedom of expression was shepherded through the Council, and the now defunct Commission on Human Rights which it replaced, by Canada. Over the years, Canada tried mightily to garner consensus on certain minimum standards, but the "reformed" Council changed the distribution of seats on the UN's lead human rights body. In 2008, against the backdrop of the publication of images of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, Cuba and various Islamic countries destroyed the consensus and rammed through an amendment which introduced a limit on any speech they claimed was an "abuse . . . [that] constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination."

The Obama administration decided that a revamped freedom of expression resolution, extracted from Canadian hands, would be an ideal emblem for its new engagement policy. So it cosponsored a resolution on the subject with none other than Egypt--a country characterized by an absence of freedom of expression.

What a disgrace.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:43 PM | Comments (4)

The Obama Residency

In well-written post on Saturday, Donald Sensing (via Instapundit) refers to our current disaster at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as the "Maye West presidency."

He explores other opinions about Barack Obama, and builds a compelling argument that we are presently saddled with a POTUS that is a narcissist that has risen well beyond his level of competency.

We have a President that loves campaigning and making speeches, but who is in far over his head, and who does not have the leadership skills or experience to do the job. Barack Obama has had only one previous executive role in his life. He was the titular figurehead of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which failed in its mission and was shut down.

So far as President, he has no notable successes, and in matters of real importance, he has either stood on the sidelines as a junior varsity punter (health care, the failed "stimulus," cap-and-tax), or has refused to suit up at all (war in Afghanistan, Iranian nuclear program).

Notes Sensing:

As others have exhaustively pointed out, there is nothing at all in Obama's resume that shows he ever made highly difficult decisions that depended, at the end, on his own personal reservoir of wisdom and experience. So he does not tackle the inbox because its contents are above his competence. (One is reminded of Obama telling Rick Warren that when an unborn child gets human rights is "above my pay grade.") He tends instead to lesser matters that match his lower level of competence and gratifyingly feed the ego. And so he flies to Copenhagen to deliver a speech of no significance on a matter of no consequence. Why? Because he can do that - simply standing in front of a crowd reading eloquently from a teleprompter he can handle quite well.

We have a President who cannot do his job, and what's worse, a Vice President that has to be reminded not to eat paint chips giving his boss advice.

As his action—and inactions—slowly but surely separate the hype from the substance of the man, it becomes ever more apparent that the ever-present stylized "O" logo and the on-going campaign slogan of "Hope and Change" are being replaced in the minds of those who soberly assess the compounding failures of this President, and find an old image and slogan far more accurate, and ominous.


Duck and Cover
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:08 PM | Comments (3)

October 02, 2009

Alert Janet Napolitano: Right Wing Terrorist Arrested in Texas

Did I say right wing? I meant incompetent radical left-wing eco-terrorist:

Former California resident Stephen James Murphy was taken into custody at his home in Arlington, Texas, Wednesday, said FBI Los Angeles director Keith Bolcar in a release about the arrest.

Murphy was named in a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles charging him with the 2006 attempted arson of unfinished townhouses in Pasadena, Calif., according to Bolcar.

On Sept. 19, 2006, the Pasadena Fire Department was called to the townhouse construction site after a "crude incendiary device" made out of cigarettes was discovered there, according to the complaint. The device failed to go off.

Construction workers couldn't start one of the tractors and noticed a message written in marker on the side that read, "ANOTHER TRACTOR DECOMMISSIONED BY THE E.L.F." — a reference to the Earth Liberation Front, an environmental extremist group.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:11 PM | Comments (10)

Everything's a Nail: Lefty Blogger Blames Bush For Failure of Chicago Olympic Bid

It would be comedic if it wasn't so dead serious:

No doubt the President was sincere, but it's been quite a while since America has been "at its best," thanks to the Bush Administration. Why would anyone believe that the United States will indeed "make sure that all visitors would feel welcome," given our track record over the past eight years with regard to burdens placed on anyone who seeks a visa, the possibility of inquisitions (and being turned back) even upon arrival, vulnerability to "terrorist lists" that have a proven degree of unreliability, etc.? This is really a stunning rebuke of the United States, given the willingness of both Obamas to put themselves on the line. He's going to have to generate far more "change everyone can believe in" before the US will be chosen as a venue for an event like the Olympics (and properly so). And how confident can we be that he will be willing to take on the Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaughs, and other Republican demagogues (many of them in the House and the Senate) to reduce the burdens placed on foreign visitors?

Bush, Limbaugh and Beck... it's like they have a deflection template stored on their desktops that they can bring ready to blame their favorite bogeymen for any and all failures of the Administration, with fill-in-the-blank issues.

That much of the world considered Chicago a serious contender for the final two slots and only failed after the Obamas interjected themselves is a matter that the President's sycophants simply are not equipped to handle.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:34 PM | Comments (15)

NOBAMA! Chicago Ousted in First Round of Olympic Voting

Via the Beeb:

1625: Well, isn't that a turn up for the books? Chicago are eliminated in the first round - cue audible gasps around the auditorium - and a second round of voting opens immediately.

CHICAGO DROPS OUT OF THE 2016 HOST CITY VOTING PROCESS

1623: The vote closes and the scrutineers are now checking the results. If there is no majority for one city, remember, the city with the least votes will drop out and another vote will take place.

1622: The first round of voting for the 2016 Olympic Games host city is declared open.

Incoming Media Reactions:
"...a stunning defeat for the city that was expected to be one of the two finalists..."

"...the "biggest shock in IOC history."

"...a surprisingly early exit..."

"...stunned silence..."

CNN, for their part, quickly buried their gushing (and now obviously inaccurate) Michelle Obama steals the show in Copenhagen

Update: Comment of the day (so far).

I hear when the IOC announced the first city out was Chicago, you can hear somebody in the room yelling, "YOU LIE!"

And finally, via Cuffy Meigs:

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:31 AM | Comments (14)

Women Had Sex with Letterman?

I think the extortionist picked the wrong target.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:48 AM | Comments (7)

October 01, 2009

HOUSE AIDES: Public Option Making Comeback

Via a politically connected friend on Facebook:

Info from D.C. is that a public option has enough support to pass in the House. Blue Dogs caving and Black Caucus pushing hard on legislators for the public option. Plan is next week.

Is anyone else hearing the same sort of information?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:37 PM | Comments (7)

Evil Right Wing Obama Assassination Pollster ID'd

Kinda hard to listen to Rush Limbaugh from the school cafeteria.

The Secret Service announced today that a juvenile was behind the Facebook posting that asked whether President Obama should be assassinated, calling it a prank that would not lead to prosecution.

The agency declined to release the juvenile's name, age or residence.

The latter decision is probably is a wise one not just simply because of the offender's age, but also because left wing zealots wanted him dead.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:06 PM | Comments (6)

Obama's "Safe Schools Czar" Made Community Safe for Roman Polanski-type Pedophiles

That might not be entirely accurate. I'm pretty sure he didn't condone drugging them first, just men having sex with underage boys:

President Obama's "safe schools czar," under fire from critics who say he's unfit for his job, acknowledged Wednesday that he "should have handled [the] situation differently" years ago when he was a schoolteacher and didn't report that a 15-year-old boy told him that he was having sex with an older man.

Kevin Jennings, the founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, was teaching high school in Concord, Mass., in 1988 when the boy, a sophomore, confessed an involvement with a man he had met in a bus station bathroom in Boston. Jennings has written that he told the boy, "I hope you knew to use a condom."

In a statement issued Wednesday, Jennings said: "Twenty one years later I can see how I should have handled this situation differently. I should have asked for more information and consulted legal or medical authorities."

And now he thinks we should keep him an an authority?

i'm sorry, but a lack of discernment, judgment, and basic morality is inherent character flaw. Kevin Jennings is just another whackjob Obama czar that needs to be kicked to the curb.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:35 AM | Comments (6)

Little Men

I have a confession: I don't know much about Glenn Beck. I've read about him here and there, I've seen clips of his show on other blogs, and may have caught a couple of segments of his show. All I can deduce about him is that his style doesn't particularly appeal to me, and so I don't watch him.

He's a populist and an entertainer and he has had some undeniable successes and I wish him well, but I don't think he is the major political player that some people do.

And by some people, I include the White House.

There is something truly odd and more than a little insecure about a Presidency that reduces the Administration and the Office of the President to quibbling with a self-described clown. Presidents should be above such petty matters as attacking a talk show personality, but our Real World: White House seems to interject itself into all sorts of trivial matters from the arrest of private citizens (Skp Gates) to spouting off about idiotic celebrities (Kanye West).

Don't we expect better from our Presidents?

Shouldn't we expect better from our Presidents, and their administrations?

We need an Administration that is more focused about serving the nation than protecting our President's fragile ego. We need a President that will spend more time with his top generals than David Letterman.

But we're not getting that. Barack Obama is instead submitting up to a pop-star Presidency as he flits from one network to another in search of approval.

Once the election is over, a President's job is to lead. Obama keeps campaigning, seeking approval.

Now more than ever we need a leader, and instead we are subjected to little men, squabbling over the scraps of fault.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:13 AM | Comments (7)

September 30, 2009

Uh, That Should Be "Hams Across America"

They can claim to be a victim of State Farm all they want, but Hickory Farms has victimized these morons far more.

Via Ace, who claims to be above such things.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:50 PM | Comments (2)

September 29, 2009

Last Surviving Kennedy in Office Likens Obamacare Opponents to George Wallace

Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) displays all the class and sobriety of his late father, slyly attempting to tie opposition to Obamacare to a noted segregationist:

"It's very, very dangerous," Kennedy said in the interview. "We put a lot of people in jail around the world for threatening our country's security. But this atmosphere of attack that doesn't attack the issue, but attacks the people, is very disruptive to the institution of democracy, which relies on a respect for the opposition."

He continued: "George Wallace didn't need a gun to pull a trigger. We just need to be mindful of the wisdom of people ... who have been through these ugly periods in American history. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

I guess he forgot that segregationist Wallace was a Democrat to his dying day.

As for what he will do about the worst example of politically-motivated hate this far, there is no word on when Kennedy will push for MSNBC personality Ed Schultz to be fired for claiming that Republicans "want to see you dead. They'd rather make money off your dead corpse. They kind of like it when that woman has cancer and they don't have anything for her."

Oh wait a minute... I forgot that those rules only apply to the opposition of liberals, not the liberal themselves who have initiated every act of violence that can directly be tied to protests over the health-care debate, from SEIU union thugs assaulting a man handing out flags, to MoveOn.Org agitators biting the finger of of a retiree in Calfornia.

It should also be noted that Kennedy made the comments in front of a hand-picked audience of just 75, afraid to meet with his own constituents openly.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:24 PM | Comments (3)

The Leftosphere Strikes Back

After seething for weeks over the damage caused Roman Polanski's favorite activist group (ACORN), Think Progress has struck back against an organization as equally institutionally corrupt on the right, Kitty Werthmann.

Werthmann, an aged, suspiciously white woman who watched to Nazi rise to power in Austria as she was growing up, gave a speech telling a pimp and prostitute how to commit fraud against the federal government to support the trafficking of children for purposes of prostitution noting the similarities she saw between the cult of personality that propelled Hitler into power and those backing President Obama with similar unrestrained fervor.

But Think Progress' sting operation wasn't done just yet.

In the most damning bit of investigative journalism since Geraldo penetrated Al Capone's vault, an undercover Think Progress staffer actually got Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)—who was speaking in a room somewhere at the same conference— to autograph a CD of Werthmann's speech.


Damning evidence

As a result of this travesty, Nancy Pelosi began working with the House of Representatives on a bill to immediately defund Minnesota.

President Obama could not be reached for comment as this article went to press, as he was pitching his health-care plan on Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)

September 28, 2009

Moby or Maybe: The Real Extremists are on the Left

Over the weekend a person on Facebook created a poll asking if President Obama should be assassinated. Results of the survey were unknown, and Facebook quickly closed the poll, suspended the user, and contacted the Secret Service.

Left wing blog such as the Huffington Post and the Political Carnival conveniently had screen captures of the poll before it was removed, and other left wing blogs and commenters are having a field day with the story, trumpeting this as existence of proof that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, (insert conservative pundit here) is responsible of stirring up right wing violence.

They're only missing two things.

  • Evidence that the person who posted the poll was serious, and not a Kilgore Trout-type moby looking to manufacture evidence of hate, and;
  • if the person who posted created this poll was serious, that mainstream conservative television and radio show personalities are responsible for their views.

As is so often the case before facts as known, these liberals respond by making knee-jerk, emotional decisions, just as they did last week when the body of Census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest in a remote area where illegal drug growth and manufacture is common.

The simple truth is that we don't know what we don't know.

We still don't know why Bill Sparkman was killed, and don't know the underlying reason behind it. That hasn't kept liberals from blaming conservatives. And now these same angry souls are claiming that conservative media are somehow behind this Facebook poll.

But we don't know who created this poll. We don't know if they are conservatives. We don't know if they are radical leftists attempting to find the sort of corruption on the right as James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles so easily uncovered on the left. We don't even know if the person who posted this poll is American, much less influenced by American conservative media figures, and it would not be beyond the ability of Canadian liberals to post such a poll as bait, knowing they would be immune from the Secret Service's reach (the "Kids in the Hall" defense).

What we do know is that history clearly shows that leftists are far more prone to violence than conservatives, and that the reactionary hatred on the political left runs far deeper than it does on the right.

CBS News blog Politcal Hotsheet captures this seething anger in just the second comment to their entry about the poll, as they capture a leftist hoping that the person who created the poll surrenders, and then is murdered by police.

The violence that leftists see is inferred; the violence they preach is explicit.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:06 PM | Comments (26)

September 26, 2009

You Can't Prevent Stupid

With all the class you've come to expect from left-wing sensationalists, Think Progress bellows:

Uninsured 22-Year-Old Boehner Constituent Dies From Swine Flu.

And like the majority of issues presented through blinders of opportunistic hatred, the actual reality of the situation is a bit different than the community-based reality would like to cobble together.

As a more credible account notes, 22-year-old Kimberly Young died because she made the decision not to seek care until it was too late to save her life. Friends claim the proximate cause of decision not to seek care was because she did not have health insurance, but that is a fig leaf, at best.

Young knew she did not feel well, and she knew this for almost two weeks. Like every American, she's been inundated with doom-pronouncing news stories about H1N1, its symptoms, and what it can lead to if not treated. She made the choice to ignore her symptoms.

As a recently-graduated double major, Young presumably had the intelligence to use both telephones and computers, but she made the choice not to find out what sort of free or low-cost options were available for her in her area. And rather obviously, she chose to ignore the signs of distress her body was issuing until it was too late for even the best medical care in the world to save her life.

Kimberly Young didn't die because she didn't have health insurance. Kimberly Young died because she made a series of bad decisions.

While Think Progress and other liberal blogs can speculate that Young would have gone to the doctor if she had the kind of government-run healthcare they would force upon America, the simple fact of the matter is that their words are, well, just words.

People make horrible decisions detrimental to their health every single day. They eat too much. They drink to much. They smoke too much. They don't exercise. They don't get enough sleep. And shockingly, many people—regardless of whether or not they have insurance—absolutely hate going to the doctor, and will not go until they are in absolute misery or fear for their lives.

There is no reason whatsoever to think a poorly-thought-out, paper-work impeded, fine-driven bureaucratic nightmare like Obamacare would save the late Kimberly Young or any other American.

The simple fact of the matter is that the aggravation and pain government-run healthcare will add to the already unpleasant stress of the doctor's office will make people that more resistant to seeking care.

Let's be honest, especiall since Think Progress is incapable of it.

John Boehner's opposition to the fiasco that is Obamacare didn't kill Kimberly Young. Widespread Republican and Democratic opposition to a fatally-flawed bill offered up by radicals unwilling to compromise didn't kill her, either. Her own bad decisions led her not to seek care. Her own bad decisions put Kimberly Young in the morgue, when all she had to do was take advantage of existing health care right in front of her.

But something else is also true.

The one-size-fits-all, join-us-or-we'll-fine-you approach favored by the radical left will make men and women already disinclined to seek healthcare even more resistant to going to doctors. There is little doubt that further government intrusion will make the experience even more bureaucratic, impersonal, and unpleasant.

It is perhaps more credible to claim that the additional pain Obamacare will cause will create more cautionary tales—more Kimberly Youngs—that it will save.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:00 PM | Comments (37)

September 24, 2009

Yosi Sergant's Phony Art Club Banned

If it wasn't, why did he just resign?

Breitbart claims another scalp.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:29 PM | Comments (1)

Dead KY Census Worker Not Hung

Officials now claim earlier AP reports that he was fund hung from a tree were inaccurate. When discovered "his body was in contact with the ground."

But he did die of asphyxiation. And they have been unable to rule out whether this was an accident, homicide or suicide.

I'm beginning to wonder what would have killed Bill.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:10 PM | Comments (5)

Creepy Obot Video Replaces Jesus With Obama

According to Michelle Malkin, the school is B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington Township, NJ, and the person responsible for posting the video originally was Charisse Carney-Nunes, author of I Am Barack Obama.

Children should not be signing songs filled with campaign propaganda that sounds more appropriate in totalitarian states, nor should Obama-worshipping drones be ripping off Christian spirituals and replacing references to Jesus with "Barack Hussein Obama."

The cult of personality that surrounds our incompetent President seems more desperate and unhinged every day.

Update Video replaced. Original removed due to terms of use violation by Youtube.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:45 AM | Comments (11)

September 23, 2009

ACORN Commits Suicide

They've decided to sue James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles in Maryland.

How will they do that and avoid making their records available through discovery?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:49 PM | Comments (45)

September 21, 2009

Intimidation and Domestic Terrorism at UNC Chapel Hill

Glenn Reynolds links this morning to an article that hits close to home, an apparent campaign by radical campus leftists at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill to destroy a campus group via threats of violence:

Is a major state university going to let radical groups silence a legitimate college organization and drive it off campus through a campaign of violence and intimidation?

That is just one of the important questions raised by the most recent incident involving the UNC-Chapel Hill student organization Youth for Western Civilization (YWC) and a coalition of radical leftist groups. Some of the radicals are connected to the school, such as the UNC chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), while others are community-based and have no affiliation with UNC.

According to a Raleigh News & Observer report last week, anonymous flyers appeared on the Chapel Hill campus that provided the name, photograph, phone number, and home address of the YWC's faculty advisor, emeritus professor Elliot Cramer. The flyers asked, "Why is your professor supporting white supremacy?"

Nikhil Patel, the current YWC president, perceived an implied threat in the flyer. It was not the first time that the radicals used this approach to intimidate the YWC. At a YWC event in April that was violently disrupted by radicals, they directed the following chant at YWC members and in particular, last year's YWC president, Riley Matheson: "Against racists, we will fight. We know where you sleep at night."

Violence and the political left is nothing new, especially violence from the SDS.

And there is the possibility that the threats of violence from this generation of SDS radicals may have "teeth" provided by an SDS radical of days gone by with a violent past.

Until several years ago, Howard Machtinger was the Teaching Fellows Director at UNC's School of Education. Prior to his academic career, Machtinger was best known for his activities as an active member of the SDS and it's more violent domestic terrorist offshoot, the Weather Underground. A recent article called Time Bomb in the San Francisco Weekly News alleges Machtinger was one of the bomb builders for the terrorist group, and alleges that he and Bernadine Dohrn were behind the Feb. 16, 1970 Park Police Station bombing that killed SFPD Officer Brian McDonnell.

Machtinger, 63, still lives locally in Durham, NC and remains politically active.

I'm not alleging that Machtinger is building bombs for the UNC-CH Students for a Democratic Society or is training a new generation of Weather Underground terrorists, but his past associations indicate a man willing to go to extremes to push his ideology, and his proximity to the UNC group and his ties to the campus make it reasonable to wonder if his influence plays a role in the recent threats that may drive Youth for Western Civilization off of UNC-Chapel Hill's campus.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:07 AM | Comments (5)

NEA/Obama Administration Target of Next Breitbart Corruption Probe?

It sure looks that way.

The President had a certain amount of plausible deniability when he tried to claim he didn't know how deeply corrupt ACORN was. After all he has only acted as a lawyer and trainer for them over a number of years.

But if someone in the White House is illegally using public funds to further the Administration's political agenda, we may just have the start of something here far worse than we ever could have imagined...

Update: Big Hollywood has the audio and transcripts of a highly politicized call between carefully-selected pro-Obama artists and artist groups, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

This is apparently a direct effort by the Obama White House to contract out political propaganda favorable to their policy initiatives.

What was said on the call seems irrefutable. What laws were broken (if any) remains to be seen.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:46 AM | Comments (14)

September 19, 2009

First Lady: Women "Crushed" by Current Healthcare System

Michelle Obama said women are being "crushed by the current structure of our health care" because they often are responsible for taking care of family illnesses, arranging checkups and monitoring follow-up care.

"Women are the ones to do it," she said to an audience of 140 people, including representatives from groups such as the Women's Chamber of Commerce and the National Council of Negro Women. "Mothers are the ones that do it. And many women find themselves doing the same thing for their spouses."

I missed the First Fashion Victim's speech yesterday. I took my wife to the doctor after she had been ill with a cold for the past several days. I wanted to have her checked out because she wasn't getting any better and I wanted to make sure she didn't have any of the more serious viruses that seem to be going around. While there, trying to occupy an impatient, cranky, and ill toddler, we also had her foot looked at, as she had been experiencing severe pain since the night before.

Our primary care physician then sent us across the hall to radiology, so that my wife could get her foot x-rayed. We then went back to our primary care doctor, who saw what could be a stress fracture. We'll find out more when the radiologist has a chance to look at it Monday. Until then, we're trying to keep her off her feet as much as possible.

Later in the afternoon I took the baby to her pediatrician. she had a rash on her face and left leg, and had felt warm when we were at the wife's office visit earlier in the day. The pediatrician checked her over, and thinks that the rash could be contact dermatitis or potentially the same virus my wife has; apparently the rash component is a symptom that shows in children, but rarely in adults.

I missed a critical day of work to take care of my family. A major advertising campaign is rolling out and our marketing group is play a key role in meeting an aggressive deployment schedule. I'm the team lead for production, but my family came first. As a result of putting my family, the rest of my team had to readjust their schedules. In addition to this campaign, I'd committed to another time-sensitive project running concurrently, and was unable to meet my obligation there, either.

I love what I do, who I work for, and the team with which I work. They are extremely intelligent, knowledgeable, and hard-working, and I felt very guilty for having to take a personal day right when they needed me the most.

But family comes first.

My wife is feeling a little better this morning. I'm setting up her crutches so that she can go to our older daughter's soccer game. I'm the team's coach as well, so I'm packing two cars, one with my gear for the team, and the other with a folding chair, some toys for the toddler, her stroller, snacks etc. Grandma is going to help watch the baby on the sideline.

When the game is over, I'll take everyone home, unpack the cars, and take care of my family, the healthy and the sick. If I get them to bed at a reasonable hour tonight, I can log in and see how much work I can make up.

But healthcare is just a women's issue, so I'll manage.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:58 AM | Comments (12)

September 17, 2009

Pelosi: "He Hit Me Back First!"

In a summer where ACORN-affiliated union thugs took the President's advice to hit protesters back "twice as hard" quite literally, it's now amazing to hear House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's born-again concerns of political violence erupting from harsh rhetoric.

This is the same woman who claimed Obamacare protesters carried swastikas to townhall meetings, and has been silent as Americans have been attacked as racists and radicals by everyone from officials within the Administration itself and Congress to street-level loonies.

Perhaps if Pelosi raised her voice earlier, when SEIU union thugs were beating people at town halls, or when MoveOn.org activists were cannibalizing elderly protesters on the streets, I'd find her new-found fears more legitimate.

As it now stands, she sounds like a child complaining that she might get hit back first.

Update: It's also interesting that Pelosi only recalled the political violence from the late 70s that affected liberals. The Park Police station bombing in 1970 and the bomb plot against conservative California state senator John V. Briggs and dozens of other bombings, shooting, and robberies committed by left-wing terrorist groups don't seem to have troubled her at all.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:20 PM | Comments (12)

House Faces H.R.3571, the "Defund ACORN Act"

Text of a press release from N.C. Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week U.S. Representative Walter B. Jones (R-NC) became an original cosponsor of H.R. 3571, the Defund ACORN Act. This legislation, introduced by House Republican Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), would sever all ties between the federal government and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

"Recent news reports have described potentially criminal activity involving ACORN associates and, last year, ACORN was linked to multiple instances of voter registration fraud and other illicit activity," Congressman Jones said. "It's clear that ACORN is not capable of using federal funds in a lawful way."

It is estimated that ACORN has received more than $53 million in direct funding from the federal government since 1994, and has likely received substantially more indirectly through states and localities that receive federal block grants.

"The U.S. Census Bureau has already ended its partnership with ACORN, and I hope all other federal agencies follow suit – whether their ties to ACORN consist of partnerships or the awarding of federal funds," Jones continued. "Since other federal agencies may not voluntarily take similar action, Congress needs to stop this waste of taxpayer dollars by swiftly passing the Defund ACORN Act to immediately terminate all federal funding of ACORN and its affiliates."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finds herself in a tight spot. There is no justifiable defense of ACORN at this moment, considering that employees have been caught supporting tax fraud and the trafficking of minors for prostitution at five offices (thus far) without batting an eye.

But ACORN has long been an asset to the Democratic Party in general and this President in particular, who has literally volunteered his time to help make the organization what it is today. The DNC is also heavily invested in ACORN's symbiotic relationship with the Service Employees International Union, a group developed in parallel with ACORN and which has been responsible for acts of intimidation and violence during heath-care town hall meetings over the course of the August recess.

The House Democratic leadership and President Obama do not want to sever ties with ACORN.

The real question now seems to be whether they risk the political capital to obfuscate on ACORN's behalf so close to the 2010 elections with such popular disgust running against the group and their close alliance with the Democratic Party.

Update: The House voted to defund ACORN as part of a motion on a student loan bill. The bill passed 345-75.

Michelle Malkin has the votes.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:34 AM | Comments (5)

ACORN San Diego Offers Assistance for Smuggling Child Prostitutes

From Big Government, another exposé that shows an ACORN employee—who claims to be a lawyer who does a lot of immigration work—offering to use his contacts in Mexico to help traffic a dozen 13-15-year-old girls across the border for the purpose of prostitution.

Part 1:



Part 2:



Playing devil's advocate, I could see the man wanting to collect as much information as possible if he had the intention of turning James and Hannah in to law enforcement. He did get James' cell phone number, collected details about times and places, and could have easily set them up. So it should be a simple matter to determine if the man reported the trafficking James and Hannah were attempting to engage in to the responsible authorities (he does, after all, make a claim about working with the district attorneys).

Unless James and Hannah file their next report from a San Diego jail, however, I'll assume the cops were never called.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:50 AM | Comments (2)

September 16, 2009

So ACORN: Where's the Best Place to Smuggle Kids Across the Border for Sex?

Sorry. I'm simply speechless now.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:22 PM | Comments (9)

Daily Show Slams ACORN and the MSM

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Audacity of Hos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorHealthcare Protests

Sure, you've probably seen it elsewhere already, but it's worth watching again.

Somewhere in Washington, DC, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama are sweating bullets that their allies are falling apart.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:17 PM | Comments (6)

ACORN in Denial and Retreat

First, they tried to claim it was an isolated incident, and threatened lawsuits.

Then they tried to claim it was the actions of a few bad apples, which they subsequently terminated.

After New York, they gave up the pretense of firing their employees for enabling fraud in the interests of trafficking in minors for the purpose of prostitution. By that point, with the state AG starting an investigation, such a fig leaf was obviously no longer of use.

And ACORN San Bernardino still employs the worker who not only was willing to help commit fraud for the lust of pedophiles, but who was concerned over the safety and love life of our young madam-to-be.

Seemingly radioactive, all ACORN can do now is hunker down and hope that they can survive being exposed. They've stopped taking new clients, perhaps fearful of what more hidden cameras might find. As Ace noted, they're playing by the crisis management handbook.

The real question is whether or not activist filmmaker James O'Keefe and journalism student Hannah Giles have enough damaging undercover videos capturing ACORN-trained employees encouraging and supporting fraud and slavery to do the criminal enterprise in.

Human Events says a new video is supposed to drop tonight, and says their are more to follow.

For their part, ACORN continues to threaten on one hand as they apologize on the other. They are ashamed of getting caught, but hardly remorseful.

They are thugs and they are monsters, exploiting those they claim to represent, and they must be shut down.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:37 PM | Comments (1)

FBI: Be On Alert For TATP Terror Plot

Unstable men with unstable chemicals. This isn't good:

Counter-terrorism officials on Tuesday urged local police to be on the lookout for evidence of homemade bombs, a day after the FBI raided four apartments in Queens looking for bomb-making components.

Police departments are being urged to be on the lookout for specific indicators of terrorist activity.

"I believe it's prudent to put that information out. We welcome it," said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The directive speaks of the possible use of hydrogen peroxide in bombs, and to look for people who may have burns on the face, hands and arms.

Hydrogen peroxide is a key ingredient in the home-brew explosive triacetone triperoxide, or TATP. It is a very unstable and made with relatively common chemicals, and has been used in numerous plots around the world.

The good news?

Many terrorists have blown themselves up attempting to create the mixture, and often times incorrectly manufactured TATP refuses to detonate.

Hopefully the exposure of the plot will send the plotters on the run and foil their plans. That said, if you happen to be near someone carrying a pungent, leaking backpack, take the only sensible precaution, and push him in front of a bus.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:18 AM | Comments (3)

ACORN: A Party to Sexual Slavery?

To put it mildly, Democratic blog No Quarter has developed something of a credibility problem over the years for past threats and outbursts that didn't pan out, but one of their writers does get credit for making a very interesting observation this evening in regards to their own party amid the snowballing scandal of ACORN offices showing themselves quite willing to commit fraud and accept the trafficking and prostitution of foreign minors.

Linda Anselmi writes:

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed by the Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865 and it declares that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States."

We claim we abolished slavery in the US, but we did not. We only passed a law and made it illegal. We said as a society we find the acts and practices of slavery so reprehensible and inherently harmful to our society, that hence forth we will not tolerate them.

But slavery still exist in America today. We just don’t see it. It is no longer this easily identified black vs white, North vs South, leg chains and bull whips image that we can point at in disgust and outrage. It has gone underground and become embedded in our society.

Anselmi further cites the Department of Justice, noting:

...Under federal law, the technical term for modern-day slavery or coerced labor is "severe forms of trafficking in persons." ...

defined as 1) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or in which the person induced to perform such an act is under 18;

or 2) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjecting that person to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

...Trafficking covers the use of minors for commercial sexual activity even if there is no force, fraud, or coercion.

Put simply, ACORN officials in Baltimore, Washington, New York, San Bernardino, and as-yet-unknown other cities have willingly accepted and apparently condoned sexual slavery. There is no indication that any of the officials that have gone on camera have attempted to contact law enforcement. In fact, they did not seem overtly disturbed at all.

Perhaps there is a perfectly acceptable excuse for shockingly consistent behavior among ACORN employees in various locations. Perhaps it has something to do with the way they were trained, or they were told to act this way by legal counsel (someone allegedly filled both those roles as a "community organizer").

Or perhaps it is exactly what it looks like: a group so steeped in corruption and criminality that even the human trafficking and prostitution of minors doesn't horrify them at all.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:54 AM | Comments (22)

September 15, 2009

ACORN Worker in San Bernardino Video Admits to Homicide on Camera

From tax fraud in support of child prostitution to murder, Big Government's James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles are exposing ACORN as a criminal enterprise more and more every day.



Tell me, Madame Pelosi: Why should taxpayers still fund this organized criminal conspiracy?

Update: Good News for ACORN. The woman in the video, Tresa Kaelke, did not apparently murder any of her past husbands (though one has a restraining order against her).

She's just another ACORN employee in a long line that condones human trafficking for juvenile prostitution.

What a relief.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:00 PM | Comments (24)

BECK: "The Whole Thing is Coming Undone. Brace Yourselves."

BigGovernment.com, the Breitbart site that has revealed videotapes showing ACORN officials in three metropolitan areas attempting help commit fraud in support of child prostitution, is going to release another, even more damning video this afternoon, according to Andrea Shea King:

Glenn Beck just wrapped up what had to be the most compelling radio I've heard... and lately, most of his shows have been pretty compelling.

Whew, where to start? Well, how about this: you should make it a point to do two things today: watch his TV show at 5 ET this afternoon on Fox News, and hit the Big Government website an hour earlier at 4 ET.

Here's what you'll find - the latest video sting of ACORN. This one in a San Bernardino ACORN office where the employee can't talk fast enough about the connections they have to politicians (naming them by name) and even an admission of murder.

As I haven't seen the video yet I cannot say with certainly that what Andrea reports is accurate, but if it is, then Democrats in the House of Representatives are going to be hard-pressed to continue supporting a group that appears to be a Democratic Party-subsidized criminal conspiracy.

I don't normally watch Beck, but the DVR is going to be set for this one. This could get... interesting.

Update: Confirmed.

Update: Hannah Giles: The Science behind the ACORN Sting.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:03 PM | Comments (15)

A Tale of Two Economies

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the worst recession since the 1930s is probably over.

Bernanke says the economy is probably growing now, but it won't be sufficient to prevent the unemployment rate, now at a 26-year high of 9.7 percent, from rising.

In responding to questions at the Brookings Institution, Bernanke says "the recession is very likely over at this point."

While I would certainly like to hope that Bernanke is right, his comments don't square with reports that credit is shrinking and that President is on the verge of inciting a trade war with our biggest creditor.

The Fed Chairman's comments seem disconnected from our financial reality. I don't think he's being honest with us.

My bigger question is why.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:36 AM | Comments (5)

September 14, 2009

Nuts in the Fire

After three separate ACORN offices enthusiastically attempted to help a pimp and prostitute get a government loan for a brothel to be filled with underage girls from Central America, the Senate has voted 983-7 to strip the Obama-trained organization of all federal funding.

The Pedophile-Pimping Seven are:

  • Dick Durbin (D-IL)
  • Roland Burris (D-IL)
  • Robert Casey (D-PA)
  • Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
  • Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
  • Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
  • Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

President Obama, who spent time training ACORN operatives as a community organizer in Chicago and who recently displayed rapt interest in a new vintage of South American origin, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:21 PM | Comments (13)

Blumethal: Know Who Is Responsible for Satanism and Mass Shootings? Jesus.

Max Blumethal has a long track record as a media activist, and has established a clear method of operation:

  • Draw conclusion
  • Create/modify facts to support that conclusion

The actual subject doesn't matter.

He sees lynchings in lyrics, manufactures non-existent weapons at gun shows, and sees racism in every nook and cranny, and has more moral flexibility than any human with a fully-developed sense of right and wrong should have.

So it should hardly be surprising that Blumenthal took the relatively rare case of a mentally-unstable man going on a violent rampage, and turned that into an indictment against an entire faith in The Nightmare of Christianity.

You may remember Matthew Murray's story, even if you long ago forgot his name. Murray had been thrown out of a missionary program three years before in Arvada, CO, and then became obsessed with it, sending it hate mail in the weeks before he finally went on a rampage, killing two people and wounding two others.

The next day, armed with several weapons and carrying a book by satanist Alister Crowley, Murray launched an assault on New Life Church in Colorado Springs with the intention of committing a mass homicide. Church member Jeanne Assam was also a volunteer security guard, and drew her concealed pistol and engaged Murray in the church foyer, wounding him. Murray then took his own life.

Assam's stand against Murray's rampage made her something of a hero, and Murrya was written of for what he was; a deeply disturbed and violent young man with hate in his heart and confused sexuality.

But murderous spree of a possibly gay satanist wasn't what gay atheist agitator Max Blumethal wanted to see, so he decided to create something more conducive to the world he likes to imagine exists, where home schools are cults and home-schooled children are mindless and dangerous drones slaved to an aggressive and oppressive religion.

There are tens of millions of active, church-going Christians in the United States and millions more that profess Christian values even if they do not regularly attend services. There are also an estimated more than one million children home-schooled.

But Blumenthal looks past all of that to focus on one young man and try to insist that this exceedingly rare and isolated incident should be used to indict Christianity as a whole.

That The Nation would run an article based upon such obviously flawed logic simply shows that their far left-wing radicalized contempt for people of faith far outstrips their ability to apply logic or rational editorial thought.

If Blumethal had attempted to make the equally absurd argument that Murray's alleged sexual preferences were at the root of his murderous psychology, and that other homosexuals or bisexuals were therefore ticking time bombs, the editors of The Nation would have unceremoniously thrown him out on his ass.

But logic and reason matter not a whit to Max Blumenthal, nor his editors at The Nation. What matters is that they had a remotely plausible excuse to smear those with which they disagree, and that's all the justification they ever need.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:49 AM | Comments (4)

September 13, 2009

No Surprise Here: Kanye West Hates White People

I could care less about the various award shows and stopped watching music video channels way back when they stopped playing music videos, but chronic tool Kanye West's latest stunt goes too far. West snatched the microphone out of Taylor Swift's hand as she started to give her acceptance speech for Best Female video at the VMAs, and told her that she didn't deserve the award, that Beyoncé did.

I don't know the videos in question, and frankly, it doesn't matter. What we do know is that West is a first rate jerk with a long record of deviant and outrageous behavior, who acted up again when a white girl won an award he thought a black artist deserved.

I'd say it was likely a racist incident, but then, with West, that's to be expected.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:36 PM | Comments (11)

September 12, 2009

Message Delivered

Estimates of the crowd size at today's TEA party protest in Washington, DC vary widely, but most estimates place it north of half a million up to potentially two million or more.

By any estimate, that is an impressive figure, but what is more impressive than the numbers is the kind of person who turned out. It wasn't the professionally-aggrieved protester class, but men, women, and children of every age who had never protested anything in their lives. It was Democrats and Republicans and independents and people who had never before cared about political matters at all. It was a cross-section of America, who knew in their hearts that America cannot much longer survive if it continues down the path that our self-serving politicians are leading us.

Barack Obama was sworn in seven months ago in front of roughly a million Americans who hope he represented the future of this republic. Today, perhaps double that number angrily let the world know that they no longer have faith in him or his allies.

It was a powerful message.

It remains to be seen if he retains enough humility to listen.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:03 PM | Comments (50)

September 11, 2009

"I Put a Bomb in Your Building, Bitch"

Someone find out where all of Obama's domestic terrorist friends are; organizers for tomorrow's 9/12 protest in Washington, DC were forced out of their building due to a bomb threat.

I'm sure that DHS and the Southern Poverty Law Center will be along any minute now to assure us the perpetrator was a right wing extremist:

A FreedomWorks staffer told ABC News that the organization's offices at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue were evacuated on Friday afternoon by DC Metro Police because of a bomb scare.

DC Metro police has confirmed to ABC News' Jason Ryan that the DC Metro police had, indeed, evacuated the organization's offices after being told by the organization that it had received a bomb threat.

The threat came when a man called the FreedomWorks main line and told the organization's female receptionist: "I put a bomb in your building, bitch."

The FreedomWorks staffer who spoke with ABC News said that the organization has received multiple threats but that for some reason, the DC Metro police thought that this one was credible enough to evacuate the building.

Hope. Change. Multiple bomb threats.

Man, I'm loving this Presidency so far.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:41 PM | Comments (9)

September 10, 2009

Worshipping Protocol Over Truth

The extent of which our leaders have utterly warped morals was glaringly revealed last night when SC Rep. Joe Wilson shouted out "You Lie!" after President Obama claimed that the health-care proposals he supports would not cover illegal aliens.

The simple fact of the matter is that Wilson was correct; there is nothing in the Democratic bill that would exclude coverage to those in this country illegally, and the President knows that to be true.

And yet it is a far greater sin in the eyes of the Congress that Wilson breached protocol than it was the President willfully and knowingly lied to the American people. Even Wilson himself, throughly indoctrinated, was immediately contrite.

But why should he be?

Do the trapping of office and protocol demand that obvious lies that are spouted in Congressional addresses go uncontested? Apparently so.

And we're a poorer nation for it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:16 AM | Comments (41)

September 09, 2009

29 Times Later: The Definition of Insanity is...

I must have read someone who miscounted earlier; the speech that President Obama is planning to give in just a few moments is his 29th attempt to sell the American people on the idea that the steaming pile of crap healthcare he's pimping is actually a bouquet of roses.

Based upon the excerpts already released, his delivery could run the gamut of emotions from angry and exasperated to shrill and preachy.

Don't you bitter clingers get it?

Yeah, I think I might just live blog this. Almost showtime...

8:03--Someone turn down the volume of Hillary's suit.

8:09--I can't recall ever seeing so many false smiles in one place. Well, since the last time Congress was on TV, at least.

8:11--The Won walks in. The camera flashes to Michelle, and quickly cuts away from the sour expression on her face. Wonder what her issue was?

8:14--Michelle again as Barack takes the podium. She's irritated at someone or something... doubt we'll ever find out what.

8:16--Pelosi officially presents Obama. And it begins...

8:17--Proudly claims we have "pulled this economy back from the brink." I hope he's not counting his chickens.

8:19--to the meat, and first of his pre-released comments about health care reform.

8:20--the scolding begins. Not doing too bad in his tone just yet. Think he can keep it under wraps for long?

8:22--Did Pelosi have more work done to her face? It looks like a too-tight mask.

8:23--They cut again, briefly, to the First Lady. Scowling. Again.

8:26--"Build on what works, and fix what doesn't." Who can disagree with that? Apparently, those writing the bills...

8:27--He's not doing bad with the tone of his delivery, but the message itself sounds week.

8:28--Spoke too soon. Got preachy, but settled back down after the applause line.

8:30--Going into his promises, starting to get a bit of attitude... not bad, but you can see the frustration.

8:32--Making all sorts of promises that make private insurance tough, if not untenable when competing against the government. He's not offering anything substantially different that what the American people have already decided that they don't want.

8:37--Spend 8 hours in a project management class today. Now I'm watching what some claim is a very smart man attempting to lie to the American people, claiming that a series of goals is a plan. There is no plan. I repeat. HE ISN"T OFFERING A PLAN. HE'S JUST A OFFERING A WISHLIST.

8:38--Someone shouted out "LIE!" when he claimed his plan wouldn't insure illegal aliens. I didn't know the GAO was being represented here tonight...

8:41--tuned out for a minute. sorry.

8:43--health care is somehow like college... McCain is looking at Obama like he's an idiot.

8:44--Claims he won't sign a plan that adds "one dime" to our deficits, now or in the future. Ballsy, to lie that boldly. And yes, Obots, the GAO agrees that this is a blatant lie.

8:48--Won't touch (or reform) Medicare... and wants an additional system? Why? Are Social Security and Medicare not inefficient or bankrupting what is left of the economy fast enough?

8:54--Can't focus...claims "my door is always open, though he hasn't asked a Republican to come through it to work on Health care since April.

8:56--cue violins... here comes Ted Kennedy's body being propped up on top of Paul Wellstone.

8:58--still pimping the bloated corpse.

8:59--still pimping the bloated corpse.

9:00--tries to compare Social Security and Medicare to his plan. Utterly ignores that both of those plans had popular public support, and this plan is in the negative and losing ground every day.

9:01--Claims more government is the answer to our problems. And he was serious.

9:03. Finally, mercifully, over.

29 times, and still sounding the same flat note. President Obama is still lying and claiming he has a plan. A laundry list of unsupportable wishes is not a plan.
What a waste of time.

What a waste of an Administration.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:00 PM | Comments (29)

We Elected the Wrong Leader

Tonight, Barack Obama will take to the airwaves to make what I've read is his 28th public attempt to sell a fundamentally-flawed, fiscally irresponsible and morally bankrupt health-care plan to the American people.

It is probable that despite his much-discussed charisma, the President's plan is likely to lose support tomorrow.

It will lose support because former Alaska governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin wrote a cogent, intelligent and concise op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that utterly eviscerates Democratic plans to control medical insurance and ration health-care.

Further, Palin provides a clear path towards real health-care reform.

Instead of poll-driven "solutions," let's talk about real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven. As the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let's give Americans control over their own health care.

Democrats have never seriously considered such ideas, instead rushing through their own controversial proposals. After all, they don't need Republicans to sign on: Democrats control the House, the Senate and the presidency. But if passed, the Democrats' proposals will significantly alter a large sector of our economy. They will not improve our health care. They will not save us money. And, despite what the president says, they will not "provide more stability and security to every American."

Palin has written one Facebook entry and (now an editorial) staking an articulate direction in which to move on providing health-care reform. Our President, plummeting in the polls, will attempt yet another droning, self-referential speech to convince us that a bad idea is a good idea... because he says so.

We have before us a leader with vision.

And then we have the President.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:31 AM | Comments (24)

September 08, 2009

Tomorrow Belongs to ZZZzzz...

Like most parents, I was fine with my daughter listening to President Obama's speech today. Several of my fellow bloggers got reactions from their children as well, and they are worth reading as well.

When I asked my fifth-grader how it was, she told me simply, "It was good."


"It was good," is typically her tween shorthand for "I don't know because I wasn't really paying attention/was listening.doing/daydreaming about something else," and so having my suspicions about how much she actually got out of it, I asked her about various parts of the speech.

Beyond the introduction and some of the more interesting non-Obama anecdotes, she had mostly tuned it out. It was far too long, and I'm sure before he was halfway through his self-referential bloviating that her eyes were more glazed than a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

If today's ramble was written to inspire a generation of schoolchildren, it failed miserably. But then, I suspect that this wasn't a speech targeted to inspire children.

The speech was pabulum, a mundane, forgettable effort targeted at parents. It aspired to merely generate some small measure of goodwill to get the President's plummeting approval ratings out of a flat spin before he pitches Obamacare for the 28th time tomorrow night.

Our children could not be indoctrinated by Obama's effort today, but some may have ended up catatonic. But at least nobody died... which is more that can be said for the effects of the health disaster he'll attempt to resurrect (again) tomorrow night.


Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:30 PM | Comments (16)

After a While, You Have To Accept That These Are The President's Beliefs On Display

When asked for an opinion about government-run health care, guess which Obama mentor answered this way?

I think the racists in the right wing are upset because poor people are about to be helped.

If you guessed Rev. Jeremiah Wright, you would be correct.

I know that people on the left are tired of having Wright, terrorist Bill Ayers, and other Obama mentors and allies thrown back in their faces repeatedly, but the influence these and like-minded figures had over the President in their long associations with him are very germane to how the President views the world. Wright's comments—and the twisted hatred and paranoia that underlie them—are the same sort of conspiratorial rants we've come to associate with another Obama ally that just stepped down from the Administration this weekend, Van Jones.

The simple fact of the matter is that all of these people were close to the President because they share the same core beliefs. While every person is an individual and they do differ on specific points, when a belief is endemic to a group and permeates it as a majority view, it is folly to think that that view is not commonly held and accepted by members of that group.

Barack Obama has a track record more than two decades long of walking arm-in-arm with radicals and racists that propagate these theories of conspiratorial oppression.

Perhaps Glenn Beck was right. Maybe President Obama is a racist. It certainly seems more likely every time one of his allies opens his mouth to spit forth another theory of conspiratorial oppression.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:23 AM | Comments (15)

September 07, 2009

Last Second Surprise

My daughter's school just robo-called to announce that they will carry President Obama's speech tomorrow, and that parents who did not want their children to see the speech should send a note to the teacher, so that the student can be separated from the rest of his class. Nothing like a little grade-school ostracism, is there?

I've read the speech and there is absolutely nothing offensive in it (other than Obama's inability to deliver a speech without referencing himself repeatedly), but my larger question is this: if the school's adminstration feel that there is sufficient controversy to necessitate robo-calling, then why did they chose to carry the speech in the first place?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:29 PM | Comments (11)

Resignation and Reality

If you follow the political blogosphere, you likely know about the various controversial statements and associations that eventually led to Obama's "green czar" Van Jones resigning.

Jones signed his name to a petition saying that he thought the Bush Administration let 9/11 happen; earlier documentation links him to other publicized "truther" activities as early as January of 2002. Jones is also a supporter of convicted Black Panther cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal, and buys into the theory that the murderer was framed. Jones also maintains that a shadowy entity of white Americans polluters is shipping poison into "people of color communities."

None of these allegations are debatable. None have been taken out of context or "spun." They accurately reflect what Van Jones himself said, felt, or subscribed to as a man and an activist. Because none of these beliefs are defensible to rational people, Jones had little choice but to resign. The fact that the did so in the dead of night on a holiday weekend only proves how indefensible his positions were.

But the most fascinating aspect of this entire affair is the left's response to Jones being called to the carpet for his beliefs.

Peer into the links on Memeorandum for yesterday or this afternoon and you will see a near-uniform claim that Jones was somehow unfairly smeared.

They try to focus attention elsewhere, on various irrelevant claims. They claim that Jones was targeted because he went after Glenn Beck of Fox News (utterly untrue; Beck had targeted Jones well in advance of Jones' organization going after Beck).

They state there must be collusion between Fox News and the center-right blogosphere in trying to bring Jones down... and of course, there is no evidence at all to suggest such an alliance exists. Perhaps they're projecting.

And of course, some claim that Jones was targeted because he made inflammatory statements, such as calling Republicans "a--holes," a belief that many Democrats share (and conservatives, truth be told, often reciprocate the sentiment).

None of those claims are relevant, and they are replete with denial.

How Van Jones feels about Republicans isn't relevant to his job, nor was his use of coarse language to describe those feelings. It did not play a role in his resignation. Fox News, while certainly influential, doesn't have nearly enough power to bring down a presidential appointee. Nor does Glenn Beck, or Matt Drudge, or the conservative blogosphere.

One thing and one thing only brought down Van Jones, and the political left cannot bring itself to face the truth.

Van Jones was laid low by the truthful, unembellished and accurate accounting of the many radical beliefs he shares with both President Obama and the far left progressive movement from which he came.

Cop-killer Mumia has long been a living martyr for the radical left, just as mass murderer Che Guevara has long been a celebrated dead hero in liberal enclaves.

Beliefs that the Bush Administration let the 9/11 terror attacks occur are closely tied to the mainstream progressive belief that Bush used the attacks to fabricate an "illegal war for oil" in Iraq. The theory that Bush falsified reasons to invade Iraq for some sort of profit is so commonly accepted on the far left as to be beyond debate.

Jones' theory that white polluters were attempting to poison ethic communities fits hand-in-glove with long-running left wing conspiracy theories that crack cocaine was created by government agencies to destroy/oppress minority neighborhoods.

Whether they call themselves liberals or progressives, radical leftists cannot admit the obvious fact that Van Jones was forced to resign from Obama's White House for being too open in his support of common left-wing beliefs. These tenuous theories are accepted and repeated in radical leftist populations as fact, but like the "theft" of the 2000 election, the significance of the so-called Downing Street Memos and delusions of the previous President plotting a military coup, they are theories that non-radicalized Americans easily recognized as the ranting of fevered minds.

Van Jones is just the first casualty of the collision between objective reality and an insular community-based reality woven from a tapestry of delusions, conspiracy theories, and impotent rage. Very likely, he will not be the last radical to fall, and that probability scares the crap out of them.

Update Via Hot Air Headlines, Dan Calabrese concurs:

The real reason Jones had to go was not his ideas per se. He thinks the way President Obama thinks. Jones had to go because his presence in the administration revealed so much about how the left operates – and these are supposed to be closely guarded family secrets.
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:00 PM | Comments (6)

September 06, 2009

Van Hit By Bus

One radical gone.

How many more to go?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:37 AM | Comments (12)

September 04, 2009

Truther. Liar. Speed Bump.

Admitted communist community organizer and Obama "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones has tried to spin his way out of signing his name on document that claims the Bush Administration played a role in allowing thousands of Americans to die during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Jones tries to claim he didn't know what he was signing. This would mark him as either an idiot, or a liar... or more than likely both.

Unfortunately for Jones and the White House, Gateway Pundit has evidence pointing to Jones being part of the Truther movement from its inception, with documentation showing his involvement in January of 2002, just months after the attack. Being on the ground floor of this conspiracy theorizing, this marks Jones as something of a "Truther birther."

Jones has been proven to be both a liar and an idiot.

That someone with Jones' radical background could be seen as a fit for this President's objectives should be seen as a wake-up call for all Americans. The fact that Jones is clearly a Truther from the beginning of the movement shows that the White House is incompetent when it comes to vetting personnel.

Then again, many of his appoints are tax cheats and ideologues, so I guess that was proven long ago.

Jones, however, has too much baggage, and is too far &qout;out there" to be kept on Obama's team. He'll likely be thrown under the proverbial bus this weekend to join the other radicals, racists, and domestic terrorists that share and shape our neophyte President's radical past.

Thump-thump.

Goodbye, Van.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:33 PM | Comments (13)

September 03, 2009

Find Young Cannibal

The Ventured County Star has posted a picture of a MoveOn.org agitator in his late 40s or 50s that crossed the street yesterday afternoon to confront a group of anti-Obamacare protesters, and caused a peaceful protest to devolve into violence.

The man on the far right of the photo wearing black shorts and tee shirt got in the face of one of the smaller seniors in attendence, Bill Rice, and began yelling at him. The confrontation escalated, with Rice throwing two punches in what other witnesses described as self-defense. The second punch ended up in the man's mouth, at which point the instigator of the conflict bit Mr. Rice's finger off.

The Ventura County Sheriff's Department is looking for the MoveOn.Org protester, who will likely be charged with felony mayhem.

If you can identify the suspect, please call the Sheriff's Department investigations bureau at (805)494-8201, and bring this elder-abusing thug to justice.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:04 PM | Comments (15)

Men Behaving Badly Yes We Cannibal

From biting comments between MoveOn.org organized pro-government health-care protesters and free-market advocates, to straight-out biting:

A 65-year-old man had his finger bitten off Wednesday evening at a health care rally in Thousand Oaks, according to the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

Sheriff's investigators were called to Hillcrest and Lynn Road at 7:26 p.m.

About 100 protesters sponsored by MoveOn.org were having a rally supporting health care reform. A group of anti-health care reform protesters formed across the street.

A witness from the scene says a man was walking through the anti-reform group to get to the pro-reform side when he got into an altercation with the 65-year-old, who opposes health care reform.

If that sounds clear as mud to you, you are not alone.

In English, a man trying to get to the MoveOn.Org rally got into an altercation with a free market supporter, and during the confrontation, the MoveOn.Org bit the man's pinky finger off.

Lefty blogger Karoli at Drums and Whistles was there as part of the MoveOn.Org crowd and claims that the 65-year-old free market supporter/biting victim was the aggressor and instigated the violence by intimidating one MoveOn.Org attendee before punching the guy who bit his finger off.

Law enforcement is investigating, but it seems possible that charges may be warranted on both sides.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:09 AM | Comments (24)

September 02, 2009

Is Teaching Kids to Quit a Better Idea?

I see a lot of my peers are getting angry at the thought of President Obama addressing schoolchildren in a nationwide address at 12:00 PM (Eastern) on September 8.

Some people are worried that the address is attempt at indoctrination, and considering that is precisely how Obama blew through millions of dollars in causing the Chicago Annenberg Challege to go belly-up, it probably isn't a completely unreasonable fear.

That said, look at his track record.

Barack Obama is incompetent at indoctrinating pretty much anyone, as his free-falling poll numbers suggest. He accomplished nothing for his effort in Chicago other than to provide funding for former domestic terrorists, and so I doubt another effort on September 8 would be anything other than yet another dismal failure on his already thin résumé.

Some people I admire say that we should keep our kids home that day, to send him a message. I think that's a bad idea.

First, as I already noted, Obama has a dismal record of being able to make converts out of kids, and can generally only affect children through those soft-skulled souls that have willingly chucked aside reason in order to maintain their community-based reality. While the children of liberals may be enthralled, the children of more rational moderates and independents and conservatives will recognize an infomercial when they see one. They will afford the President no more time or respect that they would any other huckster, and will tune him out within moments.

Further, forbidding your children from hearing his empty platitudes gives the impression that there is something in his speech that constitutes a threat to what they are being taught at home. It makes him forbidden fruit, instead of merely a fruitcake. It also teaches them that they should quit or skulk away when they encounter a bad idea of a problem, instead of taking it head-on. I want my kids to face life by taking on challenges, not shirking them.

Finally, it may behoove you to call your school and ask if they even intend to carry the President's address. My daughter's elementary school has no plans to participate, feeling that children are better served by learning.

People seem to forget that while Obama can try to get our children to be a captive audience, even reliably left-leaning educators know that our children should spend their time in more worthwhile pursuits.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:03 PM | Comments (14)

State Dept. Extended Blackwater's Air Arm in Iraq

The simple fact of the matter is that they're the best organization for the job.

State Department officials said Wednesday they have extended a contract with a subsidiary of the security firm once known as Blackwater USA despite the fact the North Carolina company is not allowed to work in the country.

Three officials said the contract with Presidential Airways to provide air support for U.S. diplomats was temporarily extended because the firm chosen to replace it is not yet ready to take over. The contract was due to expire on Sept. 3 and be taken over a day later by Dyncorp International.

Presidential is the air wing of Xe Services, of Moyock, N.C., which used to be known as Blackwater. The Iraqi government refused to grant the company an operating license earlier this year amid continued outrage over a 2007 lethal firefight involving some of its employees in Baghdad.

One official said that providing helicopter air support for American diplomats in Iraq - transporting them and overflying their convoys - is a "complex challenge" and that "a slower transition to DynCorp taking over the task order is in the best interest of the government."

"We unilaterally extended the current task order ... to ensure the continued security and safety of U.S. personnel in Iraq," the official said.

Numerous allegations have been made against Blackwater (now Xe) and founder Eric Prince, ranging from excessive use of force, to smuggling weapons to attempting a crusade, with allegation more hysteric than the last.

The simple fact of the matter, however, is that Xe is an entire range of companies, and does far more than just provide security contractors. Presidential performs a role that other contractors have not been able to perform to the same standards, freeing up military aviators to support the mission instead of ferrying VIPs.

I can only imagine that this news is going to cause a knee-jerk response among the less-informed, but the simple fact of the matter is that the decision is a pragmatic one, to ensure that our diplomats are in the best of care.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:09 PM | Comments (8)

On Being a Domestic Terrorist

I learned this morning that I am a domestic terrorist... or at least our President's allies consider me one.

I am under no illusions that the White House approved this specific language or had a direct hand in the wording of this appeal, but I do know that they have surrounded themselves with allies who feel exactly like the person who wrote about the majority of Americans opposed to government-run healthcare:

All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.

Americans with homemade posters protesting government intrusion into their very lives are "right wing domestic terrorists." Exercising our rights to peaceably assemble and raise our voices against the government thrusting themselves unwanted into our most private decisions is "subverting the American Democratic Process." And apparently we all watch Fox News (for the propaganda, of course) so we can re-seize power for our "treacherous leaders."

This message—which has since been taken down now that attention has been drawn to it—was not on a MySpace page or some amateur ranter's Blogspot site. It was posted on http://www.barackobama.com/.

It was on the President's web site, placed there by an ally, and summarily taken down without apology. The heated invective was aimed squarely at the majority of Americans that do not want this government involved with healthcare. And why should we trust them wit our lives, when they can't even run a simple rebate program correctly...or without pillaging the FAA of air traffic controllers to do the job?

We have every reason not to trust the government to be any more efficient with health-care than they have been with, well, anything else. We have no reason to expect that it would be more competently funded or solvent for the long term than Social Security or Medicare, and every reason to suspect that it will cause harm to the quality of health-care we receive.

Barack Obama and his allies swept into power on a promise of providing a new chapter in the relationship between Americans and their government. Now they tell me I'm a terrorist.

With his choice of allies and the messages they deliver and how they feel about us, he's certainly delivered on his promise.


Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:14 AM | Comments (10)

August 28, 2009

Standing Your Ground

Apparently my most recent article for Pajamas Media didn't sit right for some people. The article, A Man's Wal-mart is His Castle? was written about a shooting that took place in a Billings, MT store after a argument escalated into gunplay.

More than one reader in the comments thought that my article was misleading and inflammatory, and they are welcome to their options. I'm sorry if you felt that way, because I didn't consciously mean to be provocative.

The reason the article come about is because Montana recently passed House Bill 228, which was the state's version of the "castle doctrine," also known as a "stand your ground" law. Many states have a variant of the law, but what makes Montana's law interesting is that the language of the bill has what appears to be a very low threshold to the use of lethal force.

Section 1. No duty to summon help or flee. Except as provided in 45-3-105, a person who is lawfully in a place or location and who is threatened with bodily injury or loss of life has no duty to retreat from a threat or summon law enforcement assistance prior to using force. The provisions of this section apply to a person offering evidence of justifiable use of force under 45-3-102, 45-3-103, or 45-3-104.

What constitutes a threat of bodily injury in the eyes of Montana's courts? That is a very broad term, and much lesser threshold than is common elsewhere.

Any number of found objects and makeshift weapons can be used to threaten bodily injury. Does this mean that a man cheating on his wife can then shoot her if she throws a plate at him when she finds out? Apparently so. Even a thrown punch or slap may be enough provocation to justify deadly force under this law, which seems to be the allegation in the Schmidt/Lira incident.

Quite a few people in the comments of that post seem to think that a thrown punch is enough to justify a bullet in return. The way I was trained, I find that excessive, and both illegal and ethically immoral in most instances.

I took my concealed carry course while other were preparing to watch the Steelers play the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII, and we were taught as many military and law enforcement officers are taught about the escalation of force or use of force continuum as it applies to us as concealed carry permit holders in North Carolina:

There are four rigid criteria that must be satisfied to justify shooting another person in self defense in North Carolina, but I imagine the law here isn't too much different in the 30 or so other states where concealed carry is allowed.

In plain English, we can't start a confrontation, must try to diffuse or escape the situation if we can, and can only pull a weapon when some tries to kill or sexually assault someone else or ourselves, and once we fire, we can only shoot to stop the threat, not to kill. That last detail was printed on the bottom of every page of the course syllabus, in bold text: Do not shoot to kill. Shoot to stop the lethal threat.

In practicality, there are three rules to follow in deciding whether or not deadly force is justified. explained as A.O.J.

Ability: the attacker or attackers must have the ability to kill or cripple.
Opportunity: the attacker must immediately be capable of employing that power.
Jeopardy: the attacker is acting in such a manner that a prudent person would conclude that the act was mean to kill or cripple.

You’ve got to decide if a threat meets all three criteria, and oh, and by the way… in "real world" scenarios, the CCH holder usually has just seconds to make that determination. Legal self defense is not for the stupid. At this point of the class, I was beginning to think that think it would be far more practical to apply for a "concealed lawyer" permit, if I could only find one small enough to shove in a holster.

Craig Schmidt shot Danny Lira in the face after Lira punched Schmidt, and Schmidt fell to the ground. That was enough justification for some, it seems. They make anecdotal arguments citing the relatively few number of people who have been killed with a punch, and also cite Lira's 260-pound weight (and roughly 100 pound weight difference) as justification for the much lighter Schmidt to shoot him.

If Lira was 260+ pounds of ripped muscle like UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar or some sort of other imposing figure I may buy that argument, but Schmidt was three inches taller than the 5"9" 260-pound doughball that he shot. Lira is certainly heavy, but heavy does not automatically mean that person have an advantage.

Going back to the guidelines I have learned to operate under, this is how I might judge the defensibility of the Schmidt/Lira shooting.

Ability: the attacker or attackers must have the ability to kill or cripple.
Unknown, but doubtful.

Opportunity: the attacker must immediately be capable of employing that power.
Lira obviously had the ability to throw a punch, but it is dubious to claim he has the power or ability to kill or cripple.

Jeopardy: the attacker is acting in such a manner that a prudent person would conclude that the act was mean to kill or cripple.
Absolutely not. In no iterations of the story told by either man did Lira press his attack, and if Lira's version of events is closer to the truth than Schmidt's, the Lira was the one attacked when Schmidt hit him first, meaning his punch was a defensive reaction.

Additionally, if Lira's claim that Schmidt slammed into him with his shoulder can be verified, that would indicate that Schmidt was acting as a agent provocateur, attempting to escalate an argument in an attempt to justify an attempt at murder.

Admittedly, this is all speculation at this point, and many of the key details of this case as yet unknown to the public.

Perhaps Schmidt will be found justified.

Perhaps Lira will be proven the victim.

Either way, HB 228 remains a seriously flawed attempt at providing the citizens of Montana a variation of the castle doctrine, and one that needs to quickly be revised.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:50 PM | Comments (30)

Monster Kennedy Found Jokes About Kopechne's Drowning "One of His Favorite Topics of Humor"

Sick, Bloated, Evil.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:23 PM | Comments (7)

The Real Roots of Astroturf

You'll never guess where it really resides.

Well, maybe you will. There is a reason professional protesters seem to be uniformly liberal.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:27 AM | Comments (1)

August 26, 2009

What They Won't Mention About Ted Kennedy: Treason

I don't like to use the word "treason." It is tossed around so casually these days by overly-inflamed people on both sides, and as a result, its use as an epithet has lost much of its sting.

I regret this today because it make sit that much harder to communicate the great disservice Edward Kennedy do to this nation years ago, as he conspired with our country's greatest enemy in an attempt to undermine a sitting President.

A third Kennedy boy who made it to the U.S. Senate and had his eyes on the presidency was Ted, who was politically to the left of his brothers, especially with regard to the Cold War and the Soviet threat.

Once Reagan was President, he found himself at odds with the latest Sen. Kennedy. Reagan ideas such as deploying intermediate-range nuclear forces (INFs) in Western Europe and the Strategic Defense Initiative infuriated Ted Kennedy, who, according to a highly sensitive KGB document discovered by reporter Tim Sebastian of the London Times (which ran an article on the document Feb. 2, 1992), was motivated to do something quite unusual:

On May 14, 1983, KGB head Viktor Chebrikov sent a message of "Special Importance" with the highest classification to General Secretary Yuri Andropov. The subject head to the letter read: "Regarding Senator Kennedy's request to the General Secretary of the Communist Party Y. V. Andropov." According to Chebrikov, Sen. Kennedy was "very troubled" by the state of U.S.-Soviet relations. Kennedy believed that the main reason for the dangerous situation was "Reagan's belligerence" and particularly his INF plan. "According to Kennedy," reported Chebrikov, "the current threat is due to the President's refusal to engage any modification to his politics."

The fourth and fifth paragraphs of Chebrikov's memo held out hope that Reagan's 1984 re-election bid could be thwarted. But where was the President vulnerable? Chebrikov stated that Kennedy had provided a possible answer. "The only real threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations," wrote Chebrikov. "These issues, according to the senator [Kennedy], will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign." According to Chebrikov, Kennedy lamented that Reagan was good at "propaganda," whereas statements from Soviet officials were quoted "out of context" or "whimsically discounted."

Soviet PR Campaign

Chebrikov then relayed Kennedy's alleged offer to Andropov: "Kennedy believes that, given the state of current affairs and in the interest of peace, it would be prudent and timely to undertake the following steps to counter the militaristic politics of Reagan." The first step, according to the document, was a recommendation by Kennedy that Andropov invite him to Moscow for a personal meeting. Chebrikov reported: "The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they would be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA."

Second, wrote the KGB head, "Kennedy believes that in order to influence Americans it would be important to organize in August-September of this year [1983], televised interviews with Y. V. Andropov in the USA." He said the Massachusetts senator had suggested a "direct appeal" by Andropov to the American people. "Kennedy and his friends," wrote Chebrikov, would hook up Andropov with television reporters such as Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters. Chebrikov said that Kennedy had suggested arranging interviews not merely for Andropov but also for "lower-level Soviet officials, particularly from the military," who "would also have an opportunity to appeal directly to the American people about the peaceful intentions of the U.S.S.R."

In essence, Chebrikov reported that Kennedy offered to help organize a Soviet PR campaign, which would "root out the threat of nuclear war" and "improve Soviet-American relations" (and also hurt Reagan's 1984 re-election prospects). "Kennedy is very impressed with the activities of Y. V. Andropov and other Soviet leaders," explained Chebrikov.

The tale is not new, but people will try to forget or gloss over Kennedy's faults and crimes as character flaws or some other trivial, forgettable, and forgivable offense. But Ted Kennedy is not a great man with easily dismissed faults. He did this country a great wrong, conspiring with an enemy against our President.

Sadly the media and politicians will try to lionize him in his passing, never being honest enough to admit that despite some of the good things he accomplished while in office, he was in word and deed often no better than a jackal.

8/27 Update: Forbes decides to cover the same ground.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:15 AM | Comments (18)

Obese Womanizing Drunk Who Killed Young Woman in Alcohol-Related Accident Decades Ago And Who Spent His Career Increasing the Federal Deficit, Finally Dies

Ted Kennedy is dead. I will not miss him.

Ted Kennedy wanted more and bigger government, because he did not believe in nor understand the true genius of America.

Ted Kennedy wanted to force Americans to have gun control, even as he used his family's illegally-acquired fortune to hire armed bodyguards.

Ted Kennedy wanted to force us into socialized healthcare, even though he would have died long ago under the kind of healthcare rationing he wanted to force on the rest of us.

Ted Kennedy wanted to force us to use expensive alternative energy sources, even as he shot down plans for a wind farm that would have spoiled his beachfront views.

Ted Kennedy is dead, at long last.

He will not be missed here.

Update: And I almost forgot... he was a treasonous son-of-a-bitch as well, conspiring with the Soviet KGB during the Cold War in an attempt to undermine President Reagan for his own political gain.

That merits it own post.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:10 AM | Comments (57)

August 25, 2009

Some People Call Him Maurice... His Defense Attorney, For Instance

With a O.G. moniker like Maurice Schwenkler, you knew he was destined for trouble:

Police say they've arrested one suspect, but a second remains at large, after two men smashed 11 large, plate-glass windows with hammers at the Colorado Democratic Party Headquarters early Tuesday morning.

Denver Police say an officer was driving by the building, located at 777 Santa Fe Drive, around 2:20 a.m. and spotted two men with hammers smashing the windows.

The officer made his presence known, but police say that's when the two men hopped on their bicycles and tried to get away.

The officer followed the men until one veered off and the officer could only follow one of the suspects.

That man, 24-year-old Maurice Schwenkler, who was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, a shirt over his face, jeans and latex gloves, was taken into custody a few blocks away. Police are still looking for the other man.

Damage to the building is estimated at $10,000. Police say they're trying to figure out what motivated the men to commit the crime.

Officials with the Democratic Party, however, think the vandals had a specific target: the posters stating the party's position on health care reform and images of President Obama.

Before he got all smashy-smashy on Democrat HQ, Maurice worked for a progressive political activist group, Colorado Citizens' Coalition. From that, we can probably infer he is one of the leftist fanatics disenchanted with the probability that government-run healthcare isn't likely to become law anytime soon.

On the bright side, at least he'll have publicly-funded healthcare in jail.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:30 PM | Comments (6)

A Gun-toting Protester MSNBC Doesn't Mind

While I still think carrying firearms to political protests is counterproductive, it is interesting to note the media furor over the open display of firearms in recent events has not been matched by the most recent sighting of an armed protester in Mesa, Arizona on Saturday.

See if you can figure out why:

Except for one counterprotester, apparently the only one within shouting distance. The man would only give his first name as he stood alone, wearing a Yankee baseball team shirt, a handgun on his hip, holding a contrary sign.

Josh, who explained he would only give his first name because of the type of work he does, said he was a Democrat among a sea of non-Democrats, touting health care reform, but not reforms over his right to bear arms.

"Part of my passion as a Democrat is the right to bear arms," Josh said.

A veteran, and from a long family history of veterans, the man who was very much alone in the small crowd of protesters said he believed in fighting for the less fortunate.

"I am a firm supporter of health care for every American," he said.

Compared to last week's attempt by MSNBC to brand open carry advocates as violent racists—going so far as to doctor video to agree with their thesis—their treatment of this armed healthcare protester is laudatory.

The conclusion to be drawn from this seems obvious: The media doesn't mind if you carry firearms, as long as you carry their water as well.

(h/t CY reader cousin-merle)

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:11 PM | Comments (9)

August 24, 2009

At War with the CIA

The CIA sent out a press release today disavowing any knowledge of the President's upcoming fishing accident.

Hey, it could happen.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:56 PM | Comments (6)

August 22, 2009

MoveOn.Org, SEIU, ACORN To Infiltrate/Disrupt Recess Protests

As you may know, there are currently recess protests in all 435 Congressional districts, for the majority of American citizens that oppose the government-run health insurance.

MoveOn-Org, SEIU union thugs, and ACORN members are moving to infiltrate and disrupt these events.

Here is a copy of an MoveOn.org email promising a "hearty welcome" to the majority of who don't want Obamacare rammed down their throats.

Counter-protesting is perfectly acceptable and encouraged, as it should be.

But I have a contact who claims to have seen unofficial communications from ACORN, SEIU, and MoveOn.Org members not to just protest for the government option, but it infiltrate the anti-government protesters and attempt to stir up trouble. Precisely what kind of trouble was not specified, and was no doubt communicated verbally.

Keep your eyes open folks, and don't allow yourselves to be provoked. Also, keep an eye on the more excitable and antagonistic folks protesting Obamacare.

If they're acting provocatively in front of news crews or private video cameras, they may not be on your side at all.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:20 PM | Comments (29)

August 21, 2009

A Cult on the Verge of Failure

Cults of personality are dangerous things. Those inside them develop strong bonds and a shared belief system that so distorts their world view that they create their own reality... or at least their own reality-based community.

Despite all the celebrity and cultism that has attached itself to the self-indulgent mythology of Barack Obama, and the bullet-proof Democratic majorities he has in the House and Senate, the President has utterly failed to unite the country behind his vision of government-run health insurance. The reason for this failure is quite simple: the majority of Americans have seen the kind of rushed incompetence that has marred every effort of the current Congress and President, and they do not want any part of more of it, thank you very much.

And so perhaps a smarter President and his supporters would be patient and try to implement an incremental approach toward achieving their. They could, with some little compromise just within the Democratic Party, get some of what they want. It would not take much; all they need is the support of their own. They do not need one Republican vote in the House or Senate. All they need to do is make the health care bill palatable to the moderates and conservative Blue Dogs within their own party.

But the frenzied cult of Obama on the far political left are dogmatic, and will not compromise.

While they claim the mantle of "liberal" and "progressive," their views and desires are fixed, inflexible, and (dare I say it?) conservative beyond all rationality. They are so rigidly locked into their belief system that they are willing to lose the possibility of even incremental changes if they cannot bully government-run insurance onto all of us. The fact of the matter is that they are anything but the free-thinkers they like to think they are, and cannot accept any deviation from their chosen path.

And so in the days and weeks ahead as town hall protesters continue to let their elected representatives know that they will not tolerate the radical shift that the far left wants, the left faces getting nothing instead of something.

The cult seems strong and powerful to those inside it.

Too bad the majority of us just think they're delusional nuts.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:07 AM | Comments (6)

August 19, 2009

A Selective Grasp of History

Josh Marshall is usually pretty level-headed as far as progressives go, which is why I find his TPM post claiming that "the American right has a deep-seated problem with political violence" somewhat surprising.

Granted, he is wise enough to make sure he confines himself to the American right, because it is beyond dispute that globally, it is leftist movements that win the dubious prize of being the most violent in human history, putting 120 million human beings on ice in the last century alone.

And there is indeed some truth to claims that rightist groups have been responsible for much of the political violence in the country. The Ku Klux Klan—a conservative supremacist organization even though it was a formation of and ally to the Democrat Party in the majority of its iterations—was behind much of the political violence in this country for the better part of a century. And yes, there was a militia movement during the Clinton Presidency, which did lead to the murderous terrorist bombing orchestrated by Timothy McVeigh in 1995.

But Marshall is delusional—or perhaps just dishonest—if he doesn't believe that the American left is equally responsible for political violence in America.

We can start with union-organized violence if you would prefer, and I'm not just referring to the physical assaults SEIU members have committed in recent weeks. Or we could talk about the thuggish actions of Black Panthers during the most recent election, and their leftist allies in the Holder Justice Department that refuse to prosecute them.

Or we can talk about the police officers killed by leftists over the years in assassinations by the likes of IndyMedia's Andrew Mickel or other left wing radicals. Should we discuss the Park Police Station bombing in San Francisco? How about the Nyack, NY armored car robbery that left police officers and security guards dead?

We could also discuss the leftist plots to murder dozens of soldiers and their civilian dates at Fort Dix, or the attempt on the Detroit Police Department and its Benevolent Association that would have wiped out a restaurant filled with African-American families as well.

Or we could discuss the plans of radical leftists who desired to set up their own concentration camps in the American southwest:

I asked, "Well what is going to happen to those people we can't reeducate, that are diehard capitalists?" And the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated.

And when I pursued this further, they estimated they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers.

And when I say "eliminate," I mean "kill."

Twenty-five million people.

I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees, from Columbia and other well-known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people.

And they were dead serious.

Perhaps it is a bit unfair of me to focus on those events. After all, those who would have carried out these plots did so in the late 1960s and early 1970s for the most part, and their attempts, while in earnest, were as incompetent then as their desire to socialize medicine is today.

Should we allow them a pass on their intent since they failed to kill the dozens of soldiers, police officers, and civilians that were the targets of their pipe and propane bombs? Or should we hold them responsible just for the relative handful of murders they were able to successfully commit? Or should we hold them responsible for both the murders they intended and those they were successful in? I'd suggest that our law demands the later, but it seems that leftist political violence is afforded a different standard in the eyes of the media, and certainly in the mythology they attempt to create.

If you follow the links I provided, you'll note that the bombings of the non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix and the targeting of various police stations can be traced back to the leadership of the Weather Underground, a left wing terrorist group. The leaders of that group, Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, threw Barack Obama his first political fundraiser after Ayers and Obama spent time together on the boards of various left-wing groups.

Obama, of course, in now President, and overseas a government that has attempted to label common American values as those of extremists even as it refuses to investigate groups such as the Black Panthers, ACORN, or the unions that are behind much of the thuggish behavior we've seen within recent months.

Americans of all walks of life know extremism when they see it, and they learned long ago fear it when it takes control of the government. Americans have purchased millions of firearms and billions of rounds of ammunition since Barack Obama and his progressive allies swept into power, and yet, there has been only sporadic right wing violence. The fact of the matter is that freedom-loving Americans on the right will not accept tyranny without a fight, but we will not start the battle. It is a purely defensive posture that the right has taken, despite continued leftist provocations.

The simple fact of the matter is that our radicalized left wing government and their sympathies to true radicals is a far greater threat to or way of life than those Americans who have chosen to take precautions against tyranny.

That our current President has sympathies and relationships with those who fantasized about putting their Americans in concentration camps is a far greater threat to this nation's future than those who have chosen to arm themselves against the possibility of a government that has forgotten it is exists to serve the people.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:58 AM | Comments (15)

August 17, 2009

Obama Administration Distances Itself, From Itself, On Health Care " Public Option"

Repeats of performances like this may lead to a Presidency that reaches "lame duck" status in record time.

That isn't the proverbial fat lady you hear singing, but Hillary clearing her pipes for her next run at the Oval Office four years earlier than anticipated.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:51 PM | Comments (19)

August 14, 2009

Source of All Reports that Radical Hate Groups Are Forming on the Right is ONE GUY...

...who is a radical left wing former journalist and Huffington Post blogger, at that.

Mark Potok has made quite the career for himself at the Southern Poverty Law Center finding right-wing hate behind every tree to ensure that donations to his non-profit keep rolling in. But as Sweetness & Light note in the link above, Potok bases his claims that right wing hate groups are exploding by his claims of online growth, even as web traffic to the web sites of hate groups remain remarkably constant and in some cases has regressed.

The truly pathetic thing about Potok is that "news" organizations know very well that Potok is a former journalist with an ideological axe to grind.

They have every reason to suspect that the quality and objectivity of his findings are hopelessly biased and are no doubt heavily influenced by his need to raise funds for the organization, which long ago ceased existing for any reason other than to collect money to regurgitate a continual stream of reports to bring in more donations. The SPLC's reports are nothing more than a vicious circle of predictable fear-mongering trotted out at regular intervals to raise funds.

It's a nice racket, I suppose. Potok gets to get his hate on and get paid for it. In doing so, the left wing radical gives reliably dim reporters like Brian Ross and his peers a canned story to run every so often that validates their own biases and preconceptions. They consider it a "win-win" I'm sure.

And it all comes from one guy, who quite his job as a report and declared himself a civil rights expert.

Must be nice work, if you can get it.

Update: Some of that right wing hate. Dave Chapelle would be proud.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:41 PM | Comments (28)

Lib Talker Ed Schultz Says Conservatives "Want Obama to Get Shot;" Ignores Fact Most Presidential Assassins are Leftists and/or Nuts

Fresh off of liberal talker Mike Malloy calling for Glenn Beck to commit suicide live on television, liberal blowhard Ed Shultz has the gall to claim that conservatives want President Obama murdered, apparently for Marxism that Shultz seemed ready to concede:

SCHULTZ (04:53): Sometimes I think they want Obama to get shot. I do! I really think that there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out. They *fear* socialism, they fear Marxism. They fear that the United States of America won't be the United States of America anymore.

It's nice for Shultz to admit Obama's ideology is somewhere between socialism and Marxism, but let's get to his key claim, that conservative broadcasters want President Obama to be shot.

In a nation of more than 300 million people, there are always extremists to either side of every sitting President who would like to think their problems would go away if the President was killed, but who acts upon these impulses, and who rarely goes beyond rhetoric? The evidence beyond the rhetoric is clear.

There have been more than 83 (and as many as 90) attempted Presidential assassinations or plots, and four assassination attempts were successful.

John Wilkes Booth's Ford Theater killing of Abraham Lincoln was the murder of a liberal Republican President by a conservative southern Democrat. James Garfield's killing was the work of a deranged Charles Guiteau. The other two successful assassinations were the work of leftist radicals Leon Czolgosz (McKinley) and Lee Harvey Oswald (Kennedy). 50-percent of successful assassinations were carried out by leftists.

In a quick scan of Wikipedia's list of assassination attempts and plots, we find that of those attempts listed, eight were carried out by people with leftist ideologies, while just two had a clearly conservative ideology (the rest were had unclear ideologies, were criminals, terrorists, or had a wide range mental health issues). The list provided by Wikipedia is of course very incomplete, but it is clear in showing that the most committed assassins (in a non-mental health facility sort of way) have been various leftists.

Any why, praytell, would any conservative boradcaster (or any conservative, for that matter) want Barack Obama assassinated?

The death of the 44th President would leave us with President Joe Biden. No conservative—no American—wants that horror foisted upon us. And even if a plot could be devised to remove both the current President and Vice President, then we would be left with something even worse: President Nancy Pelosi.

Shultz can prattle on insanely on MSNBC as he is wont to do, but the simple fact of the matter is that no conservative wants anything but a long life for President Obama.

The thought of the incompetent alternatives waiting in the wings is too much to bear.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:57 AM | Comments (24)

August 13, 2009

My Fellow Citizens Confuse Me

According to a new poll, only 54-percent of North Carolinians believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States. Overall, 26-percent says he wasn't, and 20-percent said they weren't sure.

Obama won North Carolina in 2008 with 49.9-percent of the vote to McCain's 49.5.

Does that mean that quite a few people voted for him even though they weren't sure he was eligible? Or were they simply so fed up with Republicans (and John McCain's poor imitation of one) that they'd rather elect a "foreigner" than a RINO?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:06 AM | Comments (31)

August 12, 2009

A Tale of Two Guns At Obama's Town Hall

A protester on private property well outside the security perimeter established for Barack Obama's town hall meeting yesterday carried a pistol in an exposed "tactical" thigh rig hours before the President arrived in New Hampshire. He got quite a bit of attention for his rather foolish effort.

There was absolutely nothing illegal about his actions, much to the consternation of the media, but it was still a pointless bit of provocation. In addition to being armed, he was holding a sign that said "It's time to water the tree of Liberty," an obvious reference to the famous Thomas Jefferson quote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."


So who and what is William Kostric?

The sign itself provides the first clue about what kind of person Kostric is and who he associates with, with the URL to restoretherepublic.com printed prominently at the bottom. The site clearly identifies itself as part of the fringe "free state" movement, and actively promotes various conspiracy theories... and of course, Ron Paul.

A left-wing blog claims to have found his MySpace page, and it appears to confirm that Kostric is—well,—what most of us would call nuts.

All that aside, like Gaius, I'm curious...

...Why is Captain Conspiracy wearing an earpiece?

The possibility of him being a purposeful diversion seems legitimate, if you factor in that another man, Richard Terry Young, ended up being arrested at the same event for having an unlicensed, loaded handgun in his vehicle. Young was first stopped because of a pocket knife he had as he tried to enter the event, and the gun was discovered in his vehicle in a subsequent search.

It is quite possible that both men were acting independently, but if I were in charge of the President's security, I'd want that verified for certain.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:33 PM | Comments (25)

August 11, 2009

SEIU Isn't the Only Union Trying to Control Health Care Town Halls

A family friend went to the SEANC-organized town hall in Greenville, NC last night. According to the local news, the union of state employees was there to support the President's health care plan, and it seemed a cut-and-dried and rather boring affair.

Reality, however was far different that the news account. Here is Walter's experience, in his own words.

SEANC Meeting on Healthcare Reform August 10, 2009.

I arrived at about 6:35 to a sparely filled auditorium. Eventually, about 100 people showed up. The room had several blue-shirted "bouncer" types standing around the walls. Several blue shirted people had cameras, still and video. There was an air of intimidation presented by the blue-shirted SEANC people. Two ECU Police officers stood in the back inconspicuously.

We were approached by a well dressed man asking if we would be willing to sign a petition in support of the healthcare bill. We declined and the man immediately went to the back of the room and spoke with a blue-shirted man. He did not ask anyone else to sign the petition. I believe he was trying to find out our position on the issue.

The meeting started on time and the panel members were well prepared and articulate. They presented a party line on the issues. Dr. Cook and Mr. Stone were especially factual about the problems. Ms. Keel had some impelling statistics reinforcing the need for change. I disagreed with her conclusions. Mr. Dana ??? was not as factual, but was a good panel member. He was too focused on his opinion that House Bill 3200 was the only solution.

The moderator, Jean ???, was not effective. She seemed to lack a plan for fielding questions, was argumentative and interrupted frequently. She made people more frustrated and more intense. An effective moderator would have been more respectful and calming to the audience. She was biased toward opposing speakers and cut them off. She limited their time by signaling SEANC officials to take the mike from speakers.

After each panel member spoke briefly the floor was open to the audience to make comments and ask questions. One small business man related his concerns about mandatory healthcare costs to him and asked questions. He got a few answers and some misstatements of fact. He got frustrated and somewhat intense. Several others made comments in opposition and asked questions that were not answered. The moderator asked for someone supporting the bill to speak! One did.

One of the men who asked several questions became frustrated that those questions were not being answered and his concerns were not addressed. The moderator kept interrupting him and some in the audience talked him down. Eventually, a SEANC official asked him for the mike while the man was trying to express his concerns. After a second request for the mike, the SEANC official took the mike from him forcefully.

A bit later it was my turn. As I was handed the mike I told the SEANC official he wasn't taking the mike from me until I was finished talking. He told me, "That guy will take it from you" and he pointed to the ECU Police officer standing in the back of the room. I felt like I was being threatened. However, I responded, "No, Sean won’t do that." Officer Scott is a friend and a man I respect.

I stated my opposition to the bill while supporting the need for healthcare reform. My statements addressed:

  • Speaker Pelosi's insinuation that those who oppose the House bill in Town Hall meeting are "Un- American" and that those of us who oppose the bill are not genuine. We are "Astro Turf."
  • The pro bill supporters at the national level and local level demonizing those who oppose the bill as anti healthcare reform.
  • The option of eliminating employer sponsored healthcare insurance and allowing free market options for all people.

While I was talking several SEANC members behind me told me that this was their meeting, to sit down and stop talking. I am a SEANC member and have a right to speak. I am a US citizen with First Amendment rights.

For most of my time talking several talked over me and I was interrupted by the moderator Jean ?? She responded to one of my questions about alternative healthcare plans and she said she did not know of any. To that I responded that she was uninformed. She asserted she was informed.

I gave up and handed the mike to Dale.

Throughout the meeting we were videotaped when speaking and many still photos were taken. As I left the building I was videotaped again. Who knows how these images will be used. It sure felt intimidating.

After the meeting I spoke with Dale and we worked out our disagreement. He even called me today to apologize again and I apologized also. He invited me to a SEANC board meeting to present opposition views. I respect that willingness and openness.

A SEANC member prison guard also attended the same contentious event, and posted a response online that confirmed the attempt by SEANC to shout down anyone with opposing viewpoints.

It turned out the last thing anyone organizing this event wanted to do was discuss anything. Basically they were there to pat themselves on the back and inform SEANC members that the organization was totally behind the health care bill. Anyone who was opposed too the bill that dared to speak was shouted down, cut short and in one instance the microphone was actually taken from someone.

I walked in to work this morning and the first thing I did was to go to Admin and cancel my SEANC membership. If you do not support the health care bill, if you do not support your membership dues being used to support SEIU and possibly going to groups like ACORN then I encourage you to do the same if you were foolish enough as I was to join them in the first place.

SEANC didn't beat anyone down at this meeting, but they certainly didn't have any desire to hear opposing viewpoints, snatching the microphone away from SEANC members opposed to Obamacare and unwisely threatening to have police officers do their dirty work.

Even in this union meeting, there was more opposition to Obamacare among the rank and file than acceptance. I wonder if Obamacare is as unpopular among the rank and file in other unions as well.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:57 PM | Comments (38)

Chill, Hill

Project much?

ABC News' Kirit Radia reports: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost her cool Monday after a Congolese student, speaking through a translator, asked her what "Mr. Clinton" thought about a Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?" Clinton replied, clearly irked by the thought of being her husband Bill's spokeswoman.

"My husband is not secretary of state, I am," she replied. "If you want my opinion I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband."

The only problem? Apparently the translator made a mistake and the student had wanted to know what President Obama thought of the deal.

Make sure to watch the video clip at the link to get a full appreciation of the venom Hillary directs at this poor student because of a botched translation.

Yikes.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 PM | Comments (8)

August 10, 2009

Where is Kenneth Gladney's White House Invite?

So if a black Harvard professor gets arrested for being a jerk, it's worth a beer at the White House.

A different black man getting beat up by union thugs in St. Louis while handing out flags espousing liberty apparently isn't as important to the President.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:00 AM | Comments (28)

VIDEO: Architect of Democratic Health Care Plan States His Plan Is Designed to Eliminate Private Insurace

Via Ace, who questions our President's honesty... as you should.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:40 AM | Comments (3)

Pelosi, Hoyer Decry First Amendment as "Un-American;" Are Dead-Silent on Democratic Violence

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) have their editorial posted this morning as Drudge promised. Pelosi and Hoyer lambasted grassroots protests at town hall health care meetings as "un-American." If one were capable of feeding a monster on hypocrisy, this editorial would satiate the beast from Cloverfield.

There is simply no need to go into detail about the kind of disruptive protests that Pelosi has directly praised coming from her fellow progressives in recent years. If you want or need those details, however—perhaps to help a friend with a convenient case of amnesia—some of my fellow bloggers have taken the time to do just that.

I think what annoys me the most about this progressive Congress and President is the fact that they are quite supportive of fake grassroots (astroturf) efforts from groups they have organized and supported both vocally and financially (ACORN, MoveOn.org, ANSWER, Code Pink), but they then turn around and lash out at real grassroots efforts of self-organized local citizens that came together via blogs and Facebook pages.

The simple face of the matter is that the progressives do not want dissent. They want obedience. As the President himself said last week, opponents of his plan should shut up so that he can pass the legislation he wants.

Towards that end, Democrats aren't above calling in union muscle. They are more than willing to buy silence with pushes, punches, and kicks. The did so around the nation last week, and to the best I can determine, there has been precisely no condemnation from Democratic politicians for that orchestrated violence. Why would there be, when they ordered it?

But these same spoiled children of the left have the temerity to cry out in anger when a frustrated protester suggests that future Democratic violence should be met with violence. You can't have it both ways, Democrats.

Let citizens voice their opinions without attacking them, without demonizing them, without calling them evil or smearing them as part of some of a political machine. Perhaps if Madame Pelosi and Mr. Hoyer and the other progressive Democrats trying to ram this deeply-flawed bill down the throats of Americans were actually open to real debate on Capitol Hill, they wouldn't encounter so much vocal opposition in the rest of America.


Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:08 AM | Comments (40)

August 07, 2009

Truth Does Not Matter In The Health Care "Debate"

I'm not sure there are too many places you can turn this morning without hearing about the confrontations that have broken out at several "town hall" meetings about health care reform yesterday.

An Obama supporter brazenly stepped forth to rip the sign out of a protester's hands in Denver.

Six people were arrested at the St. Louis event. A black man there was called a racial slur and assaulted severely enough by the mob that he required treatment in the emergency room at St. John's Mercy Medical Center. The injured man, Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative from St. Louis, was handing out Gadsden flags to the crowd when attacked.

At a similar event in Tampa, organizers apparently assaulted protesters in order to try to close the doors to a meeting there that the protesters were drowning out with chants. There were no arrests but the assault was captured on amateur video, and a series of photos shows a female supporter of Obamacare pushing the face of a protester. The woman and her husband has been tentatively identified as officers in a local Democratic organization.

In these events, organized union labor (SEIU) appears to have been brought in by Democratic organizers to fill the halls with supporters to provide the appearance of local support for the health care bill that liberal Democrats are attempting to force through the House of Representatives. In both events, conservative protesters that have been assaulted, apparently without provocation. Perhaps the unions were there to provide "muscle" as well.

And yet if you look to the media or the blogosphere or the government itself, you see a very well-coordinated message going out that "right wing mobs" are responsible for opposing a bill that a simple majority of the country opposes as the wrong solution to the problem.

There has always been gamesmanship, bias, and even flat-out lying in American politics, but I've been simply amazed at the messaging orchestration between the media, left-wing activist groups, liberal bloggers, and senior Democratic Party politicians all the way up to and including the Senate Majority Leader, Speaker of the House, and the President of the United States himself.

These socialists—let's call them what they are—are pushing hard for a version of health reform that a majority of Americans simple do not want. They are pushing for a complete gutting of our health care system, even though 74-percent of us rate our care as "good" or "excellent." They are pushing a plan that 50-percent of Americans believe will lead to a decline in the quality of their coverage, and that 78-percent know will lead to higher taxes on the middle class.

Democrats in Congress can pass this legislation without a single Republican vote, just as they did the stimulus bill. They hold a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate, and have a President itching to sign the nationalization of health care into law.

But the simple truth of the matter is that conservative and moderate Blue Dog Democrats know the stench of a rotten bill when they smell it. It is Blue Dog Democrats that have joined independents and Republicans in opposing a plan that the majority of the country does not expect to benefit anyone other than those who want to increase the size of government, and to insert the power of the government even further into your life.

The radical left wing of the Democratic Party, their activist groups and their adoring co-conspirators in the media seem to be doing everything in their power to demonize and shout down the majority of Americans unhappy with their scheming. They've resorted to slander. They've resorted to libel. They've lied unabashedly and outrageously. And now it seems they've resorted to physical thuggery in an attempt to silence their opposition.

I do not pretend to know how this is going to end, but the course that they are charting and precedent they are setting is not one that will likely end well.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (114)

August 06, 2009

Confirmed: Left Wing Blogger Created Obama's (Fake) Birth Certificate

So really, who is stoking the so-called "birther" movement?

Democratic officials and left wing bloggers like to pretend that the issue is a creation of Republicans, even though the claim that Obama was not born in the United States can be definitively traced back to Hillary Clinton-supporting Democratic blogs.

Now, a left wing blogger has come forth to claim responsibility for creating the birth certificate published on WorldNetDaily that created such buzz early in the week, even though it was decried as a fake almost immediately.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:07 PM | Comments (50)

Deranged Pelosi: Healthcare Protestors are "Carrying Swastikas"

Fresh off of orchestrated attempts by the Democratic party and liberal blogs to smear anti-Obamacare protesters as part of a paid-for astroturfing effort (you know, like ACORN and MoveOn), the queen of San Francisco now one-ups herself with claims that those protesters are carrying swastikas to townhall meetings:

Interviewer: Do you think there's legitimate grassroot opposition going on here?

Pelosi: I think they're Astroturf... You be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare.

Let this be a warning to you all: too much botox can eventually lead to brain death.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:02 AM | Comments (26)

My Congressman is Scared of His Constituents

According to TPMDC, my congressman, Brad Miller, won't be meeting with his constituents in any large-scale meetings over the August break because he has received threatening phone calls over his support for a dangerously flawed Obamacare bill. His office says that another reason he won't be having a townhall is because of the "fake grass roots" that have dominated other events around the country.

I don't get involved in protests or meetings, but I do live here, and I do keep my eyes open. There is nothing at all fake about the widespread and growing bipartisan opposition in this area to this healthcare bill, even if Miller's office and other Democrats would like pretend are the handiwork that the same Republican operatives that botched the 2008 elections so badly.

Uh, no.

Brad will presumably spend August quaking in his loafers behind locked doors, counting down the days until he can flee back to D.C., away from his angry constituents.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:09 AM | Comments (37)

August 05, 2009

Shock: Pennsylvania Gym Shooter A Sexually Frustrated Loser

Last night a 48-year-old man walked into a class full of women at a gym, cut off the light, and started shooting. When it was over, at least three women were dead and up to 15 were injured. The shooter, George Sodini, killed himself after his rampage.

ABC News has excerpts from his web site, http://georgesodini.com (now offline), where he reveals that he had not had sex in nearly 20 years, was a racist, had issues with his family members, and had a very warped understanding of religion.

I'll try not to politicize this too much. It's a senseless, vindictive act of a person suicidally unhappy with his own life and who selfishly wanted to hurt as many other people as possible before he ended it.

George Sodini committed this horrific crime with the hope of going to Heaven when it was over. I strongly suspect he's not happy with where he most likely ended up.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:15 AM | Comments (3)

August 04, 2009

Orly Taitz Has Lost Her Mind... and Her Remaining Credibility

Anyone as obsessed as anti-Obama lawyer Orly Taitz is tough to view as anything as a hardcore partisan, even thought the softest lens.

Now Taitz, who foisted upon us the most recent faked Obama birth certificate, is trying to play the victim:

1. Kenya became an independant country in 1963, not 1964. The seal of Kenya was correct.

2. More then one person had certified copies of this document.

3. the document was not issued at birth, but rather was a certified copy obatained [sic] in1964, when Kenya became independent

4. The documents from that time would not show Zanzibar, but rather Kenya

5. Bomford report was created to try to discredit my efforts

6.lastly, I am not supposed to waste my time and money on this issue, Obama us the one who is supposed to provide evidence of legitimacy

7. Kenyan BC provides more info than the piece of garbage Obama posted on the n et [sic], which doesn't have the name of the hospital, name of the doctor or signatures.

8. Chioumi Fukino and Obama and all their Nazi Brown Shirts in the main stream media need to give it a rest and provide an original hospital BC and the corresponding big thick hospital Birthing file from the Kapiolani hospital. If they don't have such a file, all of them need to resign immediately or they will be prosecuted for massive fraud and treason to this Nation.

As noted by Salon, nobody debated when Kenya became independent; what we disputed—and disputed here—was the absolute fact that the nation was the Dominion of Kenya when the document claims to have been was produced, and the document claims it was the Republic of Kenya, which it did not become until ten months later.

As for Bomford... see what the man has to say for himself. Hardly created to debunk Taitz, the middle-aged Australian who's birth certificate was copied to create the forgery is quite amused by the attention.

There are 27 million Americans on anti-depressants.

And at least one of those needs her dosage adjusted.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:10 PM | Comments (14)

The Obligatory "Obama As Joker" Reaction

A lot of people are getting their noses out of joint about a poster popping up around Los Angeles comparing President Barack Obama to the Joker.

Frankly, I don't get it.

One embraces terrorists and madmen, is dedicated to anarchy and the destruction of capitalist society, and sends the population fleeing in horror from his creations.

The other is a fictional character played by the late Heath Ledger.

Update: Racist.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 AM | Comments (16)

August 02, 2009

Another (Faked) Obama Birth Certificate Found

Free Republic is going absolutely bonkers over a document claiming to be an official copy of his Kenyan Birth Certificate, posted at World Net Daily.

It's a poor forgery.

If you look at the document and scroll down to the bottom, you will see on the left side the reputed embossed official seal, and under it, "Office of the Principal Registrar, Coast Province, Republic of Kenya."

Directly to the right of that seal is the issue date of the document, the "17th day of February, 1964."

The was no Republic of Kenya in February of 1964.

From December 12, 1963 to December 12, 1964, the Dominion of Kenya existed under Queen Elizabeth, with Governor General Malcolm MacDonald in charge.

The Republic of Kenya did not exist when this document was supposed to be issued.

Details, details...

Update: Some in the comments are still attempting to argue that the certificate might be legitimate because the link's above to Wikipedia aren't good sources. That's fine with me.

Here's what the Encyclopedia Britannica had to say about the creation of the post-colonial government of Kenya:

A coalition government of the two parties was formed in 1962, and after elections in May 1963 Kenyatta became prime minister under a constitution that gave Kenya self-government. Following further discussions in London, Kenya became fully independent on Dec. 12, 1963. A year later, when Kenya became a republic (with Kenyatta as its first president and Oginga Odinga as vice president), most KADU members had transferred their allegiance to KANU, and KADU ceased to exist.

Just as I said, the nation ceased to be a British colony on December 12, 1963. A year later, on December 12, 1964, it became the Republic of Kenya. Any document released in February of 1964, 10 months before the Kenyan government decided to call it a republic, is a fake.

The Definitive Evidence: From the Parliament of Kenya's official web site:

Uhuru Day The interim period of Internal Self-government, did not witness any major constitutional changes. The constitutional provisions finalized in February, 1963 remained virtually the same.At midnight on December 11, 1963 , Kenya regained Independence from the United Kingdom.

Kenya remained a dominion within the British Commonwealth , with a Governor-General representing Her Majesty locally and a Government headed by a Prime Minister.

Again, establishes beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Dominion of Kenya was established in 1963... unless you think they Keyan government doesn't know their own history.


And there is more, again from the official web site of the Kenyan Parliament:


The composition to the Legislature and the framework of the Government at Independence remained in place until the first anniversary. Arising from close negotiations between the Government and the Opposition, a merger of all the parties represented in the House, under the Kenya African National Union - K.A.N.U. and under the leadership of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was concluded and took effect on December 12, 1964 with the voluntary dissolution of the Kenya African Democratic Union - K.A.D.U. and the African Peoples Party - A.P.P. This merger meant an unanticipated de facto one party status. On December 12, 1964 , Kenya declared herself a Sovereign Republic within the Commonwealth.

Read that last line one more time.

The document is a fake, kids.

Give. It. Up.

Stick-A-fork-In_It Update: Via the Washington Independent, strong evidence that the original "Kenyan" birth certificate forgery is based upon an Australian BC of David Jeffrey Bomford.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:07 PM | Comments (132)

July 31, 2009

HuffPo: Silence the Birthers, By Releasing The Long-Form Original

As time goes on, I'm starting to adopt this position myself.

The only thing weirder than the Birthers are the anti-Birthers, who blame the Birthers for being conspiracy theorists yet actively feed the conspiracy by refusing to call for President Obama to release his birth certificate.

The state official in Hawaii who manages such things has reiterated that there is indeed an original birth certificate on file which would confirm President Obama's having been born in Hawaii and that she has seen it, but state law won't allow her to release it unless the president authorizes it.

So what's the problem here? Release the original and let's be done with this madness.

I truly believe that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. All available evidence points to this, and there is no evidence that he was born anywhere else. But as time goes on, I'm increasingly amazed that not only is the call to release Obama's original birth certificate being sustained, the cry actually seems to be gaining momentum.

I believe it was wise for the President to ignore the movement when it started because it simply marginalized the Democrats that created the rumor (yes folks, the story originated and was first propagated by Clinton-supporting blogs), and then various Republicans that jumped on board and then took over the fruitless pursuit. But now the controversy—for reasons I simply cannot fathom—has expanded to alarming proportions.

I have to think that it reached—or will soon reach—a state where it becomes more of a problem to ignore those calling to see the document than it is to ignore them.

Officials in Hawaii have confirmed that the original, long-form paper birth certificate filled out at the time of President Obama's birth exists. The President can easily ask them to release a copy of the document to the media to be photographed at high resolution, where it can be posted on news web sites and blogs around the word and debated and parsed, ultimately shutting down all but the most fringe elements of the debate, those that still believe that 9/11 was an inside job and that Ron Paul would have made a good President.

It only takes a phone call. Do this, Mr. President.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:53 AM | Comments (68)

July 29, 2009

Obama Booed In Raleigh

Who was the most popular man in Raleigh today? I don't know who it was, but I could tell you who it wasn't, as Barack Obama's motocade was met by a smattering of cheers and an overwhelming chorus of boos:

Randy's Right is the source of that video and another where a pro-Obama MoveOn stooge repeatedly attempted to insist on promoting the theory that Republicans were responsible for disease... presumably one that keeps people such as himself gullible and poor.

American Elephant has more photos, which seems to indicate that anti-Obamacare protestors outnumbered Obama supporters about 3-to-1.

This is just the latest event where Obama's supporters have been heavily outnumbered.

America has realized very quickly that the change they voted for is nothing but rhetoric, and that the change being sought by a radically left-wing President and Congress are the antithesis of American values of independence, hard work, and self-reliance.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:21 PM | Comments (4)

July 28, 2009

And the Obama Birth Wars Continue...

While the government of Hawaii has once again gone on record to state that Barack Obama's birth certificate is legitimate and that he is a natural born citizen, a new round of theories will claim that there were five ways for a person to get a birth certificate in Hawaii, and that some of those ways don't require the same standard of proof as others. According to this line of reasoning, Obama could have a birth certificate, but the document might not be worth the paper it is printed on in regards to proving whether or not he qualifies as "natural born."

Have fun!

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:56 PM | Comments (95)

July 24, 2009

At What Point, Revolt?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic allies in the House of Representatives rammed through a massive, $787 billion dollar stimulus bill, without one Representative reading it. Majority Leader Harry Reid forced it through the Senate, and President Obama signed the massive spending bill into law. To date it has had no positive effect on the economy, and many economists suggest it may be causing damage over the long run.

Speaker Pelosi and her Democratic allied in the House rammed through cap-and-trade legislation based upon heavily disputed "climate change" junk science that will send energy prices soaring and cost the nation billions of dollars. Again, not one Representative read the bill before it was voted upon. The Senate has not yet voted on the bill, though if they do, the President is eager to sign it into law.

And now we find that Pelosi and her allies, dutifully bowing and scraping to our neophyte President's every uninformed ideological whim, once again intend to ram thorough another bill, sight unseen.

This time Pelosi and her cabal of liberal Democrats are attempting to force through a massive bill to socialize American healthcare before their August vacation.

When has it ever been best to force through life-altering decisions at a breakneck pace?

Why are this Congress, this Speaker, this Majority Leader, and this President utterly unwilling to study, debate, and review legislation that will change the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans for decades into the future?

Do they care about what is best for Americans, at all?

The actions of the far left "progressive" leaders of our nation's federal government an the antithesis of how the Founding Fathers wanted our country to run. Speaker Pelosi presents us with irrational and rushed mob rule.

Harry Reid is only slightly less radical in the Senate.

And in the White House, we have a neophyte, a sepia-toned Dorian Gray high on his adoring press, who uses his eloquence to paper over the fetid core of ideological beliefs that rotted nations and generations in the past century.

Barack Obama, adored by the press and dismissed by the world's leaders, presides over the largest debt in our nation's history and plans to spend even more as our nation enters a full-fledged economic depression, a depression made only worse by his poor decision-making and not assuaged by his empty platitudes.

How much more will we take—how much more should we take—before we declare they've done enough harm?

Will coming elections rectify such gross incompetence? Can we wait for 2012 or 2016 to remove those that will tear this nation apart?

These are the questions lurking in the hearts of many Americans as we speak.

If reason cannot find a way to reimpose itself in the House, the Senate, and the White House, I fear we may soon find out after some have reached their breaking point.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:49 PM | Comments (24)

July 17, 2009

NAACP Head/Felon Arrested for Child Sex & Firearms Charges

I'm not sure what I find most offensive about this: the fact that the local media chose to try to sweep this under the rug as much as possible without completely being derelict in their duties, or that the NAACP would allow a convicted felon—one convicted of multiple homicides and an apparent attempt to cause a third— to hold office.

So much for standards and accountability:

Stokes County sheriff's deputies arrested the president of the local NAACP chapter on child sex and firearms charges Monday.

CBS affiliate WFMY reports that Larry Lash, 54, of Walnut Cove, was charged with six counts of statutory rape and two counts of sex offense and first-degree sex offense, among other sex charges.

Sheriff Mike Joyce told WFMY that there were three victims, including two under 16-years-old and that the alleged sex acts took place at Lash's home over a period of time.

Investigators found five guns and ammunition at Lash's house when they arrested him, leading to a charge of possession of a firearm by a felon. According to state Department of Correction records, Lash was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 1974 and assault by pointing a gun and discharging a firearm into property in 1978.

If the there is any evidence at all that Lash used the influence and prestige of his position to carry out his assaults, I hope that the families of the victims sue the state and local organizations into bankruptcy as a warning that no organization is above the law, and especially one chartered to fight for equality.

In this day and age where you have to submit to a criminal background check for everything from applying for loans, to applying for jobs, to volunteering in many organizations, there is no excuse at all for the NAACP not vetting their officers on every level, including Lash.

The other possibily—that the NAACP knew Lash was an convicted killer, and allowed him to serve anyway—is even more dangerously negligent, and I hope is far from the truth.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:25 PM | Comments (6)

July 16, 2009

Two Generals Joined Cook Case On Obama Citizenship... Just Before It Was Dismissed.

Oh, how they make things interesting:

A controversial suit brought by a U.S. Army reservist has been joined by a retired Army two-star general and an active reserve Air Force lieutenant colonel.

Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook filed the suit July 8 in federal court here asking for conscientious objector status and a preliminary injunction based upon his belief that President Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as president of the United States and commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

However, before the issue got to court, Cook's orders to deploy to Afghanistan were revoked. Lt. Col. Maria Quon, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Army Human Resources Command-St. Louis, said Tuesday that Cook was no longer expected to report Wednesday to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida for mobilization to active duty. Cook, who claims he is now the victim of retaliation due to his suit, received his mobilization orders to report for active duty at MacDill on Wednesday. From there, he was to go to Fort Benning on Saturday for deployment to Afghanistan.

Cook has now been fired from his employer over the suit, which was dismissed this morning by a federal judge, on the grounds that his canceled deployment orders rendered the case moot.

It is not known if Cook, his lawyer, and the generals will file another case, but I rather suspect they will.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:15 PM | Comments (74)

July 15, 2009

Deployment Orders for Soldier Who Challenged Obama's Citizenship Revoked?

I happen to think that Birthers are nuts, which makes this all the more befuddling, if true:

A U.S. Army Reserve major from Florida scheduled to report for deployment to Afghanistan within days has had his military orders revoked after arguing he should not be required to serve under a president who has not proven his eligibility for office.

His attorney, Orly Taitz, confirmed to WND the military has rescinded his impending deployment orders.

"We won! We won before we even arrived," she said with excitement. "It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate – and they cannot fight it. Therefore, they are revoking the order!"

I have no ready explanation for why the military would rescind his deployment orders, unless they plan to keep him stateside to begin a disciplinary investigation against him. Frankly, for the sake of our nation, I hope this is the case.

Because if the Pentagon allows soldiers to simply declare Obama an an illegitimate Command in Chief—as the article would have you believe—it would seem to set a precedent that would lead to chaos in the military, allowing service members to question all orders for the executive branch. It would be anarchy.

WorldNet Daily simply must have this wrong. The larger ramifications of the case being dismissed for the reasons alleged by the attorney are too terrible to consider.

Update: Was the entire case a scam?

Greyhawk makes a compelling case that the birther's "victory" here may be fraud, and more importantly, one that forces another soldier who was not scheduled for deployment to leave his loved ones on very short notice.

If that is the case, Major Cook is a blue falcon of the first order.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:45 AM | Comments (87)

Sotomayor Either Perjured Herself, or Is Intellectually Unqualified to be on the Supreme Court

No, I didn't say it. A liberal law professor disgusted with her testimony did.

Ace distilled the essence of Sotomayor thus:

She's denying that there exists something called "theory of jurisprudence," which includes such doctrines as originalism, strict constructionism, and, of course, the ever-flexible and ever-expanding doctrine of the "Living Constitution." As she doesn't want to admit she's an adherent of the latter, she claims there's no such thing as judicial philosophy whatsoever.

For example, faced with a legal question about which the Constitution is absolutely silent, a conservative justice would say there is no Constitutional dictate either way: A law is permitted to exist; it is also permissible to have no law. Lacking a constitutional source of authority, a judge herself has no authority to set policy.

On the other hand, someone like Sotomayor does not stop her inquiry simply because she finds that she has no authority whatsoever to make a ruling that binds anyone. She then looks to international law; the always-popular "changing social mores and norms;" "public policy considerations;" anagrams of Ricky Martin song titles; etc.

So, yeah, she's lying.

I fully expect Sotomayor to be confirmed by the Democratic supermajority in the Senate. While the nation as a whole doesn't support her nomination, there simply doesn't seem to be enough of an immediate cost to her confirmation to make voting for her a short term political risk, which is all politicians care about any way.

The fact of the matter, however, is that activist judges like Sonia Sotomayor and her peers that believe in what Ace so correctly mocked as the "Living Constitution" undermine the laws that holds society together with every decision they make. The constantly shifting standards and "law of the now" approach to jurisprudence means that no law is ever actually law; it is an ever-changing rough guideline. With no fixed compass, the law—as law—ceases to exist.

She is a dangerous choice... and no one knows that better than the radical neophyte America elected as President who appointed her.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:03 AM | Comments (10)

July 10, 2009

Obama's Science Czar Wrote Book Advocating Forced Abortions, Sterilizing Americans By Poisoning Our Drinking Water

Zombie has once again gone deep into print to discover a book called Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment where John Holdren, Obama's Science Czar, suggested dictating how others should live their lives to assuage pseudo-scientific hysteria.

Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A "Planetary Regime" with the power of life and death over American citizens.

The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?

These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology -- informally known as the United States' Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:

  • Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
  • The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
  • Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
  • People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" -- in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
  • A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives -- using an armed international police force.

Impossible, you say? That must be an exaggeration or a hoax. No one in their right mind would say such things.

Well, I hate to break the news to you, but it is no hoax, no exaggeration. John Holdren really did say those things, and this report contains the proof. Below you will find photographs, scans, and transcriptions of pages in the book Ecoscience, co-authored in 1977 by John Holdren and his close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. The scans and photos are provided to supply conclusive evidence that the words attributed to Holdren are unaltered and accurately transcribed.

The dark mind of Holdren that pushed for totalitarian in the 1970s based upon the projections of junk science is participating now in activist legislation that is based upon projections made up by the junk science of man-made global cooling global warming climate change.

While you're there, stomach aflutter as your soak in the detached derangement of a man who could so coolly and "logically" advocate such horrors, your mind may start to connect him to other totalitarian associates of Barack Obama who were just as willing to expose 25 million Americans to "re-education centers."

I asked, "Well what is going to happen to those people we can't reeducate, that are diehard capitalists?" And the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated.

And when I pursued this further, they estimated they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers.

And when I say "eliminate," I mean "kill."

Twenty-five million people.

I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees, from Columbia and other well-known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people.

And they were dead serious.

One can rest assured that Barack Obama cannot turn to his old associate Bill Ayers to be his "education czar" thanks to how Ayers and his wife were exposed as domestic terrorists during the campaign, but now Holdren has been exposed as having a similar sort of pathology, the chilling thought of someone with a similar mindset being given such a position doesn't seem as easy to laugh off.


There is something deeply, dangerously wrong with the kind of people who harbor such delusions, and there is something deeply, dangerously wrong with the kind of president who promotes people with such viewpoints to positions of power.

John Holdren needs to leave his postion, and leave it now.

For Barack Obama, we'll have to wait until January 20, 2013.

Update: More on Obama's eugenicist at Noisy Room and Bookworm Review.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:01 PM | Comments (40)

July 07, 2009

Barack Obama, Economic Battlefield Surgeon

The madness of an illogical mind:


A second economic stimulus package could still be on the table, President Obama suggested Tuesday as the unemployment rate hovered close to 10 percent.

In an interview with FOX News in Moscow, Obama defended the roll-out so far of the stimulus package passed in February, saying he knew the scope of the economic crisis would make recovery difficult no matter what.

"I think it's important to understand that we've got a short-term challenge which, no matter how big our stimulus was, was going to be a challenge -- partly because we've got fiscal constraints," Obama said.

The president said the government has spent money as fast as it could as the "economic tsunami" unfolded, admitting that getting cash to the states has been difficult.

"You just can't push that out that quickly, partly, not just because the federal government has to process applications, but also because states and local governments have to gear up to get these projects going," Obama said.

President Obama's current stimulus package increased unemployment beyond what doing nothing would have done. We know, because this is his graph.

Well, it isn't entirely his graph.

The light blue line represents what the Administration said we'd see if we did absolutely nothing. The dark blue line is what Obama said the stimulus would do.

The red dots, however, are reality, the real numbers that Barack Obama and all the Democrats in Congress would rather ignore. Those bright, red dots represent the hundreds of thousands of Americans that have lost their jobs because Barack Obama and the Democratic Party rammed through a massive stimulus bill that none of them read.

I'll repeat that again.

The massive stimulus bill Democrats unanimously voted for has cost America hundreds of thousands of jobs, and Obama wants to leave the option open to do it again.

Obama has become something like a mad battlefield surgeon from the Civil War, hacking off limbs with his crude and barbaric medicine, killing and maiming more than he saves. Our economy is bleeding out due to his hackery and that of the incompetents and cheats his employs.

We don't need any more of his help, and we'll be damn lucky if we survive the medicine he's already prescribed.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:15 AM | Comments (24)

Gullible's Travels

"The future does not belong to those who gather armies on a field of battle or bury missiles in the ground."

Obviously, part of what Mr. President is concealing in his hidden university records are his failing grades in history.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:51 AM | Comments (5)

July 06, 2009

OBAMANOMICS: NC Unemployment to Hit Highest Rate since Great Depression

Hope and Change:

North Carolina's unemployment rate, already one of the highest in the country at 11.1 percent, will "peak" at 13 percent in the first quarter of 2010 before it begins to improve, North Carolina State University economist Michael Walden predicted Monday.

In his "North Carolina Economic Outlook" report, Walden said that "an emerging consensus" points to an economic rebound beginning "in late 2009 or 2010."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:43 AM | Comments (7)

"The Obama Administration is the Most Fiscally Irresponsible in the History of the U.S."

That comes from a paragraph of Kevin Hassett's at Bloomburg:

The federal picture is so bleak because the Obama administration is the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of the U.S. I would imagine that he would be the intergalactic champion as well, if we could gather the data on deficits on other worlds. Obama has taken George W. Bush's inattention to deficits and elevated it to an art form.

The Obama administration has no shame, and is willing to abandon reason altogether to achieve its short-term political goals. Ronald Reagan ran up big deficits in part because he believed that his tax cuts would produce economic growth, and ultimately pay for themselves. He may well have been excessively optimistic about the merits of tax cuts, but at least he had a story.

Obama has no story. Nobody believes that his unprecedented expansion of the welfare state will lead to enough economic growth. Nobody believes that it will pay for itself. Everyone understands that higher spending today begets higher spending tomorrow. That means that his economic strategy simply doesn't add up.

Nothing President Obama has done adds up. Not his economic strategy, nor his domestic policy, nor his foreign policy.

Just an eighth of the way through his presidency Barack Obama appears to be the most dangerously incompetent man to have ever held the office, doing more long-term damage to this nation than any foreign invader could have ever dreamed. That he has another 3 1/2 years in office ahead of him, and an equally radical coalition of far left activists in Congress until at least 2010, is disheartening, to say the least.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:44 AM | Comments (19)

July 04, 2009

Big Democrat Donors Bluffed to Close Tea Party Protest

I wrote recently about how Democratic Party donors used their influence to shut down the Atlanta Tea Party after reading conservative blogs, including an entry on Confederate Yankee where I warned that if the ever-encroaching government did not reign in ever-expansing intrusions into personal liberties, they may one day face their own Lexington Green.

We now know that the group responsible for shutting down the protest did so by apparently lying about their authority in order to get the protest cancelled. The Simon Property Group had no legal claim, and seems to have bluffed the actual property owner into canceling the event.

Democrats spent much of the Bush Presidency warning of an impending fascist state, and now seem to be doing everything in their power to create one of their own, where even peaceable dissent is to be quashed if at all possible.

Happy Independence Day.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:13 AM | Comments (5)

Palin Resigns

I was driving back from Savannah, GA yesterday with my family and didn't get in until last night, and so the news that Sarah Palin resigned the governorship of Alaska is still very new to me.

I haven't yet caught up on the commentary that I'm sure is reverberating around the blogosphere, and I can't fathom why Palin would chosen to resign now, and in the manner she did.

Perhaps she's gunning for Lisa Murkowski's Senate seat. Murkowski sure seem to be reacting that way in a defensive press release.

Others, I imagine, will conclude this is an unorthodox move from an unorthodox Presidential contender already laying the groundwork for at the Republican nomination for 2012. I doubt it, as the timing simply seems off. The only way resigning now for a Presidential run would make any sense in my mind is if Palin was considering a run on a conservative third party ticket, and thought she needed the time to make the third party candidacy a viable option.

My greater fear is that Palin resigned because of some sort of medical issue that she would prefer to keep out of the public eye. No, I'm not thinking that there is another child on the way (though considering her seemingly excellent physical condition, I wouldn't rule it out), but it isn't out of the realm of possibility that a personal or family ailment may require immediate medical attention.

I sincerely hope that this is not the case.

Time, I suspect, will answer all our questions.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:50 AM | Comments (29)

June 26, 2009

Pissing Away America's Promise: Cap and Trade Passes 219-212

ON CSPAN.com (not link yet)

HOUSE PASSES ENERGY BILL, 219-212 Today

The House has approved passage of the American Clean Energy & Security Act by a vote of 219 to 212. The climate change bill, a legislative priority of Pres. Obama's, centers on a renewable electricity standard, and a cap-and-trade policy aimed at reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The Senate is likely to take up the legislation after the July 4th recess.

Never have so few done so much to so many for so little.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:25 PM | Comments (14)

Amazon Closes Associates Program in North Carolina Over Tax Concerns

Via email this morning, another classic case of tax-and-spend Democrats costing American jobs through short-sighted greed.

We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account has been closed as of June 26, 2009. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional tax collection scheme expected to be passed any day now by the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) and signed by the governor. As a result, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com after June 26. We were forced to take this unfortunate action in anticipation of actual enactment because of uncertainties surrounding the legislation's effective date.

Please be assured that all qualifying referral fees earned prior to June 26, 2009 will be processed and paid in full in accordance with our regular referral fee schedule. Based on your account closure date of June 26, 2009, any final payments will be paid by September 1, 2009.

In the event that North Carolina repeals this tax collection scheme, we would certainly be happy to re-open our Associates program to North Carolina residents.

The North Carolina General Assembly’s website is http://www.ncleg.net/, and additional information may be obtained from the Performance Marketing Alliance at http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/.

We have enjoyed working with you and other North Carolina-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.

Best Regards,
The Amazon Associates Team

I don't personally know of anyone who used the Associates program as anything other than an alternative source of income, but the fact remains that it was taxable income, and now it's nothing.

NC Democrats have acted rashly, attempting to use the Associates program as an "in" to tax Amazon's corporate profits. They were hoping for a big payday.

Now they—and we—get nothing.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:12 AM | Comments (41)

June 25, 2009

Alleged Moonwalking Pedophile Dies; World Forgets Obama Won't Use The Insurance Plan He Intends to Force Down Our Throats

Pardon me for keeping some perspective.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:53 PM | Comments (10)

Democrat Donors Shut Down Atlanta Tea Party

The land of the free?

Update: The Simons don't care for other groups either, though earlier this year their response was to shut down the mall. (h/t Andrew H.)

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:52 AM | Comments (3)

June 24, 2009

SC Gov Mark Sanford Preps for 2012...

... by burnishing his "foreign affairs" experience.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:28 PM | Comments (8)

Democrats and Their Lobbyists Pack Pork into Cap-and-Trade in Backroom Deals

Not content with passing the multi-generational financial rape—AKA, stimulus bill—that was flush with economy-crippling pork projects that have actually damaged the economy, House Democrats are presently attempting to rush through their global warming hysteria-fueled cap and trade energy bill H.R. 2454.

The bill, which will provide a profit to a handful of heavily Democratic states at the expense of the rest of the country measured in hundreds of millions of dollars a year, has now come under fire for growing an additional 300 pages in the proverbial dead of night:

So, where along the line does the bill suddenly expand by 300 pages? According to the New York Times, the various committee chairs held behind the scenes meetings and hashed out a compromise with no allowance for public input. (What lobbyists were involved in those meetings?) And now we are expecting a Friday vote on a bill that has had no public hearing in a committee with jurisdiction over it and that is not yet available in the main engine of public disclosure, THOMAS.

This raises serious questions about how we expect Congress to disclose their activities to the public. Is a bill posted to the House Rules Committee and not THOMAS truly publicly available? While the bill may be available for 72 hours prior to consideration, the public does not have reasonable access to it. Nor does the public know how the final details were reached.

And that isn't even the worst part. This, apparently, isn't even the final bill. The final bill will be a manager's amendment that will be drafted later this week! From a posting on the House Rules Committee, we know that the deadline to submit amendments is Thursday at 9:30am. And there is talk that this will be voted on on Friday. Thus, the final version of this bill will likely only be available for less than 24 hours.

As we all know, the $787 billion dollar "stimulus" bill has been an utter failure. Unemployment is higher now than the projections estimated they would have been if the government had done nothing at all.

The Democratic pipe-dream of cap and trade will do nothing to impact the overall global climate while simultaneously increasing the cost of energy for all Americans and wrecking the economy.

Democratic politicians will get richer, their lobbyists will get richer, and the rest of us will get poorer.

How many hundreds millions are you willing to spend on a lie? How much deeper in an economic depression are you will to fall because of destructive pipe dreams?

It's time to contact your Representatives folks, and demand they stop ruining your lives to chase fantasies based upon junk science and nonexistent viable alternative energy sources.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:57 AM | Comments (4)

June 23, 2009

Empty and Green

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, urged on by President Barack Obama, announced progress on Tuesday toward quick passage of legislation to fight global warming by reducing industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.

At a midday White House press conference, Obama said the "historic" climate change bill moving through the House would "transform the way we produce and use energy in America."

With incentives to encourage utilities, manufacturers and other companies to switch from higher-polluting oil and coal to cleaner energy alternatives, Obama said the legislation would spark a "transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet."

God bless 'em, the President and his cute little Global Cooling Global Warming Climate Change believers mean well.

He honestly and wholly believes with the sincerity of a child that carbon—the building block of life—is a Very Bad Thing.

The undeniable fact that dear old Gaia herself has pumped out far higher amounts of carbon into the air than we presently see, without any long-term ill effects, is something of an inconvenient truth. Of course, the entire history of the global climate freakout movement over the past 40 years is based upon inconvenient truths, half-truths, and hysterical ignorance being used to stir up irrational fears.

Here are some hard truths for the President.

The earth has been far, far hotter than it currently is. We had nothing to do with that one way or the other, and the Earth did just fine in moderating itself without bloviating bipeds passing empty resolutions.

The earth has also been far, far cooler than it currently is. We had nothing to do with that one way or the other, and the Earth did just fine in moderating itself without shivering, bloviating bipeds passing prevaricating laws as if they were of significance.

The fact of the matter is that there is nothing in Mr. Obama's background to convince us he have any idea what he is talking about on this matter. We don't know if he's had so much as a basic college science course, much less anything of more substance.

But I'm open to being convinced h are on the right path, if he can answer a few basic questions.

For starters, I'd like for him to explain when the last time was the planet wasn't changing. When he finishes, perhaps he can also explain why—for the very first time—the constant change is suddenly bad.

I suspect we know the answer. Obama is about changing others, finding ways to control and alter their lives. That's how he and his cronies can justify pushing for the dismantling of proven energy technologies that power this country (and directly and indirectly, tens of millions of jobs) in favor of more costly and unproven technologies that they claim are better for the environment.

But it's a pretty bold claim, considering none of the "clean energy" sources you support can economically provide enough energy to support a moderately sized town, much a city, metropolitan region, state, or an entire nation. Frankly, it's preposterous.

He's asking us to believe that something in his unknown and unexplored academic past can provide answers to questions that have baffled green energy proponents for years.

Pardon my if I don't buy the empty hype.

Update: Powerline has a state-by-state map that show just how much pointless environmental zealotry is going to cost you, and it isn't pretty. For those of us here in North Carolina, it's going to cost us $241 million in 2012 alone.

The Left Coast states—California, Washington and Oregon—actually make money off the deal, while New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont profit on the East Coast.

The rest of the country—and the country's overall economy— gets screwed.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:40 PM | Comments (4)

Our Athletic President

No matter the sport, no matter the venue, he always finds a way to punt.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:09 PM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2009

Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothin' Left to Lose

I noted in my previous post that the Iranian protester called Neda who had her shooting death captured in vivid detail should not be celebrated as a martyr for liberty and freedom. She is instead a martyr for a lesser evil, but an evil and repressive regime all the same.

Via Michelle Malkin's BuzzWorthy links this morning I came across the Founding Bloggers revelation of some very disturbing passages from the opposition that indicate my reaction was probably correct. Mousavi is advocating "'a reformation that returns us to the pure principles of the Islamic Revolution." Protestors in Iran call for freedom in their desperation, but they only ask for the freedom to celebrate a different despotism.

Someone please tell me why the brand of the Islamic Revolution that kept Americans hostage for 444 days is preferable to Ahmadinejad's special brand of crazy.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:18 AM | Comments (7)

June 21, 2009

Neda: A Lesser Evil is Still Evil

It seems like the talk of the blogosphere today is the death of an Iranian protestor, apparently gunned down with a shot to the heart by a Basij militiaman. It appears she is being prepared for martyrdom by the media for having her death captured on video [warning: graphic]:

She has been tentatively identified as Neda Agha Soltan, a 27-year-old philosophy student.

Perhaps Neda will become the symbolic martyr that Iranian opposition desires, but I'd caution the western media and my peers in the blogosphere. She is not a martyr for liberty and freedom. Neda is a martyr for a lesser evil.

No matter who eventually prevails, the Iranian government will still continue their drive to build nuclear weapons. They will still fund terrorists. They will still train terrorists in their country to kill civilians in Israel. They will still train terrorists to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

I'll say a prayer tonight for Neda and the other Iranians who were killed today, but pardon me if I refuse to fall into the trap of projecting my values onto a culture that all too often cheers when Americans die.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:09 PM | Comments (18)

June 19, 2009

Obama's Conditional Respect for Fatherhood

Barack Obama will speak about the "importance of fatherhood" today.

I can only assume he means conditional fatherhood.

After all it's difficult to square his support of infanticide and the idea of mistaken babies that are, after all, just a punishment, with the responsibilities of being a father through good times and bad.




Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:32 AM | Comments (16)

June 17, 2009

Collusion

The Drudge Report posted earlier today that ABC News will be producing a broadcast for the Obama Administration's socialized health care plan from within the White House. Predictably, that has caused my peers in the blogosphere some consternation.

Bloggers on the left find that the idea of a Democratic Administration getting a prime time infomercial to extol the virtues of a controversial policy prescription that they are championing quite appealing. The broadcast features only those questions screened by the network, and is designed to provide the Administration a format devoid of rebuttals from libertarian, conservative, and moderate politicians who may have other and perhaps more sustainable ideas. Such unchallenged propaganda is understandably accepted with bliss among the conformist left.

Many of us on the center-right, however, find the increasingly incestuous relationship between the media and a President very alarming. Some are going so far to suggest that such a relationship a significant threat to our Republic. The reason for such concern is simple: a media so enthralled with a politician (or group of politicians) has cannot perform the watchdog role that is required of it in a free nation.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:52 AM | Comments (8)

June 12, 2009

Krugman's Article on Andrew Mickel

It seems the sage of the New York Times has deemed to weigh in on the dangers of right wing extremism.

I'm sure his column on the dangers of left wing extremism highlighting Indymedia's Death Row representative Andrew Mickel will be even more thorough, since he's had years to work on it.

More here.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:12 AM | Comments (8)

June 09, 2009

Tomorrow Belongs To Me: Obama Administration Claims They Are Above The Law

Hope and chains:

The Obama Administration argued Monday that no court, including the Supreme Court, has the authority to hear a challenge by Indiana benefit plans to the role the U.S. Treasury played in the Chrysler rescue, including the use of "bailout" (TARP) funds. The Indiana debt holders, U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan wrote, simply have no right to raise that issue, thus putting it out of the reach of the courts.

Once again, the leftists who cried about the rise of fascism and the police state during the Bush Administration lay strangely silent as Dear Leader's minions attempt to claim powers not remotely theirs to claim under the Constitution. Government lawyers are so full of themselves that one labeled the pension fundlawyer acting on behalf of his clients as a "terrorist."

Luckily Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't agree with the Administration's challenge to the court system's authority, and issued a temporary stay, halting what may be an illegal shotgun marriage being pushed by the President's team despite ominous warnings that Fiat itself may not be financially stable enough for the deal:

The Obama administration rushed an alliance between Chrysler LLC and Fiat SpA despite Chrysler's worries about Fiat's financial health and its willingness to share technology, according to internal company emails.

The emails show Fiat ignoring requests for documents and trying to change contract terms late in the talks. A Chrysler adviser at one point said the deal risked looking as if the U.S. auto maker and the Treasury Department, which helped broker the pact, were "in bed with a shady partner." In another note, an official referred to the Treasury Department as "God."

The Obama Administration is following a common path to tyranny, claiming the extraordinary temporary need of emergency powers to forestall a catastrophe.

Emergency "needs" cascade from one crisis into another, power is usurped, until the people are the servants of the government instead of the government serving the citizens. It is at this point of social realization that creeping tyranny is finally forcefully challenged, or people are crushed under the boot of a police state.

I wonder how often these would-be tyrants can be thwarted, however, by simply refusing to give in to their hysteria.

How much better off this nation would be right now if a few Democrats had the maturity to stand up against the massive $787 billion stimulus bill that not one of them read, or the leviathan of a federal budget seemingly designed with the express purpose of bankrupting the nation.

Obama's Administration cries for now-more-faster at a breakneck pace, never intending on giving Congress or the courts time to think about what they are trying to force down the throat of American citizens.

Barack Obama doesn't want to give Americans the time to think about what he is doing.

He wants them rocked back on their heels, weak and defensive, so he can push through bills, orders, and demands that would never stand a chance of passing upon reasoned reflection.

You've been had. Hoodwinked. Bamboozled Led astray. Run amok.

This is what He does....


Update: SCOTUS punts. Here comes Enron with biscotti.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:33 PM | Comments (11)

June 08, 2009

The NC State War Heats Up

Emails released by North Carolina State University show that former North Carolian governor Mike Easley (D) was involved in his wife's hiring at the University.

NCSU's Chancellor James Oblinger resigned earlier today, the latest casualty in a string of resignations that resulted from Mary Easley's hiring in 2005 and her promotion and a substantial 88% pay raise, even though it seems no one has been able to precisely pin down what she did to merit the increase.

Breaking news is that Mary Easley, who refused to resign, has just been fired by the University.

We shoudl have seen this coming. After all, she has Blago's hair...

More as this develops...

Update: As a friend noted via IM, Easley's saga sounds eerily familar like that of someone with a slightly higher profile, who got a substantial raise after her husband secured a million-dollar earmark for her employer.

Where is the media in investigating that potential scandal?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:41 PM | Comments (1)

"I Did Not Vote to Lower My Standard of Living"

Michael Jones of PoliGazette voted twice for Barack Obama last year—in the primaries and in the general election—but he is one of a rapidly growing number of disillusioned moderates that is coming to regret his decision.

Here is a taste of his discontent:

Like many Americans last November, I voted for change. I had hope. I no longer have hope since the president I voted for never mentioned a fraction of the agenda he now espouses. I did not vote to lower my standard of living, humble as it may be. Nor did I ask to jump into the economic abyss in order to "save" the planet.

Every time I hear another Obama supporter-turned-opponent claim that they had no idea what Obama was going to do as President, I have to shake my head in amusement.

If these new critics had relied upon the media, peer pressure, and party allegiance to help them decide how to cast their vote, then I can certainly understand how they ended up voting for Obama. The neophyte from Chicago certainly looked good, was charismatic, and said all the right things, while giving them the added bonus of being a (partially) African-American candidate that could help them wash away any guilt they may have of their own bigotry (we all prejudiced to varying degrees, and anyone who tells you they are completely unprejudiced is a liar and/or a dunce). For people not willing to put in the time to actively research a candidate's record or positions—which, let's face it, is most voters—he represented a package that was hard not to vote for.

I make no excuses at all for the pundit class, however. The Christopher Buckleys and Peggy Noonans of this world earn their living by (presumably) researching voting records and positions on issues both major and obscure, investigating ties to organizations and individuals of questionable propriety, and forecasting, to the very best of their ability, what a candidate might do if elected to the office.

The amateur pundit class—bloggers, for the most part—fired dozens of warning flares about significant issues with Obama's record, his dubious activities working of the board of radical charities, his lack of political courage or accountability, his strong biases, his temperament, his alleged affair, and his verified multi-decade associations with not one, or two, or three, but four hardcore radicals on the fringes of society, from a Catholic priest the advocates lynching, to a racialist church and it's radical pastor, to a pair of domestic terrorists, one of which already did jail time for obstruction of justice in a armored car robbery that left police officers and security guards dead, and who masterminded at least three politically-motivated mass murder attempts that (thankfully) all failed because of their associate's incompetence.

The punditry had every reason to sound the alarm on any of a dozen warning signs that Barack Obama was going to ruin our relationship with our allies, be a patsy for our enemies, be soft of terrorism, and preternaturally lethal to our economy and way of life. He's proven to be exactly what we expected... if anything, he's worse than we ever could have feared.

I'm glad to have Michael and others like him join the legions of us who knew Barack Obama was a dangerous choice for President, one who advocates policies that threaten the very core of the capitalist Republic.

I simply wish they had come to that realization prior to November 4.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:32 AM | Comments (33)

June 07, 2009

Obama: Creating the Next Enron?

This doesn't look good.

It becomes readily more apparent every day that the far left shriekers of the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Raw Story never really worried about tyrannical fascism arising in this nation. They're real concern is that it might not happen when they were in power. Now that President Obama has unilaterally granted himself far more power than Bush and Cheney ever dreamed of, the same people who worried about a police state are sitting merrily at home without so much as a whimper... shining their badges.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:55 AM | Comments (8)

June 06, 2009

Newsweek Editor Fellates God-President

Evan Thomas of Newsweek has exposed himself as being unable to hold the remotest objectivity needed to function as the editor of a news publication, declaring his unseemly and frankly creepy admiration of the President while simultaneously denigrating America:

Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama's had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is 'we are above that now.' We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above – above the world, he's sort of God.

Michelle Obama would LOL at this crap, and she married the man.

It is no secret that Newsweek long ago forfeited any claim to being an objective source of news, but this latest fanboy worship by Evan Thomas is simply shameful. It shatters any illusion that the magazine is capable of being anything other than an Obama propaganda device, and that Thomas is dangerously too biased to serve as a a competent and objective editor.

Newsweek is losing money and purposefully retargeting to lose even more. If their goal is make their employees radioactive while bankrupting themselves, I'd say that Thomas is doing exactly what they need.

Update: The Anchoress aims higher—literally— and suggests a higher oral interface between the President and a media latching on to his man-teats.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:35 AM | Comments (18)

June 05, 2009

ABC NEWS: Alien Armada Targets President For Death!

Barack Obama's cascade of economic and foreign policy gaffes are apparently so great that aliens from other planets are threatening to have him killed:

Murray then said "We are on a mission to kill the president of the United States," according to the complaint.

Murray told the teller during that visit, the complaint added, "We are 94 million miles from the sun, and are in-between the sun and moon, and the eagle that flies between them, and it's a giant step for mankind. ... I have traveled thousands of miles to be here and know things that are going to happen. ... The banking system will fail and people will die. ... There will be chaos in the world."

What's worse is that the Secret Service has confirmed that Murray is just one of a vast alien conspiracy that desires to assassinate the President:

"This is one of a gazillion cases," the spokesman told ABC News. "It's not that out of the ordinary. We see this day in and day out."

A gazillion. Wow.

This strongly suggests that our President may be not just the most incompetent leader on this planet, but also the closest thing to Zaphod Beeblebrox in this and surrounding galaxies.

For those of you unfamiliar with Beeblebrox, he was, for a short time, the President of the Galaxy which was according to Wikipedia's summary, "(a role that involves no power whatsoever, and merely requires the incumbent to attract attention so no one wonders who's really in charge, which is a role Zaphod was perfectly suited for)."

Through a colossal accounting error known as the 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama was selected to the same assignment, traveling around making inane speeches that inflame allies and encourage our enemies while making humiliating protocol errors like giving foreign heads of state tawdry department store gifts that don't work.

So either Barack Obama is a such a dangerously incompetent leader that the entire galaxy wants him offed, or a fawning media is looking for any chance at all to whip up hysteria by making famous each and every crank they hear about.

I wonder which it is.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:40 AM | Comments (1)

June 04, 2009

A Brilliant Delusion

In a stirring address in Cairo, Egypt, a U.S. President confirmed that he saw the world as he would have it be, and not as it was.

In rhetoric that bared a broad range of thought, from empathy and denial, to wishful thinking and sophomoric ideological fantasy, Barack Obama alarmed allies and confirmed for the nation's enemies that he will do for democracy and the advancement of human rights what George Tiller did for pediatrics.

By all means, go through Obama's Cairo speech... and you tell me how "reality-based" our dorm room Marxist President really is.

He promises common ground with countries that harbor cultures who long ago declared holy war against us...

Well, they have an idea of acceptable common ground as well.

And I wish he'd stop trying so hard to find it again in his drive for appeasement at any price.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:28 AM | Comments (19)

June 03, 2009

Most Brilliant President Evah Declares United States is a Muslim Country

Jake Tapper has discovered that the Administration is now comfortable referencing President Obama's Muslim roots.

I count myself as an Obama critic for many reasons, but I've consistently defended the President's school record even as he attempted to minimize the public's view of his exposure to Islam. He felt—accurately—that there are a lot of religious bigots in this country that would not vote for a Muslim for President, and I'd be shocked if his own internal polling during the election didn't reflect across the board including minority voters as well, especially African-American Baptist congregations in the South and heavily Catholic Latino communities around the country.

Quite frankly, if Barack Obama had not made strong efforts to quash his early ties to Islam as much as possible, there is little reason to suspect that a post-9/11 America would have elected him President.

But the election has been over for months, and through sleight of hand, empty platitudes to be all things to all people, and an utter failure of an adoring media to do even the most basic vetting of the candidate, we've been provided with an inexperienced, pretty President that no one knows anything about.

So perhaps we shouldn't be all that shocked when an un-vetted Obama Administration starts playing up the President's Muslim roots when it becomes convenient to do so, nor should the media feign shock when they did nothing to test the veracity of his earlier downplaying of the same.

Nor should we be surprised by the President's less-than-brilliant performance as a leader, considering the fact he's never held an executive position and America selected him to be a POTUS with training wheels. He has his ideology, if not a grasp of the facts... or economics... or protocol... or foreign policy... or....

Well, you get the idea.

So I'm not surprised when a neophyte President still trapped in dorm-room university Marxism proclaims obvious stupidities and outright lies, like claiming he has "saved or created" jobs when he has been killing them hand-over-fist, or that he is President of 57 states, or that those 57 states just became Muslim overnight.

He is who you elected, America.

And you deserve every second of his Presidency.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:15 AM | Comments (16)

June 01, 2009

The Left Gets Their Andrew Mickel to Celebrate

Via Little Green Footballs, it seems that the suspect arrested in the murder of infanticide specialist George Tiller may be one Scott Roeder.

Charles notes that someone posting under that name has posted at the Web sites of several anti-abortion groups, and that he may be the same Scott Roeder that belongs to several extremist groups on the far right fringe, including the Sovereign Citizen movement, the Freeman, and perhaps the Christian Identity movement. If so, Roeder is far outside the mainstream of American thought, as was his analog, Andrew Mickel.

Those of you familiar with this site know that I've referred to Mickel on several occasions in the past precisely because he is an excellent whipping boy that showcases the extremism that can come from far leftist ideologies. He and Roeder may very well be mirror images of the same sort of extremist-prone mindset that seeks to become a malevolent force.

There are some of us in the center-right blogosphere who came down heavily on Mickel for his politically-motivated assassination of an innocent police officer, but the national media largely ignored Mickel's conviction in a death penalty case, probably because of the fact that they helped shape the terrorist he became, and because he was a living example of the worst extreme of their ideology.

Now that a man identified as Roeder has murdered infanticide specialist George Tiller, the media finally has a politically motivated assassination it can get behind and hype. They will try to portray as some sort of representative example of a much wider group, just as noted conspiracy theorist Andrew Sullivan reflexively did, even though the last murder of an abortionist occurred more than a decade ago.

As I noted earlier, nobody gains from such politically-motivated murders, and I can only wonder how the powers that be will try to use this tragedy to their advantage.

Provided they don't get someone else killed first.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:41 AM | Comments (8)

When You've Lost the Shrieking Radical Cartoonists, You've Lost Them All

Barack Obama seems to be losing the far left wing of his support, as evidenced by pressure from the left wing blogosphere on a number of issues and most recently, a rant from bigoted cartoonist Ted Rall.

Pardon me, but didn't we warn you of this before the election?

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he's dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now — before he drags us further into the abyss.

I refer here to Obama's plan for "preventive detentions." If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in "prolonged detention." Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama's shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK.

In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.

Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people's lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can't control, what George Orwell called "thoughtcrime" — contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.

If Rall and his peers had actually bothered to vet Obama prior to the election, instead of acting as his fluffer, then perhaps he could have avoided the nasty shock of discovering that Barack Obama is exactly what we said he would be if he won the election. America voted for a charismatic, radical orator with a well-oiled field organization and brilliant propaganda, and we got it.

Like the spoiled children they are, they don't seem willing to pay the cost for their decision.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:57 AM | Comments (4)

May 26, 2009

Obama to Nominate "Me, Too" to Supreme Court

The Associated Press is reporting that President Obama is about to nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Justice David Souter.

Like most Obama nominations thus far, she seems to have been selected with ideological conformity and demographic diversity being more important criteria than competence, and is more interested in implementing identity politics and legislating from the bench than strictly interpreting of the Constitution.

Intellectually, Sotomayor is said to be an inferior compared to those Justices already on the court regardless of their political leanings, and it is expected that if she is confirmed, she will do little more than be a "me, too" to the more competent left-leaning justices already established.

In short, the choice of Sotomayer is precisely the kind of disappointing selection Americans are coming to expect out of the current administration, meeting only lowered expectations.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:14 AM | Comments (2)

May 15, 2009

The Psychophantic Left

Earlier this month I wrote:

That there is a torture "debate" shows that we have both immature and immoral intellects in positions of power. "Enhanced interrogation"—and indeed, outright medieval torture tactics (if they were actually effective, and I don't think they are)—are of course morally justified to save the lives of hundreds or thousands.

Immorality as it relates to the use of torture to extract information from known terrorists regarding imminent threats is easily defined as hiding behind abstract ideals and culturally-comfortable moral constructs to justify doing less than everything possible to save Americans lives. Period. It is the leftist position, commonly cited as the "anti-torture" position that is morally bankrupt here, without question.

Any logical person abhors torture, but recognizes that in extremely rare or dire circumstances that it may be the only moral option.

Is anyone really going to argue that if authorities had been tipped off April 17, 1995 that Terry Nichols was involved in a plot to detonate a truck bomb somewhere in the American midwest within 48 hours, that the federal government would have been wrong to waterboard Nichols to learn the location of the building targeted? You simply cannot rationally argue that Nichol's right not to be tortured exceeds the simple right to live for the hundreds at risk in this hypothetical situation (not to mention the very real 168 men, women, and children who died because such a tip never materialized).

Such an absolutist position is clearly asinine, but it is the position of the left wing of the Democratic Party and their psychophants (I'm coining that phase as an amalgam of psychotic and sycophant, and defining it as an ideologically servile person who avoids an uncomfortable reality to maintain a logically untenable position).

Stand up and be counted, psychophants: proudly declare that your "moral outrage" is more important than the lives of others.

Loudly insist that your idealism is more important than the bonds of family, and the crushing loss of senseless deaths. Please explain that your detached ideological angst and politically-driven fantasies of frog-marching George W. Bush to prison are more important than the lives of husbands and wives, daughters and sons.

It is immoral to take such a position, and a position that I don't think I ever recall hearing from the left in earlier times. I somewhat suspect that the rabid and recent adoption of this absolutist psychophantic position actually developed out of a perceived opportunistic chance to undercut a Presidential Administration that leftists hate with an unreasoning primal fury. It is moral absolutism adopted as a means to a political end, every bit as dangerous as the extremism they seek (for the moment) to protect.

Charles Krauthammer re-addressed the torture debate today in the Washington Post, citing another instance where torture gave authorities the information they needed to attempt to stop a terrorist network that had captured an Israeli soldier. Krauthammer picked a horrific example. Soldiers face the possibility of capture as simply part of being soldiers, and the very snatch-and-grab tactics taught to military units around the world to capture prisoners for intelligence gathering purposes simply cannot justify a rationalization for them to be tortured if roles were reversed.

But we're not talking about military operations.

We're discussing admittedly extreme and very rare circumstances, where the lives of many may be saved by using all available methods to extract intelligence from someone known to have murderous intent. It is a thankfully rare situation, but it is a situation where acting to save the lives of the many is clearly the only moral choice.

The radical left, in their opportunistic rage, refuse to see that. Nancy Pelosi and others in the Democratic Party that made the conscious calculus to try to use this immature absolutism as a political weapon are now becoming the collateral damage of their own insincere machinations.

They always knew that in extreme cases, countering extreme events requires extreme actions. They knew that then as they allowed it, they knew it later when they spoke out publicly against it as part of their political theater designed to assuage an an unstable base, and they know it now as they attempt to deny and shift blame away from the truth of what they've always known.

Torture is a horrible thing, but it is not the most horrible thing, and on rare occasions, condoning torture may be the only moral option.

Nancy Pelosi and her liberal allies in the Democratic Party clearly know this. It is too bad they lack the moral courage to stand up and declare it to the irrational extremists in their midst.

I think they'd rather be tortured.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:41 AM | Comments (27)

May 13, 2009

Empty Head Resigns as Empty Suit; Blogger Decides Gay Nazis Are Worse than Illinois Nazis

I've tried to ignore the entire Perez Hilton/Carrie Prejean saga, where we learned that fascism is both alive and accessorized and that having a personality more individualistic than that stamped from a Barbie mold isn't accepted in a bizarre industry where forcing people into pretty plastic pigeonholes is the order of the day.

The entire controversy simply shows that those who trumpet "tolerance!" the loudest have mastered only the pronunciation of that word and not the application. When slanders, slurs, and personal attacks failed to dislodge the object of their ire, one of the leading figures of the smear campaign resigned today for not having her own miltant prejudices affirmed. Sadly, she thinks she has the moral high ground.

It's all very surreal and instructive, though perhaps not in the way that so many of the most outspoken players in this poor bit of theater must have hoped. We're becoming quite a bizarre little nation, and I'm starting to wonder if those railing the loudest for such activist causes will ever accept anything less than the total, unquestioned dominance of their preferred narrative.

Tolerance, indeed.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:49 PM | Comments (5)

May 11, 2009

Who Was on Scare Force One?

That seems to be Ann Althouse's main question in this post, to which I can only answer with what the Air Force told me:

Mr. Owens--

Documents related to your inquiry may be requested through
the Air Force Freedom of Information Act office: request options and
instructions are available at http://www.foia.af.mil/. However, the flight in question occurred as part of a scheduled training mission, so there were no passengers on board. Requested documents therefore will only list military personnel.

Lt Col Tadd Sholtis
Deputy Chief, Current Operations
Secretary of the Air Force Office of Public Affairs

No passengers = No VIPs = No conspiracy theory (or... a bigger one!).

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (10)

Too Far, or the Usual?

This Monday morning The Drudge Report features a menacing picture of former Vice President Dick Cheney looking at President Barack Obama (his back to the camera), with the headline, "Cheney: Obama Endangers the Nation."

Drudge--Cheney: Obama endangers the Nation

The text links to this article, which does indeed cite Cheney as stating that President Obama is rolling back measures taken by the Bush Administration that Cheney felt were responsible for saving American lives by preventing another terrorist attack on American soil after 9/11.

Cheney's statement is hardly surprising, and for anyone who follows national security, not that controversial. Like him or loathe him, Cheney has been Secretary of Defense and Vice President for longer than Barack Obama has been in politics. He is correct in noting that President Pollyanna's return the failed 9/10 policies of treating terrorism as a law enforcement matter is likely to get innocent Americans killed in attacks here at home.

That said, I wonder about the wisdom of Drudge's inflammatory image, and what sort of feeling it is meant to evoke. Mike Potemra says it has a Seven Days in May vibe to it an I won't disagree that the mood is sinister, but I doubt there is any reason for Naomi Wolf to descend into another unhinged rant, either.

And perhaps such dark questioning of a President is simply old hat but new to my eyes... when focused on an incompetent Democratic President instead of a Republican.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:39 AM | Comments (4)

May 08, 2009

Linda Sanchez' Dirty Attack on Free Speech

Linda

Linda Sanchez seems very interested in introducing and then defending a bill written so broadly that it can be used for imprisoning online critics such as hostile bloggers.

You and I understand that Congress is full of less-than-stellar intellects that put up horribly-written bills as a matter of course, but what makes this particular bill of interest is that Sanchez is willing to defend it, and that she doesn't seem to have any interest in re-targeting the language of the bill so that it narrowly focuses on the cyber-bullying of children.

Instead, Sanchez seems to be fighting to justify the much broader language that has the potential of be used abusively as a procedural weapon against legitimate criticism. When politicians attempt to justify bills written so broadly they often do so with ulterior motives.

With her unwillingness to consider more tightly-focused language, there is no reason to assume that Sanchez' involvement is anything other than the censorship bill that Wired blog Threat Level suspects it may be.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:42 AM | Comments (10)

May 07, 2009

The Pro-Torture Obama Justice Department

"We're against torture and for going after those who advocate it—except when we feel justified in using the same argument, of course."

That there is a torture "debate" shows that we have both immature and immoral intellects in positions of power. "Enhanced interrogation"—and indeed, outright medieval torture tactics (if they were actually effective, and I don't think they are)—are of course morally justified to save the lives of hundreds or thousands.

Immorality as it relates to the use of torture to extract information from known terrorists regarding imminent threats is easily defined as hiding behind abstract ideals and culturally-comfortable moral constructs to justify doing less than everything possible to save Americans lives. Period. It is the leftist position, commonly cited as the "anti-torture" position that is morally bankrupt here, without question.

Since it apparently needs to be said: YES, our lives are more important than the rights or lives of terrorists.

When terrorists embrace a belief system and moral code that defines civilians as legitimate targets, they forfeit their their rights.

As someone said elsewhere, if you want a true definition of torture, make someone choose between burning alive or plunging 80 stories to their death. If such a choice can be avoided by waterboarding a terrorist, then the only moral thing to do is to waterboard him, and it is the people who argue otherwise who are morally-stunted children.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:27 AM | Comments (13)

May 06, 2009

College Student Uses Gun to Prevent Potential Mass Homicide, Rape

When I was teaching freshman comp as a grad student at East Carolina University, I always felt safe because I knew one of my most responsible students broke the law, and carried a concealed handgun to class every day. I also suspected other students carried firearms. The simple fact of the matter is that as long as there have been night classes, distant parking lots and crime associated with college communities, there have guns on campus, ans much as some like to keep the illusion that they do not exist.

A studnet like my own former student carried a gun in his backpack (and presumably to class) as my former student did, and if he hadn't, this story might have ended much differently:

"Apparently, his intent was to rape and murder us all," said student Charles Bailey.

Bailey said he thought it was the end of his life and the lives of the 10 people inside his apartment for a birthday party after two masked men with guns burst in through a patio door.

"They just came in and separated the men from the women and said, 'Give me your wallets and cell phones,'" said George Williams of the College Park Police Department.

Bailey said the gunmen started counting bullets. "The other guy asked how many (bullets) he had. He said he had enough," said Bailey.

That's when one student grabbed a gun out of a backpack and shot at the invader who was watching the men. The gunman ran out of the apartment.

One would-be rapist died, and the other suspect is being hunted down. One of the party-goers would wounded in the crossfire and is expected to fully recover.

This is a mass murder—they were counting the bullets to see if they had enough—that didn't happen because a college student was armed with a gun.

Don't expect to see it get near the attention from the media that it deserves.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:11 AM | Comments (28)

May 05, 2009

No Pics, No Perks, and an F-16 a Long Way From Home...

The New York Post is reporting that the $328,835 photo op organized by the White House that terrified New Yorkers will not be released. Apparently an Administration willing to release classified interrogation photos that will be used for terrorist recruiting and inciting attacks against deployed soldiers can't bring itself to release photos of a public event for fear of causing President Obama some indirect personal embarrassment.

Ther is some good news, however, about the flight. Lt Col Tadd Sholtis, of the Air Force Office of Public Affairs, confirmed via email this morning that "the flight in question occurred as part of a scheduled training mission, so there were no passengers on board." Some of my fellow bloggers had wondered if perhaps President Obama's campaign contributors might have been about the VC-25A's strafing of Manhattan, but that was apparently not the case.

As for the F-16 that accompanied the VC-25-A, some people have noticed that the bright-red-tailed plane that accompanied the 747 as it banked above New York Harbor looked very much like the markings of the famed Tuskegee Airmen.

The plane in that photo certainly resembles the F-16s of the 100th Fighter Squadron attached to the 187th Alabama Air National Guard, which carry those distinctive colors as a tribute to the famed Tuskegee Airmen.

It is a long haul from Alabama to Washington to New York and back again, and there are other Regular Air Force units far closer to both DC and New York that could have flown escort for the President's plane if escort was their actual duty. Perhaps the plane from the 160th—if that is indeed what it was—was there as part of the photo op. Captain Cambarella, PAO of the of the 187th has so far declined a request for comment.

If the Alabama ANG fighter did participate, refueling fuel costs alone would seem to warrant nudging the $328,835 cost of the White House debacle further upward.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:42 PM | Comments (6)

YES: You Too Are an Extremist

This one was recalled, perhaps because almost any human capable of forming an opinion was declared an extremist:

A "left-wing extremist" is described as someone who opposes war or is dedicated to environmental and animal rights causes, while a "right-wing extremist" is someone who is against abortion or for border enforcement.

I've got an idea: why don't we go ahead and correctly label the employees of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis as hyperbole extremists?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:58 AM | Comments (1)

April 29, 2009

Something Stupid This Way Comes

Micheal Scheuer plays with fire:

Surprisingly, Obama now stands alongside Bush as a genuine American Jacobin, both of them seeing the world as they want it to be, not as it is. Whereas Bush saw a world of Muslims yearning to betray their God for Western secularism, Obama gazes upon a globe that he regards as largely carnivore-free and believes that remaining threats can be defused by semantic warfare; just stop saying "War on Terror" and give talks in Turkey and on al-Arabiyah television, for example.

Americans should be clear on what Obama has done. In a breathtaking display of self-righteousness and intellectual arrogance, the president told Americans that his personal beliefs are more important than protecting their country, their homes and their families. The interrogation techniques in question, the president asserted, are a sign that Americans have lost their "moral compass," a compliment similar to Attorney General Eric Holder's identifying them as "moral cowards." Mulling Obama's claim, one can wonder what could be more moral for a president than doing all that is needed to defend America and its citizens? Or, asked another way, is it moral for the president of the United States to abandon intelligence tools that have saved the lives and property of Americans and their allies in favor of his own ideological beliefs?

Barack Obama is graciously willing to bet your life on his ideology, a matter of breath-taking arrogance, immaturity, and intellectual desolation, but a position we've come to recognize as his status quo.

Scheuer stops just short of stating that Obama is immoral or amoral; perhaps to avoid inflaming those who would see the President's willingness to purposefully gamble "the loss of major cities and tens of thousands of countrymen" as justification for what Obama's mentors would have glibly described in younger days as "direct action."

It is a dangerous rhetorical game he suggests, and one that other loose cannons may be emboldened to parrot with every dangerous move this incompetent Administration makes.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:22 PM | Comments (7)

April 28, 2009

Fox Rejects Obama Request for News Conference Airtime

They no doubt decided that one prime-time airing of "Lie to Me" was enough.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:31 AM | Comments (0)

April 27, 2009

White House Orders Air Force One to Strafe Manhattan; Obama "Furious"

How incredibly stupid:

President Obama's White House was forced to issue an apology Monday after a photo opportunity gone badly wrong — an Air Force 747 plane did a low flyover over Lower Manhattan, prompting terrified citizens to flee from their offices and high-profile accusations of government insensitivity in the post 9/11 era.

White House Military Office Director Louis Caldera issued a brief statement saying he was too blame.

"Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision," he said. "While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, its clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused."

The panic started Monday morning when a backup 747 known as Air Force One when the president is aboard flew by Lower Manhattan with a U.S. fighter jet closely following, rattling windows and causing some limited evacuations.

Hot Air has several video clips gathered by panicked citizens; judge for yourself if the evacuations or the terror the flight caused as the huge 747 made aggressive high-speed banked turns just above the skyline was in any way "limited."

President Obama, of course, is furious. I rather doubt that he was directly in the loop about the photo op beforehand, but he is certainly taking the heat for it nonetheless, and by the rules the game established by his own supporters over the past eight years, deservedly so.

Regardless of whether or Obama was personally involved in this decision, he is the head of the branch of government that made this decision, and if we've learned anything from his most vocal supporters, it is that the President doesn't have to directly participate in an act to be fully culpable for any adverse reaction.

If President Bush is to blame for torture, the recession, and trumping up fake WMDs to start a preemptive war as the left has howled for years, then President Obama has earned the "right" to take the blame for this debacle and every other than can be tangentially be blamed on his watch.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:16 PM | Comments (3)

April 25, 2009

Betrayer in Chief

Over at NRO's "the tank," Steve Shippert leaves little else to be said about Barack Obama's easy betrayal of the military.

The assault is relentless. It is enraging. And today, the Obama administration's assault on those who dare to defend America from terrorist thugs who rejoice in publicizing beheadings, mass murder, and pure evil are on notice: "You will be punished. We're coming after you."

The target audience now includes the American Warrior. The Obama administration has abdicated the Warrior's defense, refusing to appeal the 2nd Circuit's decision that more photos should be released from investigations of the detention of enemy fighters from the battlefield. The Obama administration has sided with the ACLU and abandoned our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

...

The Obama administration — and those at the Pentagon not standing up in vociferous defense of its warriors — had better buckle up for an American backlash. Pay attention here.

The photos, taken from Air Force and Army criminal investigations, apparently are not as shocking as the photographs from the Abu Ghraib investigation that became a lasting symbol of U.S. mistakes in Iraq. But some show military personnel intimidating or threatening detainees by pointing weapons at them. Military officers have been court-martialed for threatening detainees at gunpoint.

The photos are not egregious. Not even rising to the level of panties on heads. But no matter. The assault is on. And your president — your Commander in Chief — supports it.

The release of these images serves no practical purpose, except perhaps for "enhanced prosecution techniques" against our own. Understand clearly that the purpose of the release — and the Obama administration’s decision to do so willingly if not energetically — is to denigrate the American Warrior and to further the assault on the American psyche.

...

...the principled defense of the warrior is over, by choice of the Obama administration in directing the Pentagon to end the defense short of SCOTUS. It is an outright abdication.

It's utterly an utterly detestable acquiescence of one left-wing radical to a group of like-minded fellow travelers that would rather see our soldiers demoralized or killed than victorious—and that's just what they're willing to admit in public.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:08 PM | Comments (5)

April 24, 2009

Doing the Right Thing

North Carolina State Senator Doug Berger, a Franklin County Democrat, has introduced a bill that would end the requirement for North Carolina sheriff's offices to conduct background checks and issue permits before citizens can buy a pistol or crossbow.

"There should be no infringement on a person's ability to purchase a gun," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Doug Berger, D-Franklin County.

Gun control advocates were shocked when they learned of the bill.

"How can this be the response, that we want to to make it easier (to get guns)?" said Roxane Kolar, executive director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence.

Berger argued that leaving it up to local sheriffs to decide whether to issue a person a gun permit is too subjective.

"We need to begin to look at those laws that are on our books that were written at a time when people did not fully appreciate the Second Amendment," the senator said.

"Did not fully appreciate the Second Amendment," indeed.

The existing law, like so many throughout the country, are the ugly remnants of racist gun control that came down from this nation's founding and through our shared history.

It is particularly poignant that a North Carolina Democrat is the senator offering up such a bill, as it was the North Carolina Democratic Party that staged the only successful coup d'etat in American history, which was followed by the passage of Jim Crow laws that destroyed the rights of African Americans until the Civil Rights era. Among those laws inspired by the Jim Crow era was the process of county sheriffs awarding pistol permits to people of "good character," which was widely understood for many years to mean whites.

Not surprisingly, the bill is already encountering opposition from gun control advocates.

Racists.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:00 PM | Comments (2)

April 22, 2009

Obama's Quietness on His Torturing Allies

Barack Obama doesn't seem to miss an opportunity to criticize the previous administration with the bitter, petty relish one would expect of today's breed of liberal fascist, especially when it comes to attempting to brand officials of the Bush government as torture-loving deviants.

It is strange, then, that Mr. Obama is silent about the torture allegations being levied against the government he recently visited just over our southern border.

Mexican soldiers fighting a war against drug cartels have arbitrarily detained suspects, beating and torturing them with electric shocks, a senior human rights official said on Wednesday.

Mauricio Ibarra, a top investigator at the National Human Rights Commission, said complaints of army abuses have spiked since 10,000 troops surged into Ciudad Juarez, the country's most violent city on the U.S.-Mexican border.

Soldiers charged with patrolling drug hotspots have detained suspects in military barracks -- sometimes for up to 12 hours -- and beaten them to solicit information before turning them over to police investigators, Ibarra said.

"They give them electric shocks on different parts of the body ... testicles, arms, legs, buttocks," Ibarra told Reuters.

I'm not a torture absolutist. While I feel it is a last resort, I'm not the kind of idiot who will cling to the lie that I wouldn't condone it if it is the last, best hope of saving lives that are in imminent danger.

Further, I feel that those who would make the claim that they are against using any means necessary to save lives in imminent danger are either dishonest even with themselves, or they are monsters in their own right, willing to sacrifice the lives of innocents for their own quite-warped absolutist ideology.

That said, the torture outlined above doesn't seem to come close to a standard of imminent jeopardy. Those being allegedly tortured here are certainly not terrorists plotting a near-term attack, and if the allegations are true, some of the Mexican citizens being shocked or beaten may have no ties to the cartels at all.

You would think that the Obama Administration and their sycophants in the progressive blogosphere would be leading the charge against human rights abuses that are occurring within sight of the United States, but apparently, torture only bothers them when the subjects are terrorists wishing to kill Americans.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:49 PM | Comments (17)

April 21, 2009

Duck and Cover

Yes, kids. The media is always willing to cover the Obama Adminstration's butt:

For the first time, an accused domestic terrorist is being added to the FBI's list of "Most Wanted" terror suspects.

Daniel Andreas San Diego, a 31-year-old computer specialist from Berkeley, Calif., is wanted for the 2003 bombings of two corporate offices in California.

Authorities describe San Diego as an animal rights activist who turned to bomb attacks and say he has tattoo that proclaims, "It only takes a spark."

A law enforcement official said the FBI was to announce Tuesday that San Diego was being added to the "Most Wanted" terrorist list. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the announcement ahead of time.

San Diego would be the 24th person on the list, and the only domestic terror suspect.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko declined to comment on the pending announcement.

The move to add a domestic, left-wing terrorist to the list comes only days after the Obama administration was criticized for internal reports suggesting some military veterans could be susceptible to right-wing extremist recruiters or commit lone acts of violence. That prompted angry reactions from some lawmakers and veterans groups.

I have to ask—by what standard is San Diego the first domestic terrorist added to the FBI's "Most Wanted" list?

Ted Kaczynski was a high-profile left-wing domestic terrorist that went on a 17-year bombing spree that put him on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list as the Unabomber.

Eric Robert Rudolph was on the "Most Wanted" list as a right wing domestic terrorist when he was captured in 2003.

Those are just the first two domestic terrorists that were on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list that immediately come to my mind; I strongly suspect there were others.

If I didn't know better, I might suspect that the addition of an obscure left-wing terrorist who planted two bombs that caused no injuries and only minor property damage to "Most Wanted" list was a political calculation, perhaps made specifically to help take the heat off a DHS Secretary under fire for supporting the release of a controversial report that labeled mainstream conservative values as those belonging to extremists, and who more or less stated military veterans were too stupid to keep from being duped into joining extremist groups.

I'll leave it to others to judge which.

Correction: As Jim notes in the comments, there are two distinct "Most Wanted" lists maintained by the FBI, the traditional "Most Wanted" list that focuses on criminals and one created specifically for terrorism suspects in 2002. While Kaczynski and Rudolph are without a doubt domestic terrorists, they were listed on the FBI's traditional "Most Wanted" list, and not the terrorism list. The AP article was correct in listing San Diego as the first domestic terrorist added to the terrorism list, even if he wasn't close to being the first domestic terrorist.

The timing of adding left-wing bomber San Diego, a minor figure in every respect, at this time, is still highly suspect.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:24 AM | Comments (10)

April 20, 2009

The Sullivan Orthodoxy

While Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton walked away as Miss America last night, it was runner-up Miss California that got the headlines for her answer to Perez Hilton's question about gay marriage:

When asked by judge Perez Hilton, an openly gay gossip blogger, whether she believed in gay marriage, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, said "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

That is hardly an unconventional view in most of America, but it did expose the blithering self-centered cluelessness of at least some of those in attendance:

Miss California's answer sparked a shouting match in the lobby after the show. "It's ugly," said Scott Ihrig, a gay man, who attended the pageant with his partner. "I think it's ridiculous that she got first runner-up. That is not the value of 95 percent of the people in this audience. Look around this audience and tell me how many gay men there are."

Is he actually arguing that state and national policy should be determined by the audience demographics of beauty pageants?

Why not?

It seems to be how "conservative" Andrew Sullivan forms most of his political opinions.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:36 AM | Comments (13)

April 15, 2009

Hmmm... where was the DHS Report on These Guys?

Left-wing fascism is alive and well and violent in Chapel Hill:

Campus police used pepper spray on student protesters angry over immigration issues who disrupted a speech by former Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Hundreds of protesters denouncing Tancredo's tough stances against illegal immigration gathered at Bingham Hall on Tuesday evening, shouting profanities at the former Colorado congressman, who tried to speak about his opposition to in-state tuition for unauthorized immigrants.

Tancredo left after a protester broke a window and police shut down the event. He had been invited by a student group that opposes mass immigration and multiculturalism.

Sadly, there were some pro-immigration UNC students that wanted to hear Tancredo if only to debate his points, but the violence, profanity, and threats forced the cancellation of his speech.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:39 AM | Comments (3)

TEA Party Protests Today

Via What Bubba Knows, a letter from a British blogger regarding the hundreds of TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party protests that are taking place today across the United States:

To all of my dear and beloved American friends;

Tomorrow is a day which shall be remembered as the day when Americans decided to retake their country from the left, from Marxism, from appeasement and cowardice. It especially should be a day when Americans finally stand up and take back their country from the thieves who sought not only their money, but their freedom as well. I expect nothing less from Americans who have proven time and time again that they cannot be beaten or intimidated.

For those of you here locally, there is a Raleigh Tea Party from 6:30PM to 8:30PM in downtown Raleigh at the state Capitol, and if you are one of the 299 million Americans that live outside of Wake County, you can find your local protest here.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:38 AM | Comments (1)

April 13, 2009

Drowning Man

I was rather startled to pull up Memeorandum this morning to see that it was apparently Barack Obama, and not Captain Richard Phillips who benefited most from the sharpshooting skills of Navy SEALS off the African coast yesterday.


In the Washington Post, Michael D. Shear gushed in an article headlined An Early Military Victory for Obama:

For President Obama, last week's confrontation with Somali pirates posed similar political risks to a young commander in chief who had yet to prove himself to his generals or his public.

But the result -- a dramatic and successful rescue operation by U.S. Special Operations forces -- left Obama with an early victory that could help build confidence in his ability to direct military actions abroad.

Throughout the past four days, White House officials played down Obama's role in the hostage drama. Until yesterday, he made no public statements about the pirates.

In fact, aides said yesterday, Obama had been briefed 17 times since he returned from his trip abroad, including several times from the White House Situation Room. And without giving too many details, senior White House officials made it clear that Obama had provided the authority for the rescue.

"The president's focus was on saving and protecting the life of the captain," one adviser said. Friday evening, after a National Security Council telephone update, Obama granted U.S. forces what aides called "the authority to use appropriate force to save the life of the captain." On Saturday at 9:20 a.m., Obama went further, giving authority to an "additional set of U.S. forces to engage in potential emergency actions."


One of President Obama's favored cheerleaders in the Associated Press, Jennifer Loven, teamed up with Phillip Elliott to also sing Obama's praises in an article headlined Obama twice approved force to rescue hostage:

President Barack Obama twice authorized the military to rescue a U.S. captain who was being held by Somali pirates and whose life appeared to be at risk, administration officials said after Sunday's rescue.

The Defense Department twice asked Obama for permission to use military force to rescue Capt. Richard Phillips from a lifeboat off the Somali coast. Obama first gave permission around 8 p.m. Friday, and upgraded it at 9:20 a.m. Saturday. Officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said the second order was to encompass more military personnel and equipment that arrived in the Indian Ocean to engage the pirates.

If is sounds like President Obama is being painted as a heroic leader for his role in this incident by his supporters in the media... well, yes, that's exactly what they are doing.

But as former Green Beret Master Sergeant Jim Hanson noted, Obama's heroic sign-offs were simple and perfunctory:

The standing authority gave them clearance to engage the pirates if the life of the captain was in imminent danger.

In other words, the decision to fire was an understood reactive measure by the on-scene commander to a provocative act taken by the pirates, not a proactive measure taken by the President.

In a crisis where an American citizen's life was on the line, President Obama got out of the way and let the professionals do their jobs. It's a nice change of pace from his Presidency thus far, but not screwing up shouldn't be grounds for exhorting him as if he had just planned and executed Operation Overlord.

So why is the media so eager to puff up the President's role in a matter in which he had no direct role or immediate authority?

It could simply be that the American media is hoping to latch on to a victory—no matter how tangential— for a President mocked overseas for non-scripted weaknesses, continuous gaffes of protocol, and his artless foreign policy naivety.

Barack Obama opted against the political suicide of not allowing the military to use deadly force to save the life of an American threatened by armed pirates. That doesn't make him Nimitz.

Instead, this too-eager response paints him him look like a politician drowning in a sea of incompetence, with his fawning press desperately tosses him anything they can to help him stay afloat.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:01 AM | Comments (5)

April 12, 2009

As Only Clowns Can

Captain Richard Phillips escaped from his Somali captors and threw himself off the lifeboat once more, and this time, Navy SEALS were lurking in the water to receive him.

The results were predictable:

Three of the pirates were killed and one was in custody after what appeared to be a swift firefight off the Somali coast, the official said.

Initial reports indicate Phillips jumped overboard for a second time and the military was able to take advantage of the situation.

With cartoonish predictability, the "progressives" at Think Progress found common cause and sympathy not with the Captain, but the pirates.

For the Children!

And of course, if it's evil, you-know-who must have been involved:

I think it's more than just a little bit funny that Bush is at the root of all the evil in the world and yet is a knuckle-dragging moron, but then, what passes for progressive thought these days is more about innuendo and groupthink than anything resembling logic.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:34 PM | Comments (14)

April 10, 2009

Meanwhile, In The Free (Less Beholden Media) Countries...

With the noted exception of (nearly real) libertarian flamethrower Glenn Beck and a gaggle of significant conservative critics I can count on my fingers, the American media that helped elect Barack Obama continues to act as his greatest support system. They filter out missteps, explain away gaffes, bury calamities and write disastrous choices out of history so that Americans that view the news with an uncritical eye may be forgiven for thinking that our President is somehow competent.

After all the media says he's doing such a great job, right?

The foreign press, however, did not tie their credibility to playing up Obama as a leg-tingling "lightworker" as the American press did, and the salvos directed against Obama's ineptitude, his classlessness, and his arrogance have been epic.

The latest bombs dropped on Obama from Gerald Warner in the UK Telegraph is an example of the kind of commentary that are becoming all too common:

President Barack Obama has recently completed the most successful foreign policy tour since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. You name it, he blew it. What was his big deal economic programme that he was determined to drive through the G20 summit? Another massive stimulus package, globally funded and co-ordinated. Did he achieve it? Not so as you'd notice.

Make sure to read to the final paragraphs for Warner's new nickname for our President.

Our oldest allies have taken the measure of our President, and find him sorely lacking. I'm sure our enemies noticed that even quicker than our allies. We can only hope that our foolish November decision to elect a slogan instead of a leader won't be a moral mistake.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 PM | Comments (6)

April 05, 2009

The Right Wing Paranoia That Drove Richard Polawski To Commit Murder

The best minds progressive politics has to offer have apparently met on their little list and determined that—eureka!—it is the fault of the evil right wing neocon media that an unemployed sociopath ambushed and killed three police officers in Pittsburgh that were responding to a domestic violence call placed by his mother.

Explains the Neiwert:

We're gathering more information about Richard Polawski, the 23-year-old man who decided to kill three Pittsburgh police officers and wound three others because it appears he was afraid they -- at the behest of the Obama administration -- were going to take his guns away. (Dude, they definitely are now.)

Seems he was laying in wait in a carefully planned ambush:

Richard Poplawski, 23, met officers at the doorway and shot two of them in the head immediately, Harper said. An officer who tried to help the two also was killed.

Poplawski, armed with an assault rifle and two other guns, then held police at bay for four hours as the fallen officers were left bleeding nearby, their colleagues unable to reach them, according to police and witnesses. More than 100 rounds were fired by the SWAT teams and Poplawski, Harper said.

And he was paranoid about the Obama administration taking people's guns away -- even though, of course, there have been no indications of any such plans beyond NRA rantings:


Of course there have been no indications that the Administration wants to put in place additional restrictions or bans.

Not here, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/urban_policy/:

Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

All of those plans to further restrict the rights of Americans—and threaten the safety of police officers— on President Obama's official Presidential agenda have been previously been debunked. Police groups are against the repeal of Tiahrt Amendment, the gun show loophole is a myth, and the net result of the Assault Weapons Ban was to create and entirely new class of ultra-compact centerfire handguns, with no measurable impact on crime and an increase in gun availability and popularity.

The only reason to favor any of the measures Obama does above is the incremental encroachment of the Second Amendment, which has been a constant theme of his entire political career.

More of those "NRA rantings" have come from Attorney General Eric Holder, who said:

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Holder told reporters.

Holder said that putting the ban back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border.

Holder's statement was immediately downplayed by the White House, but it was never disavowed, as it an accurate reflection of Obama's official policy.

As for the story being spread by the Administration—including President Obama, AG Holder, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—that 90% of guns recovered from the Mexican cartels had their origins in the United States and therefore justify more gun control, that has also been exposed as a total lie.

The Mexican government only turns over to the U.S. government guns that they think had the possibility of being traced to America. The vast majority of the weapons they've recovered from the cartels in the past two years—more than 20,000—were from other sources including the Mexican military, and included weapons not available on the U.S. gun market at any price.

None of this, of course, is an excuse for this thug's ambush of police officers trying to uphold the peace. Not his job loss, nor his dishonorable discharge in Marine Corps boot camp, nor his Klannish (nearly progressive) hatred of Zionism, nor his psychological defects or fears.

Anger, is an emotion. It is apolitical and amoral, neither right nor wrong nor identifiable with a party affiliation. It is how a person choses to channel anger into action that defines him as good or evil or benign.

A person could channel his anger and fear of an Administration's clear desire to restrict Constitutional rights in a good way by becoming politically active and working to make sure others know of the infringements the President desires.

Or a person could use his anger and channel them into evil actions, such as murdering police officers... or use the story about those murders, along with willful lies and half truths, to attack others for a momentary political advantage.

Both are evil acts.

It's simply a matter of degree.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:22 AM | Comments (19)

April 01, 2009

Simple Logic in a Time of Madness

Republicans have now offered an alternative budget that is based upon a very simple truth that seems to elude both the President and Congress, that a nation cannot spend its way out of debt.

It proposes stopping all non-stimulative "stimulus" spending, freezing most discretionary spending for five years, and implementing a simple, common-sense tax structure so simple that even an Obama Administration appointee can figure it out.

Will Congress or the President embrace the entirely rational approach of lessening the growth of government spending in troubled times?

Of course not.

It took years of dedicated, concentrated self-deception for Democrats to finally reach the point where they could create a "reality-based community" so logically damaged that they could reassure each other that government-by-Ponzi-scheme was a viable economic model.

They will not let such a grand self-deception go down without a fight, and you can bet your last Yuan that the more brutal reality intrudes, the worse the cognitive dissonance of their fellow travelers will get.

Democrats will continue to spend money we don't have at an ever increasing pace until they are either thrown out of office or the country itself is bankrupted.

The President and his Congress are crashing.

It may be too late the stop the car, but if we can act quickly enough, strongly enough, we might be able to lessen the inevitable impact.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:47 PM | Comments (6)

March 29, 2009

N.C. Democratic Senator: Obama's Budget "Completely Unsustainable and Unacceptable."

North Carolina 's junior senator Kay Hagan defeated incumbent Elizabeth Dole in November, riding a Democratic wave that saw Barack Obama win in a normally "red" state.

That hasn't kept Hagan, who now holds Jesse Helms' old seat, from lashing out at the big government bloat of one of the most incompetent Administrations in American history.*

From WRAL:

"e;I agree with a number of ideas in President Obama's budget, but I was particularly concerned about the deficit spending in his proposal," Hagan said in a speech at the North Carolina Associated Press Broadcast annual meeting at Elon University. "It's completely unsustainable and unacceptable."

Her decision to renounce some of the popular president's ideas comes as a striking contrast to her campaign last year, when she cozied to his mantra of change as North Carolina voters swept both into office. It underscores her eagerness to depart from the big-government plans of her party even as she tries to influence legislation as a backbencher in Washington's upper chamber.

The Democratic lawmaker who took office on Capitol Hill just three months ago said she has been working with colleagues to cut the growth in non-defense spending from 12 percent in Obama's budget to 6 percent. The former state Senate budget writer said politicians right now need to discourage spending that does not create jobs or improve the economy.

Remember, folks—this is from a Democrat who used Obama's surging popularity to get into office; she's now distancing herself from him as much as she can within the party, and just after a little more than two months into Obama's Presidency.

* William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia on his 32nd day in office. That's worse, I guess, though it might be interesting to see what Harrison accomplished in 32 days versus Obama.

Harrison was replaced by John Tyler, the Joe Biden of his generation, who is generally referred to one of the worst Presidents in American history and was deemed "His Accidency" by his many critics.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:52 AM | Comments (8)

March 24, 2009

Obama's Press Conference in a Nutshell

Capitalism is a systemic virus that we cannot hope to kill, and as distasteful as that thought is to my Administration, it is something that we can hope to control if you give us unprecedented power.

We need to institute cap-and-trade so that we move from real, but pollution-causing energy sources to environmentally-friendly solutions that presently, err, do not exist.

And sure, my budget will most likely bankrupt the United States if we're off even a little bit, but if we don't spend hundreds of billions to institute a bunch of vague, wide-ranging, and ideologically-driven policy prescriptions, then we might end up broke anyway because of impossible—hey look, a bunny!

We've going to cut the deficit in half, which is why our national debt will being to skyrocket. It's simple economics. For growth we need sustainable um, other examples of domestic products... dropping discretionary defense spending to lowest levels since the 60s. Hey, do my critics offer a better idea? Let's talk about Mexico!

We're going to look at the border with literally hundreds of more people, and we're trying to find a way to use this as an excuse to push for gun and ammunition control. We'll do everything we can... except build an actual physical border.

The VA is underfunded and we hope to make cost saving in the procurement system to make up for the money we need for veterans care. We'll scrap expensive new weapons that underperform, to keep providing our troops with existing weapons systems that are overused and obsolete to the point that they also underperform.

Invest, invest, invest.

And by that, I mean let's spend your money.

I'm going to give a long and rambling misdirection instead of answering your question about AIG, though I will admit I didn't voice my opinion because I didn't know what was going on.

The Chinese idea of doing away with the dollar is admittedly a different plan, but hey, wouldn't a "yen menu" at McDonald's be cool? Not that a new global currency is needed. Yet.

We're not going to renew the Bush tax cuts for the middle class. We're going to introduce the Obama tax cuts. See how much more I care about you than anyone since Reagan? Any by "Reagan," I mean shut up, capitalist, or you might just find a busload of sedated ACORN drones outside your house in the morning.

Please don't look at how I'm in favor of penalizing charities. And lets go to the decaffinated hack from Ebony who uses a discredited report on homeless children to make a point, showing why Kevin Chappell has no more business being a reporter than Dave Chappell. Oh, and did I mention we'll start programs to help them with housing? Now hand over your wallets.

Race does not enter into the equation in my Administration, except for the searing legacy of racial discrimination I like to use when it's convenient. American's instead have looked at me based upon my incompetence, not my appearance.

Cloning, stem cells, abortion... come on. It's just meat, like that $100/lb Wagyu steak I'm going to have when I'm done with you, reporter-man.

As for the Jews and Palestinians, we need a two-state solution. I have no idea how to really do anything to help the genocidal terrorists more than giving them more credibility than cash, like the $900 million of your tax dollars I just gave them. Luckily, I didn't say that out loud. Maybe we should send them a video instead. Youtube, not DVD. What was the question?

Back to the economy.

Uh, Good night.

Update: Kaus explodes on Chappell's idiocy.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:57 PM | Comments (7)

March 22, 2009

Bestest President Evah

I refuse to believe this is possible.

There is simply no way that Barack Obama, President of the United States, did not know Nicolas Sarkozny has been the President of France for the past two years.

No world leader could be that daft, his administration so glaringly incompetent, as to send a letter pledging co-operation with a man no longer in office.

Then again, it might explain Obama's shabby treatment of Gordon Brown.

He may have been expecting Margaret Thatcher.

Update: Thank God. Obama was replying to a letter from Chirac and not blindly sending out a dim-witted letter to an actual head of state that could easily be mocked.

You know. Like he did with the Russians.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:05 PM | Comments (27)

March 20, 2009

Cradle and All

If you thought that American media outlets are little more than extensions of JounoList and the White House Press Office... well, you might be on to something.

Unlike the eight years that ended January 20th, the sharpest critiques of our failing and flailing government are now coming from those outside of America, as foreign newspapers do the job Americans won't do:

Helicopter Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve is dropping trillions of fresh paper dollars on the world economy, the President of the United States is cracking jokes on late night comedy shows, his energy minister is threatening a trade war over carbon emissions, his treasury secretary is dithering over a banking reform program amid rising concerns over his competence and a monumentally dysfunctional U.S. Congress is launching another public jihad against corporations and bankers.

As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U.S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?

Probably not, if only because there are good reasons for optimism. The U.S. economy has pulled out of self-destructive political spirals in the past, spurred on by its business class and corporate leaders, the profit-making and market-creating people who rose above the political turmoil to once again lift the world out of financial crisis. It’s happened many times before, except for once, when it took 20 years to rise out of the Great Depression.

Past success, however, is no guarantee of future recovery, especially now when there are daily disasters and new indicators of political breakdown. All developments are not disasters in themselves. The AIG bonus firestorm is a diversion from real issues , but it puts the ghastly political classes who make U.S. law on display for what they are: ageing self-serving demagogues who have spent decades warping the U.S. political system for their own ends. We see the system up close, law-making that is riddled with slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship.

One test of whether we are witnessing the end of America is how many more times Americans put up with congressional show trials of individual business people and their employees, slandering and vilifying them for their actions and motives. And for how long will they tolerate a President who berates business and corporations as dens of crime and malfeasance? If the majority of Americans come to accept the caricatures of business as true, then America is closer to the end of its life as a global leader, as a champion of markets and individualism.

Our incompetent Congress and President are so lacking in situational awareness that they can't see that nearly every move they've made has compounded the problems facing our country. Every massive spending bill passed, every angry attempt at placing the blame on others, every pathetic foreign policy rookie mistake and unforced diplomatic error, every abortive attempt to impose massive new government controls over American life, is pushing us closer towards a point where we have no confidence in our nation's supposed "leadership." Closer to a failed state than we could ever imagine.

A member of our Senate last week had the audacity to proclaim that businessmen should resign or commit suicide for accepting money they were owed under contract.

Perhaps some people should eat a bullet, or swallow a handful of pills with a bourbon chaser, or at least resign as a result of the horrific decisions they've made that have threatened and wrecked not just individual lives, but entire economies.

But there is no honor among thieves, and the thieves in our Congress and White House lack the integrity to do the honorable thing. They won't admit their incompetence and resign. They sure as Hell won't voluntarily die to assuage some foreign (to them) sense of honor.

I still hold out hope that we'll find a way to pull out of our current economic collapse, but the more Congress grandstands in order to ignore real problems, and the more our President bogs himself down in constant gaffes, petty dalliances, and dreams of social engineering the America of his dreams, the less likely it seems that will happen.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:00 AM | Comments (6)

March 19, 2009

What Might Have Bean

"Administration Presses Students into Farm Labor" --New York Times

"President's Sweatshop Agriculture" -- Mother Jones

"Executive Branch Breaches International Child Labor Laws" --Amnesty International

"First Lady Plans Subsistence Farming on White House Grounds To Survive Crashing Economy" Newsweek

"COUP IMMINENT: Concentration Camps Under Construction" --Raw Story

"President Avoids Getting His Hands Dirty" -- Think Progress

At least, that is how this story would have been told if Bush was still in office.

Old School

Politician buys unremarkable stock.

Unremarkable stock skyrockets in price months later.

Politician unloads his stock the very next day, walks away with a handsome profit.

I'm soure there was nothing untoward going on, at all.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:54 AM | Comments (7)

March 17, 2009

Hey Grassley: You First

Fox News reports the following idiotic outburst by Iowa Senator Charles Grassley:

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley suggested on Monday that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves.

The Republican lawmaker's harsh comments came during an interview with Cedar Rapids, Iowa, radio station WMT. They echo remarks he has made in the past about corporate executives and public apologies, but went further in suggesting suicide.

"I suggest, you know, obviously, maybe they ought to be removed," Grassley said. "But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.

"And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology."

I've got an idea for you, Chuck.

As you took $26,250 from AIG in 2007-2008 alone, why don't you lead by example?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:40 AM | Comments (8)

March 16, 2009

We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us

Jane Hamsher & Friends suddenly discovered that blindly electing a bunch of corrupt big government tax-and-spend liberals who owe their allegiances to their biggest donors is a bad thing.

Who knew?

Reading the comment thread there, it doesn't seem any of those engaging in the wailing and gnashing of teeth has the self-awareness to recognize that:

  • this outcome was entirely predictable result of willingly turning a blind-eye to the fact that Democratic Party owes more to corporate donors than the Republicans, and have for quite some time
  • the liberal practice of trying to spend wads of other people's money doesn't just reach into the pockets of the opposition
  • when you elect a President based on rhetoric instead of competence, you get predictably dismal results
  • it's better not to yell "who stole our country?" when you're still wearing your mask and waving your cap gun

Hamsher now wants a Congressional inquisition to skewer several Obama administration officials (starting with Geithner and Summers), to see if they are "too closely aligned " with Wall Street.

She's too ideologically blind, of course, to see that it was the very Congress and President she championed that are at the root of the problem.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:47 PM | Comments (12)

March 13, 2009

The Circus Continues

The headline at the Washington Post says it all:

Fourth Nominee Withdraws From Treasury's Roster.

Bush was the fighter pilot, but Obama needs only one more to become an "ace."

H. Rodgin Cohen, chairman of the New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, has withdrawn his name from consideration for deputy Treasury secretary, becoming the fourth pick for a prominent Treasury Department post to pull out in recent weeks.

A prominent attorney who has advised many of the top Wall Street firms, Cohen dropped out after the White House found an issue during his vetting process, two sources familiar with the matter said. The sources declined to identify the reason. Cohen did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Though the Treasury is filling its lower-level positions, the thin ranks on the senior levels are taking a toll on the department's ability to deal with a financial crisis that continues to deepen in scope and complexity, government and industry officials say.

At this point, I think our young President's vetting team should resign and consider a career in porn.

After all, they've already seen more messy withdrawals than Jenna Jameson.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:00 AM | Comments (17)

March 10, 2009

Exploding Whale Obamanomics

The parallel to Obamanomics?

Those in charge are completely unprepared to handle the task at hand, but desperately decide on an untested "big bang" approach to try get rid of the stench, even though even the smallest amount of foresight could have predicted the results.

They proceed anyway against all common sense, and the resulting mess coats everyone in foul-smelling crap, threatens the citizenry, crushes the automotive sector, and depresses real estate values.

Now they find themselves in a far worse situation, where the clean-up of the fallout from a hastily made decision will last far longer than it would have if more measured, common sense clean-up efforts had been taken in the first place.

Can you think of a better metaphor?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:54 AM | Comments (9)

March 09, 2009

Dear World, I'm Sorry....

Actually, no I'm not. And I won't be, unless I'm forced to join you on the breadlines.

You wanted this guy to be our President, even though you were warned about the fact he was largely an unknown, selling a self-edited pipe-dream far removed from his actual radical associations and the disturbing lack of anything substantive on his résumé.

"Hey, he was a doorstop of a state legislator laughed at by his peers who fumbled his way into becoming the most radical and least experienced member of the U.S. Senate—Let's make him President!"

And inexplicably, you did.

But he isn't a leader; he's a dare gone horribly awry.

He's a radical deep in dorm-room philosophy and etherial in substance, brilliant in presentation but devoid of character and substance.

But gosh darn it, he sure looks pretty!

I hope that comforts you, considering the fact that the rest of world realizes he is now in over his head.

(h/t Hot Air)

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:53 AM | Comments (7)

March 07, 2009

Obama Spurs Interest in Outdoors

A friend from high school told me via Facebook and later in email that she and her family in Tennessee are going to be buying a small farm as a fallback in case of economic collapse. Neither she nor he husband have experience farming, but feel that having land and a farmhouse where they can grow and stock food is perhaps the best insurance they can have to ensure their kids have a roof over their heads and food on the table if things get really bad.

I've talked to one or two other people who are also thinking about or developing "worst-case" scenarios, both short and long term, but most people are quiet about their preparations. But preparing they are.

They are obviously not alone. This book, The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life, is #18 on Amazon's Best Seller list this morning, and Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life is #29.

And as you already well know, both firearm and ammunition sales have skyrocketed, and more popular guns and the ammunition for them cannot be had in many locations, at any price, due to scarcity and hoarding.

Individual families are preparing, but they also know many people aren't, and so they are stocking up quietly. They do not want to become targets for those who either can't afford to prepare, or who refuse to out of some variation of "it can't happen here" groupthink.

Incidentally, Atlas Shrugged, which was written by an author who saw communism take over her country and the damage it wrought, is also once again selling well on Amazon, at #37.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:15 AM | Comments (12)

March 05, 2009

Obama Gunning For Presidential Record

Over at Hot Air Ed Morrissey duly notes that two more prospective would-be nominees have preemptively fled the albatross of being associated the Obama Administration.

Officially, Obama is just one flubbed Cabinet appointment away (at three, and counting) from equaling a dubious record of incompetence, a record currently held by the tenth President, John Tyler, who had four.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:53 PM | Comments (1)

March 04, 2009

Serfs Up

Americans seem confused that Barack Obama is taking step after step that sends the stock market plunging ever lower and our Republic careening toward financial ruin. It confuses them, that this gifted orator would institute policies so obviously flawed. They have it in their hearts and heads that this President would want to stop the recession.

But why would he? Ever significant mentor Barack Obama has ever had, from Frank Marshall Davis to Saul Alinsky to Bill Ayers to Jeremiah Wright, has been driven by the thought of punishing America, of ripping it apart and reforging it to their liking.

Should it be any surprise at all than a man so shaped would function exactly as he was led?

The more Barack Obama can wreck the economy, the more he can turn individuals—and some states—into destitute big government dependents. As his Chief of Staff noted, they have every intention of seizing the opportunity that comes with this financial crisis.

Sadly, for all those poor souls who thought gifted teleprompter reading skills made the most radical liberal and least experienced Senator competent to be President, it is forcing them into dependency that he needs more than their goodwill. Its only going to get worse folks, and it's going to get worse by design.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:00 PM | Comments (29)

March 02, 2009

Our President Is Out of His Depth

Not that most of you haven't already started coming to that conclusion yourselves.

I don't know why so many people have put their blind faith into a man who has phenomenal public-speaking skills, but who has never had a prominent real-world job.

Barack Obama has never been in charge of anything even as substantial as a Cub Scout troop den, and it shows.

Perhaps Americans are in denial, clinging to an illusion to simply avoid taking responsibility for allowing themselves to be duped into voting for a man big enough for a television screen, but woefully too small, too inconsequential in substance, for the Presidency.

The market is less forgiving.

And we're all paying the price.

Update: How petty. Not to mention a transparent sop to the netroots to keep them distracted, so they won't turn on him for his obvious and growing inadequacies.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:47 PM | Comments (14)

February 28, 2009

Hope and Chains

In one of his first acts in office as President, Barack Obama turned over the future of America to one of the least effective House Speakers in U.S. history. He allowed her compatriots to compile a wish list of pet projects under the guise of stimulating the economy, which she and her counterparts in the Senate then rammed through Congress without any of them knowing fully what was inside.

After a three-day vacation less than one month into the job, Barack Obama signed this bill, the largest spending bill in world history, into law. . . without reading it.

Then President Obama placed Joe Biden in charge of this massive spending plan. This he did, even though his Senate peers thought so little of Biden's skills over the course of his 33-year Senate career that he was never given a leadership role not mandated by seniority.

Our new President taxes and spends, and the more taxing and spending he proposes, the more the economy nosedives.

Mr. Obama has now issued the first budget he has ever proposed at any level of government. This budget is nothing more than another deficit-spending spree one so vast, so expansive, that its kind has been unseen since the Second World War when we were bankrolling a fight for our way of life. . . a way of life our young President seems eager to reshape.

Obama and his allies in Congress plan to continue raising taxes and increasing both government growth and power, during a time that both history and economics tells us government should be slashing expenses, lowering taxes, and removing obstacles that keep businesses from creating more jobs.

It is horrific and painful to comtemplate, but barely a month in office, Barack Obama has made decisions that have rippled down to cause more damage to the U.S. and global economies than the terror attacks of 9/11.

Yes, I readily admit that sounds melodramatic, extremist, and shrill. And that is why, with somber hearts, we must fall silent in sad contemplation at the unquestioned, factual truth of the damage our new President has wrought thus far.

Our young and charismatic President, in his fresh and glowing glory, is trying to spend his way out of debt with one massive spending plan after another; an act as mad as drilling holes in the bottom of the ship in hopes of letting out the icy dark sea underneath.

We threaten to go under, and he still drills more holes, chaining our wailing children to the deck under the weigh of future debt he piles upon them.

I understand that our President sincerely wants to do what he thinks is best for our country.

But you can't make a nation's economy grow by taxing it into ruin, or spending it into oblivion, and it is madness to think otherwise.

". . . these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang."
--Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:00 AM | Comments (13)

February 23, 2009

Another Unforced Error

President Barack Obama, fresh off the most expensive first month as POTUS in American history, has now tapped Joe Biden to oversee the implementation of the stimulus package.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same Joe Biden that was viewed as being so incompetent that his own Democratic leadership never put him in a single leadership role in a 33-year Senate career that wasn't mandated by seniority?

And now you want him in charge of the most expensive spending plan in history?

Brilliant move, Mr. President.

Let's hope it turns out better than it did the last time.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:48 PM | Comments (6)

Brownshirts and Violent Felons You Can Believe In

A bit more on the Obama-trained ACORN thugs that are breaking into homes for people who can't be bothered to be responsible for their own actions, starting with their poster child, convicted felon Donna Hanks.

From CY reader Sherry, who did a public records search that ACORN apparently wouldn't do, and posted her results in the comments of Obama's Brownshirts Begin Breaking into Homes as "Civil Disobedience."

Thought you might be interested in some REAL information related to this foreclosure; Donna Hanks initially purchased her home (315 South Ellwood, Baltimore, MD 21224) on 7/06/2001 for $87,000. At some date between 2001 and 2006 she re-financed the original mortgage for the amount of $270,000 with a mortgage payment of $1,662.00. The FIRST foreclosure on this home was filed 5/31/2006. Donna Hanks filed for bankruptcy 6/16/06 during which a payment plan was approved for the $10,500 she was behind in her payments. This action stopped the original foreclosure. When she did not meet the terms of the bankruptcy re-payment, a second foreclosure action was started in January 2008. At the time she had not made her mortgage payments since September 2007. It should be noted that her salary per the bankruptcy paperwork was $1625 per month and she was working a 2nd and 3rd job (supposedly giving her an additional $1,275 in monthly income - the employers were not listed). Over extended? Also, during 2007 she was renting our her basement illegally (she was taken to court) and receiving rent while she was not making her mortgage payments. The mortgage company "raised" her payment $300 a month - right? Well, not exactly it was $340. The amount that she had agreed to pay back in arrears. Not exactly truthful, but what I would expect from a person with her criminal record (theft and assault 2nd degree and possession of a dangerous weapon with intent to injure). Oh and there is the small matter of breaking and entering. The house at 315 South Ellwood had already been sold at auction on 6/26/08 for $192,000. It just took them until September 2008 to get her out. Nothing like public information - it seems Acorn could have found this same information before they helped this "poor" victimized woman...

Who will ACORN try to steal a home for next... Tawana Brawley?

Michele Malkin has more.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)

February 20, 2009

Obama's Brownshirts Begin Breaking into Homes as "Civil Disobedience"

Hope. Change. Home Invasions.

A community organization breaks into a foreclosed home in what they are calling an act of civil disobedience.

The group wants to train homeowners facing eviction on peaceful ways they can remain in their homes.

Derek Valcourt reports their actions are not without controversy.

Near Patterson Park, the padlock on the door and the sign in the window tell part of Donna Hanks foreclosure story.

"The mortgage went up $300 in one month," said Hanks, former homeowner.

She says the bank refused to modify her loan and foreclosed, kicking her out of the house in September.

The community group ACORN calls Hanks a victim of predatory lending.

"This is our house now," said Louis Beverly, ACORN.

And on Thursday afternoon, they literally broke the foreclosure padlock right off the front door and then broke into the house, letting Hanks back in for the first time in months.

What a nice little protection racket they've got running. First they bully and cajole lawmakers into rewriting the law so that people can buy homes they can't afford, and when—surprise!—the "victims" are foreclosed upon, ACORN then teaches them to break back in and claim the homes as their own.

I know this is a radical thought, perhaps from a bygone age, but if you can't afford to pay for property, it isn't yours.

These people are at best ignorant and foolish for attempting to buy homes they could never legitimately expect to afford. Now, they seem intent on adding property invasion and squatting to their resumes.

There was evidence of remodeling at the home in this story, suggesting that the home was being made ready for market or was already sold, but thankfully no one was home at the time.

Who is going to take responsibility when ACORN-trained goons go too far, and start "reclaiming" homes that belong to people who have legally purchased a foreclosed home? What happens when ACORN-trained thugs make a mistake, and break into an occupied dwelling and someone gets hurt?

As Rick Moran notes The American Thinker notes, the Obama-trained Marxists goons at ACORN feel such a strong sense of entitlement that they feel justified breaking into someone else's home and taking over someone else's property to "right a wrong" they specifically helped create.

When a group begins to feel they are justified in simply taking what they haven't earned, a society's freedoms become imperiled. This is your handiwork, Mr. President, from a group you promoted, helped finance, and trained.

Somehow, I can't help but wonder if this is precisely what the most famous disciple of Saul Alinsky had in mind.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:01 PM | Comments (18)

February 19, 2009

Racist and Stupid is No Way To Govern... Or Maybe It Is

It appears that the manufactured controversy surrounding the Sean Delonas editorial cartoon that used the tabloidesque incident of a chimpanzee mauling a woman in Connecticut as a jumping off point for criticizing the nearly $800 billion Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act—AKA the "stimulus"—has now entered its second day, with New York’s blind governor David Patterson chiming in with an opinion about an image he had described to him, but which he cannot see.

Paterson, who had the cartoon described to him during a news conference in Manhattan, said it is incumbent upon Post editors to explain "what the cartoon was intended to portray."

Images of black people portrayed as primates, Paterson said, "do feed a kind of negative and stereotypical way that some people think."

And indeed, if the point of the editorial cartoon was to portray African-Americans as primates, it should be viewed as racist.

But the simple fact of the matter is, as even leftist bomb-thrower Jonathan Chait noted, is that sometimes a monkey is just a monkey.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock during the past week, one of the biggest news stories in the United States today is the horrid real-life tale of Travis the Chimp, a powerful 200-lb. adult male chimpanzee that went berserk in Connecticut, severely mauling his owner's friend before being shot and killed as he attacked police officers responding to desperate cries for help.

The animal shredded the victim's arms—some early accounts claimed he bit off her hands—before biting and ripping off large portions of her face. The owner stabbed the chimpanzee with a butcher knife in an attempt to save her friend, at which point the wounded animal finally broke off his attack.

After the police arrived, the rampaging, blood-soaked primate pinned one officer in his vehicle, and after ripping off the side-view mirror of the police cruiser with his hands, the chimp opened the door to attack the officer. The officer fired on the chimp in self-defense at point-blank range, killing the enraged animal and ending one of the most bizarre and tragic news stories in recent memory.

The vividly imagined aftermath of the attack is the physical event cartoonist Delonas portrayed in his cartoon. In and of itself, the art of the cartoon portrays nothing but a current event, as it shown with this modified version of the image, which shows the cartoon, sans text.

Clearly, there is no way a rational person can intelligently ascribe a racial component to the artist's depiction of an actual current event. The police officers represent police officers, the dead chimpanzee represents an actual, dead, and publicly known chimpanzee.

Nor was the text of the cartoon itself in any way racist.

It read, simply:

"They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

The text, of course, refers to the largest single spending bill ever rammed down the throats of American taxpayers under the guise of "stimulating" a U.S. economy languishing in a recession.

The legislation was the handiwork of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, a rich white woman and stereotypical San Francisco limousine liberal who encouraged a team of Democratic Representatives and lobbyists to cobble together a wish list of liberal spending and handouts to loyal contributors and special interest groups—pure, unadulterated "pork." The legislation was thrown together so quickly that few if any, of the Democrats that pushed it through the House of Representatives under Pelosi's leadership read the bill the voted for, nor did any of the Democrats that rejected the bill, which was so poorly written, and so filled with overt graft, patronage, and corruption that it could not attract a single Republican vote.

In the Senate, the House legislation was lightly modified to provide pork-barrel spending that bought the votes of the two Republican Senators from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter, the Republican Senator from Pennsylvania. The legislation passed in the Senate with only the purchased votes of this Republican Senators and without any dissent from Democrats.

The differences between the massive House and Senate bills were hammered between Democrats selected by Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, and Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader. Not one single Republican from the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate was allowed to participate in the lobbyist-inspired alchemy that resulted in the final conference bill, which was then rammed through so quickly—and in direct violation of pledges from Democratic leaders—that not one single legislator had a chance to read the Frankenstein's monster of a $787-billion, 1,073-page bill before voting on it in its final form. Unread, and still not entirely understood, it was sent to the President to be signed into law, which he did so Tuesday, also without reading it.

When the art and the text are in its proper context, there is no way any rational person can misconstrue the intent of the cartoon for anything other than what it was; a scathing critique of a stimulus bill so horribly crafted by Congress that it appears it was written by a crazed chimpanzee, a chimpanzee that is now deceased.

Of course, I'm talking about rational people with a reasonable grasp of current events and without a political axe to grind, and not those who are part of a finely-tuned grievance industry in need of a bailout, where everything and anything is "racist," no matter how absurd.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:59 PM | Comments (12)

February 18, 2009

Mindless Conformists Suddenly Decide Comparing President to Hitler is a Bad Thing

I don't know who should take the blame for first comparing an American President to the 20th Century's most infamous genocidal fascist, but there is no doubt at all that the odious comparison was perfected by the drones of the far left during George Bush's Presidency, and nowhere was that on display moreso than in the leftist blogosphere.

It is with a great deal of amusement, then, that I see these same angry children up in arms because Michelle Malkin recently took a picture with a guy holding an Obama sign with a swastika in the middle of the "O."

Just. Grow. Up.

"He hit me back!" isn't a valid defense.

If you're going to spend the better part of eight years calling the President a fascist, don't get all up in arms because someone turns your own symbology against you.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:13 PM | Comments (8)

February 13, 2009

Collins, Snowe, Specter, and Steele

With Judd Gregg back in the Senate and Ted Kennedy back in Florida, the only way the Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act can pass is on the vote of the three turncoat Republicans in the Senate: Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter.

Michael Steele has just taken the reins of the Republican National Committee and must play a simple, direct role in attempting to stop this economy-crippling spending bill. Steele must tell Collins, Snowe, and Specter that if they vote for the stimulus bill, then they will not be supported by the Republican Party in their Senate reelection bids.

Let them provide their own stimulus.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:34 AM | Comments (54)

February 12, 2009

Gregg Dumps Obama Over Stimulus, Census

Barack Obama's choice for Commerce Secretary, Judd Gregg, just withdrew his name from consideration citing "irresolvable conflicts" with the the $789 Billion Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act being pushed by a highly partisan Democratic Congress and supported by the President, along with Obama's naked power grab in attempting to take control of the census:

"Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy," he said. "Obviously the president requires a team that is fully supportive of all his initiatives."

In referencing the stimulus, Gregg, known as a fiscal conservative, made clear his distaste for the package that his fellow Republicans say is filled with wasteful spending.

Only three Republican senators have supported the spending and tax-cut plan. They were the lone members of their party who pushed a compromise bill expected to cost $789 billion and be on the president's desk in a matter of days.

Gregg was also apparently objecting to the Obama administration's plans for the U.S. Census Bureau director to report to White House senior staff as well as the Commerce Department, which oversees the bureau.

Republicans charged that such a move could politicize the once-in-a-decade event.

The outcome of the census has deep political implications, since congressional districts are drawn based on population. Many federal funds are distributed on the basis of population, as well.

Barack Obama has tried to steamroll the American people by using fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) in an attempt to bully a liberal spending bill upon the American people only thinly disguised as a economic plan, and is also attempting to grab control of the Census, which critics cynically suggest Obama will use to redistrict Congressional districts favorably for the Democratic Party, a thuggish stunt that may see the Adminstration sued as a result.

I cannot recall a President showing the level of unbridled arrogance and incompetence we've seen from this President not even one month in office. If he doesn't learn to control his ego, and learn to act as a leader and not a campaigner this current recession may one day be regarded as the high point of one of the most laughably incompetent administrations in history.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:35 PM | Comments (8)

History, New Retail Spending Figures Suggest Recession May Be Over, Democrats Attempt to Ram Through Multi-Generational Financial Rape Anyway

It was never about helping the American people, folks. Never.

If Democrats had wanted a true stimulus to help the economy, they could have easily crafted a bill that both parties would have supported fully for just over $100 billion dollars. Instead, the House and Senate Conference bill is a 1,434 page bloated spending spree costing $798 billion, with even more massive spending in the wings as Democrats will attempt to spend at least that much again on more government bailouts of the financial sector.

While our Easter bunny continues to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) in an attempt to bully the American people into accepting the solution offered by Democrats, the American people are increasing rejecting the pork-filled corruption that is this "stimulus" bill. Further, it is a bill, that like most government intervention, appears to be too little, too late to matter.

History suggests that the worst of the recession may be over, and a rise in retail spending seems to support that possibility. Corporations that have been hard hit are still reporting a curious increase in sales to new customers, and the CBO itself said that without any intervention at all, the economy would correct itself in 2009.

So what does the Democratic Party, firmly in control of the House, Senate, and Presidency, attempt to do? They attempt to rob you blind, paying off left-wing special interest groups with your tax dollars.

No wonder Obama supporters are spending their own money to campaign against this boondoggle.

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are expanding welfare, folks, with with a very clear intention of putting you on it. People dependent on government, embrace government, and Democrats hope if they make enough of you dependent upon them, they'll be in power for decades to come.

Perhaps you'll let them win, and fundamentally change this country into a socialist state, a greater Sweden or France. These are not horrible countries, but they are not the United States.

Americans love their freedom and their independence, and the risk and opportunity that independence brings.

So I have a simple question for you: are you looking to accept this nightmare and become a socialist, or are you still enthralled with the core beliefs of our founding fathers, and not so easily led to slaughter?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:52 AM | Comments (10)

February 10, 2009

I Get the Feeling...

...that Barack Obama won't be happy until he does to our economy what Chris Brown did to Rihanna.

As if Carter II wasn't causing enough mayhem on his own by spreading FUD about the economy, his Treasury Secretary—that genius who couldn't figure out how to pay his own taxes—just caused the stock market to tumble with a bailout plan investors found woefully inadequate. All the while, a stumbling bumbling, helicopter-head-smacking 44 travels the country, seeking support for a "stimulus" that may cause more long term damage to the economy (and extend the recession) more than doing nothing at all.

It is getting quite farcical, the disjointed cluelessness of our shiny new POTUS. I could almost bring myself to be amused as he implodes his undeserved cult status, but the sad fact remains that he's hell-bent on ill-fitting solutions that are almost certain to wreck the hopes and dreams of the present generation, while saddling the next with undeserved debt.

Yes, many of those who will be hardest hit voted for him. Yes, many of those voted for him did so for the most superficial of reasons. Yes, they do, in some respects, deserve the change they elected.

But nobody should be forced into misery because our last President was a fiscal train-wreck that the new one seems intent on topping in economic ineptitude in his first month in office.

What a sad, sad disaster to watch unfold.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:44 PM | Comments (26)

February 09, 2009

Bu-wawk-Bawk!

After listening to yet another doom-and-gloom speech from Barack Obama, I'm starting to think of him as the Easter Bunny President.

Barack Obama: Smooth on the outside, full of stale air on the inside, with no backbone, and a 90% probability of a meltdown under the slightest bit of heat and pressure.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:09 PM | Comments (7)

As King Pyrrhus Crows

The Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act of 2009, AKA the "stimulus, bill," has passed in the U.S. Senate.

Congratulations, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid. You deserve all the credit for this bill passing, and I mean that will all sincerity. You own this bill, lock, stock and barrel. All the blame that will thunder down upon you in years to come. All the anger, distrust, and blind hatred that will result from your short-sightness and political greed. You've earned it all.

To their credit, not a single Republican voted for the House version of this toxic pork-laden spending bill, the stench of which was so bad than even 11 conscientious House Democrats could not vote for it

In the Senate, the opportunistic partisanship was equally strong, without a single Democratic Senator having the moral courage to vote against a bill destined to cause long-term economic harm.

As for Hollow Man... well, the bloom came off his proverbial rose far faster than any of us could have anticipated. In just two remarkably bitter weeks, "hope" and "change" was completely abandoned for the cheap theatrical politics of terrorizing the public with threats of impending doom.

President Obama cried of a financial catastrophe if he did not get the special interest pork he desired, irresponsibly undermining consumer confidence as he railed about a second Great Depression that would occur if he did not get his way.

Enjoy your temporary victory while you can Mr. President, for once the true cost is known you will be loved no more.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:41 PM | Comments (4)

CBO Report: Stimulus Bill Unnecessary; Economy Will Right in Second Half of 2009

According to a report from non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the recession is going to end this year, without the costly, pork-laden stimulus:

CBO anticipates that the current recession, which started in December 2007, will last until the second half of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II.

This recession, however, may not result in the highest unemployment rate. That rate, in CBO's forecast, rises to 9.2 percent by early 2010 (up from a low of 4.4 percent at the end of 2006) but is still below the 10.8 percent rate seen near the end of the 1981–1982 recession.

In preparing its economic forecast, CBO assumes that current laws and policies governing federal spending and taxes do not change. This forecast, therefore, does not include the effects of a possible fiscal stimulus package.

On that basis, CBO anticipates that real GDP will drop by 2.2 percent in calendar year 2009, a steep decline.

CBO expects the economy to begin a slow recovery in the second half of 2009 and to grow by a modest 1.5 percent in 2010.

The very liberal leaders of the Democratic Congress and our neophyte President have attempted to ram a wish-list of left-wing "progressive" spending programs—costing hundreds of billions of dollars—down our throats, sold to us with threats on a platform of fear.

If you are a responsible moderate, Democrat, or Republican that wants to stop the doubling of our national debt because these corrupt and opportunistic politicians want to use economic fear to feather their political nests, start by calling the three Republican Senators below, and demand they withdraw their support from this unnecessary stimulus bill.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (202) 224-5344

Sen. Susan Collins (202) 224-2523

Sen. Arlen Specter (202) 224-4254

If these three won't back the stimulus, it will not pass and we will not saddle the next generation with unnecessary debt.

While you're at it, call your own Senators and Congressmen and give them a piece of your mind as well:

Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121

House switchboard: 202-225-3121

Kill the stimulus.

It's time to remind these leeches that they work for us.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:00 AM | Comments (9)

February 06, 2009

Fencing Pigs

I got this parable via email from my father, and it certainly seems to describe what our government is trying to do to Americans today.

A professor in a large college had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist regime.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?'

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.

They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The multi-generational financial rape that Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and so many members of our Congress are trying to force down our throats—under increasing threats and ever-louder fear-mongering—is a betrayal of the core ideals of our Founding Fathers.

Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin... they did not want a large and powerful government. They went to war against such a monstrosity, one that had strangled them with punitive taxation and oppressive government. The fought tooth and nail for to establish a free republic where Americans could enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Our socialist President and his Democratic Party acolytes are not breaking any laws in trying to ram this $1 trillion dollar of waste down our throats... and wouldn't hold themselves accountable if they were.

As with many tyrannical governments of the past, they're sincere in their belief that encroaching further into our lives—taking a little more liberty, putting up one more fence post at a time—is for our own good.

But power only makes governments hungry for more power, and a point is eventually reached when that strangling power, that encroaching fence, must be put asunder before to envelops those who love liberty and turns them into slaves.

We face a very simple choice here, in early February of 2009, my fellow Americans.

We stop the fencing today.

We stop our government, Republican and Democrat alike, and declare that they will not have their bloated stimulus, this financial rape of our children's future, that dwarfs the costs of the entire Iraq War and Afghan War combined.

We will shout out NO MORE.

Or in the not too distant future, we will face a far darker decision, that of surrendering what little of our freedom that remains to the all powerful government, or sharpening our tusks, and going to war yet again against tyranny. Hopefully, you will act to day and not allow yourself to be led dumbly into that pen. You will stop it, now, before it can successfully be constructed.

There are pig farmers in the White House and Congress that would see you led in captivity so that they may dine on your fatted flesh.

Will you be led to slaughter.

Or will you be free?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:05 PM | Comments (4)

February 05, 2009

Rider On a Pale Horse

In a profoundly dispiriting missive to the Washington Post, Beelzobama, Lord of the Flying Excuse, has issued forth one of the most negative, doom-proclaiming pronouncements ever issued forth from the Oval Office ,The Actions Americans Need.

It is a ledge-walking lament of a false Prophet attempting to extort America into supporting his pursuit of a nakedly partisan ideological agenda.

Barack Obama has put radical orthodoxy over country, and chosen opportunism over leadership. It is, in short, an editorial that deserves to be read and understood so that a trainwreck of a President may be properly mocked and scorned.

The dishonesty begins with the first proverbial stroke of the pen:

By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.

While we are indeed in the midst of a recession, Obama has purposefully and vastly overstated our nation's present economic condition. We find ourselves in what is indeed a financial downturn, one hastened and exacerbated by if not created by politicians, but a downturn nevertheless far less dire than the Crier in Chief suggests.

As Don Surber notes, Beelz inherited from Bush an inflation rate of 3.85% and an unemployment rate of 5.76%, both far lower than rates inherited by Ford (11% and 5.64%), Carter (5.75% and 7.05%), or Reagan, who inherited 13.58% inflation and 7.18% inflation from James Earl Carter—the failed President many critics find Obama to be most like.

Despite the demonstrable lies of the guileless fearmonger in the Oval Office, we are not approaching anything like the dark days of the Great Depression our neophyte President suggests.

If anything, there are some suggestions of improvement in the economy. Many of the best public companies, and some private companies, continue to hire employees and report growth.

From this profoundly depressed state our young President, in his first ever executive position, attempts to convince us that to get out of this recession, we should place our faith and our children's futures in the hands of the incompetents, tax cheats, business failures, and agenda-driven blowhards that helped lead us into this mess, otherwise known as Congress.

What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.

Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come.

This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.

Obama refuses to listen to even his own rhetoric of the past several years. Fresh off winning an election based in part upon laments that the prior administration was guilty of rushed decision making, he is furiously attempting to railroad through Congress that costs more than the total costs of the Iraq War and Afghan War combined, in less than two weeks, so rapidly that it is said that not so much as a single Congressman or Senator had a chance to read the bill in it's entirety, much less examine it critically.

There is a good reason for Obama's bum rush: the Congressional Budget Office has declared that this bloated trainwreck of a bill is more harmful to the nation's future than the government ignoring the issue entirely:

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.

Worse. Than. Nothing.

Hell of a job, Barry.

Hell of a job.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:54 PM | Comments (8)

February 04, 2009

Messiah Thinks He Has More Money Than Jesus

Or something like that.

Twice today, CNN has done short segments on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's declaration that
To give the proposed economic stimulus plan some perspective, "if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion."

Both times they said the claim checked out, the second time with a famous mathmetician (although I think they just needed a calculator).

Christ's birth in year zero one, times 365, times 2009, gets you 733,285,000,000, or a bit over $733 billion. (Yes, I'm leaving out leap years.) You're not even three-quarters of the way there...

King Urkel the First is disappointing a lot of people, especially those that have the mathematical sense to understand that the "stimulus" bill he and the far left are trying to force down our throats is little more than a trillion dollar wishlist of pork, handouts, and political graft that may not save or create so much as a single American job.

I was listening to the local AM talk station on my way home this evening and they mentioned that there has never been a significant economic recession in any country ever helped by government intervention. He cited the financial trainwreck FDR created during his attempt to alleviate the Great Depression that we are still paying for, and the mess the Japanese government made to their economy under similar circumstances, which again, they have not recovered from.

And such big government programs fail for a very simple reason: you cannot spend your way out of debt.

If Barack Obama was truly serious about helping the economy, he would push across-the-board cuts for all federal agencies not directly involved basic safety and security, impose a government hiring freeze so that the size of the government would shrink through natural attrition, and lower various taxes so that companies would be encouraged to grow their businesses. Such a plan isn't too far off from what I've heard some conservative Democrats and Republicans are promoting.

But I don't think Barack Obama really cares all that much about getting America out of this recession. He seems far more interested in using the economy as a weapon of fear to impose an ideological agenda.

I hope he enjoys the euphoria of his brief popularity while it lasts. It is melting rapidly, and unlikely to last the coming spring thaw.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:45 PM | Comments (5)

Runaways

As Kentucky's "Katrina on Ice" continues with Mississippi line crews confirming that damage to the Kentucky power grid was worse than what they saw on the Gulf Coast, and thousands faced another icy day and night without power, Michelle and Barack Obama fled an even more horrifying scene.

With little notice, the president and first lady Michelle Obama bolted the gated compound of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in their tank of a limousine on Tuesday. They ended up at a Washington public school, greeted by children who could not care less about the collapse of a Cabinet secretary nomination.

"We were just tired of being in the White House," the president candidly told the gleeful second-graders at Capital City Public Charter School.

"We got out! They let us out!" Mrs. Obama said as the kids and their teachers laughed.

The stress of $100/lb steaks and cocktail parties simply must have been too much to bear.

We're just lucky that in these tough times, we're graced with tougher leadership.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:00 AM | Comments (12)

February 02, 2009

Obama's Stimulus too Socialist for ... France?

Oui:

Paris rejects 'Obama-style' stimulus program

Prime Minister François Fillon on Monday rejected demands that the French government seek to stimulate consumer spending, rather than follow his plan to stimulate corporate and infrastructure investment, to lift France out of its economic slump.

"It would be irresponsible to chose another policy, which would increase our country's indebtedness without having more infrastructure and increased competitiveness in the end," Fillon said in a speech in Lyon.

Sacré bleu! You mean you can't spend your way out of debt?

What kind of crazy talk is that?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:47 PM | Comments (10)

January 31, 2009

Paging Billy Carter

Though he's been known to complain that he lives in a shack on almost no income at all, George Obama, the President's brother, seems to have enough money for a nickel bag:

Inspector Augustine Mutembei, the officer in charge, said Obama was arrested on charges of possession of cannabis, known in Kenya as Bhang, and resisting arrest. He is scheduled to appear in court Monday, Mutembei said.

He is being held at Huruma police post in the capital of Nairobi.

CNN Correspondent David McKenzie talked with George Obama at the jail where he is being held. Speaking from behind bars, Obama denied the allegations.

"They took me from my home," he said, "I don't know why they are charging me."

In other "related" news, the President's illegal alien aunt, Zeituni Onyango, faces a deportation hearing April 1.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:11 AM | Comments (0)

January 28, 2009

An Army of None

The Democratic Party's Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act of 2009—a pork-laden wishlist laughingly called a "stimulus" bill—has passed the House of Representatives on a 244-188 vote.

Not a single Republican voted in favor of the bill. Not one. 177 Republicans voted in unison against the bill along with 11 responsible Democrats.

President Obama contemptuously reminded Americans several days ago that "I won" and that he gets to set the agenda as the leader of a nation and of a party that controls the Presidency and both houses of Congress.

Congratulations, Mr. President.

But also keep in mind that your leadership also saddles you with executive responsibility for the very first time in your life, and history will not likely be kind to the memory of an arrogant neophyte that attempted to spend his way out of debt.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:20 PM | Comments (20)

KILL the BILL

The Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act—a 1.1-trillion dollar pork-laden monstrosity of self-serving governmental bloat—will come up for a vote tomorrow, and at least the Republican leadership and some Blue Dog Democrats have the good sense to recognize that this Obama/Pelosi wish list is going to crush the economy, not help it.

Michelle Malkin notes that the "stimulus" being pitched is going to cost each American family ten thousand dollars.

$10,000. Do you have that to hand over? Do you mind if Obama and Pelosi steal that money from your kids?

Call your Congressional offices and order them to kill this nightmare. They work for you.

And it's past time you reminded them of that.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:37 AM | Comments (6)

January 26, 2009

Obama's al-Interview

I see that Drudge is linking Jake Tapper's post on Barack Obama granting his first television interview to al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based cable news channel that reaches 23 million in the region. That he would now attempt to woo this audience as he successfully did so many American voters is hardly surprising. Whether or not he succeeds is another matter entirely.

While his first phone call as President was to Abu Mazen, the terrorist leader of Fatah who financed the massacre of Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympics and was therefore a revolting first act, Obama seems to be attempting a direct diplomacy of sorts with the people of the region, and deserves some credit for making the attempt.

I somewhat suspect that the people who receive the channel will be fascinated and a bit curious for the short term before writing Obama off as simply another American President, but the larger issue is what the region's dictators and royals make of him. I suspect they'll write him off as a bloviating dandy without the sand to engage in any meaningful deterrence in the region.

Sadly, I'm afraid that they are probably spot-on with that assessment, though only time will tell.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:10 PM | Comments (15)

January 23, 2009

Baracki, Don't Forget My Number

The classical music played in Obama's inauguration was taped two days earlier, and people are now making Milli Vanilli comparisons.

You're a little late, folks, but welcome to the show!

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 AM | Comments (3)

IT'S ON: Informant Grathwohl to Confront Terrorist Ayers

Larry Grathwohl, a soldier who penetrated the Weather Underground at the time the group attempted three mass murders, will attempt to confront domestic terrorist (and Obama family friend) Bill Ayers at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, CA on January 28.

Grathwohl will be a featured speaker at a protest against Ayers organized by Move America Forward.

Ayers is presently on a book tour promoting a book on "social justice" that more than likely skips over how must justice can be found in the elimination of 25 million in concentration camps once hoped for by the leadership of the Weather Underground.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:22 AM | Comments (4)

January 21, 2009

"Um, You Know" Withdraws Bid for Hillary's Vacated Senate Seat

It looks like New Yorkers have been spare the anguish of being represented by a silver spoon with a crayon mind.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:39 PM | Comments (1)

January 20, 2009

Flubbed. So What?

I see people are quickly jumping on the case of Barack Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts for stumbling during the Oath of Office.

Folks, let's see you take on the responsibility for most important job in the world in front of hundreds of thousands and see if you get it perfect.

If that's the only thing he screws up over the course of the next four years, I'll be thrilled.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:46 PM | Comments (15)

January 19, 2009

Hope. Change. Foie Gras.

Apparently analogies are one thing liberals are willing to torture with zeal, as Anne Applebaum shows as she painfully tries to compare Captain Sullenberger of US Air Flight 1549 to Barack Obama.

Anne? Uh, no.

Captain Sullenberger has spent his entire career working with steady determination to hone his skills to a razors edge, becoming proficient in a highly technical, potentially high-threat environment. He mastered crisis management through constant simulation and repetition, gaining valuable experience to be ready when a real life-threatening crisis struck, and when it occurred, he handled it brilliantly.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has spent his entire brief political career soaring ever higher on a majestic current of rising hot air, taking first one position, then another, moving ever upward without spending any time mastering his present position before flittering ever higher. Now he finds himself at the head of the gaggle, honking excitedly about the new direction in which he hopes to lead the gaggle behind him, never hearing the sound of jet engines on an intersecting course over his own flapping.

Obama isn't the captain.

He's high-speed paté.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:51 PM | Comments (8)

President Elect's Terrorist Family Friend Stopped at the Border

A domestic terrorist was denied exit from the United States last night, and will presumably return home to Chicago.

Dr. William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a leader in educational reform, was scheduled to speak at the Centre for Urban Schooling at University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. But that appearance has now been temporarily cancelled.

"I don't know why I was turned back," Ayers said in an interview this morning from Chicago. "I got off the plane like everyone else and I was asked to come over to the other side. The border guards reviewed some stuff and said I wasn't going to be allowed into Canada. To me it seems quite bureaucratic and not at all interesting ... If it were me I would have let me in. I couldn't possibly be a threat to Canada."

Indeed, if the competence of a terrorist were a determining issue, Ayers would very much be a free-traveling citizen of the world. But terrorist threats aren't based upon competence, but intent, and on three occasions Ayers' Weather Underground attempted spectacular mass murders.

In February of 1970 Ayers' Weathermen built bombs using propane canisters as crude incendiaries, roofing nails as shrapnel to rend flesh, and 44 sticks of dynamite to rip buildings apart.

One of those bombs was meant to destroy the 13th Precinct of the Detroit Police Department, killing police officers, criminals and citizens inside. The other bomb targeted the Detroit Police Benevolent Association. Both were set to go off when it would kill the maximum number of people.

Neither bomb went off thanks to the incompetence of the bomb designer (some suspect Ayers himself designed them), which was good news for the innocents inside these two locations, as well as a nearby diner filled with African-American families that would have born the brunt of the second blast.

The third attempt, the March 6, 1970, resulted in a premature detonation on the day of a planned attack. Ayers' girlfriend and two other Weathermen were killed making nail-studded pipe-bombs to bomb an enlisted officers dance that took place at Fort Dix, NJ that night.

If the bombers had not blown themselves up while constructing their bombs, and had carried out their attack with less than half of the bombs they made, the resulting blast could very well have been the largest terrorist attack in American history prior to Timothy McVeigh's truck bomb in Oklahoma City.

Canada showed simple common sense in rejecting this terrorist, who once discussed with absolute sincerity the need to murder 25 million Americans in concentration camps.

It's too bad the man who be our new President tomorrow lacks the same discernment.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:57 PM | Comments (2)

January 16, 2009

Dubya's Farewell

The text of George W. Bush's Farewell Address:

Fellow citizens: For eight years, it has been my honor to serve as your President. The first decade of this new century has been a period of consequence -- a time set apart. Tonight, with a thankful heart, I have asked for a final opportunity to share some thoughts on the journey that we have traveled together, and the future of our nation.

Five days from now, the world will witness the vitality of American democracy. In a tradition dating back to our founding, the presidency will pass to a successor chosen by you, the American people. Standing on the steps of the Capitol will be a man whose history reflects the enduring promise of our land. This is a moment of hope and pride for our whole nation. And I join all Americans in offering best wishes to President-Elect Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two beautiful girls.

Tonight I am filled with gratitude -- to Vice President Cheney and members of my administration; to Laura, who brought joy to this house and love to my life; to our wonderful daughters, Barbara and Jenna; to my parents, whose examples have provided strength for a lifetime. And above all, I thank the American people for the trust you have given me. I thank you for the prayers that have lifted my spirits. And I thank you for the countless acts of courage, generosity, and grace that I have witnessed these past eight years.

This evening, my thoughts return to the first night I addressed you from this house -- September the 11th, 2001. That morning, terrorists took nearly 3,000 lives in the worst attack on America since Pearl Harbor. I remember standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center three days later, surrounded by rescuers who had been working around the clock. I remember talking to brave souls who charged through smoke-filled corridors at the Pentagon, and to husbands and wives whose loved ones became heroes aboard Flight 93. I remember Arlene Howard, who gave me her fallen son's police shield as a reminder of all that was lost. And I still carry his badge.

As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before 9/11. But I never did. Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our nation. I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe.

Over the past seven years, a new Department of Homeland Security has been created. The military, the intelligence community, and the FBI have been transformed. Our nation is equipped with new tools to monitor the terrorists' movements, freeze their finances, and break up their plots. And with strong allies at our side, we have taken the fight to the terrorists and those who support them. Afghanistan has gone from a nation where the Taliban harbored al Qaeda and stoned women in the streets to a young democracy that is fighting terror and encouraging girls to go to school. Iraq has gone from a brutal dictatorship and a sworn enemy of America to an Arab democracy at the heart of the Middle East and a friend of the United States.

There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions. But there can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil. This is a tribute to those who toil night and day to keep us safe -- law enforcement officers, intelligence analysts, homeland security and diplomatic personnel, and the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

Our nation is blessed to have citizens who volunteer to defend us in this time of danger. I have cherished meeting these selfless patriots and their families. And America owes you a debt of gratitude. And to all our men and women in uniform listening tonight: There has been no higher honor than serving as your Commander-in-Chief.

The battles waged by our troops are part of a broader struggle between two dramatically different systems. Under one, a small band of fanatics demands total obedience to an oppressive ideology, condemns women to subservience, and marks unbelievers for murder. The other system is based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God, and that liberty and justice light the path to peace.

This is the belief that gave birth to our nation. And in the long run, advancing this belief is the only practical way to protect our citizens. When people live in freedom, they do not willingly choose leaders who pursue campaigns of terror. When people have hope in the future, they will not cede their lives to violence and extremism. So around the world, America is promoting human liberty, human rights, and human dignity. We're standing with dissidents and young democracies, providing AIDS medicine to dying patients -- to bring dying patients back to life, and sparing mothers and babies from malaria. And this great republic born alone in liberty is leading the world toward a new age when freedom belongs to all nations.

For eight years, we've also strived to expand opportunity and hope here at home. Across our country, students are rising to meet higher standards in public schools. A new Medicare prescription drug benefit is bringing peace of mind to seniors and the disabled. Every taxpayer pays lower income taxes. The addicted and suffering are finding new hope through faith-based programs. Vulnerable human life is better protected. Funding for our veterans has nearly doubled. America's air and water and lands are measurably cleaner. And the federal bench includes wise new members like Justice Sam Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.

When challenges to our prosperity emerged, we rose to meet them. Facing the prospect of a financial collapse, we took decisive measures to safeguard our economy. These are very tough times for hardworking families, but the toll would be far worse if we had not acted. All Americans are in this together. And together, with determination and hard work, we will restore our economy to the path of growth. We will show the world once again the resilience of America's free enterprise system.

Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks. There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I've always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right. You may not agree with some of the tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions.

The decades ahead will bring more hard choices for our country, and there are some guiding principles that should shape our course.

While our nation is safer than it was seven years ago, the gravest threat to our people remains another terrorist attack. Our enemies are patient, and determined to strike again. America did nothing to seek or deserve this conflict. But we have been given solemn responsibilities, and we must meet them. We must resist complacency. We must keep our resolve. And we must never let down our guard.

At the same time, we must continue to engage the world with confidence and clear purpose. In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led.

As we address these challenges -- and others we cannot foresee tonight -- America must maintain our moral clarity. I've often spoken to you about good and evil, and this has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two of them there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense -- and to advance the cause of peace.

President Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." As I leave the house he occupied two centuries ago, I share that optimism. America is a young country, full of vitality, constantly growing and renewing itself. And even in the toughest times, we lift our eyes to the broad horizon ahead.

I have confidence in the promise of America because I know the character of our people. This is a nation that inspires immigrants to risk everything for the dream of freedom. This is a nation where citizens show calm in times of danger, and compassion in the face of suffering. We see examples of America's character all around us. And Laura and I have invited some of them to join us in the White House this evening.

We see America's character in Dr. Tony Recasner, a principal who opened a new charter school from the ruins of Hurricane Katrina. We see it in Julio Medina, a former inmate who leads a faith-based program to help prisoners returning to society. We've seen it in Staff Sergeant Aubrey McDade, who charged into an ambush in Iraq and rescued three of his fellow Marines.

We see America's character in Bill Krissoff -- a surgeon from California. His son, Nathan -- a Marine -- gave his life in Iraq. When I met Dr. Krissoff and his family, he delivered some surprising news: He told me he wanted to join the Navy Medical Corps in honor of his son. This good man was 60 years old -- 18 years above the age limit. But his petition for a waiver was granted, and for the past year he has trained in battlefield medicine. Lieutenant Commander Krissoff could not be here tonight, because he will soon deploy to Iraq, where he will help save America's wounded warriors -- and uphold the legacy of his fallen son.

In citizens like these, we see the best of our country - resilient and hopeful, caring and strong. These virtues give me an unshakable faith in America. We have faced danger and trial, and there's more ahead. But with the courage of our people and confidence in our ideals, this great nation will never tire, never falter, and never fail.

It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve as your President. There have been good days and tough days. But every day I have been inspired by the greatness of our country, and uplifted by the goodness of our people. I have been blessed to represent this nation we love. And I will always be honored to carry a title that means more to me than any other - citizen of the United States of America.

And so, my fellow Americans, for the final time: Good night. May God bless this house and our next President. And may God bless you and our wonderful country. Thank you.

I think I'm far from alone in saying that I have mixed feelings about the eight years of the 43rd Presidency.

In that time we suffered the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history, saw an economy rebound from one economic recession before plunging into another, and began two campaigns of a multi-millennial war that we first engaged in under Thomas Jefferson's watch. Neither campaign ended while he was in office, and it remains to be seen if the incoming President has the intestinal fortitude or political will to succeed in either conflict.

Bush allowed Iran to become a nuclear power and triggered a Middle East nuclear arms race as a result of his inaction; only time will tell if that failure to act will be translated into millions of lives lost in a nuclear exchange.

Bush tremendously expanded government and abandoned conservative free market principles. He made many, many bad decisions, and history is not likely to be kind to his legacy.

All of that acknowledged, Bush was President during a time in history that no other candidate offered during that time period in either party is likely to have done any better.

If Al Gore had won the 2000 election we don't know precisely how he would have faced the challenges of 2000-2004. We don't know—can't know—how he would have reacted to 9/11. We don't know if he would have chosen to engage Saddam Hussein, or Iran, or North Korea, or Pakistan. We do have strong circumstantial evidence that the Goracle's status as high priest of the global warming cult would have likely led to policies that would have plunged us into a deeper recession, faster, than what we've seen so far. Even if booted out after one term, his legacy would have been crippling the U.S. economy as the result of adhering to junk science lore and politically driven models over proven scientific methods.

The other potential Democratic President, John Kerry, would have likely chosen to lose the Iraq War. Once can only imagine what kind of failed state would remain there if Kerry had lived up to his campaign promises, and if the cruel hand of Sunni insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would have bee raised in triumph, spurring other young Muslims into Jihad. Kerry's cronyism with the Barney Frank's and Chris Dodd's of the Senate would have assured our housing market crash and economic spiral downward all the same. His big government prescriptions also championed by our incoming administration, promise that government will keep interfering in market economics until they completely wreck what they don't understand.

Would a Gore or a Kerry or even a McCain have led us to a Jan 20 inauguration with a world much different than we see before us now?

I somewhat doubt it.

Palestinians would still be trying to commit genocide against Israelis and crying when Israel had the temerity to strike back. Iran would still be developing their nuclear weapons program. The Chinese would still own our economy in our strange symbiotic economic relationship, and Europe would still see us as crude and unsophisticated even as their own cities streets became overrun with violent youths of indeterminate religion or nationality burning cars and chasing the police. Presidents are important, to be sure, but they are nowhere as powerful as they like to think they are.

Bush did what he could and what he thought was right because he sincerely thought it was right, not out of political calculus of what would make him popular. For better or ill, he had more courage than many Presidents.

After eight years, the man who came into office as the most popular and bi-partisan Governor in Texas history, who planned to pull both parties together, will leave office in a nation far more partisan and angry than when he came in. In a bit of delicious irony, the same forces that sought to bring him down and undercut him at every turn are now left drunk with their own self-importance (if flailing futures), and now have a product of their own design about to swear the Oath of Office. The honeymoon will assuredly be short.

People forget that "hope" and "change" put George W. Bush in office, too. While there, he gave us the best he had under difficult conditions. In hindsight, I still would have voted for him over fanatical Gore or patrician Kerry. It may not mean much. But it is something.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:26 AM | Comments (2)

January 13, 2009

In Keeping with Lincoln Parallel, Michelle Obama to become Depressed, Schzophrenic

Really, what else is left to copy?

In a nod to the times, however, Mrs. Obama will be sentenced to The View instead of a mental institution.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:11 PM | Comments (6)

December 24, 2008

More Guns, More Jobs

Martin Feldstein, a Harvard economics professor and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, opines in the Wall Street Journal that an increase in defense spending would provide much-needed economic stimulus:

A temporary rise in DOD spending on supplies, equipment and manpower should be a significant part of that increase in overall government outlays. The same applies to the Department of Homeland Security, to the FBI, and to other parts of the national intelligence community.

The increase in government spending needs to be a short-term surge with greater outlays in 2009 and 2010 but then tailing off sharply in 2011 when the economy should be almost back to its prerecession level of activity. Buying military supplies and equipment, including a variety of off-the-shelf dual use items, can easily fit this surge pattern.

For the military, the increased spending will require an expanded supplemental budget for 2009 and an increased budget for 2010. A 10% increase in defense outlays for procurement and for research would contribute about $20 billion a year to the overall stimulus budget. A 5% rise in spending on operations and maintenance would add an additional $10 billion. That spending could create about 300,000 additional jobs. And raising the military's annual recruitment goal by 15% would provide jobs for an additional 30,000 young men and women in the first year.

Feldstein isn't pushing for the creation of radical complex new weapons systems with such a short-term spending increase, and so I'd encourage the incoming Obama Administration to use the proposal to stock up on upgrades in the small arms our frontline soldiers and Marines are using in the war against terrorism.

I'm not expert enough to try to sell any particular improvement as being any more important than another, but there are certainly several ideas worth considering one can come across without very much research at all.

In no particular order:

  • Upgrading rifle and carbine magazines. A common reason our existing M16/M4 rifles experience jams is because of of magazine-related failures. Perhaps purchasing existing "off the shelf" magazines will work, or perhaps funding new R&D in this area is needed, but this seems like a good short-term project in-line with Feldstein's proposal.
  • Upgrade the rifle and carbine operating systems. The M16/M4 has been knocked since it's inception for reliability issues due to its operating system, and multiple vendors have off-the-shelf upper receivers that are at least theoretically far more reliable, run cleaner, and cooler. While a program that is slated to end in 2011 won't (probably) give us enough time to make a revolutionary leap in small arms technology, such an evolutionary step seems warranted, could upgrade many front-line rifles, and be a good fit for the stimulus timeframe.
  • Upgrade small arms ammunition. Advancements in small arms ammunition design means that we can field ammunition with bullets far more effective that that presently fielded as general issue. Special forces are using this ammunition and seem to be very impressed with its performance, so retooling and expanding production lines to take advantage of more effective cartridges seems a very wise use of stimulus money.
  • R&D in news small arms systems. The M16/M4 design is older than the soldiers using it, and in this instance, older is not always better. Their is significant room for improvement creating a more compact, reliable, more accurate weapon with modular components that allow soldiers in the field to readily modify them for mission-specific requirements. The current 9mm M9 pistol simply bites, doing nothing well, so a more effective pistol is certainly needed. Non-frontline troops can become frontline troops in asymmetrical warfare in moments, so perhaps personal defensive weapon (PDW) systems with a rifle's range and armor-piercing capability and a submachinegun's compactness are certainly worthy looking at, and I can't believe existing first-generation MP7 and P90s are the only solution.

There are plenty of short-term small arms projects that can fit the proposal offered by Feldstein and serve as job-creating economic stimulus. Let's hope that incoming powers that be see the good-sense in his proposal.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:35 AM | Comments (10)

December 22, 2008

Cowed by Sheep

Yes, we've read this elsewhere, but seeing it on the Fox News front page only makes it seem all that much more pathetic:

President-elect Barack Obama has shown almost perfect pitch in crafting his new administration, aptly choosing old hands instead of fresh faces and bringing in the experience he lacks.

But there is one glaring void. Obama has yet to name key intelligence officials to manage the war against terrorism.

And one of the central reasons he hasn't come forward with a pick for one of the top jobs is because he's running into pressure from an unexpected source -- left-wing bloggers.

John Brennan, Obama's chief intelligence adviser and anticipated CIA chief, was recently forced to withdraw his name. There was no drumbeat of opposition to Brennan from the front pages or on cable. Rather, the pick was torpedoed by the blogosphere.

"Apparently there is a lot of pressure on the Obama team from a blog saying that Brennan couldn't be made the director of the CIA because he was involved in torture and renditions, which he wasn't," said Mark Lowenthal, former assistant CIA director.

The turn of events only emphasizes the influence of the Internet on the operation of a president-elect whose campaign was powered in large part by the Web.

It makes sense for politicians to hire staff that understand modern communications, but quite another to let themselves be cowed by the conventional wisdom of Ignorati who typically base their worldview upon carefully self-selected news and partisan half-truths that often shape the blogosphere.

As this report makes clear, Brennan had little or nothing to do with the interrogation methods that the far left has worked themselves into a hissing frenzy over. Nevertheless, the incoming Obama Administration cowered in the face of unreasoning mob rule and allowed fictional offenses to derail a candidates that actual experts felt was well-qualified and perhaps just the person needed at this specific position.

Our real enemies must certainly be licking their lips at the gift they were given by the American electorate.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:38 PM | Comments (6)

December 20, 2008

Name That Loon

Oh, I just love the paranoid.

A computer professional by the name of Mike Connell with close ties to the President died when the single-engine airplane he was piloting went down on final approach three miles short of the Akron-Canton Airport Friday. Connell played a key role in several conspiracy theories cherished by the far left, and his death immediately led to not-so-subtle claims that his death might not have been an accident.

Folks, there is nothing quite as amusing as the stone-crazy BDS-afflicted attempting to temper their psychosis with just enough deference towards sanity to avoid completely marginalizing themselves. And then there are those who see the line between sanity and insanity and charge leap over it with a hearty, "tally-ho!"

You can feast on all the frothing you want via Memeorandum, and it certainly is fun to watch the contortions. Ringleader of the Circus of Crazy is once again Larisa Alexandrovna, the same the same Raw Story "journalist" that insisted President Bush was plotting an imminent coup.

I feel sorry for these people. When January 20 rolls around and no one is left to oppress them, what will they have to live for?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:46 PM | Comments (12)

December 19, 2008

Destroying the Village in Order to Save It

I'd suggest changing his name to FDR, Jr, but I'm saving that insult (and yes, it is an insult) for the next guy.

So thanks for nothing, President Bailout:

The White House announced a $17.4 billion rescue package for the troubled Detroit auto makers that allows them to avoid bankruptcy and leaves many of the big decisions for the incoming Obama administration.

Speaking from the White House, President George W. Bush said the administration decided against forcing a bankruptcy to compel cost-cutting, in order to avoid the risk that consumers would desert one or more of the companies and touch off an industry collapse, deepening the current economic downturn.

"In the midst of a financial crisis...allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action," Mr. Bush said.

"Under ordinary economic circumstances, I would say 'this is the price that failed companies must pay' and I would not favor intervening to prevent the auto makers from going out of business," the president said. "But these are not ordinary circumstances."

And so the government is going to steal $17.4 billion more from taxpayers to prolong the inevitable death of unions companies that don't deserve to live.

For that matter, much of the manufacturing in this country doesn't deserve to live, particularly that created with non-competitive union labor so prevalent in the Northeast and upper Midwest.

The simple fact of the matter is that the U.S. auto industry is not just Ford, Chrysler, and GM, but Honda, Toyota, and other "foreign" manufacturers that build cars here on the mainland United States. What separates the successful companies that aren't asking for a bailout from the leaches grubbing for tax dollars from your already empty wallet? Greedy, bloated, self-serving and uncompetitive union labor, particularly the United Auto Workers (UAW).

Non-union car factories are cranking out the smaller, higher-quality, more fuel efficient fleets that America wants to buy, while the unionized Big Three are cranking out bloated beasts that carry and estimated $2,000 of overhead per vehicle because of concessions the automakers have made the unions over the years in noncompetitive benefits and pensions.

As a result of this bloat, to make their cars competitive on the price point, unionized companies have to remove $2,000 from some other part of that vehicle, affecting the overall quality, durability, fit, finish, and reliability. Detroit is in trouble because they're cranking out cars that are worth less than their competitors, and buyers know it.

President Bailout's latest concession to the damned (and I'll let you choose who the damned are; the companies that are still doomed to failure, or the rest of us who are doomed to ante up for their pointless life support) is just the latest bit of government interference that will make this recession last longer and perhaps dive steeper than simply letting the business cycle naturally remove the weak from the marketplace.

So why are Bush and Congress willing to frantically continue trying to pump water from a dry well? It's all about demographics.

Michigan, New York, California... look at a the map of the areas most affected during our current economic crisis, and you'll see areas of large populations in the Northeast, West Coast, and upper Midwest (historical big government Democratic enclaves) and a handful of swing states.

Democrats in Congress (and soon to be in the White House) are unwilling to address the fact that the big government economic politics of FDR and LBJ are the politics of long-term economic failure. They are continuing to sap the ability of businesses to do business, while pandering to the unions that are dragging their constituencies into ruin. Don't worry about this being a partisan attack. There are plenty of "go along, get along" RINO Republicans that voted for the same legislation on both the state and federal levels to get us to where we are today.

If you look at the areas of the country hardest hit during our current economic crisis, the bulk are those that long ago embraced big government solutions. New York. New Jersey. California. Michigan. Ohio.

Look at those areas that have weathered the financial storm better. The Deep South. The lower Midwest. The Western states.

Those states that have taken the hardest hits are those that have embraced big government intrusion and union meddling. Those that have survived are those areas with far more business-friendly markets.

You're no fool, and I'm sure you've noticed that businesses and talented individuals with a drive to succeed have been migrating away from the bloated big government states to the free market states in droves within the past decade.

The "best and brightest" are fleeing cramped Northeastern apartments for McMansions on the outskirts of Atlanta; the tech companies are peeling away from Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley to relocate to climates where they have cheaper land and more educated labor pools, like North Carolina's Research Triangle Park.

For example, on Monday I'm joining a brand new marketing department of a major international high technology company.

They needed more staff, and determined that they could add more people and get more bang for their buck by building a new marketing unit from the ground up in North Carolina, for far less than they could add staff to an existing marketing unit in their California operations. Once they started interviewing, they were further impressed that the quality of resumes here was also significantly higher than they were used to in their California headquarters. That's ten well-paying white collar jobs that California lost and North Carolina gained, and when the time comes to add more people to the marketing unit, which location do you think will have a natural advantage? Obviously, the site with lower operating and salary costs and a higher-quality recruiting pool has a distinct advantage.

What I'll be amused to discover on Monday is how many of the nine other members of my new team are from North Carolina. Many of the people I've worked with in RTP aren't North Carolina natives, but instead intelligent, highly-motivated individuals that fled big government states and urban areas after graduating college for a climate with more opportunity.

This "brain drain" of the skilled and intelligent fleeing big- government areas means that these growing southern and western states aren't just seeing distinct business advantages as a result of their policies; they're also gaining an influx of intellectual capital that northern states cannot easily replace.

For those of you proud folks in the northeast and upper midwest who doubt this claim and have a Facebook account, see if you can replicate this little experiment.

Look at your list of friends from high school and college. Who remained behind in your hometown, and who moved away? For those who moved, where did they move— and are they, as best as you can tell, more successful than those who remained behind?

My wife, for example, grew up in upstate New York, and went to a large high school, with several thousand in her graduating class. She still has a handful of her close friends that still live in her hometown and the surrounding area. Some are doing okay, and some are thriving, but they have to work far harder to get what we have because of prohibitive real estate prices and taxation that leaves them poor for the same amount of work.

Many of her friends, however—and those who seem to have gone on the find the most success and/or have the most education—have moved south, to Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. Among this circle of friends, those that have done the best and who have the most opportunities for their families are those that left for more favorable business environments with far cheaper costs of living.

And so I find it particularly amusing that "intellectuals" that remain in their fading big government enclaves are now panicking that those slow and stupid hicks are doing so much better than they are, and feel the solution is to penalize those areas that are doing well by forcing them to accept their failing ideologies. This guy in particular is amusing with his blatant regional bigotry and assumed superiority. He won't admit it and perhaps can't even see it with his nose stuck so high in the air, but his attitude of entitlement, shared with minimally-skilled, over-compensated union sops, that has wrecked his region's economy and led them to such desperate thoughts as attempting to force a laughable "Reconstruction" on successful southern states to make them more like failing big government northern trainwrecks.

Sadly, many Democrats (and far too many RINOs) in Congress also feel that the same big government/big labor interference that caused this economic situation is also the cure, but then, addicts often feel that more of poison flowing through their veins will somehow make them better.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:39 AM | Comments (18)

December 15, 2008

Proofers Dismissed Again

As they did last week, the U.S. Supreme Court today dismissed without comment a case challenging Barack Obama's citizenship based upon a claim that he was not born a U.S. citizen.

A blogger who knows a bit more about the Court than I explains why:

In his appeal, Wrotnowski claimed that because Obama's father was a Kenyan-born British subject, the president-elect does meet the Constitution's requirement that the president be a "natural born citizen" of the United States. Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. His mother was a U.S. citizen, born in the United States.

Many legal analysts questioned Wrotnowski's argument.

"The law has always been understood to be, if you are born here, you're a natural born citizen," said Thomas Goldstein, founder of the Scotusblog.com Web site and a lawyer who has argued numerous cases before the high court. "And that is particularly true in this case, when you have a U.S. citizen parent like Barack Obama's mother."

This dismissal is unlikely to dampen the hostility of those who oppose Obama based upon various citizenship conspiracies, some of which are represented in still active cases.

I'm sticking with the same position that I've held: I think Obama is a citizen, but that he could diffuse a lot of the Proofers if he worked with the State of Hawaii to release of his long-form vault copy birth certificate to a review by independent documentation experts. I'm also just as certain that Obama won't take that step for a multitude of reasons, most of which have to do with his arrogance, and not being somehow unqualified due to the circumstances of his birth.

For someone who cultivated a myth of being a post-partisan candidate, he sure seems intent on antagonizing the frazzled of fringe of both ends of the political spectrum.

Considering how slowly the Secret Service responded to events in Baghdad, that might not be such a wise idea.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:56 PM | Comments (13)

December 08, 2008

Just When You Thought It Was Over...

...Scalia adds another Obama citizenship case to the Supreme Court's Dec. 12 docket, Wrotnowski Vs. Bysiewicz.

Let the fun and games begin continue!

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:54 PM | Comments (22)

Obama Should Respect the Secret Service Enough to Release His Vault Copy Birth Certificate

The Supreme Court will decide today whether or not to hear two cases arguing that President Elect Barack Obama is not a "natural born citizen" and is therefore ineligible to become President.

Odds are overwhelming that the Court will decline to hear these cases that Obama has fought in lower courts and which have previously been dismissed, and those conspiracy theorists who believe Barack Obama is illegally and unconstitutionally usurping the office of the Presidency will only become more inflamed and agitated.

I'm not sure why Barack Obama has fought releasing the vault copy of his birth certificate, and frankly do not care what his motivations have been. I would argue, however, that Obama should release his vault copy birth certificate even if he wins these legal challenges, simply out of respect for the Secret Service officers that will be charged with guarding his life during the course of his Presidency, and for those White House staff members that could be also be threatened by any attempt against the President.

We've already seen people arrested for threatening Obama the candidate, ranging from meth-addled white supremacists, sober bout stupid white supremacists with a flair for fashion, a "slow" bail bondsman wannabe, and a man whose behavior changed after a recent traumatic brain injury. None of these potential threats has been viewed as a significant threat, but there are no doubt individuals and groups that are at least marginally more capable that would like to see President Elect Obama's term cut tragically short. As a result, we can probably expect the Secret Service to have a busy Presidency even without concerned "patriots" adding to the chatter of threats against our duly elected President.

By simply releasing the vault copy of his birth certificate—which is all most of the dozens of lawsuits against Obama are asking— Obama will satisfy the overwhelming majority of people who have questions about Obama's citizenship and his constitutional right to be President.

By holding out on what should be a trivial matter, Obama is going to create a situation where conspiracy theories regarding his citizenship will not only continue, they may increase, and ratchet up in intensity.

As a result of his unnecessary obstinance, the number of disillusioned citizens will grow, leading to an increase in "chatter" which will make it more difficult for the Secret Service to discern legitimate threats against the President from the rantings of mere blowhards. When the chatter obscures true threats, then the opportunity of an incident occurring rises.

The last thing any of us should want as Americans is a situation where an individual or group has an opportunity to attempt an attack on our President, especially if that attack could have been thwarted far in advance without any risk to the President, his family members, staff, nearby citizens, or members of the Secret Service tasked with putting the President's Security about their own.

Some people hate Barack Obama merely because he is ethically half African, and there is little we can do to erase their bigotry.

Any birth certificate conspiracy theorist threat (real or merely resource-diverting clutter), however, can easily be diffused by the President Elect himself. It requires only a simple signature on a form releasing the vault copy of his birth certificate to the media.

Barack Obama should respect those serving in his White House and those charged with guarding his life enough to sign the release form and make the vault copy of his birth certificate public.

Put the conspiracy theorists out of business, Mr. Obama.

It's simply the right thing to do.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:23 AM | Comments (50)

December 04, 2008

Pointless Cluster Bomb Ban Signed

92 nations signed a ban on cluster bombs yesterday, a move that is more or less meaningless as the largest producers and users of such munitions—including Russia, China, and the United States—refused to sign on.

Cluster bombs are composed of grenade-sized bomblets inside a air-delivered bomb, missile, or artillery shell. Once the larger shell reaches the target area, it disperses the bomblets over a wider area than could be covered by a single conventional bomb. Cluster bombs are particularly effective against concentrations of dismounted infantry, unarmored targets such as supply depots, refueling stations, airfields, and supply convoys, and lightly armored targets, such as armored personnel carriers and self-propelled artillery.

While cluster bombs are effective area weapons, the bomblets have an unacceptably higher failure rate. Typically several grenade-sized bomblets in a cluster bomb fail to detonate, leaving live, fused explosives on the ground that are a significant threat to civilians long after the military conflict is over.

Cluster bombs have a legitimate military use, and I doubt cluster bombs will disappear from inventories in the next few decades, but perhaps technological advances could render them less of a lingering threat. Using explosives that degrade quickly within minutes of deployment would be one possible way to minimize the threat left by unexploded bomblets, and perhaps another avenue would be to go the opposite route, using highly corrosive explosives that disable a bomblet's fuse and "eat" the unexploded bomblet from the inside out, leaving a relatively inert husk.

Small diameter bombs (SDBs) or other weapons systems will eventually make cluster munitions obsolete, but a coalition of the toothless signing bans against munition systems that they cannot effectively manufacture or deploy in combat will not have any meaningful long-term impact.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:13 AM | Comments (30)

December 02, 2008

Makers of Crap Sandwich Now Pitching It With 10-Percent More Corn

The big three automakers are back in Washington, trying to convince Congress to give them your hard-earned money so they can keep afloat businesses based upon a business model of first-rate pay for employees churning out second-rate cars:

Detroit's automakers, making a second bid for $25 billion in government funding, are presenting Congress with plans Tuesday to restructure their ailing companies and provide assurances that the bailout will help them survive and thrive.

General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler LLC would refinance their companies' debt, cut executive pay, seek concessions from workers and find other ways of reviving their staggering companies.

U.S. automakers are struggling to stay afloat heading into 2009 under the weight of an economic meltdown, the worst auto sales in decades and a tight credit market. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler went through nearly $18 billion in cash reserves during the last quarter, and GM and Chrysler have said they could collapse in weeks.

Top executives from the Big Three failed last month to convince a skeptical Congress that they were worthy of $25 billion in loans. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ordered them to outline major changes, including the elimination of lavish executive pay packages and assurances that taxpayers would be reimbursed for the loans.

All three companies are filing separate plans. Congressional hearings are planned for Thursday and Friday.

Let. Them. Fail.

We bailed out banks that gave credit to illegal aliens (Thanks Citibank!) and mortgages to morons that couldn't pay the minimums on their credit cards, and now babies are coming out of the womb owing money because Congress doesn't have the spine to tell these banks the honest truth that they deserve to fail for bad decision-making fueled by greed.

Likewise, the Big Three deserve to fail for their unsustainable business models of first-tier pay and benefits for often second-tier products. Let them file for bankruptcy, and hopefully learn a lesson in the process. If not, the lines of companies that feel they are "vital" and "too important to fail" will continue to grow.

Let. Them. Fail.

Call your Congressman. Call Your Senator. They'll keep taking your money until you scream, so tell them enough is enough now.

It's the only way to make these leeches stop.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:57 AM | Comments (20)

November 25, 2008

Somehow, This Benefits Mitt Romney

Drudge is citing a Russian analyst's prediction of the decline and collapse of the United States into regional mini-states:

A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.

Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily IZVESTIA published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse."

The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events.

When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator."

When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: "Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions."

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all." Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.

Developing...

Somehow, I think Panarin's speciality of information warfare is more on display here than his grasp of American laws or global economics. If we go down as he fantasizes, Russia and China, with growing but far less impressive economies, would experience a collapse harder even than our own with far fewer capabilities to rebound due to their stifling economic systems. Oops.

The bright side, of course, as I alluded to in the headline is that this does mean Mitt Romney is once again poised to take advantage of this in his Presidential bid, this time apparently as a Presidential candidate of the United Northern States and/or the Eastern United States, depending on how the boundaries are drawn. Doesn't that double his odds?

That said, I must add that historically, the lower Atlantic States and the northern Atlantic states haven't shared that " distinct and separate mentality" as often as Comrade Pararin seems to think. As I recall, something of a dustup occurred in the 1860s as a result.

OH... and as far as the northern states.... are even Canadians really strongly influenced by Canada?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:19 PM | Comments (14)

November 24, 2008

ENOUGH!

I am not a financial whiz, and have never claimed to be one, but I'm getting sick and tired of footing the bill for those who claim to be financial experts, and who have doomed their companies through mismanagement, poor risk management, and greed.

Citigroup—the same group that conspired with ACORN to provide home loans to illegal aliens—becomes the latest parasite to feed from the public jugular. And make no mistake, dear reader; when the newspapers say that "the federal government" is stepping in to bail out these banks, what they actually mean is that self-interested professional politicians in both parties have decided that they will stick you with the bill for Citigroup's greed and bad business decisions.

Our money. The stuff we earn through our labor, that we carefully invest in improving our homes, that we save for our retirement, that we scrimp and save for our childrens' college education, is being spent by wealthy and corrupt Congressmen and Senators to cover-up the multi-billion-dollar mistakes of their their wealthy and corrupt campaign contributors. It's all about them, and they're telling you that it is your best interests to pay their bills.

Bullsh*t.

How much more are you going to take, my fellow Americans? How much more of your money are you going to let politicians take? How much more debt are you willing to let them pile onto the backs of your children?

Where do you draw the line and tell them, not one more dime.

And what are you willing to do to make them stop.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:22 AM | Comments (10)

November 17, 2008

Clinton to Be Secretary of State?

The Guardian is reporting that Hillary Clinton will join the Obama administration as Secretary of State:

Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.

Obama's advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton's foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem.

Clinton would be well placed to become the country's dominant voice in foreign affairs, replacing Condoleezza Rice. Since being elected senator for New York, she has specialised in foreign affairs and defence. Although she supported the war in Iraq, she and Obama basically agree on a withdrawal of American troops.

Clinton, who still harbours hopes of a future presidential run, had to weigh up whether she would be better placed by staying in the Senate, which offers a platform for life, or making the more uncertain career move to the secretary of state job.

I would love to know what kind of calculus helped Clinton determine that joining Obama's Administration furthers her higher political aspirations more than staying in the Senate would. Has Hillary given up on a future presidential run, or is she going to try to work an angle from within the administration... perhaps planning on using the position to bolster her foreign policy credentials?

Your guess is as good as mine on this one.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:57 PM | Comments (13)

Dan Quayle with Good P.R.

WaPo's Howard Kurtz belatedly notices the mainstream media's bromance with President Elect Barack Obama and the utter lack of foundation for that relationship, and wonders how the impossible expectations people have developed for his Presidency will fare once it becomes obvious that he can't be what he has allowed people to fantasize.

For all the love and devotion he has inspired because of what he is, who he is still is still a largely unvetted, untested and inexperienced politician prone to exquisite gaffes when not following a prepared script. I jest in the headline that President Elect Obama is "Dan Quayle with Good P.R." but even that sadly over-inflates Obama's record.

By the time Quayle was Vice President, he'd been twice elected to the House of Representatives and twice elected to the Senate, and his ticket with George H.W. Bush won the 1992(no coffee today)88 Presidential election with a 53–46 percent popular vote margin by capturing 40 states and capturing 426 electoral votes.

But even worse that his insufficient record—and his associations with various radicals—is his utter foolishness in letting people create such high expectations of him when he knows they cannot be met.

In some ways I pity Obama for the unpopularity and outright hatred he is going to receive from his manic supporters when reality dashes their unrealistic hopes, but then I look at how Obama fed that mystique, encouraged unrealistic expectations, and made empty promises to everyone.

Barack Obama cannot be what he allowed the media, his own campaign, and his most ardent supporters built him into. No one can.

And he will have no one to blame but himself.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:24 PM | Comments (15)

November 14, 2008

Obama Conned

Dear 52,

It seems the man you entrusted with your vote lied about his relationship with domestic terrorist and attempted mass murderer Bill Ayers.

Many of you either didn't hear about Ayers, or accepted Obama's evolving explanations that Ayers was "just a guy in his neighborhood," or someone that he thought had gone through some sort of terrorist rehabilitation—perhaps at the Yasser Arafat wing of the Betty Ford Clinic.

But now that Ayers has come out and admitted that their relationship is very close—"family friends" is how he put it—how does that make you feel?

I ask, becuase as Malcolm once explained, you've been hoodwinked. You've been had. You've been took. You've been led astray, led amok. You’ve been bamboozled.

You've been conned in to voting the family friend of a known terrorist into the White House.

How does that make you feel?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:24 AM | Comments (51)

November 13, 2008

The Disqualification That Will Not Die

This election was filled with attempts to disqualify Barack Obama from seeking office for a multitude of technical violations. Some attempted to claim he was born in Kenya, and therefore not a U.S. citizen, and others attempted to claim that this childhood adoption by his stepfather and his Indonesian citizenship stripped him of his U.S. citizenship.

Others had previously attempted to claim Obama was ineligible for federal office because they claimed he did not register for the Selective Service System as required by law. I though I had debunked this claim in an investigation I did for Pajamas Media, when I contacted a Selective Service representative and he verified Obama's registration.

Mr. Owens,

Barack Hussein Obama registered at a post office in Hawaii. The effective registration date was September 4, 1980.

His registration number is 61-1125539-1.

I though that confirmation was the end of this line of doubt, but Debbie Schlussel reports that a retired agent who obtained a copy of Obama's registration via a FOIA request suspects that the registration was forged.

How solid is the case they've made? I have no idea.

On the surface it raises some very interesting questions and potential inconsistencies, but I simply lack the technical (and historical) background to judge how much merit the individual claims are, or know if any are potential "smoking guns."

Take a look folks, and let me know what you think.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:17 AM | Comments (27)

November 12, 2008

Avoiding the Obvious

I don't usually read Businessweek, and if Bill George is typical of the kind of author they publish with any frequency, I think that is probably a sound decision.

Barack Obama: A Leader for the 'We' Generation is a nauseated gush of emoting from George that one reads in building suspense, waiting for a punchline that never comes.

Somehow, the author pens a screed on Obama's executive leadership qualities that completely avoids discussing his one actual turn as an executive.

George trumpets the coming of the One as only a true believer can, beginning:

The sweeping victory of Barack Obama ushers in a new era of leadership that will affect every aspect of American institutions and that sounds a death knell for the top-down, power-oriented leadership prevalent in the 20th century.

A new style of "bottom-up, empowering" leadership focusing on collaboration will sweep the country. A new wave of 21st century authentic leaders will take oversee U.S. institutions of every type: business, education, health care, religion, and nonprofits. These new leaders recognize that an organization of empowered leaders at every level will outperform "command-and-control" organizations every time.

The 20th century leaders focused on money, fame, and power, earning the title of the "me" generation. Their leadership destroyed many great institutions, as evidenced by the failures of Enron, WorldCom, and dozens of companies like them. The recent fiascos on Wall Street can be traced to the failure of "me" leaders who put themselves ahead of their institutions.

Mr. George is a Harvard Business School professor of management practice and former CEO, but from his emotion-driven rhetoric, you have every reason to suspect you might have stumbled into the conspiracy-and-unicorn-laced Huffington Post by accident.

Bottom-up leadership is of course preposterous; the people at the bottom of business culture in companies both large and small are those that are either to inexperienced to have yet shown evidence of leadership, or are those who simply have no talent or "head" for it. As for a collaborative model of leadership, anyone who has participated in a PTA project or organizing a youth league team dinner knows that collaborative, decision-by-committee leadership immediately leads to paralysis and incompetence.

Or in other words, Congress.

But putting an inexperienced leader in charge is our pending Presidential reality, so perhaps George's praise of bottom-up leadership is a desperate bid for hope—but somehow, I don't think so. No, Mr. George clearly, has bought into hope as a business model. Even the MBAs at the Vatican won't go that far.

But what is most notable in George's praise of the kind of leadership Barack Obama's leadership will inspire, is his utter refusal to discuss Obama's singular, failed turn as an executive.

As I noted in the comment's of George's praise and worship piece:

Mr. George, it seems very significant omission that you failed to mention Obama's one actual executive leadership experience, the multi-million dollar failure known as the Chicago Annenburg Challenge (CAC).

The CAC was shut down after Obama and his mentor, a former domestic terrorist named Bill Ayers, helped funnel grant money to groups more interested in indoctrination than education (Ayers' Small School Workshop got more than $1 million). The Chicago school children that were supposed to be helped by more than $100 million in funds saw the bulk of it frittered away, with dismal results.

You cannot justify your grandiose claims based upon a thin record of proven failure, sir.

You own your readers an explanation, Mr. George, for providing them with unsound counsel.

Bill George doesn't want to discuss is Barack Obama's actual and proven record of failure in his only previous executive position.

Let's hope for our nation's sake that at least Obama has remained sober enough to realize that empty promises of hope and change are find for the stump, but hemlock in the boardroom.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:29 AM | Comments (1)

November 10, 2008

Firm Equates Increase in Gun Sales to Possible Increase In Bio-Chemical Attacks

Because those Yokel-Americans that buy firearms based upon the incoming Adminstration's hopes of reinstating failed firearms bans are also bitterly clinging to vials of Anthrax and Sarin:

BOSTON, MA, Nov 10, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) — "A disturbing increase in reports that gun sales are dramatically increasing now that the presidential election is over indicates that other forms of intentional mayhem such as bio-chemical assaults might also increase," said BioDefense Corporation ( http://www.biod.com), producers of the new MAIL DEFENDER complete mailroom security solution.

"Incoming mail containing white powder discovered recently at major metropolitan daily newspapers, wire services and hundreds of other offices across the country are not 'hoaxes.' Rather, they are 'bio-chemical assaults,' with obvious intent to harm, disrupt, or even kill," said a spokesperson for BioDefense Corporation.

Large corporations, major financial institutions and businesses forced to lay off employees in difficult economic times are the bio-criminal's "bull's eye." Recent media tracking shows that mentions of "anthrax" and "white powder" hoaxes in newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and online media number in the thousands every week.

"MAIL DEFENDER, already hard at work at several high-level government and financial institutions, is the first line of defense against these criminal acts," the BioDefense spokesperson added. "A simple letter mailed for 42 cents should not have the power to disrupt and stop large organizations, unfairly tie up first-responder resources, and otherwise add to today's already anxiety-ridden environment," he said.

So Boston-based Bio-Defense hopes to reduce "today's already anxiety-ridden environment," by drawing utterly unsupportable correlations between the lawful purchase of a legal and Constitutionally-protected commodity by law-abiding U.S. citizens and vague reports of terrorist acts, in order to sell a product that they—surprise, surprise—just happen to have on hand.

I'm guessing they aren't part of the condescending 52.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:44 PM | Comments (13)

Hope and Change al Qaeda Can Believe In

He has apparently learned nothing.

President Elect Barack Obama is looking at Jamie Gorelick as a possibly candidate for Attorney General. Gorelick is best know for her role in Bill Clinton's Justice Department creating a "wall" that kept American intelligence and law enforcement agencies from communicating with each other, which contributed significantly to security lapses that led to al Qaeda's success on 9/11.

But even without that taint of corruption, Gorelick would signal a return to incompetence and infighting. Gorelick played a major role in keeping counterterrorist and law-enforcement agents from sharing information and "connecting the dots" before 9/11. In a series of judgments at the DoD and at Justice during her tenure in the Clinton administration, Gorelick hamstrung our efforts to find and disarm terrorist infiltrators by discouraging any cooperation between intelligence and enforcement efforts by making "the wall" much more significant than Congress ever intended.

Gorelick wound up serving as a panelist on the 9/11 Commission, but she should have been served a subpoena instead. Two memos from Clinton-appointed US Attorney Mary Jo White made this point crystal clear, as did an explanation from someone involved for years in the counterterrorist effort. Gorelick imposed an unrealistic standard on intelligence gathering that led directly to the 9/11 attacks. As AG, she would have even more power to reimpose those same limitations, and leave us just as blind as we were before those attacks.

Gorelick's fundamental incompetence played a role in the deaths of thousands of Americans, and that Obama is even considering her for such a position merely serves to highlight his own lack of judgment.

Obama is also secretly planning U.S. trials for terrorist prisoners of war. Like Bush's military tribunals, such trials fly in the face of the Geneva conventions and established historical customs, which stands firmly against the trial of POWs during a conflict for fear of unfair show trials. As I understand it, the proper method of dealing with POWs is to hold them in confinement until the conflict is over or until a prisoner exchange is implemented. Look for an Obama Justice Department unfettered by reality to set many, many terrorists free because soldiers fighting a war aren't equipped to collect evidence and play CSI-Tora Bora the way unreasonable ideologues prefer.

We learn all of this after finding out that al Qaeda, with all of their usual bluster, is once again claiming to have plans afoot for new wave of terror strikes on the West that will dwarf 9/11.

After 9/11, President Bush did everything within his power to keep another wave of terror attacks from claiming lives on U.S. soil. Obama's obvious contempt for President Bush seems to be detrimentally impacting his decisions, as he seems to imagining he can somehow return to a 9/10 world.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:11 PM | Comments (19)

Dear 52...

Yes, I saw your messages. Dozens and dozens of them. How wonderful that you want to reach out now, after the last eight years.

You do remember the last eight years, right?

You lost in Florida. Remember how you reacted? "Selected, not elected," and "Not my President" were the order of the day. But that was just the beginning. You kept nursing your grudge, cultivating it, stocking it, and formed insular, community-based realities to echo and increase your hysteria.

That budding insanity you reveled in helped lead to ever-more vicious rants and vitriol, of course, including the "Chimperor" angle, where the lesser accomplished of you bashed the President's intellect, and later, of course, the frothing "Bushilter" and "Darth Cheney" rants.

Perhaps even worse, you let your contempt for President Bush and Vice President Cheney spread to hate those who put their lives on the line to serve this nation in your defense.

What, you don't remember these proud moments?









You swallowed false media accounts of civilians massacres uncritically because it reinforced your simplistic worldview and your biases against our soldiers, and even paid for the full-page "General Betray Us" ad in the New York Times.

You tried to lose the Iraq War and pull our troops out even as the surge was succeeding, even when such a defeat could endanger hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Iraqi civilian lives. Why? Just to hang a defeat on George W. Bush's neck... and to validate your worldview.

So pardon me, if after eight years of your hate, if I find your sudden desire to mend fences and become one big happy family to be just another self-serving ploy.

The sad fact of the matter is that after years of whining, screaming and crying that you've been ignored, cheated, and oppressed, you are now in charge, and you will have no more excuses for the failed ideologies you continue to support.

You have an impressive majority in the Senate. You have an insurmountable majority in the House of Representatives. You have a President-Elect with a record of being far, far left (not to be confused with his recent moderate campaign rhetoric that is already being abandoned). You've got all the power, and all the responsibility.

After all these years of carping, you're now in charge, and we'll see how your ideas stand up under real world conditions. Good luck with that.

You elected a man whose singular accomplishment prior to winning the Presidency was fertilizing an egg.

He has no record of executive leadership. He has no foreign policy experience. He has no economic experience. He was under-performing state Senator laughed at by his peers just four years ago.

And so it is very obvious that you want us to buy into his Presidency not because you want us to share his great visions of hope and change and unicorns, but because you've suddenly realized what kind of disaster you put into the White House. You don't want to share success; you want cover when it all comes apart.

So enjoy your two years of unquestioned power, 52. We'll see you at the midterms, and see if you're still smiling and reaching out when it isn't so self-serving.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:27 AM | Comments (38)

November 07, 2008

Prop 8 Meltdown

Proposition 8 in California passed Tuesday, a ballot measure in defense of the traditional definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman. Michelle Malkin has been following the backlash from supporters of gay marriage, some of which are threatening arson and murder against churches and minorities in what we can hope is merely online venting, even though there is at least one man in jail who assaulted and elderly couple over their signs supporting the ballot initiative.

I can empathize with gays who want to marry their partners, but do they really think that threatening to burn churches—or worse, actually carrying out that threat—is going to do anything but hurt them in the long run? And do the dolts at the Huffington Post really think that an attempt to attack the Mormon Church over this issue is really accomplish anything other than further marginalizing gay marriage proponents?

I'm generally agnostic on gay marriage, and suspect my willingness to vote on a proposition for or against it would be swayed by how the two side of the debate handled themselves.

Agree with them or not, the Catholics and Mormons that supported Prop 8 did so (as best I can tell) as we hope citizens will, raising money, holding rallies, etc. What have the California gay marriage proponents offered in return? Threats against the churches. Racist epithets. Bullying tactics meant to intimidate and terrorize those that financially backed Prop 8.

All else being equal, my gut reaction is to empathize with those being attacked by angry mobs. I suspect others feel that way as well.

Gay marriage supporters may have legitimate arguments, but nobody is going to hear them over calls for violent and repeated shouts of "n*gger!"

Not content with losing the battle for public opinion, they now seem intent on forfeiting the war.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:05 PM | Comments (27)

To Serve The State

Via Gateway Pundit, Barack Obama's plan to require government service from middle, high school, and college students:

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

I am all for volunteering, and think it is something that people should do as they are able. My wife and I find it to be spiritually rewarding in addition to being something that helps the community, and I'm proud to say that our elementary-aged daughter recently raised hundreds of dollars worth of food and cleaning supplies for a local animal shelter based on her desire to help.

But such service—any service—requires earnest and enthusiastic volunteers to be successful in the long-term, not dis-spirited, perhaps resentful draftees.

The required service Obama proposes is nothing more than dressed-up impressment or conscription, and is unpaid forced labor. Stripping the racial overtones from slavery by requiring all to participate doesn't make it any less degrading. Involuntary servitude is reprehensible in any guise, and we should not suddenly embrace it as a consequence of "change" under the Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers.

Claudia Rosette is wary of the motives of our statist President Elect, and rightfully wonders if he is a threat to individual freedoms.

Time was when America's creed could be summed up pretty well by the words of the 18th-century revolutionary Patrick Henry, whose reply in 1775 to the oppressive ways of British colonial rule was: "Give me liberty, or give me death."

In the American system built around that creed, the monstrous original failing and contradiction was the institution of slavery. America paid for that with a civil war, followed by another century in which, finally--about the time of Obama's childhood--segregation and discrimination began to give way to the equality and opportunities that Obama has now surfed to the presidency. Liberty prevailed.

The irony is that Obama arrives at the threshold of the White House steeped in ideas that subordinate individual freedom to the collective. In his campaign and his victory speech, Obama declares that America's "timeless creed" is now, "yes, we can." This is not a defense of liberty. It is a declaration so malleable and generic that it could have applied to anything from Lenin's Bolshevik Revolution to the Little Engine that Could.

Obama has called repeatedly upon America's people to sacrifice. What's not yet clear is whether this will entail sacrifice in the common defense of liberty, or whether it is liberty itself that will step by step be sacrificed in the name of the common good. If the latter, the implications are indeed world-changing. For the past century, America has stood as the world's great bulwark of freedom. That can no longer be taken as a given. Americans will be hard pressed to support freedom elsewhere if they do not protect it at home.

A propensity towards tyranny comes easily for statists, and when Obama trumpets his desire for radical change and hope, you would be wise to listen closely to what he is actually proposing and pushing to implement as law. Is he talking about what is best for individual Americans, or is he pushing his belief of how a larger government is better for... someone?

Update: At least he's a gutless statist.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:01 PM | Comments (38)

November 06, 2008

Blameshifters

My feeling about John McCain's candidacy are well known. I've never been a supporter, but simply felt he was a far better option than the man who eventually won.

Now that the campaign is over, however, some of McCain's staffers are seeking to blame others for the loss, instead of accepting defeat at the hands of an Obama campaign that was better focused, organized, and managed.

Michelle Malkin, Hot Air and Ace are just some of the blogs hunting down the anonymous McCain campaign sources so willing to blame someone else for their faliings. Red State has gone so far as to launch Operation Leper to run down and publicly name those unwilling to accept that it was their poor political skills and poorly run campaign that contributed to a campaign that never found its footing. So far they've named three McCain campaign staffers. I would not be surprised if there are a few more.

The people need to find another line of work.

John McCain's staff—no doubt including those leaking—ran an often unfocused campaign. If they want to start casting blame at those responsible, they better find a mirror first.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:12 AM | Comments (14)

November 05, 2008

Next

Four years ago today, I read a particularly vicious rant on Slate called The unteachable ignorance of the red states. It was part of a series of angry rants written by a bitter liberal authors in response to John Kerry's defeat. This particular angry author, Jane Smiley, seemed to need sedation as she bashed the 59 million Americans that voted for President Bush.

Smiley, who doubtlessly considered (and probably still considers) herself superior to most Americans, exposed an amusing sort of condescension as she sought to make a historical point involving the Civil War during her rant. It would have been far more biting and far less amusing if she had not gotten that history precisely backward.

Her arrogance and ignorance warranted correction, and led to this blog entry, my very first. Glenn Reynolds and Frank J both linked it (then on blogspot), and I've been hooked ever since, some 3239 blog entries, 34,000 reader comments, and 4.6 million page views later. It's been a good run thus far, and one that appears to be strengthening over time.

I'm quite sure that giddy liberals awoke this morning hoping to hear Smileyesque rants and tortured wails of defeat coming from those of us on the right, accompanied by empty threats of abandoning the country and declarations that Barack Obama isn't our President. It is what they did.

Such is not our style, however.

We love the United States. Through every conflict and war through the various permutations of the Democratic and Republican parties, we love the country, not its politicians. We know better than to subscribe to cults of personality, having seen the damage they've done to nations in other parts of the world.

And so we wish Barack Obama great success as our 44th President, because we want our country to succeed, for our children's sake. We want our kids to reach heights and have opportunities that their forefathers couldn't have imagined. We want them to have an ever-better world.

I'm sure that Democrats also want these things for their kids. We just have very different ideas on how to get there.

We now have a liberal President-Elect, a liberal-led Senate, and a liberal-led House of Representatives. They now have the power and the responsibility. We'll see how Hyde Park, Las Vegas, and San Francisco family values fare when applied to the rest of the nation.

Frankly, I have strong doubts about Barack Obama's capability to lead our nation. I will continue to oppose his policies and prescriptions that seem to oppose to goals of our Founding Fathers. But he is my President-Elect, chosen by my fellow Americans. I disagree with their choices, but I respect their right to make that choice. I won't insult them for their choices, but will instead attempt to be more persuasive in the next election.

In just two short years, in 2010, we'll ask our fellow Americans to consider what an Obama/Pelosi/Reid-led government has accomplished.

Two short years.

I can hardly wait.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:44 AM | Comments (22)

November 04, 2008

Ammo or Alcohol: Election Results

I just rolled in after 12 hours in the car, 9 1/2 behind the wheel. My eyes are glazed and I don't know if I'll have a lot to add to election coverage, but if anything crops up, it will go here.

As for the "ammo or alcohol" crack, that's merely based upon reactions I've heard predicted from the right and left. Conservatives seem to be content to drown their sorrows in the event of an Obama victory, where some nutty liberals have claimed that there will be riots, and that "blood will run in the streets" if Obama's coronation is thwarted by a McCain victory.

Update: Close to home, Kay Hagan defeated Elizabeth Dole in the NC Senate race, according to Fox News. I find it very difficult to feel much sympathy for Dole. She wasn't much to remember.

Update: McCain's dreams of a PA upset seem to be over; just about everyone is calling Pennsylvania for Obama. Clinton-supporting PUMAs appear to have been all growl, no bite.

Update: If the polls are correct in NC and Ohio, and both states go Obama with over 50%, then I think this election is pretty much over.

Update: Ohio goes for Obama, and the math seems to indicate that McCain can't hit the magic number of 270 electoral votes without a major surprise. Congratulations seem to be in order for Barack Obama.

Update: It's over, folks. Please pray for President-Elect Obama, and that he makes the right decisions while in office.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:53 PM | Comments (32)

November 02, 2008

An I-81 Story

Almost exactly four years after I started CY I find myself once again in Newburgh, NY, where I started this blog. We drove up yesterday on a long-planned trip to visit a friend who recently had a her baby.

As we drove up I-81 in eastern PA, I noticed that every few miles Obama supporters had placed two parallel rows of perhaps 20 signs in each row in the median. This went on for the entire time were were on I-81; I'm not sure how long it went on, but imagine they must have used hundreds, if not thousands of signs, and spent many man-hours deploying these signs in neat, even rows.

To counter all this? A single pair of strategically placed McCain/Palin signs.

My take away?

The Obama campaign and it supporters spent a tremendous amount of time and effort on flash devoid of substance.

If John McCain becomes the President after voting is complete on Tuesday, the wasteful, shallow extravagance in median of I-81 may very well be a fitting metaphor for a Obama political campaign ran precisely the same way.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:08 AM | Comments (61)

November 01, 2008

Obama's Illegal Alien Aunt

Oh, my word:

Turns out Aunti Zeituni Onyango, one of Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama’s many relatives made famous in his memoir, is an illegal alien. And not just a run-of-the-mill illegal alien on welfare.

She’s one of the hundreds of thousands of deportation fugitives — absconders – whom I’ve been reporting on for the past six years. After 9/11, the government vowed to crack down on absconders. They’ve failed abysmally.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:00 AM | Comments (42)

October 31, 2008

Paint This One Purple

Polls show a tightening race as we enter the last days of the campaign, and I'm becoming ever more convinced that the American people are going to dodge a bullet and elect John McCain as President of the United States.

Before going to the polls, Americans are going to closely look at Barack Obama's empty rhetoric, weigh it against his too-brief résumé and choice of extremist allies, and decide that he simply isn't ready for office. Indeed, America may never be ready to give up on our way of life for the miserable shackles of statism that he promises.

John McCain is not an ideal candidate for many Americans. He's too much of a moderate for conservatives. He's too much of a conservative for liberals. He won't make either extreme happy. But for those Americans who don't live and breathe politics, and who want a President to keep us safe and keep an always hungry government from getting in the way of our drive to succeed, he is by far the best option we have in this election.

John McCain has dedicated a lifetime of service to this nation, and asks us if he can dedicate four more years. He doesn't demand it. He doesn't assume that he is owed it. He is simply asking us to vote for him.

I did, on a split ticket.

A lot of other Americans from both major parties will do the same, along with many moderates. Why?

A moderate Republican President will be the only balance we have to a House and Senate controlled by the far left.

If America chose to elect Barack Obama, they'll be electing a man that the National Journal ranked as the most extreme Senator in office, to left of even Vermont's Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders.

Elevated from one of the most unpopular Congresses in American history, a President Obama would rubber-stamp the decisions of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Are you ready for an America led by San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Hyde Park values?

Americans need John McCain as President, because what is best for America is a balanced government, neither red, nor blue, but overall, purple.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:36 AM | Comments (29)

Dissent Not Tolerated: Reporters Thrown Off Obama's Plane

Drudge is running this at the top of the page. As he doesn't keep permalinks like blogs, I'm replicating the whole thing below.

PURGE: SKEPTICAL REPORTERS TOSSED OFF OBAMA PLANE Fri Oct 31 2008 08:39:55 ET

NY POST, DALLAS MORNING NEWS, WASHINGTON TIMES TOLD TO GET OUT... ALL 3 ENDORSED MCCAIN

**Exclusive**

The Obama campaign has decided to heave out three newspapers from its plane for the final days of its blitz across battleground states -- and all three endorsed Sen. John McCain for president!

The NY POST, WASHINGTON TIMES and DALLAS MORNING NEWS have all been told to move out by Sunday to make room for network bigwigs -- and possibly for the inclusion of reporters from two black magazines, ESSENCE and JET, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Despite pleas from top editors of the three newspapers that have covered the campaign for months at extraordinary cost, the Obama campaign says their reporters -- and possibly others -- will have to vacate their coveted seats so more power players can document the final days of Sen. Barack Obama's historic campaign to become the first black American president.

MORE

Some told the DRUDGE REPORT that the reporters are being ousted to bring on documentary film-makers to record the final days; others expect to see on board more sympathetic members of the media, including the NY TIMES' Maureen Dowd, who once complained that she was barred from McCain's Straight Talk Express airplane.

After a week of quiet but desperate behind-the-scenes negotiations, the reporters of the three papers heard last night that they were definitely off for the final swing. They are already planning how to cover the final days by flying commercial or driving from event to event.

Developing...

I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Either Drudge's scoop is wrong, or the Obama campaign is so supremely arrogant that it thinks it can act in such a condescending manner right before the election and not pay a political price. Within the past week, the Obama campaign punished two local television stations by cutting access to them after hard interviews. By tossing these major newspapers, it seems he is willing to take his intolerance to the next level.

The mainstream media has been handling Barack Obama with kid gloves this entire election. Now, when it is almost too late, they are discovering—to their horror, I'm sure—that the man they coddled thinks nothing of them if they aren't his cheerleaders. They are now discovering that he will angrily, impulsively freeze them out if their news organizations aren't sycophants.

The media often complained that Bush often froze them out, but Bush never threw legitimate news organizations to the side for their criticism, bringing in soft news infotainment magazines like Essence and Jet to replace them.

This sets a new standard of displayed political contempt for the media, but you can't say they didn't earn it.

Update: The Washington Times angrily confirms:

The Washington Times, which has covered the Barack Obama campaign from the start, was kicked off the Democrat's campaign plane for the final 72 hours of the race.

The Obama campaign informed the newspaper Thursday evening of its decision, which came two days after the Times editorial page endorsed Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama. The Times editorial page runs completely independent of the news department.

"This feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering Senator Obama's campaign, traveling on his plane, and taking our turn in the reporter's pool, only to have our seat given away to someone else in the last days of the campaign," said Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon.

"I hope the candidate that promises to unite America isn't using a litmus test to determine who gets to cover his campaign."

Of course he is.

Now, imagine what it is going to be like if he somehow wins the Presidency.

Fox News has more.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:48 AM | Comments (13)

The Troops Support McCain

According to Fox News, this video is the most popular election-related clip on YouTube, with more than 11 million views.

The individual message seems to reflect the overwhelming view of every branch of the U.S. military, active-duty and veterans. They trust John McCain on the issues. They trust John McCain to keep our families safe, and to act in their best interests.

For that matter, even Iraqis prefer John McCain.

Barack Obama?

Not so much.

Update: Another veteran worries about Obama, calling him "Carter on steroids."

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:57 AM | Comments (9)

October 30, 2008

Have You Saved an Obama Today?

First there was half-brother George Obama, living in shame in a Kenyan shanty town on $12 a year, and you were able to help.

Today, Barack Obama's long lost aunt has been found living in poverty somewhere far worse than the slums of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Yes, Barack Obama's aunt Zeituni Onyango is living in public housing in South Boston:

Barack Obama has lived one version of the American Dream that has taken him to the steps of the White House. But a few miles from where the Democratic presidential candidate studied at Harvard, his Kenyan aunt and uncle, immigrants living in modest circumstances in Boston, have a contrasting American story.

Zeituni Onyango, the aunt so affectionately described in Mr Obama's best-selling memoir Dreams from My Father, lives in a disabled-access flat on a rundown public housing estate in South Boston.

His "Uncle Omar" faired even worse:

A second relative believed to be the long-lost "Uncle Omar" described in the book was beaten by armed robbers with a "sawed-off rifle" while working in a corner shop in the Dorchester area of the city. He was later evicted from his one-bedroom flat for failing to pay $2,324.20 (£1,488) arrears, according to the Boston Housing Court.

It's up to you to feed, clothe, and house these Obamas, America.

Because when it comes to "spreading the wealth around," Barack Obama obviously wasn't talking about his.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:14 AM | Comments (17)

October 29, 2008

Kay Hagan: Godless American Candidate For Senate?

Just, wow.



Via Hot Air.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:51 PM | Comments (19)

The Lady Vanishes

I've learned from an intelligence and strategic communications source that on May 18, 2004, Obama came to Washington, DC on a fundraising trip. His trip also included an appearance at the May 2004 AIPAC Policy Conference.

Prior to Mr. Obama arriving in Washington, a McLean Clark National Operations Director met with Vera Baker of Baker-Wambu & Associates. I spoke with this director yesterday afternoon.

McLean Clark is a public relations and communications firm that worked for Barack Obama in connection with his 2004 Senate race. Baker-Wambu & Associates was a top fundraising firm for the Congressional Black Caucus, and Ms. Baker was also listed as the National Finance Chair for Obama's Senate campaign. The McLean Clark director, also working for the campaign, functioned as a driver for Baker and Obama during the visit.

Ms. Baker called the driver before Mr. Obama arrived in town and asked him to pick her up from an undisclosed location and drive her to the Hotel George, where Mr. Obama would be staying. As part of his staff, Baker was apparently able to check Obama into his hotel. Ms. Baker then left the driver in the lobby and went upstairs to change. This is interesting because the driver did not see her take any bags with her as he remained downstairs. The driver was unsure where the clothes came from, or if perhaps Baker had previously been to the hotel.

After Ms. Baker changed, the driver and Ms. Baker then went to pick up Mr. Obama from Reagan National Airport.

The driver then took Baker and Obama to Georgetown, where they met with a big donor. I was unable to determine who that donor might be. The driver next took Baker and Obama to the DC Armory; he was told to drop Ms. Baker and Mr. Obama off at the AIPAC conference where President Bush gave a speech. After dropping them off, the driver's services would no longer be required. Baker and Obama were to have secured rides home on their own.

After the conference, however, Ms. Baker called the driver and told him that they did not have transportation, and asked him to come pick them up. The driver returned to the conference and picked up Mr. Obama, Ms. Baker, and a third person, the woman with whom Ms. Baker was to be staying.

According to the driver, he drove to the woman's home, but she alone departed. Ms. Baker remained in the car with Mr. Obama. The driver then brought Baker and Obama back to Hotel George, where he dropped the two of them off for the evening.

The story originally provided by the intelligence and strategic communications source was verified by speaking directly to the driver (who was granted anonymity) Monday afternoon. In and of itself, the fact that Ms. Baker went back to Mr. Obama's hotel the night of May 18, 2004 is not proof of an extramarital affair. But the subsequent mysterious disappearance of Vera Baker is surprising, and perhaps suggestive.

Despite its successes, Baker-Wambu & Associates suddenly shut down in 2006. It is hard to find precise dates or a specific reason why the successful consultancy closed. Baker later claimed she worked at Alta Capital Group in Chicago, a municipal bond broker-dealer, but there doesn't appear to be a residence for her in the Windy City, nor did she appear to have ever held a residence in New York, as others have claimed. Baker later appeared in Martinique. Again, we don't know precisely when, but we do know that she was still there very recently. Her latest business venture, a consultancy named Cape Caribbean, LLC, has, again suddenly, pulled its web site offline.

On the "About Us" page captured from the site before it was shut down, Baker provided a brief professional bio:

Prior to launching Cape Caribbean, Ms. Baker worked for Alta Capital Group-a full-service municipal bond broker-dealer. She joined Alta Capital Group after serving as a Principal at Baker-Wambu & Associates, a strategic political and fundraising consulting firm based in Washington, DC. Previously, she served as the National Finance Director on Senator Barack Obama's 2004 Senate Campaign. She also served as the Deputy Political Director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

I was unable to ascertain what Cape Caribbean, LLC actually did as a consultancy. Nor was I able to determine what Ms. Baker—the political fundraiser—actually did at Alta CG.

What I have confirmed via both the intelligence and strategic communications source and the (now former) McLean Clark National Operations Director is that NewsMax, the National Enquirer, ABC News, and NBC News have all had the basic facts of the Baker-Obama liaison for some time now, and so far, none have come forward with any reporting.

Let me say that again—they spoke with the driver, and have not moved with the story. They had less evidence of an non-existent affair between John McCain and Vicki Iseman, so why are they not pressing this story, which actually has a person confirming that Baker and Obama were dropped off at his hotel late at night?

NewsMax, typically a fervent conservative monthly, has not pursued the story. source claim they were perhaps dissuaded by the current political climate and fear of possible difficulties if Obama is elected.

As a tabloid, the National Enquirer could have a profit motive in holding the story until after the election. If Obama loses the election as the result of a scandal, it would be a short-term sensation. But if a scandal were to explode around a new President-elect, it could be a lucrative story for the tabloid for far longer.

ABC News and NBC News have contacted the driver (he told me), who verified the first-hand account related to reporters for each of these news organizations. These news organizations may be "slow rolling" the story, purposefully slowing its release so that it breaks only after the November 4. This may be for both ideological reasons—many journalists support Obama's political platform—and for the more pragmatic motive shared with the Enquirer of better ratings and higher profit if a dramatic scandal embroils a new presidency.

Meanwhile... Where is Vera Baker?

Why did she suddenly leave a lucrative consulting practice for an unknown position in an entirely different line of work, before skipping the country entirely? Did she have an affair with a man who may be our next President, and if so, should that change our minds about how we think about him?

With Vera Baker, we have many questions.

What we don't have—and what too few journalists seem to be interested in finding—are answers.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:05 AM | Comments (41)

Obama Praised Terrorist Spokesman

That, of course, isn't news.

What is news is that the terrorist mouthpiece he supports, for once, isn't a domestic terrorist. Nope. this time, it's an alleged PLO spokesman:

The Los Angeles Times is refusing to release a videotape that it says shows Barack Obama praising a Chicago professor who was an alleged mouthpiece for the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was a designated terrorist group in the 1970s and '80s.

According an LA Times article written by Peter Wallsten in April, Obama was a "friend and frequent dinner companion" of Rashid Khalidi, who from 1976 to 1982 was reportedly a director of the official Palestinian press agency, WAFA, which was operating in exile from Beirut with the PLO.

In the article -- based on the videotape obtained by the Times -- Wallsten said Obama addressed an audience during a 2003 farewell dinner for Khalidi, who was Obama's colleague at the University of Chicago, before his departure for Columbia University in New York. Obama said his many talks with Khalidi and his wife Mona stood as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."

Khalidi, of course, has ties to—you guessed it—Bill Ayers, as well as Obama.

Some are arguing that the LA. Times is covering for Obama in a partisan manner by refusing to release the tape.

Who does this surprise?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:35 AM | Comments (6)

October 28, 2008

CONFIRMED: North Carolina Ballots/Procedures Are Costing Presidential Votes

McClatchy is reporting that the North Carolina ballot design is going to screw up the election.

North Carolina voters are more likely than those in other states to cast ballots in national elections without making a choice for president.

Unlike many states, a straight-party vote in North Carolina does not cast a vote for president. A ballot expert says the split makes it more likely that voters, especially new voters, will leave their polling places failing, by mistake, to vote for president.

The split between presidential and straight-party votes has brought the state national attention this year because the margin between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain is expected to be close, and North Carolina's electoral votes would be a prize for either candidate.

An unusually high percentage of people in the state who voted in the past two national elections failed to mark a presidential selection.

Because of the confusion, poll workers are supposed to let voters know that they need to cast presidential votes separately from their straight ticket votes:

Last week, state elections officials instructed local workers to tell voters about the need for separate votes, and sent poll workers written instructions to distribute to voters.

I can state with absolute certainty that the notification is not occurring consistently. My youngest brother and his wife voted in Pitt County last week, and my brother overhead a poll worker tell his wife that they needed to cast votes separately, but they were not addressing every individual. Likewise, they didn't say anything in earshot of me when my wife and I voted last week in Wake County, though that hardly mattered as I wasn't voting straight ticket anyway.

I think, however, that hyping North Carolina as "the next Florida" is a bit much, and in my opinion, a fear-mongering attempt to "prep the battlespace" for a legal fight if North Carolina's electoral votes become decisive.

The thing is, this is really only going to affect people who don't read instructions, and that is a non-partisan issue, isn't it?

Update: Just talked with my father, who votes in another Pitt County precinct. Poll workers did not explain the need to cast a separate Presidential vote, just that if they wanted to vote straight ticket, there is a spot of that on the ballot for that.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 AM | Comments (16)

The Socialist Who Compared Americans to Nazis

Yes... Barack Obama went there (my bold):

...just to take a, sort of a realist perspective...there's a lot of change going on outside of the Court, um, that, that judges essentially have to take judicial notice of. I mean you've got World War II, you've got uh, uh, uh, the doctrines of Nazism, that, that we are fighting against, that start looking uncomfortably similar to what we have going on, back here at home.

The interview this was culled from took place on September 6, 2001, roughly around the same time his friend and mentor Bill Ayers lamented to the NY Times that he "didn't do enough," as a terrorist, and left open the possibility of once again engaging in bombings in an interview that infamously ran on 9/11.

Barack Obama is such a radical that prior to the worse terror attacks in our nation's history, when most Americans were blissfully unaware of al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, he was comparing our government, which had in less than nine months prior transitioned from Clinton to Bush, to Hitler's.

With her husband holding radical views like this about our nation, it's no wonder why Michelle has such a hard time being proud of her country.

It's the company you keep.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:32 AM | Comments (3)

October 27, 2008

Beavis & Butthead Join the Skinheads

What Morons.

According to the Smoking Gun, these racist idjits were too afraid to try to rob a house with a dog in the yard, and yet they talked of walking into a predominately black school to shoot it up before decapitating people?

Somehow, I suspect they wouldn't be able to get through the school's front door without slipping and falling in fear-induced torrents of their own urine, and I doubt they could debone a chicken, much less stomach decapitating someone.

Let's throw the book at these fools, and keep them in jail a very long time.

Hot Air has more.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:16 PM | Comments (16)

October 25, 2008

New Docs Surfaces, Showing Photos of Obama As New Party Candidate

New Zeal has the goods, which leave no doubt at all that Barack Obama was part of the New Party, a fusion party of radical leftists outside the mainstream of the Democratic Party, and generally comprised of and supported by socialists and various communists.

As New Zeal explains at the link, the New Party used unethical election tricks to get elected, and was later effectively destroyed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997.

The New Party exploited the concept of electoral "fusion," which enabled candidates to run on two tickets simultaneously. If a candidate ran as a Democrat and for the New Party, he or she would be on the ballot twice and could attract the votes of both centrist Democrats and leftist New Party supporters. Both votes would be totalled giving the candidate a much greater chance of winning the election. Using this tactic, the New Party succeeded in electing hundreds candidates to local office in several states.

"Fusion" was rendered ineffective by a Supreme Court decision on 28 April 1997 written by Justice William H Rehnquist, leading to the collapse of the New Party and similar efforts nationwide.

As Gateway Pundit notes, there is little surprise that a socialist like Obama would want to "spread the wealth around."

My question to the American voter is simple: can you name one socialist-led country that has ever been nearly the success story the United States has been?

And if you can't name a socialist country as successful as the United States, why would you consider electing a candidate that would make us less successful as a nation, and make you less successful as an individual?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:12 AM | Comments (24)

October 24, 2008

My Name Is Barack Obama, and I Approve This Mistress

Bill Clinton.

John Edwards.

And now, apparently, Barack Obama.

There seems to be something about the kind of narcissist that runs for higher office that impedes them from keeping their pants on, and the Greek tragedy may be happening again. We've been hearing the name of one of Barack Obama's alleged mistresses for weeks (and I'm sure many of you have as well), but I didn't want to publish it without a credible source backing it.

The guys at Blackfive have that credible source, and they're putting the name of Barack Obama's alleged mistress out there:

If Wolf is correct, there are at least three news organizations sitting on this information originally developed by Hillary Clinton's opposition researchers during the Democratic primaries. According to Wolf, they plan to wait until after the election to break the scandal, for understandable media business reasons.

What are those reasons?

$, $, and $.

If they break the story of Obama's affair now, they will torpedo Obama's campaign. They do not want to deal with the the consequences of that, but then consequences aren't their driving concerns; ratings are.

If news organizations break the story prior to the election, they'll have a big story for several weeks, but then it will fade.

If they wait, however, and break the story of Obama's alleged affair after he becomes President-Elect (and yes, they're confident they can still help make that happen), them they have Obama the Elected to rape on page one and broadcasts and talk shows for months upon end.

The only thing the media likes more than building someone up is tearing them apart. If there are witnesses to substantiate Barack Obama's affair with Vera Baker, then he may be a crippled President before he's even sworn in.

The possibility that scares me the most out of this is if Obama wins, this story comes out, and then Obama feels compelled to resign, that we end up with Joe Biden as the President.

Frankly, that scares the hell out of me.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:06 PM | Comments (48)

October 23, 2008

NRA Ad: Imagine

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:36 AM | Comments (9)

Just a Little Genocide

I asked, "well what is going to happen to those people we can't reeducate, that are diehard capitalists?" and the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated.

And when I pursued this further, they estimated they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers.

And when I say "eliminate," I mean "kill."

Twenty-five million people.

I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees, from Columbia and other well-known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people.

And they were dead serious.

This was the testimony of FBI informant Larry Grathwohl in the 1982 documentary No Place to Hide.

The 25 people plotting the extermination of the 25 million Americans who would bitterly cling to the American way of life?

The Weather Underground, led by Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

The genocide of 25 million Americans for daring to cling to the American way of life was just part of their reeducation plan for a communist America.

I do not expect you to take my word for it. Watch the documentary clip above. And if there are those of you who don't trust Grathwohl despite the lives he's saved foiling at least two Weathermen attempts at mass murder, you can simply see what Ayers and Dohrn wrote, in their own words.

Zombie has found an extremely rare, out of print edition of Prairie Fire, the communist manifesto authored by Ayers and Dohrn as they bombed their way across America.

Read the report for yourself.

You'll be stunned at the depth of the seething hatred of the United States and our way of life contained in these pages, and wonder how the protégé of these traitors, people who formally declared war against our nation and plotted murders on scale four times greater than the Holocaust, ever became the Democratic nominee for President of the nation they so loathe that they went to war against it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:14 AM | Comments (96)

Pick Your Nuts

So which is it, Obama conspiracy theorists?

Is Barack Obama not a natural born citizen, but of Kenyan birth, as Philip Berg alleges in a lawsuit that the Obama campaign is ignoring?

Or is Obama not even really Obama, but instead the lovechild of his "Uncle Frank," admitted child rapist Frank Marshall Davis, as Andy Martin alleges?

Decisions, decisions...

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:25 AM | Comments (10)

That Barack Obama Guy? He Hates Black People

Maybe John Lewis can call him out.

After all, if Lewis can call compare John McCain to George Wallace for things he didn't do, then Barack Obama is certainly a racist for his association with Bill Ayers, who considered black patrons of a nearby restaurant merely collateral damage for the 13th Precinct bombings in Detroit.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:00 AM | Comments (3)

October 22, 2008

Nationwide, Police Begin Bracing For Obama's Defeat

The Hill notes that police departments across the country are preparing for post-election violence:

Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.

Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.

Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.

The reference to Palin as the first female vice president is repeated later in the article, but as an obvious sop; does anyone really expect women or Republicans to riot if McCain and Palin aren't elected?

No, the concern is that urban Democrats may riot in the event that Barack Obama falls short in his bid for the White House, or that they may riot to a lesser extent if Obama wins and victory celebrations get out of hand.

A source of mine involved in homeland security, however, says that the government isn't terribly concerned with fears of overzealous celebrations, but with potential rioting linked to expectations being built of a "stolen election."

He intoned—but did not state directly—that internal polling from both the McCain and Obama campaigns see a much Presidential tighter race that is shown in most of the public polls (noted here, here, and here as well). This inaccurate and perhaps purposefully biased polling has created expectations in some quarters of an easy win for Barack Obama that the internal polling data in both campaigns does not support.

I suspect that the media-manipulated polls could lead to violence if Obama is not elected, including injuries to innocent citizens, rioters, and law enforcement officials.

I've made it clear in recent days that I suspect that John McCain and Sarah Palin will win this election, and that the outcome will shock many. If that shock leads to violence, however, I hope that the blame for those injured is properly placed at the feet of the mainstream media organizations that have abandoned objectivity in order to campaign and even cheat in favor of the Democratic candidate they so clearly prefer.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:21 AM | Comments (69)

Ayers in 2002 While Working With Obama: "I'm as Much An Anarchist As I Am A Marxist"

Bill Ayers has never made his Marxism a secret, as can be attested in this radio interview that was taped in 2002, as Ayers and his protégé Barack Obama were working together on the board of directors at the ultra-liberal Woods Fund.

"I considered myself partially an anarchist then and consider myself partially an anarchist now. I mean, I'm as much an anarchist as I am a Marxist, which is to say that I find a lot of the ideas of anarchism appealing..."

And it's not that Barack Obama wants to punish our success. He just wants to spread our wealth around.

Hope. Change. Marxism. Anarachism.

Isn't that what we all want for America?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:54 AM | Comments (7)

Summing Up The Race For The Presidency in Two Headlines

McCain: 'I've Been Tested'

Obama to Ellen: I'm a Better Dancer Than McCain

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:56 AM | Comments (2)

I'm Joe

That's the theme of this new McCain ad.

Hot Air has the transcript and Ed dubs this the "I am Spartacus" ad, for good reason:

The Spartacus theme resonates on a couple of different levels. First, we have everyone identifying with a beleaguered hero as a way of supporting him, but let’s also recall the circumstances of Spartacus. Spartacus led a rebellion of slaves against the government that oppressed them. Joe the Plumber has led a rebellion against an oppressive governing philosophy that erodes the notion of private property and would make taxpayers into serfs to the lords of Washington DC.

That kind of message resonates. People may want services from the federal government, but they don’t want outright redistributionism, where the government transfers cash from those who pay taxes to those who don’t. Barack Obama’s tax plan does just that.

Why should I work hard just so that Barack Obama can tax me more and "spread the wealth around?"

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:49 AM | Comments (12)

October 21, 2008

The Comprehensive Argument Against Barack Obama

A very well-done bit of research, pointing out the facts about Barack Obama, and supporting those facts with video of Obama in his own words.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:39 PM | Comments (2)

Kossacks Target Mormons for Harassment, "Opposition Research"

Kinda like what they pulled on Joe the Plumber, but with a more specific policy goal in mind, crushing a proposition against gay marriage by targeting those who have contributed to the campaign.

So what am I asking you to do?

Some distributed research.

There is a list of a bunch of Mormon donors to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign (in case that one goes down, here's a mirror with slightly worse formatting.

Here's what I'm asking for:

This list contains information about those who are big donors to the Yes on 8 campaign--donors to the tune of at least $1,000 dollars. And, as you can see, there are a lot of them. It also indicates if they're Mormon or not.

If you're interested in defeating the religious right and preserving marriage equality, here's how you can help:

Find us some ammo.

Use any LEGAL tool at your disposal. Use OpenSecrets to see if these donors have contributed to...shall we say...less than honorable causes, or if any one of these big donors has done something otherwise egregious. If so, we have a legitimate case to make the Yes on 8 campaign return their contributions, or face a bunch of negative publicity.

There are a crapload of donors on this list--so please focus on the larger ones first. $5,000 or more is a good threshold to start with.

Feel free to use Lexis-Nexis searches as well for anything useful, especially given that these people are using "morality" as their primary motivation to support Prop 8...if you find anything that belies that in any way...well, you know what to do.

If you find anything good, please email it to:

equalityresearch at gmail dot com.

Here's the bottom line for me: if someone is willing to contribute thousands of dollars to a campaign to take away legal rights from some very dear friends of mine, they had damn well make sure their lives are beyond scrutiny--because I, for one, won't take it lying down.

You of course understand the basic message being touted by this thug. He's all for the freedom of speech, just not for those who hold different beliefs. He firmly believes his opinion is more valid than that of others, and he wants ammunition to blackmail those with dissenting opinions into silence.

I think Jonah Goldberg had a word for folks like this, didn't he?


Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:04 PM | Comments (11)

Are You Going To Vote With Him?

Via Five Feet of Fury, and inspired by this post.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:41 AM | Comments (5)

October 20, 2008

Good News! Biden Promises an International Incident to Test Obama if He's Elected, and Also Promises Obama Will Screw It Up

Joe Biden's greatest gift/curse is an apparent inability to censor himself, and he admitted yesterday that Obama's utter inexperience and lack of leadership will cause anti-American regimes to target us as a result:

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

How will Obama respond to this crisis? Biden is convinced that Obama is going to screw it up, and he's asking supporters to bear with him anyway before getting immediate buyer's remorse.

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

Good grief.

Has any Vice President in U.S. electoral history ever made it more clear that his running mate is completely unfit for the office that he seeks?

And if Biden dosn't have faith in Obama, why should the rest of us?

Update: Perfunction has partial audio.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:39 AM | Comments (34)

More Totalitarian Than You

For the longest time, "Politics" and "Media" were two distinct categories that I had to organize posts on this blog. I can't precisely recall when it occurred, but at some point during this Presidential campaign the dividing line that existed between the two categories became so blurred as to become meaningless, as media bias has become overtly political in nature.

Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the political hatchet job being carried out against Joe Wurzelbacher in the past week. Wurzelbacher was playing football with his son in his front yard when Barack Obama made an unscheduled stop in Toledo, Ohio to stump door-to-door for votes. Obama came up to Joe, and Joe told Obama that his tax plan was going to charge him more.

Obama infamously answered, "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

His classic socialist answer revealed that Obama's vision of America's future is directly at odds with the capitalism that has made the United States the superpower that it is today. How did the media respond to this too-real revelation?

They couldn't justify Obama's answer, and realizing the damage that could result from this admission, they decided to instead attack Joe Wurzelbacher. They published his voter registration, divorce record, tax records, and other information in an attempt to discredit him and direct attention away from Obama's answer.

Americans, generally being good people, are disgusted with how the Obama-supporting media, bloggers, and the Obama campaign have sought to attack Joe the Plumber instead of justify Obama's socialist answer.

As if the attacks on Joe weren't bad enough, Obama surrogate Jodi Kantor at the New York Times sunk so low as to contact the teen-aged friends of 16-year-old Bridget McCain in hopes of digging up dirt for a hit piece on Cindy McCain, John McCain's wife.

Fro some, the line of what they can tolerate without retribution has been crossed. Several of my friends in the blogosphere have had enough, and have decided to try to destroy the biased media, one reporter at a time, by organizing and then deeply investigating the lives of those reporters who go beyond the pale in their biased support of Barack Obama.

I'm all for exposing the biases of reporters as this post about James V. Grimaldi of the Washington Post and his dishonest hit piece will attest, but where do you draw the line?

Is it sufficient to expose their biased work and lack of professional ethics so that it shows up prominently in a blog search, or do you engage in destroying the entire person? Do you go after their failed marriages and tax records? Do you research and then publish their sexual perversions and closely-held racial prejudices? What about their kids, their spouses, and their friends?

And if we're willing to stoop to that level to attack their personalities, are we too distantly removed from escalating to attacks their persons? We saw an Obama supporter attack and beat up a middle-aged woman holding a McCain sign in Manhattan last week.

Do we want physical intimidation and violence to be the new political discourse?

I cannot speak for others, but I'm not willing to stoop to the level of the totalitarian left. I'm not going to destroy the private lives of private citizensmdash;even those bent on perverting public discourse—because they've lost all professional integrity.

Let's focus instead on exposing their lack of professional ethics instead of destroying them for personal imperfections.

If we can't, then we're no better than they are.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:51 AM | Comments (31)

ACORN, Ayers, and Obama

The revealing video Barack Obama doesn't want you to see.

Update: Trying to hide the evidence of the Obama-Ayers connection.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)

Neither Relaxed Nor Worried

In the last few days we've seen the polls, heard Pelosi's promise, and Powell's endorsement.

We've watched the American media drop the illusion of impartiality to nakedly campaign for Barack Obama, and we've seen them attempt to destroy a blue collar guy for merely asking a question.

We've watched Hollywood's pop culture erupt in fevered celebration of Obama's radical far Left orthodoxy (though most aren't bright enough to understand it), even as they lash out with unbridled anger against Sarah Palin's congenial conservatism. We've watched the creepy enthusiasm of indoctrinated youth surround and uplift him with near religious support.

And yet—somehow—we're not worried.

America is a wonderful country and a tolerant country, but their are certain minimum standards that even in the worst of times that we aren't willing to accept.

We will never elect a candidate who was friends with a racist like David Duke, or who belonged to a White Power cult. Likewise, we aren't going to elect President a man who spent more than 20 years in a racist cult that believes God must either be "black" or killed as Barack Obama has attended under the twisted tutelage of Jeremiah "Goddamn America!" Wright.

We will never elect a candidate who was friends with a Timothy McVeigh, a Mohamed Atta, or Ted Kaczynski. Likewise, we will never elect a candidate who started his political life campaigning in the home of two known terrorists (Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers) made infamous by their murderous war against our nation. Nor will we accept that he did indeed "pal around" with these terrorists and other communist/socialist radicals for at least 21 years, funneling them grant money and sharing office space with them, and having them babysit his children as they seek to undermine our way of life and indoctrinate our kids.

Barack Obama is the perfect Left Wing radical candidate, and they are certainly enthusiastic about ushering in his brand of socialism. I rather doubt, however, that the rest of our country is willing to give up on America just yet.

John McCain will not be a great President, but he will be our next President.


We're tolerant of a lot of things, but terrorist-befriending, cult-attending racism, and naked socialism isn't on the list.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:41 AM | Comments (20)

October 18, 2008

Obama's Stolen Tax Cuts

Barack Obama keeps telling us that he's going to cut taxes for 95-percent of Americans... but did you ever notice he never says where that cut is going to come from, and the media never asks?

There's a reason for that:

One thing: the 95% number is fundamentally dishonest because I'm pretty sure it measures against the CBO baseline – which assumes all of the '01 and '03 tax cuts expire in 2010. Politically, that's nonsense. But it allows Obama to count extending the politically popular Bush tax laws as an "Obama tax cut." Compared to what people actually pay (what Republicans at the House Ways and Means Committee call the "reality baseline"), there isn't actually a tax cut. Put it this way: currently families get a $1,000 per child tax credit. Now, the CBO baseline assumes that credit drops to $500 per child in 2011. So if the Obama Administration keeps the credit at $1,000 – which means the family pays the same as they always have – it counts as a "tax cut." I know you understand all this, but it drives me batty how intellectually dishonest the mainstream media has been in covering the tax issue in this election.

Did you get all that?

Senator Government is trying to steal credit for the Bush tax cuts that he voted against in the Senate.

It turn out we do have a candidate running his campaign based on George W. Bush's legacy.

Barack Obama just doesn't have the integrity to admit it.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:21 AM | Comments (8)

October 17, 2008

The Racism They Teach

She's only 12 years old but Ashleigh Jones is feeling the heat of this election year.

That’s because the seventh grader at New Smyrna Beach Middle School was called a racist by classmates for wearing a pro-Sarah Palin t-shirt.

All dissent is racist, kids.

The thought of it getting continually worse for the next 4-8 years ought to motivate everyone who still believes in free speech to get to the polls and make sure Senator Government and his Truth Squads are relegated to being an Illinois Nazi problem, and not a national one.

The polls are tightening, and Barack Obama has still never won a contested election. Let's keep it that way, shall we?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:22 AM | Comments (14)

Typhoid Barry

Hide your children, shutter your windows, and lock your doors, America.

Hope and change could be coming to a bitter and clingy neighborhood near you.

At any moment, Barack Obama could suddenly show up in your yard and put you on the spot where you feel compelled to ask him a question. If—God forbid—he offers up an answer that reveals a disturbing aspect of his political agenda, your life is over.

We've now seen this take place in the life of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, known to the world as "Joe the Plumber." Joe has become a cautionary tale of what happens when you allow Barack Obama to reveal himself.

Joe was playing football at home with his son when Barack Obama suddenly appeared, and then ruined Joe's life by answering a simple question about taxes with an answer about how those who chase the American Dream should be required to "spread the wealth around."

Oh no, Joe!

Now obsessed leftwing bloggers and designated media hitmen have combed through Joe's public records and private details, and have done their best to air his dirty laundry and smear his name, and all because he asked an honest question that they didn't like the answer to.

Let the story of Joe the Plumber be a warning to the rest of you, America.

Don't cross Typhoid Barry.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:07 AM | Comments (52)

October 16, 2008

The Final Debate: The Morning After

So we had the final Presidential debate of 2008 last night, and folks on both sides are claiming victory... but what really "stuck" in people's minds?

It may be a bit early to see what is going to resonate up until the election (or even if anything does), but what stuck in my mind is just how revealing Barack Obama's answers on domestic and economic issues were. His answers made it all the more damning when John McCain labeled Obama as "Senator Government."

In a nutshell, Obama promises to cut taxes for 95% of taxpayers, while increasing various government programs. The freshman senator pitches an economic program that he claims will lower our taxes while increasing government spending.

Folks, you can't cut taxes, and raise spending during an economic downturn, without turning a recession into a depression and making the federal deficit even worse. It's common sense: you can't spend your way out of debt, but that is exactly what Barack Obama daftly suggests.

This begs the next question: If Barack Obama's cutting taxes for 95% of taxpayers, then where are we going to get federal tax dollars for the trillion dollars in spending increases he has proposed?

Obama's answer—as it has been for every liberal throughout history—is to raise taxes on the "rich."

Obama's populism plays well among those who don't earn much or know much, but the fact of the matter is that the people Obama wants to raise taxes on are the small businessmen that power our economy, and more importantly, provide so many of our jobs.

If you watched the debate last night, you can't have missed the roughly dozen references to "Joe the Plumber."

Here's the clip of Joe Wurzelbacher, who feels Barack Obama's economic policies are designed to punish him for chasing the American Dream.

Obama's answer—that he wants to spread Joe's wealth with those who haven't worked for it—may be the defining moment of the 2008 election.

Every small businessman, or person who dreams of owning a small business, has to be frightened at what Barack Obama is proposing to do to the American Dream. Obama's going to make it more difficult for workers like Joe the plumber to buy into small businesses. Obama's going to make small businessmen pay more taxes, meaning they will have less money to invest in their businesses. This means that small businessmen will not be able to hire as many workers under an Obama administration.

Worse, if Barack Obama is elected, small businessmen are going to have to lay people off. Fewer people will have jobs to pay taxes, and those that do have jobs will have to pay more. Barack Obama's "spread the wealth around" philosophy is the philosophy for a failed economy.

During last night's debate, Barack Obama rattled off all sorts of government programs he'd like to fund. He talked about how he would like government to play a bigger role in your lives. what he could not do is name a single government program he would cut. Not. One.

After last night's debate, they asked Joe the plumber—who almost overnight has become the Everyman of the 2008 election—what he thought of the candidate's proposals.

"Obama's proposal scares me because it's just one more step towards socialism."

That's the story of this debate, and perhaps, this election.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:06 AM | Comments (41)

October 15, 2008

Tonight's Debate In Two Sentences

Senator Government: Spend, spend, spend.

Senator Blinky: You can't spend your way into prosperity.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:23 PM | Comments (10)

Obama Surrogate Unable To Cite A Single Bipartisan Accomplishment

The warm tinging sensation in Chris Matthews' leg after this?

Leaky Depends.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:55 PM | Comments (5)

Breaking on All Networks: Obama Assassination Plot Foiled by Secret Service

Did I say "Obama" and "all networks?" I meant "Bush" and the Fairfax Times:

A man in possession of a Chinese passport and an AK-47 was arrested in a Fairfax hotel Sept. 30 for sending threatening messages to President George W. Bush and former Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

According to an Oct. 5 search warrant affidavit filed in Fairfax Circuit Court, the United States Secret Service contacted Fairfax police on Sept. 30 after tracking a man named Charn-Chen DAI to an Extended Stay America hotel on Lee Jackson Memorial Highway in Fairfax. Both agencies questioned DAI at that time.

He's only the current President, not The One, so I guess it only qualifies as a local interest story.

h/t Snapped Shot

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:19 PM | Comments (5)

A Good Christian Can't Support Obama

I'm sure to ruffle some feathers, but it's undeniably true: Barack Obama is not a Christian and does not have Christian values, and therefore, I find it hard for a good Christian to argue that one can support him for President.

What do you mean he's not a Christian?
First, Barack Obama is not a Muslim. Barack Obama grew up the son of an ultra-liberal anthropologist mother, and while he was registered as a Muslim student in Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia, under the name Barry Soetoro, this registration was completed by his stepfather, and does not affect his citizenship or religion.

When Barack Obama found his religion, he found it in Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama was a member of Wright's congregation for more than 20 years.

Trinity, however, is not a Christian church, despite its affiliation with the United Church of Christ.

At Trinity, Rev. Wright taught a "Black Values System" that decried white "middleclassness." If this sounds racist it should; Trinity is a church built upon Black Liberation Theology, not Christianity.

What is Black Liberation Theology?
Black Liberation Theology is not founded in the birth of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, but in the Afrocentric black nationalism espoused by Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party in the 1960s.

More deeply, liberation theology is Marxism in the guise of faith. A Catholic Cardinal (a man who is now the Pope) wrote unambiguously:

An analysis of the phenomenon of liberation theology reveals that it constitutes a fundamental threat to the faith of the Church.

Black Liberation theology is many things—a racial veil of Marxist liberation theology, a form of racism and racial victimhood masked as salvation—but it is decidedly not Christian.

It worships the concept of "blackness" over the teachings of Jesus Christ, and states that if God is not sufficiently "black" by their selective and murky definition of what makes someone spiritually black, then God must be killed.

No real Christian can accept such obvious heresy as threatening God.

Rather than further delve into the odd particulars of Black Liberation "theology" here, the following collection of links may prove helpful in examining the cult, the role of Obama's church in it, and how this "faith" may have influenced Obama.

The Marxist Roots of Black Liberation Theology

Looking at Obama and black liberation theology

Dialogue on Black Theology: An Interview with James Cone

Obama, Black Liberation Theology, and Karl Marx

A Closer Look at Black Liberation Theology

Glenn Beck: Black Liberation Theology (with Ken Blackwell)

Does Barack Obama's Religion Matter?

The Religious Cancer of Racism (by James Cone)

'Context,' you say? A guide to the radical theology of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright

All of this establishes that with Black Liberation Theology sociology being his only reference point for religion, Barack Obama is not a Christian—how can he be, when he does not follow a Christian faith, but a false idol of a black Marxist Jesus?

Even apart from his heretical faith of 20 years, several of Barack Obama's political decisions should disqualify him from being the choice of any observant and faithful Christian.

The "least of our brothers"? Barack Obama supports abortion... and infanticide
Barack Obama's rabid support for abortion is well documented, including his infamous pronouncement that if his daughters became pregnant, that he would prefer that the grandchildren he obviously has the resources to take care of be aborted, instead of having his daughters become "punished with a baby."

Even worse than his support for abortion is his shocking opposition to a bill requiring that hospitals provide medical care to infants born alive after failed late-term abortion attempts. This callousness is called by its proper name, infanticide, and certainly a position no Christian can support, flying into the face of all our Biblical teaching to protect the weak and defenseless.

I'm not sure if Obama's faith supports the denial of medical care to infants, but as Christians, our's most certainly does not.

Yes, you can vote for Barack Obama for President, but if you do so, you vote for a man who is not a Christian, and who does not have Christian values.

As Christians, we aren't supposed to be perfect, which is something non-believers and holiday-only attendees don't want to acknowledge as it takes away their favored charge of hypocrisy when we frequently prove our absence of infallibility and divinity.

But now you know what Barack Obama is—and is not—it would seem obvious that supporting a man who professes Christianity but who is demonstrably a cultist, a man who professes Christain values, but them works to suppress the medical care of infants in a move that only the Devil himself could love, is not someone a good Christian can support.

I am not saying that God favors John McCain, nor am I suggesting you vote for him based upon any theological knowledge, as McCain is decidedly a secularly-focused candidate.

But there is simply no way a good Christian can support the heretical cult that so deeply ingrained itself in Obama's mind, nor his bizarre and brutal suppression of care for those among us who are weakest and most in need.

Matthew 25:37-43


37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

Update: Bumped.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:41 PM | Comments (24)

More Obot Voter Fraud

Michelle Malkin has the story put together by Palestra (video here) concerning an attempt by a bunch of Democrats to use a street address in Ohio to vote from out of state and influence that state's election.

If Barack Obama's supporters truly think they have the election in the bag, then why do they keep resorting to voter registration fraud and voter fraud and similar schemes?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:38 PM | Comments (1)

Murtha: Western Pennsylvania "Racist," But Obama Will Still Win State

If this is what Democrats consider voter outreach, Barack Obama is in for a rude surprise come November 5.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)

Part of the Problem

Know who was at least part of the reason we are in such dire financial straits?

As Allah notes, the ad is highly effective among both Democrats and Republicans because of its accuracy.

John McCain should focus on the fact that Barack Obama is an economic nightmare, and that he will make the lives of Americans worse if elected, and not just for the short term, as our children are going to shoulder the debt of moe than a trillion dollars in new spending.

Let blogs hammer Obama for consorting with terrorists and racists, and have the campaign hammer Obama's dangerous economic plans and abject lack of experience.

Despite what the media would like for us to believe, the race is far from over, and we still have a good chance of defeating Barack Obama's trainwreck economics.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:27 PM | Comments (1)

Four Years of This? I Can Hardly Wait

Joe Biden has funneled more than $2 million in campaign funds to his family over the years.

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. has paid more than $2 million in campaign cash to his family members, their businesses and employers over the years, a practice that watchdogs criticize as rife with potential conflicts of interest.

The money largely flowed from the coffers of Mr. Biden's failed presidential campaign during the past two years to a company that employs his sister and longtime campaign manager, Valerie Biden Owens, according to campaign disclosure filings.

If revelations like this keep breaking against Obama/Biden, we might see them indicted shortly after the election.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:42 PM | Comments (3)

Tonight's Debate

Today.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:13 PM | Comments (1)

Michelle Obama Blasts African News for Supporting the "Racists" That Oppose Barack Obama, Calls Opposition Evil People (Obama Camp Calls Claims a Complete Fabrication)

She's not happy with those who aren't marching in lock-step with the demands of blind racial loyalty:

Accusing API of colluding with American internet bloggers in an effort to bring down her husband, Mrs Obama said she decided to call API because of what she termed, API's help to spread rumours created by American bloggers and other racist media outlets in their efforts to damage a black man's name, saying she hopes African Media was mature enough to be in the front to give unwavering support to her husband, a man Africans should identify themselves with.

When API told her that our online news media was only relaying what the American Bloggers and other media outlets had discovered through their investigations, Mrs Obama was angered and she came out loud with the following: "African press International is supposed to support Africans and African-American view," and she went to state that, "it is strange that API has chosen to support the racists against my husband. There is no shame in being adopted by a step father. All dirt has been thrown onto my husband's face and yet he loves this country. My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband's adoption by His step father. The important thing here is where my husband's heart is at the moment. I can tell the American people that My husband loves this country and his adoption never changed his love for this country. He was born in Hawaii, yes, and that gives him all the right to be an American citizen even though he was adopted by a foreigner; says Michelle Obama on telefon[sic] to API."

This is a shocking rant, even for someone as extreme as Michelle Obama.

She honestly believes that the African Press should offer "unwavering support to her husband" simply because he has African roots?

Those that criticize her husband, or are concerned about his background are all "racists"?

And it gets worse.

Michelle Obama's caricature in the New Yorker as a black nationalist suddenly isn't so funny.

The Obama Camp is pushing back hard, but for now API—whoever they are—is standing behind their story.

Take it for what it's worth.

Update: I'll let this play out as it will, but will point out one thing that should be self-evident that some anti-Obama sites can't seem to grasp as they look at this API post. Some are claiming that it adds credibility to the claim that Obama doesn't have U.S. citizenship because he was adopted.

This is easily the dumbest claim on the internet today involving Obama. A child cannot lose the birthright of his citizenship merely because he is adopted by a foreigner. It's moronic, logically inconsistent, and most importantly, not legally supportable. If Obama was an adult and refuted his citizenship that would be another matter entirely, but as he hasn't done so, this claim is entirely bogus.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:02 AM | Comments (14)

October 14, 2008

Plumber Frightened by Obama's Socialism, Redistribution of Wealth

Plumber Joe Wurzelbacher is not happy with Barack Obama's plans to punish him for his hard work.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:50 PM | Comments (16)

Why Won't Obama Release The Names Of His Campaign Donors?

From The Hill:

The Obama campaign has failed to release the names of donors responsible for approximately half of his campaign’s $426.9 million: those who have contributed less than $200.

In addition, press reports allege Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has accepted illegal online campaign contributions from this category of donors, which include funds allegedly donated by foreign nationals.

The Obama campaign appears to be selectively complying with campaign finance laws. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) should immediately investigate allegations of foreign campaign contributions made to the Obama campaign possibly corrupting this presidential election.

What... you thought those Palestinian phone banks were really calling long distance?

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:34 PM | Comments (7)

Obama's Promise to His ACORN Friends

Isn't it encouraging to know that Obama has promised to have ACORN help engineer his Presidential agenda?


More, from Jennifer Rubin:

It is almost inconceivable that Barack Obama should not have been grilled on this –either by his opponent or the media. (The latter is just beginning to cover the story.) Obama’s ties are deep and extensive with an organization that embraces goals and tactics well outside the political mainstream and that has engaged in a pattern of illegal activity usually seen only in RICO indictments. ACORN’s present involvement in coast-to-coast fraud is jaw-dropping and should raise the issue as to whether an Obama Justice Department would vigorously investigate and, if warranted, prosecute this entity and all involved.(A helpful compilation of ACORN’s suspect activities is here.) Put simply, Obama worked for and helped funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to a fraud-infested, corrupt organization and has yet to explain himself, let alone apologize for the same.
Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:20 PM | Comments (13)

Obama Funneled Grant Money to Afrocentric Anti-American Extremists

Stanley Kurtz has been digging through the archives of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and has discovered that the group created and ram-rodded by domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and fronted by Barack Obama was funneling grant money to anti-American afro-centric extremist groups filled with men just like Barack Obama's racist minister Rev. Jeremiah Wright—and as a matter of fact, some of those men spoke at Wright's Church during the time Barack Obama attended.

How culpable is Obama is funneling money to these racist indoctrination efforts?

Given the precedent of his earlier responses on Ayers and Wright, Obama might be inclined to deny personal knowledge of the educational philosophy he was so generously funding. Such a denial would not be convincing. For one thing, we have evidence that in 1995, the same year Obama assumed control of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he publicly rejected "the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation," a stance that clearly resonates with both Wright and Carruthers. (See "No Liberation.")

And as noted, Wright had invited Carruthers, Hilliard, and like-minded thinkers to address his Trinity congregants. Wright likes to tick off his connections to these prominent Afrocentrists in sermons, and Obama would surely have heard of them. Reading over SSAVC’s Annenberg proposals, Obama could hardly be ignorant of what they were about. And if by some chance Obama overlooked Hilliard’s or Carruthers’s names, SSAVC’s proposals are filled with references to "rites of passage" and "Ptahhotep," dead giveaways for the anti-American and separatist ideological concoction favored by SSAVC.

We know that Obama did read the proposals. Annenberg documents show him commenting on proposal quality. And especially after 1995, when concerns over self-dealing and conflicts of interest forced the Ayers-headed "Collaborative" to distance itself from monetary issues, all funding decisions fell to Obama and the board. Significantly, there was dissent within the board. One business leader and experienced grant-smith characterized the quality of most Annenberg proposals as "awful." (See "The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: The First Three Years," p. 19.) Yet Obama and his very small and divided board kept the money flowing to ideologically extremist groups like the South Shore African Village Collaborative, instead of organizations focused on traditional educational achievement.

So Barack Obama either supported funding the racist indoctrination of schoolchildren, or is grossly incompetent as an executive, or both.

This is part of a frankly disturbing pattern of behavior from the man who would be President.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:24 AM | Comments (12)

October 13, 2008

Obama Mentor Frank Marshall Davis an Admitted Child Rapist

Somehow I missed this when it was published in August in the U.K. Telegraph:

Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's half-sister, told the Associated Press recently that her grandfather had seen Mr Davis was a "point of connection, a bridge if you will, to the larger African-American experience for my brother".

In his memoir, Mr Obama recounts how he visited Mr Davis on several occasions, apparently at junctures when he was grappling with racial issues, to seek his counsel. At one point in 1979 Mr Davis described university as "an advanced degree in compromise" that was designed to keep blacks in their place.

Mr Obama quoted him as saying: "Leaving your race at the door. Leaving your people behind. Understand something, boy. You're not going to college to get educated. You’re going there to get trained."

He added that "they'll tank on your chain and let you know that you may be a well-trained, well-paid nigger, but you're a nigger just the same."

It has also been established that Mr Davis, who divorced in 1970, was the author of a hard-core pornographic autobiography published in San Diego in 1968 by Greenleaf Classics under the pseudonym Bob Greene.

In a surviving portion of an autobiographical manuscript, Mr Davis confirms that he was the author of Sex Rebel: Black after a reader had noticed the "similarities in style and phraseology" between the pornographic work and his poetry.

"I could not then truthfully deny that this book, which came out in 1968 as a Greenleaf Classic, was mine." In the introduction to Sex Rebel, Mr Davis (writing as Greene) explains that although he has "changed names and identities…all incidents I have described have been taken from actual experiences".

He stated that "under certain circumstances I am bisexual" and that he was "a voyeur and an exhibitionist" who was "occasionally mildly interested in sado-masochism", adding: "I have often wished I had two penises to enjoy simultaneously the double – but different – sensations of oral and genital copulation."

The book, which closely tracks Mr Davis's life in Chicago and Hawaii and the fact that his first wife was black and his second white, describes in lurid detail a series of shockingly sordid sexual encounters, often involving group sex.

One chapter concerns the seduction by Mr Davis and his first wife of a 13-year-old girl called Anne. Mr Davis wrote that it was the girl who had suggested he had sex with her. "I'm not one to go in for Lolitas. Usually I'd rather not bed a babe under 20.

"But there are exceptions. I didn't want to disappoint the trusting child. At her still-impressionistic age, a rejection might be traumatic, could even cripple her sexually for life."

He then described how he and his wife would have sex with the girl. "Anne came up many times the next several weeks, her aunt thinking she was in good hands. Actually she was.

"She obtained a course in practical sex from experienced and considerate practitioners rather than from ignorant insensitive neophytes….I think we did her a favour, although the pleasure was mutual."

On other occasions, Mr Davis would cruise in Hawaii parks looking for couples or female tourists to have sex with. He derived sexual gratification from bondage, simulated rape and being flogged and urinated on.

I only found this Telegraph story after a new commenter named "Krys" dumped the text of this current National Enquirer story in the comments of an unrelated post.

This story has been known by the U.S. media for almost two months now, but I can find no evidence that any network or cable television news outlet, newspaper, syndicate, or magazine has reported on this. Does anyone believe for one second that if John McCain or Sarah Palin were mentored by an self-admitted child rapist and general pervert that it wouldn't be the singular focus of multiple news cycles, questioning how such a relationship was damage their delicate and emerging psychologies, rendering them too unreliable for the Presidency, or perhaps darkly suggesting that the candidate might have been abused by such a mentor themselves?

Instead, they buried the story, until once again the Enquirer shows itself to be the only U.S news organization with enough integrity to report a story detrimental to a Democratic Presidential candidate.

That doesn't mean the Enquirer has suddenly become more credible. It just serves to show you how partisan and unreliable the American news media is today.

Barack Obama's list of known mentors now includes child rapists ("Uncle Frank" Marshall), racists (Rev. Jeremiah Wright) and terrorists (Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn).

When is someone going to question how these associations must have warped Obama's views and render him unstable, and unsuitable for the Presidency?

Update: Duncan Black, apparently not the sharpest child-safe pumpkin-carving tool in the liberal drawer, deliberately misrepresents or ignorantly misreads this post to declare that I've decided "a rumor that Obama as a young child may have been (as in, in his fapping imagination) molested disqualifies him from being president."

I said nothing of the sort.

In linking the U.K. version of the story first told in August, I noted that the U.S. media has buried this story for almost two months, and that had there been a similar pervert close to the McCain or Palin families, the media would have used it against the candidate. I also noted that Davis was yet another of Barack Obama's mentors that has a radical past, including terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and his racist mentor minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

At no point do I state that Obama was molested, or even may have been molested. Frankly, the thought never crossed my mind.

Black owes me an apology, though it remains to be seen if he has the integrity to issue one.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:10 PM | Comments (22)

Obama Knew Of Ayers' Terrorist Past When?

The left keeps wanting us to ignore Barack Obama's ties to domestic terrorists (plural) Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. That is understandable, even if we chose to buy the explanation offered up by Obama himself that he shouldn't be held responsible for attacks by the Weathermen that occurred when he was eight.

I agree. Barack Obama shouldn't be held responsible for domestic terror attacks that took place in America when Barack Obama was an eight-year-old student in an Indonesian school half a world away.

What Obama knew at eight isn't relevant.

What he knew at 20 is.

The Weathermen and the Black Liberation Army murdered police officers and a Brinks armored car guard just 22 miles from Obama's apartment in New York when Obama was 20 years old at Columbia University.

Fake IDs used to rent the vehicles used in the robbery were tied to the store that Ayer's wife and Weathermen co-founder Bernadine Dohrn worked in at the time, and she went to jail for seven months for refusing to testify about her role to the grand jury.

Obama and Ayers developed a long and radical partnership in Chicago afterward.

How long has Barack Obama know Bill Ayers was a terrorist?

A lot longer than he's willing to admit.

Update: Rick links in the "just a guy in my neighborhood" video at Brutally Honest where Hillary Clinton rips into the Obama-Ayers relationship.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:49 AM | Comments (16)

October 11, 2008

The Tasergate Wet Fart

So much grunting, twisting, and screaming, and so little to show for it:

Democratic state senator and staunch Barack Obama supporter Hollis French of Alaska boasted in early September that he would provide an "October Surprise" which would upset the McCain-Palin campaign. Indeed, he originally planned to time it for October 31, four days before the election, for maximum impact, until other legislators forced him to abandon that particular strategy.

Today, however, in an episode of political theater that would make Josef Stalin blush, French gave it his very best shot: The investigator he hired and directed, Steve Branchflower, has labored mightily and given birth to a bloated and redundant 263-page report which boils down, for purposes of the ongoing presidential campaign, to two paragraphs that completely contradict one another. And the one of them that's unfavorable ignores the most important — indeed conclusive — evidence on point, but goes on to provide Branchflower's guess as to whether Gov. Palin has done anything improper.

Please understand this, if you take nothing else away from reading this post: The Branchflower Report is a series of guess and insupportable conclusions drawn by exactly one guy, and it hasn't been approved or adopted or endorsed by so much as a single sub-committee of the Alaska Legislature, much less any kind of commission, court, jury, or other proper adjudicatory body. It contains no new bombshells in terms of factual revelations. Rather, it's just Steve Branchflower's opinion — after being hired and directed by one of Gov. Palin's most vocal opponents and one of Alaska's staunchest Obama supporters — that he thinks Gov. Palin had, at worst, mixed motives for an action that even Branchflower admits she unquestionably had both (a) the complete right to perform and (b) other very good reasons to perform.

It's the funniest kangaroo court I've seen in years.

Alaska Democrats hell-bent on lynching Sarah Palin for Dear Leader Obama all but promised a guilty verdict before their investigation into Tasergate began, but the best they could come up with was a unilateral fact-free declaration that amounts to "Sarah Palin abused power because I was hired to find that Sarah Palin abused her power, even though my own report contradicts that. BUGS! BUGS! BUGS!!!"

I'm just trying to figures out who the biggest fools are here:

Hollis French, the Alaska Democrat and Obama supporter that promised an "October Surprise,"only to—surprise!—come up with a self-contradicting report;
  • Steven Branchflower, who wanted to be a good lackey, but still couldn't overcome the facts;
  • The Anchorage Daily News, New York Times, and Associated Press, who apparently think they'll be able to con their readers with headlines contradicted by their stories.
  • And somehow, I have a feeling they'll continue to try to convince us that they represent something approximating truth, which may be the funniest thing of all.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:00 AM | Comments (22)

    October 10, 2008

    PUMA Rumor: Obama, Top Democrats Under Cloud of RICO Investigation

    A post yesterday on pro-Hillary HillBuzz claims that a contributer spoke with someone in the Chicago court system that a team of FBI investigators in ten states are putting together a RICO case for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. They are claiming that alleged undocumented contributions to the Obama campaign could potentially ensnare ACORN and, well, just about every Democrat they don't like.

    If everything rumored here is true, it looks like David Axelrod, Howard Dean, Donna Brazile, SoetorObama himself, and possibly even Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were all involved, together, in massive RICO violations, and thus federal fraud, if the DNC and party leadership knew what the SoetorObama campaign and ACORN were up to and allowed it to proceed. Knowledge of federal crimes being committed makes all parties accessories to those crimes — and part of the conspiracy to defraud the public.

    As I've never been one to let a rumor idle if it can easily be proven or quashed, I went to the source and shot an email to Randall Samborn, Assistant US Attorney and Public Information Officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois.

    I asked Mr. Samborn three simple questions.

    • Can you confirm or deny that ACORN is the target of a RICO investigation?
    • Are any elected government officials under investigation?
    • Is any current poltical candidate, staff member or volunteer associated with the Barack Obama Presidential campaign under investigation?

    Unfortunately, this was nor a rumor Mr. Samborn could quash, responding via email, "We do not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation - therfore, we decline comment and I am unable to answer any of your questions."

    And, of course, since those in a position to know if there is an investigation are precisely the people who can't talk about it, we'll get a continued trickle of rumors.

    Kinda like this.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:22 PM | Comments (11)

    Battleground State of Mind

    I just dropped by my local pawn shop to get rid of some items around the house that were not longer needed, and found them to be extremely busy.

    The high level of traffic in the shop wasn't all the surprising considering this economy Congressional Democrats engineered, but what was surprising is why people were there.

    Other than myself, it doesn't appear anyone was there to pawn unwanted things.

    Of the 12 people in the shop when I was there, the 11 others were all looking at firearms. A CZ-58 and an AK-47 variant were on the counter in front of one pair of customers. An off-duty sheriff and his friend were picking up what I think was a DPMS LR-308 complete with scope and bipod. Another guy was looking at a used Polytech M-14, and the remainder were looking at handguns... mostly Glocks and CZ-75s.

    I overheard one of the guys behind the gun counter say that gun sales among the shops in the area were up about 35-percent. Later, when he wasn't as busy, I asked him why he thought that was. His answer was simple, and perhaps predictable.

    "Barack."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:41 PM | Comments (14)

    October 09, 2008

    The Weather Underground Documentary Trailer 2002

    So this documentary on the Weathermen came out in 2002, following the 1988 hit Running on Empty, that was based on the life of Bernadine Dohrn.

    So why is it that Barack Obama says that the last time he associated with Bill Ayers was 2005?

    Update:

    Via "mo1962" in the comments, the full documentary.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:41 PM | Comments (30)

    Thanks, Google! Now Perhaps Barack Can Explain His New Party Membership

    Search engine giant Google rolled back the clock to their oldest available index today to celebrate their tenth anniversary, and guess what I found?

    In the New Party's March 1996 Update.

    Winning in Wisconsin

    The New Party continues to roll through Wisconsin, with victories this month in municipal and county primaries in Milwaukee and Madison. Progressive Milwaukee is backing three county board, one city council, and one school board candidate. Progressive Dane (Madison) is endorsing nine county board candidates. All NP-backed candidates won their primaries.

    Chicago Campaigns

    The Illinois New Party is working intensively on Willie Delgado's state representative campaign. Delgado is part of an emerging Latino network in Chicago. We're also backing Danny Davis in a Congressional race, Barack Obama for state representative, and judicial candidate Patricia Martin. In addition to the electoral work, the NP in Chicago is supporting a local living wage campaign and an effort to prevent the placement of a waste site on the West Side.

    And then there is the October 1996 New Party Update:

    New Party members are busy knocking on doors, hammering down lawn signs, and phoning voters to support NP candidates this fall. Here are some of our key races:

    Arkansas: The Little Rock New Party has a full slate of candidates up for election in November. LRNP steering committee member Michael Booker is running unopposed for re-election to the Arkansas State House. Two NP members - Paul Kelly and Genevieve Stewart - are running for at-large (city-wide) city council positions. And in a head-to-head battle between the New Party and the conservative right, NP member Jayne Cia faces the Arkansas state chair of Empower America (Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett's organization) for a Justice of the Peace (county board) position.

    Illinois: Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last Spring and face off against Republican opponents on election day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary).

    In the Populist:

    New Party members and supported candidates won 16 of 23 races, including an at-large race for the Little Rock, Ark., City Council, a seat on the county board for Little Rock and the school board for Prince George's County, Md. Chicago is sending the first New Party member to Congress, as Danny Davis, who ran as a Democrat, won an overwhelming 85% victory. New Party member Barack Obama was uncontested for a State Senate seat from Chicago.

    And from The Columbus Free Press, the reprinting of a New Party press release:

    Illinois: The first NP member heads to Congress, as Danny Davis wins an overwhelming 85% victory yesterday (he got a higher percentage of the vote in that district than the President). NP member and State Senate candidate Barack Obama won uncontested. Interestingly, it appears that the local Democratic machine is trying to distance itself from our folks. At a "Democratic Unity" march on Chicago's West Side, a flyer invited community members to join with a host of local democratic candidates. The only two west-side Democrats not listed: NP members Danny Davis (U.S. House candidate) and Michael Chandler (Alderman and Ward Committeeman).

    It is now well documented that Barack Obama ran for office and won uncontested as a New Party candidate, but what is the New Party?

    In 1996, for all intents and purposes, "ACORN and the New Party were essentially the same body."

    That would be the same ACORN that Barack Obama has close ties to today, the same ACORN that Barack Obama funneled $800,000 to this year, and which is under investigation in at least a dozen states for voter registration fraud.

    Is it too much to ask of "real" journalists to ask the campaign why Barack Obama ran as the candidate to the left of even the most radical left-wing of the Democratic Party, and has since tried to downplay that radical association?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:11 PM | Comments (13)

    Obama's Friends. America's Enemies.

    A new internet only ad from the McCain campaign, "Ayers," tying terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers to their protégé, Barack Obama.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:02 AM | Comments (3)

    More Hidden Relationships in the Obama Campaign

    Phil Carter, Veterans Director for the Obama Campaign sent out a press release yesterday about a "Congressional Report Card" from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) that ranked Joe Biden and Barack Obama with "B" ratings on veterans issues, while giving John McCain a "D."

    What did Carter forget to mention?

    In addition to being the Veterans Director for the Obama Campaign, he's a founding member of IAVA.

    Milblogs Blackfive and This Ain't Hell are covering Carter's obvious conflict of interest and the condescending IAVA response.

    Frankly, I've always heard Carter is supposed to be a stand-up guy, but looking at this, he obviously isn't. He should probably step down from the Obama campaign, and like Matt says, I wouldn't be too surprised if this violated campaign laws against coordinating between outside groups and campaigns.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:12 AM | Comments (2)

    October 08, 2008

    Barack Obama Was Member of Socialist New Party

    Reader Gus Bailey pointed this out earlier via email, and Ace breaks out the flaming skull.

    I don't understand what the big deal is about.

    So Barack Obama was a member of an extremist political party established by the Democratic Socialists for America, the Chicago New Party, and they cheered his victory in his uncontested run for his Illinois state senate seat as a step away from American values, towards socialism.

    Does it really matter?

    Barack Obama's most direct political godfather is a bomb-building terrorist still bent on undermining capitalism. His hostess for his first political fundraiser was once labeled "the most dangerous woman in America" and is a fan of how the Charles Manson "family" murdered their victims.

    Barack Obama's cultish church of 21 years is built upon a combination of Black Panther rhetoric, racism against whites, and a Marxist Jesus Christ. If his pastor and mentor Jeremiah Wright had not shrieked " God damn America!" and had not tried to blame the AIDS virus on a government attempt at genocide against African Americans, Barack Obama would still being going to that church.

    Barack Obama laundered millions of dollars in education funds to extremist groups in an attempt to indoctrinate children instead of educate them.

    Barack Obama, while a member of the Joyce Foundation, attempted to undermine the integrity of legal scholarship in a shadowy attempt to subvert the Constitution and imperil the Second Amendment by conning the Supreme Court.

    Folks, if being deeply associated with terrorist leaders and racists for more than two decades doesn't cause disgust in American voters, if they don't care how Obama funneled grant money to extremists, and tried to undermine the Constitution, will his membership in a political party that seeks to undermine the America way of life really stand a chance of changing their minds?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:55 PM | Comments (46)

    AYERS: "Capitalism Promotes Racism and Militarism"

    As Barack Obama's political godfather of 21-years, Bill Ayers has long plotted to use education as well as pipe-bombs to spread his hatred of the American way of life. A reader sent me a link last night to Ayers' November, 2006 speech before the World Education Fourm in Caracas, Venezuela, posted on Ayers' blog.


    L-to-R. Bill Ayers, Terrorist spawn Chesa Boudin, Luis Bonilla-Molina. And Che, of course. (source)

    In this speech, Ayers' praised Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his version of Bolivarianism, a blend of South American socialism and communism, and the support of Marxist terrorism, as practiced by Chavez's proven support of his friends in FARC and other terrorist groups.

    Ayers' strong dislike of American capitalism and self-loathing towards white America permeates this speech as is has permeated every aspect of his academic and terrorist work over the past 40 years.

    Here's a taste of Ayers' philosophy which has helped shape Barack Obama's worldview since at least 1987:

    I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position—and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice. After all, the fundamental message of the teacher is this: you can change your life—whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, another world is possible. As students and teachers begin to see themselves as linked to one another, as tied to history and capable of collective action, the fundamental message of teaching shifts slightly, and becomes broader, more generous: we must change ourselves as we come together to change the world. Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion!

    I taught at first in something like a Simoncito—called Head Start—and eventually taught at every level in barrios and prisons and insurgent projects across the United States. I learned then that education is never neutral. It always has a value, a position, a politics. Education either reinforces or challenges the existing social order, and school is always a contested space – what should be taught? In what way? Toward what end? By and for whom? At bottom, it involves a struggle over the essential questions: what does it mean to be a human being living in a human society?

    Totalitarianism demands obedience and conformity, hierarchy, command and control. Royalty requires allegiance. Capitalism promotes racism and militarism – turning people into consumers, not citizens. Participatory democracy, by contrast, requires free people coming together voluntarily as equals who are capable of both self-realization and, at the same time, full participation in a shared political and economic life.

    "I learned then that education is never neutral. It always has a value, a position, a politics."

    Thus Ayer's describes his philosophy on the role of education in undermining American democracy, and the importance of corrupting schools into indoctrination camps for the success of his revolution.

    It is this philosophy that drove Ayers to write his grant proposal for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a plot that placed Ayers' pupil and fellow traveler Barack Obama in the role of Chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, even though Obama did not have the qualifications for that position that others on the board. Obama was picked for one reason: to be a "yes man" and funnel grant money towards the indoctrination efforts of Ayers' pet left wing projects, including over a million dollars sent to Ayer's own creation, the Small School Workshop.

    The media continues to pretend that the 21-year partnership between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers is one that should focus only on Ayers' roll as the leader of a terrorist group. Indeed, it should be a campaign-ending issue for Obama, a man with terrorist friends as we are engaged in a war against terrorists.

    But the dozens of bombs that Weathermen and their offshoots exploded in the 1970s and 80s, the armed robberies they committed, the police officers they killed, the fire-bombings they carried out against women and children, and their failed terrorist attacks against American soldiers wasn't the end of Ayer's philosophical assault on America.

    Like the shared hatreds professed by Barack Obama's other two mentors of 20+ years, Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright, and radical activist priest Michael Pfleger, Bill Ayers has never stopped trying to undermine American capitalism and our American way of life, plotting to turn us into another socialist or communist state.

    Perhaps we could forgive Barack Obama if he had only fleeting or inconsequential tie with an isolated radical in his past, but it is clear that the three most influential men in his life—each one a mentor of 20+ years—are all political extremists:

    • An unrepentant left wing terrorist that killed Americans and would have killed far more if they hadn't been incompetent, who helped start Obama's career as his political godfather
    • A racist conspiracy-mongering minister that teaches a warped Christian-based cult theology based on the teaching of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers that turns Jesus christ into a Marxist rebel
    • a radical priest that advocates lynching those whom he doesn't agree with and is supporter of left wing radicalism and noted racist Louis Farrakan.

    How can anyone look at those who have had the most influence on Barack Obama's life, and conclude that a man who surrounds himself with those who hate America, is fit to be our President?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:43 AM | Comments (9)

    Obama's Constitutional Subversion

    A new report (PDF) written by Second Amendment lawyer Dave Hardy of Of Arms and the Law finds that while constitutional law professor Barack Obama was serving on the Joyce Foundation's Board of Directors from 1994-2002, Joyce set out to corrupt the availability of academic scholarship concerning the Second Amendment. The goal was to control published research so that the U.S Supreme Court would be influenced as much as possible by the overwhelming preponderance of recent scholarship favoring the collective rights interpretation favored by gun control advocates and firearm prohibitionists.

    Hardy summarizes:

    The Joyce Foundation years ago realized that a Supreme Court case on the Second Amendment was likely, and decided to use its millions to buy the case indirectly. It created a supposed academic research center as its wholly-owned subsidiary. It corrupted law reviews, dictating their content, and even trying to dictate who could speak at universities accepting Joyce's money. It laundered its money through its Center and thru a University’s Foundation.

    An attorney named Barak Obama was right in the middle of the plan.

    The foundation poured millions of dollars into buying influence in cash-starved law reviews, foundations, and universities, providing that they would only publish the collective rights interpretations approved by Joyce, and that they would refuse to publish scholarship that provided an individualist rights interpretation.

    This underhanded attempt by Obama and Joyce to influence the Supreme Court--essentially attempting to "buy" an anti-gun interpretation of the Second amendment by manipulating legal scholarship--flies in the face of the revisionist history recently offered up by Annenberg's FactCheck.Org, which recently and dishonestly portrayed Obama's newly-minted individual rights interpretation as authentic. IT is also a tactic that Joyce continues in Obama's absence, as the list of university and "public heath" grants targeting firearms on the Foundation's own web site reveals.

    How far was Joyce willing to go under Obama's leadership to provide the Supreme Court with slanted scholarship?

    According to Hardy, Joyce paid Ohio State University to create a Second Amendment Research Center, and used the Center to manufacture scholarship only favorable to the collectivist interpretation. Joyce then used OSU's Center as a shell organization to purchase influence at other law reviews, including Fordham and Stanford. Fordam and Stanford then dedicates review issues to articles advocating the collectivist, anti-gun scholarship. In short, constitutional scholar Obama attempted to undermine the interpretation of the Constitution.

    The Hardy report is just the latest in a disturbing trend of information trickling out about Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama that suggests he is not only radically aligned, but that he is comfortable with using subterfuge to undermine both the Judicial and Executive in the pursuit of political power and influence.

    Stanley Kurtz has done and continues to do yeoman's work in sifting through the available archives trying to uncover exactly what transpired before and while Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama was the chairman of the failed Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge (hereafter, "Challenge" or "CAC") began as a successful grant application from University of Illinois at Chicago education professor Bill Ayers. Outside of Chicago, Ayers is best known as a domestic terrorist who operated in the in the late 1960s and 1970s as one of founders, leaders and reputed bomb builders and designers of the Weather Underground.

    The Annenberg Foundation (yes the same parent group that funds FactCheck.org and misrepresented Obama's Second Amendment record), provided the Challenge with a charter grant of $49.2 million in 1995, and the Challenge raises and spend more than $100 million in total with Barack Obama as the CAC Chairman. The tens of millions of dollars raised by the foundation was funneled not into proven educational programs, but laundered into grants for radical left wing organizations that spent the money on efforts to agitate and indoctrinate students and their families to use them as cannon fodder in a battle Ayers and his ideological allies were having over the fate of Chicago's public schools with the teachers union and school administrators. By any measure--and most tellingly by the Challenge's own research arm--the challenge was a educational failure.

    The failure of Chicago Annenberg Challenge under Barack Obama and it's laundering of funds to further the goals of aging radicals instead improving the Chicago Public Schools as was their promise, has been avoided as much as possible by most media organizations who don't want to jeopardize his candidacy with the inconvenient record of his failure as an executive.

    Barack Obama's willingness to scheme in an attempt to corrupt scholarship and deceive the Supreme Court, his role in laundering money to aging terrorists (while stealing the education promised to a generation of schoolchildren), and current bid impose totalitarian free speech restrictions (more here) indicates that Barack Obama is precisely the kind of deceptive authoritarian thug liberals claim to see and hate in President George W. Bush.

    Barack Obama has thus far spent nearly unimaginable amounts of money in an attempt to wrest control of the First and Second Amendments. If he becomes President in November, will any of the Constitution be safe?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:26 AM | Comments (7)

    October 07, 2008

    Did Ayer's Write Obama's Autobiography?

    Author and occasional book doctor/ghostwriter Jack Cahill is making an interesting case that Barack Obama did not write Dreams From My Father.

    As if that wasn't an explosive enough charge, Cahill makes the case that Bill Ayers was the ghostwriter of Dreams, and notes many similarities between Obama's book, and Ayer's quasi-fictional book released at roughly the same time about his role as a terrorist in the Weather Underground, Fugitive Days.

    A taste from one of the six articles Cahill has written on the topic thus far.

    Dreams melds two styles: one, a long-winded accounting of conversations and events, polished just well enough to pass muster; the second, a fierce, succinct and tightly coiled analysis of the events that have been related.

    Fugitive Days is fierce, succinct and tightly coiled throughout. It lacks the sometimes tedious fluff of Dreams and is the better book.

    In the way of background, Ayers and Obama both grew up in comfortable white households and have struggled to find an identity as righteous black men ever since.

    Just as Obama resisted "the pure and heady breeze of privilege" to which he was exposed as a child, Ayers too resisted "white skin privilege" or at least tried to.

    "I also thought I was black," says Ayers only half-jokingly. He read all the books Obama did—James Baldwin, Leroi Jones, Richard Wright, The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

    As proof of his righteousness, Ayers named his first son "Malik" after the newly Islamic Malcolm X and the second son "Zayd" after Zayd Shakur, a Black Panther killed in a shootout that claimed the life of a New Jersey State Trooper.

    Tellingly, Ayers, like Obama, began his careers as a self-described "community organizer," Ayers in inner-city Cleveland, Obama in inner-city Chicago.

    "They talked into the night about children, welfare, schools, crime, rent, gangs, the problems and the life of a neighborhood," Ayers tells us of the poor black folks he tried to organize. Dreams is filled with such encounters.

    I don't think that Cahill makes a conclusive case as some have suggested (and he appears to be a bit "off" in som of his other work), but he does make a plausible case here, certainly establishing that the literate terrorist had the shared experiences necessary to step in and provide the words Obama could not find on his own.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:30 AM | Comments (71)

    The Man Who Controls Barack Obama

    Just a month out from the 2008 Presidential elections, someone at CNN finally to a long, sober look at the carefully choreographed rise of Barack Obama through the staggeringly corrupt world of Chicago politics and thought, " My God, what have we done?"

    The resulting panicked report is brutally factual.

    Ace has more on the Obama-Ayers relationship. Roger Simon has more on Charles Manson-groupie Bernadine Dohrn's celebrity. I've got more on Obama-Ayers-Dohrn. Hell, I've got an even more damning article I haven't even posted yet that ties it all together.

    The take-away?

    If Bill Ayer's hands were any further up Barack Obama's backside, we'd have to change the Senator's name to Lambchop.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:45 AM | Comments (9)

    October 06, 2008

    "Obama Youth" Teacher Suspended

    Remember these guys?

    via Fox News:

    A middle school teacher in Missouri was suspended Monday for putting a video on YouTube of his students chanting lines from Barack Obama speeches and wearing military fatigues.

    The video, called "Obama Youth -- Junior Fraternity Regiment," was posted by a YouTube user named "keepitwildtv" on Oct. 2. The school learned the video was on the Internet and took action against the teacher Monday morning.

    Joyce McGautha, superintendent of the Urban Community Leadership Academy, a charter school for students in fifth through ninth grades in Kansas City, Mo., said that the video was probably taken last May during the Junior Fraternity's morning meeting at the school.

    She would not disclose the teacher's name. "At this time because of the legal action that we'll probably have to take against the teacher, I'm not going to give his name," McGautha said.

    You just know that at this moment, Barack Obama is fighting the overwhelming urge to funnel the teacher some misappropriated grant money.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:41 PM | Comments (32)

    Obama's Attempt to Undermine The Constitution

    While at the left-wing Joyce Foundation, Barack Obama was part of a plot to subvert the Constitution by corrupting legal scholarship with the goal of conning the Supreme Court into destroying the Second Amendment.

    This isn't an op-ed. This is fact.

    Barack Obama has a lot in common with the goals of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. He just prefers to use laundered grant money instead of bombs.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:15 AM | Comments (10)

    Pro-Obama Group Runs Fraudulent Video

    Stay classy, Obots:

    A video released by the Jewish Council for Education & Research which appeared to show several retired senior IDF and Mossad officials supporting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has proven to be misleading, with a number of officials who appeared in the video saying on Monday that their words were taken out of context.

    "It's not only misleading, it was an interview about what the next president was going to have to deal with," former deputy chief of staff Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan told The Jerusalem Post. "And to know that they used this interview and took five seconds, and put me in a list of people praising Barack Obama…

    The video:

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:39 AM | Comments (1)

    October 04, 2008

    More Indoctrinated "Obama Youth"

    The pseudo-militant look of step-dancing in this video, combined with the old-style military woodland BDUs, is going to frighten those unfamiliar with stepping, though it shouldn't. In and of itself, it is an awesome form of dance to watch.

    The stepping, combined with the cultish fanaticism focusing on Obama, however, is going to freak some people out.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:53 PM | Comments (74)

    October 02, 2008

    Biden-Palin Debate Reaction

    As has become something of a tendency, I listened to tonight's Vice Presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden on CNN, glancing occasionally at the reaction of their undecided voters, while splitting eyeball time between Ace's liveblog and the body language of the candidates.

    Frankly, I was impressed with Biden. Given his recent history of unforced errors and obvious gaffes, not to mention his tendency to overestimate his own intelligence and speak condescendingly to his opponents, I thought there was perhaps a 10-percent chance he would meltdown, and instead, he put together a solid performance.

    Palin, however, clearly won the debate, thanks no doubt to a clever media that has spent the last few weeks belittling and attacking her as some sort of unschooled fanatical hick. By showing up and more than holding her own against expectations, she outpointed Biden convincingly.

    Granted, this probably doesn't matter.

    Probably.

    The media either will spin the debate as a draw, or they will minimize a Palin victory. Also, Veep debates don't usually have much of a long-term impacts on an election.

    But Palin's win—and it was a clear win—does help re-energize conservatives, and it will reassure voters leaning towards McCain that she does indeed have the ability to handle herself, and if needed, the country.

    At least some of those voters now comfortable that Sarah Palin could lead if called upon are also going to note that she has more executive experience and proven leadership experience than Barack Obama, the man who leads the opposing ticket.

    The media will try to make sure that message doesn't get out, but it doesn't make the freshman Senator's paper-thin resume any more impressive.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:42 PM | Comments (62)

    The Communist's Son Lectures on "Patriotism"

    One reason I so loathe progressives is their sincere belief that the power of government is more inspiring than the power of the individual.

    Speaking in Michigan this morning, Barack Obama just gave a speech—I wish I had the exact quote—where he used the analogy of a factory worker in Michigan, "a grown man" losing his job and losing his pension because of a tough economy, and declared it "unpatriotic."

    Unpatriotic?

    Perhaps the son of an African communist who never stepped onto the shores of the continental United States until he was an adult, who then thrust himself into further radicalization through left-wing university indoctrination, radical foundations, Marxist activist groups, a racist cult, and the most corrupt political machine in modern America, shouldn't be lecturing America on patriotism.

    In Barack Obama's America, the government will provide for your every basic need. Your medical care will be determined, regulated, and provided by the government. Your job may or may not be be a government job, and you might opt not even to have one. You'll be able to get by with generous government assistance, and with taxes going ever higher, the impetus to work hard for what the government will give most of for free will be gone.

    Besides, why should we work hard to get rich, when Obama taxes the rich to death? It's far better that we all just exist, than see any of us excel.

    That is the real promise of Barack Obama's vision, the death of American exceptionalism.

    The spirit of America "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" was not a change that generations of foreign potentates and peons could believe in. As time moves forward their societies continue to moulder and rot from within, they proclaim their sophistication and culture and pray for an America that wasn't so brash and successful.

    It's far easier for them to root for us to fall down to their level than it is to try to rise to ours. They love Barack Obama, because they think he'll make us more like them. He brings the promised comfort of shared mediocrity.

    Barack Obama's supporters claim that he can be all things to all people if they simply believe. There is a word for that. Barack Obama is running as a placebo. He is a sugar pill wrapped in a bit of bitter to give it some authenticity, but he's not real medicine. He's never cured anything, and makes some conditions far more dire.

    If he's elected the ills that plague the American economy will only get worse, and they'll get worse quickly. During the first Presidential debate, the candidate from Chicago who brags of new and larger government agencies could not think of one government program he's trim to tighten the government's belt during the present economic crisis... not one.

    H doesn't understand our capitalist economy, but then, he doesn't understand America.

    Barack Obama doesn't understand America because he's spent most of his lifeeither outside of it, or embracing those inside it who would see it destroyed.

    He held his first political fundraiser in the home of a friends, as most infant politicians do. His friends however, are no ordinary friends. Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn hate America, and hate capitalism.

    They hated America enough—and loved communism so much—that Dorhn and her fellow radicals traveled to Cuba (PDF) to meet with Cuban and North Vietnamese communists during the height of the Vietnam War in order to learn to wage war against the United States.

    They hated America enough to then formally declare war upon it, and during the course of their war, they led a group that bombed government buildings, murdered law enforcement officers, firebombed the home of a judge with his children inside, and plotted a domestic terror strike against the U.S. Army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey, that was only thwarted when the bombers set off on of the nail-studded pipe-bombs they were building by mistake.

    Ayers and Dorhn and other radicals never gave up their war to overthrow out way of life, they simply recruited younger radicals and began a more subversive campaign, using the despot's favorite target of indoctrinating a nation's youth.

    Bill Ayers wrote the grant proposal for the Chicago Annenburg Challenge, and brought along the community organizer son of a Kenyan communist to be the figurehead chairman of the board. A loyal follower of leftist radicals, Obama used his position to funnel more than $100 million of grant money meant for the education of Chicago schoolchildren into radical agitation and indoctrination efforts led by Communists such as Ayers and Mike Klonsky.

    Communism is the goal, socialism under the name of the Che-loving "progressive" wing of the Democratic Party is merely a steeping stone, and woe be unto those who would utter these truths.

    Smears, intimidation, and threats are the order of the day, and Obama doesn't even have any real power, yet. I have faith that the American people will recognize Barack Obama for what he is and what he chooses to be, and decides to send him back to be the mediocre Senator he was always meant to be.

    Warts and all, we love America, because it will allow us to fail, time and again before we eventually suceed. You can make mistakes, pick yourself up, and chase your dreams, again and again and again until you get it right. In no other country on earth can a man so easily turn nothinginto unimaginable wealth through hard work, ingenuity, and a little luck. This guy's blog just turned him into a multi-millionaire overnight; another serial entrepreneur I spoke with on the phone earlier this week has dreams just as big, creating an entire business niche where none existed before.

    This is American excellence in action. These are people who drive America. They are what make this country great, the first, and the leader in so many fields.

    Barack Obama? Barack Obama wants to change all that.

    Barack Obama is a false prophet preaching the shared mediocrity that he learned sitting for 20+ years in the pews of a radical church that hates what it calls "middleclassness." He is a man who has been an associate of a known domestic terrorist for 21 years, and who helped him funnel more than $100 million to indoctrination efforts to undermine Chicago's schools.

    Barack Obama has never known the real heart of America outside the self-hating radicalism he so quickly embraced when he finally got here.

    Lecture us on Patriotism, sir?

    I think not.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:58 PM | Comments (14)

    October 01, 2008

    Kindernacht Pulled, Apparently in Disgrace

    The creepy "grassroots" video of children singing Obama's praises that turns out to have been the production of Hollywood film industry professionals has proven sufficiently embarrassing to Dear Leader, and has been pulled down.

    Luckily, there are at least one copy of it still online, at least until the Obama Truth Squads exert a copyright infringement threat. Watch it again while you can, because it will be disappeared soon.

    And for all of you that noticed, yes, it does have freakishly obvious parallels to another disturbing cult of personality.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:46 AM | Comments (15)

    September 30, 2008

    The Media and Democratic Party Lied: Palin Did Not Charge For Rape Kits

    We previously debunked this smear campaign here, here and here, but it is nice to now have Governor Palin on the record in her own words.

    Flush another steaming, stinking, Associated Press-carried, Democratic Party-complicit, liberal-blogosphere- astroturfed lie down the toilet:

    The entire notion of making a victim of a crime pay for anything is crazy. I do not believe, nor have I ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test. As governor, I worked in a variety of ways to tackle the problem of sexual assault and rape, including making domestic violence a priority of my administration.

    A small liberal blog started the rumor, apparently after two Democratic Party researchers scoured the archives of the Frontiersman for dirt, and came up with an ambiguous story from 2000, that quickly bounced to an muckraking liberal blog.

    Top Alaskan Democrats for Obama Tony Knowles (whom Palin beat in the governor's race) and Eric Croft, the sponsor of the law HB 270, both claimed in a recent press conference by Democrats falsely claimed the law was passed because of Wasilla's Police charged victims.

    That is a demonstrable, bald-faced, and proven lie.

    Read the committee minutes for yourself.

    Palin, Fannon, and Wasilla are never mentioned.

    Three expert witnesses testified that they knew of no police agencies in Alaska that billed victims. The law was needed because hospitals occasionally exercised bad judgment and billed victims.

    The media and Democratic Party should be ashamed.

    Update: The New York Times-owned Boston Globe is still attempting to carry on with the smear. Perhaps you should register for a free account and let them know what you think about their editorial standards--or lack thereof.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:54 PM | Comments (53)

    Campaign in Crisis: Obama Teleprompter Threatens Strike

    Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:52 PM | Comments (21)

    The HopeChange GroupThink Mindthoughts Song

    Big Brother Approved! (not any more. The original video has been pulled. Enjoy this one while you can).

    I'll let Kim Priestap delve into just how creepy and reminiscent of the concerts by kids in totalitarian states this is, and focus on those behind it.

    While described as a grassroots effort, Kathy Sawada, who posted the video and can been seen directing the children in the video, is a bit more than just an enthusiastic music teacher you might find in your average public school.

    Sawada is a teacher at an elite and expensive Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles as part of the Piano faculty. Colburn just built a $120 million 12-story high-rise addition for their musicians.

    Does a concert-quality musician in an elite school in the middle of the most ego-centric city in the United States count as a "grassroots" effort?

    Here's a partial list of those who helped produce this "grassroots" effort:

    • Jeff ZuckerAmerican television executive, and President & CEO of NBC Universal Gaffer, Chief Lighting Technician in Boogie Nights.
    • Post-producer (former choreographer?) Holly Shiffer.
    • Motion picture camera operator/steadicam specialist Peter Rosenfeld (appropriately enough, worked in Yes Man, a movie about " a guy challenges himself to say 'yes' to everything for an entire year."
    • Darin Moran, another motion picture industry professional, who just finished filming — how appropriate — Land of the Lost.
    • Andy Blumenthal, Hollywood film editor.

    Grassroots all the way, baby

    In Hollywoodland, anything is possible.

    Update: The wrong entertainment industry Obamaphile named Jeff Zucker was originally credited above. Now corrected.

    Update: Kindernacht seems to have been an embarrassment, so the original video has been pulled. IT has been replaced above by a copy... while it lasts.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:25 AM | Comments (70)

    The Peter Principle Goes To Washington

    I still don't know a great deal more about economics than I did last week, and guess what: neither do you.

    That hasn't stopped our fellow Americans from assaulting the Congressional switchboards over our current economic crisis, assuring that the bailout bill in the House of Representatives failed yesterday.

    It wasn't even especially close, falling 207 for and 226 against it. Down party lines, Democrats voted for it 141-94, and Republicans against it 66-132.

    Yes, more Democrats opposed it (94) that Republicans voted for it (66).

    Nancy Pelosi could have passed this bill simply whipping Democratic votes into line, but she didn't. The conventional wisdom is that Democrats up for re-election voted against the bill in order to placate angry constituents that didn't want to be stuck with a $700 billion bailout. Speaker Pelosi, no doubt, didn't want the blame if there was backlash over the bill, and pulled a "Sir Robin, " and allowed her fellow Democrats to "bravely run away."

    This doesn't let Congressional Republicans off the hook.

    Many were hearing the same sort of howling from their constituents (and conservative bloggers) to kill the bill, and so they did. Later blaming Pelosi for her heated partisan rhetoric as a convenient excuse for the lack of Republican support was just as bad as Pelosi's idiotic and nonsensical rant assigning blame for the meltdown on the Bush Administration when the problems began during the Clinton Administration and were enabled by Congress.

    Glass houses, Madame Speaker.

    And so the bill died.

    We're now headed into a sizable recession, and the sad fact is that most of us don't yet grasp what it means. The same people who have been crying out to their Congressmen and Senators to "kill the bill" on ideological grounds will quickly change course once that ideology causes their company to shut down, their small businesses to fail, and their life's savings to evaporate.

    And sadly, it seemed that as a nation, we're poised to elect a President who will only make matters worse.

    If anything was under-reported about the first McCain-Obama debate, it was the fact Barack Obama couldn't come up with a single program or entitlement he would cut to rein in the cost of government to our faltering economy, and in fact, he was pitching massive new outlays. He was also insisting that he could cut taxes for 95% of Americans, while making up the difference by soaking the rich and corporations.

    The nasty, dirty truth is that the pending recession has made Obama's entire stated Peter Principle platform unobtainable.

    He cannot expect to run the existing government we have by cutting personal income taxes for 95% of Americans. That claim always an overt fiction to begin with, as nearly one-third of Americans already pay no taxes:

    One of the biggest challenges facing both John McCain and Barack Obama in their commitment to provide tax relief to working-class Americans is the simple fact that millions of them already pay no personal income taxes.

    According to the most recent IRS statistics for 2006, some 45.6 million tax filers—one-third of all filers—have no tax liability after taking their credits and deductions. For good or ill, this is a dramatic 57 percent increase since 2000 in the number of Americans who pay no personal income taxes.

    If Obama truly cut income taxes for the 95% of individuals currently paying taxes—which is what he means to imply with his campaign speeches— the government of the United States would simply shut down. Period. There would not be enough money coming into the Treasury to make the federal payroll and write checks to those in various entitlement programs.

    Social Security, Medicare, etc... simply gone.

    Granted, they're bound to fail anyway within my lifetime because they are unsustainable in any form remotely similar to what they already are, and always were, but Obama's "robbing the rich to give to the poor" socialist platform just slammed into the ground.

    Obama's entire platform was premised on a bull market, and cannot pass even a cursory non-economist's scrutiny now.

    Barack Obama's Stance on the EconomyReality
    Heath Care:
    As President, Barack Obama will guarantee health coverage for every American and will lower the cost of health care for the average American family by up to $2,500.
    Pure Fantasy.
    In a severe recession, the government cannot implement expansive new social programs, especially those costing tens of billions of dollars. To do so would either bankrupt the government, or create an additional tax burden that would plunge a fragile economy into a full depression. And I don't even want to think of the effect this will have on the research and development of new drugs. If there is no profit in finding a cure for cancer, pharma companies can probably survive on the existing market for sedatives and painkillers.
    Tax Policy:
    Barack Obama will ease the burden on hardworking Americans, offering middle-class tax cuts three times the size of McCain's.
    Pure Fantasy.
    Tax Foundation estimates show that if all of the Obama tax provisions were enacted in 2009, the number of these "nonpayers" would rise by about 16 million, to 63 million overall. If all of the McCain tax proposals were enacted in 2009, the number of nonpayers would rise by about 15 million, to a total of 62 million overall. In addition, as noted previously, Obama simply lied when he claimed he would cut taxes for 95%, as a third are already not paying. There is very little difference in what the candidates will directly do for the middle class. The big difference is that Obama will tax employers out of new hires. He can't seem to grasp that a poor person never employed anyone but gravediggers.
    Energy Policy:
    Barack Obama will ease American's burden at the pump, giving American families $1,000 in rebates. Barack will also create five million new jobs by investing in clean energy technologies.
    Pure Fantasy.
    Obama talks about future technologies that are nowhere near being commercially viable during the next President's term as if they are already here, and utterly ignores the all important short-term and transitional energy economies. We all, want a non-polluting, sustainable domestic energy resources. Obama utterly ignores how we get there from here. Once again, he's offering rhetoric, and voting "present."
    Trade Policy:
    Barack Obama will end tax breaks for companies that send American jobs overseas, and reward companies who create good jobs here at home.
    Pure Fantasy.
    This is the same Barack Obama that has consistently painted American corporations as the enemy, and who has pledged to increase their corporate taxes. Companies, if they want to survive, will have to leave American branches with a skeleton workforce until the oppressive Obama regime ends. He'll cost us jobs, and see his socialist policies grind our economy to a standstill, as those policies have in every singe country then been implemented in. I don't want to be France Lite. Do you?
    Federal Deficit:
    Barack Obama will cut both taxes and spending, implementing a responsible budget that lowers the federal deficit by reducing wasteful spending.
    Pure Fantasy.
    Obama was aked by McCain what he would cut during the debate, and couldn't answer the very simple, reasonable question. Why? Because he seeks to grow the size and cost of government, with socialized healthcare, and plans for other massive new government boondoggles.

    Here's a brief visual demonstration of a Barack Obama economy.

    As always happens under socialism in a bad economy, the people get burned.

    Update: A New RNC Ad makes the case.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:35 AM | Comments (4)

    September 29, 2008

    House Republicans: Pelosi's Rhetoric, Arrogance Derailed Bailout

    House Minority Leader Boehner, Eric Cantor, and others just dropped the responsibility of the failure of the bailout bill to an extremely partisan statement by San Francisco liberal and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Fox confirms.

    Does she not have the minimal common sense to save the partisan rhetoric until after the vote is passed?

    Uh, obviously not.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:49 PM | Comments (31)

    Busted: Obama Lied About the Depth of His Relationship With Terrorist Ayers

    While Barack Obama has long downplayed his connection to Bill Ayers, a co-founder of the violent Weather Underground radical group, new documents show the two worked much more closely together in starting an educational foundation than has been previously known.

    Recently released board-meeting minutes for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge show the two were present together at least six times in 1995 as the foundation's members discussed how to organize and operate the project, which was Ayers' brainchild.

    Ayers' wrote the grant proposal that led to the creation of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and saw Obama, who had no prior experience in education administration, installed to the Board of Directors, and then elevated over University presidents to the CAC chairmanship.

    As chairman, Obama oversaw the awarding grants to radicals for indoctrination instead of education, including a grant to Ayers' Small Schools Workshop, which was run by Ayer's associate former SDS radical and founder of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), Mike Klonsky.

    Klonsky, an Obama supporter, had his blog on BarackObama.com "disappeared" by the campaign earlier this year.

    Barack Obama funneled money that was supposed to be used for education to radicals bent on far left agitation, indoctrination, and community activism, pissing away the education of a generation of Chicago school children to pursue a far left political agenda.

    Kinda of makes you wonder what he would do with the power of the Presidency and an an ideologically-aligned Congress, doesn't?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:51 AM | Comments (7)

    Love the Financial Crisis? Thank Your Local "Community Organizer"

    And yes, the one running for President has his hands all over it:

    IT would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.

    When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago, Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff.

    He returned to Chicago in the early '90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. Chicago ACORN sought out Obama's legal services for a "motor voter" case and partnered with him on his 1992 "Project VOTE" registration drive.

    In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN's up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott's drive against Chicago's banks.

    More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago's Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation's board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.

    That committee's report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama's organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott's ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted.

    MORE, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report acknowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN - whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations.

    Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public's eye. The Woods Fund's claim to be "nonideological," it says, has "enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government 'establishments' without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship."

    Hmm. Radicalism disguised by a claim to be postideological. Sound familiar?

    Oh, it sounds all too familiar.

    The one constant of Barack Obama's rise to power is his ability to funnel money to radical groups without drawing undue attention to himself.

    As chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama directed educational monies meant for elementary and secondary school improvement into a series of grants to radical organizations bent on activism and ideological indoctrination. You'll be shocked—shocked!—to find out that those millions were directed to groups identified by the Chicago School Reform Collaborative—headed by domestic terrorist and Obama fundraiser Bill Ayers.

    Obama has also used the Woods Fund (as noted in the article above) and the Joyce Foundation to launder money from grant-giving organizations into funding for radical groups and causes that were too politically controversial to directly raise funds on their own. He's great for the economic welfare of radicals.

    And don't you love the mess he's helped get us all into now?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:20 AM | Comments (5)

    September 28, 2008

    The Fort Dix Terror Plot

    A man who is a 21-year associate, business partner, fellow board member, and political supporter of the Democratic nominee for President led an organization that came within hours of carrying out the most deadly terrorist attack in American history prior to Timothy McVeigh's attack in Oklahoma City.

    It's about time we talk about that
    .

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:10 PM | Comments (8)

    September 26, 2008

    Obama Implodes in Debate

    The McCain camp didn't have to wait until the end of the debate to make a commercial:

    Frankly, I think everyone, right and left, was expecting something far different than we saw here tonight.

    Barack Obama, credited with being a great public speaker, stuttered frequently, interrupted McCain constantly, and got heated on several occasions. He was on the defensive, got visibly angry at least once, and just wasn't on his game.

    I think Obama was expected to win, and McCain had him on his heels time and again.

    John McCain won tonight, but in doing so, all he did was do was expected. Barack Obama simply came apart under the pressure, and it was not pretty for any of us who watched it.

    If he can't handle a simple debate without falling apart, how is he going to handle a Presidency?

    Update: I was reading and commenting at Ace's place during his liveblog, and several people noticed early in the debate that John McCain got inside Barack Obama's OODA loop.

    Observe.
    Orient.
    Decide.
    Act.

    Then Observe.
    Orient.
    Decide.
    Act.

    Then Observe...

    Read Whittle for a full understanding of just how powerful this is, but let's be very clear in what occurred: John McCain out-thought Barack Obama early on, and increased that throughout the debate.

    I don't pretend to know if John McCain is smarter than Barack Obama, but in their first head-to-head, it was clear that thinks faster on his feet.

    Looking back through the campaign season at the various "3 A.M." moments and the candidate's reactions, this doesn't appear to be an isolated event.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:36 PM | Comments (54)

    So What if He Dies?

    So far, I think the "heartbeat away" blitzkrieg against Sarah Palin has been wildly overblown, despite the fact it seems to have finally browbeat Kathleen Parker of National Review into submission.

    Now I can only imagine the email she's getting at the moment, and hope none of my readers pile on, but really, how well thought out is this fear-mongering that John McCain could catch a cold/have a heart attack/mysteriously trip and impale himself on a nearby moose antler the week after he is inaugurated really thought out?

    While I suspect McCain have several more decades of life in him if his still active mother's DNA has anything to say about it, let's play out the fear that President McCain dies early in his term in office.

    Obviously, one of the first things that must be done upon a President's passing is the installation of the Constitutionally-designated successor, the Vice President, in this case, Sarah Palin.

    Sure, watching a first-term governor better known for a love of big game hunting and having enough kids to field a basketball team get unexpectedly catapulted into the White House when the elected Republican President unexpectedly dies is going to be nerve-wracking, but you know what?


    Last time, it turned out pretty damn well
    .

    And it is also very much worth noting we're also at a point in history where there is simply too much going on for a President to be a master of any particular field, anyway. Presidents are the elected figureheads, but presidencies are a group effort.

    There is simply too much knowledge being generated in astounding amounts on a daily basis, and Presidents, instead of being expected to know it all, have teams of extremely specialized advisers to help make important decisions on any and all subjects. Barack Obama isn't President, and yet he's had to build a staff of 300 or more advisers just to run a half-convincing campaign that he even now "um," ah," "uhs" his way through as he forgets what they try to impart (and the teleprompter isn't working).

    If Palin becomes President, on of the very first thing she's going to do as a young, untested leader is select a wise and experienced political pro as her Vice President, someone who knows and excels in policy matters and had good judgment— the wonkish policy genius of a Newt Gingrich, or the reassuring baritone and rock-solid first principles of a Fred Thompson.

    On the other hand we've got a untested Barack Obama running for President, being backed by Joe Biden, the gaffe-tastic, Zaphod-Beeblebrox-with-hair-plugs career politician that no one in either party takes seriously, who even the Democrats won't let chair anything important that mere seniority doesn't force them to give him.

    So seriously... which is the scarier prospect?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:38 PM | Comments (31)

    Queering the Deal: Democratic Leaders Torpedo Bailout For Obama

    Before I dive into this, let me say one thing: I am not an economist, and have no idea if the current proposal is a good one, if other proposals and amendments are better, or even if any of them will work.

    What I do know is politics in action, and we saw it in spades last night, as noted chillingly in this article from David Rogers at The Politico:

    At the White House, in fact, House Minority Leader John Boehner had bluntly warned about the lack of Republican support for the massive government intervention: "I can't invent votes," Boehner said. But House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) angrily accused the minority of trying to undercut Paulson by crafting a late-breaking alternative proposal—with the tacit support, Frank said, of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

    Both McCain and his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, would leave the White House without comment, and the meeting was described as among the wildest in memory. A beleaguered President Bush had to struggle to maintain order and reassert himself. And when Democrats left to caucus in the Roosevelt Room, Paulson pursued them, begging that they not "blow up" the legislation.

    The former Goldman Sachs CEO even went down on one knee as if genuflecting, to which Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) is said to have joked, "I didn't know you were Catholic."

    It was McCain who had urged Bush to call the White House meeting but Democrats made sure Obama had a prominent part. And much as they complained later of being blindsided, the whole event turned out to be something of an ambush on their part—aimed at McCain and House Republicans.

    "Speaking professionally," said one Republican aide, "They did a very good job."

    When Bush yielded early to Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- Nev.) to speak, they yielded to Obama to speak for the assembled Democrats. And it was Obama who raised the subject of the conservative alternative and pressed Paulson on what he thought of the idea.

    It seems probable that a deal had been reached earlier yesterday as mid-day reports were indicating, but then the Democratic leadership—Pelosi, Reid, and Presidential nominee Obama—determined that they were willing to risk a national (and global) economic collapse in order to play Presidential politics and try to make this into a "McCain versus Obama and Obama is the hero" story.

    Reid and Pelosi's judgment is notoriously bad (as their lowest recorded Congressional approval ratings in history and utter failure to pass any meaningful legislation in the last Congress proves), and Obama is preternaturally self-centered and ambitious, so it is not entirely surprising that they would go this route.

    It is just that we've been hearing so much about how serious a bailout is needed, and that we need to pass something relatively quickly, and then they do this—a melodramatic hissy-fit—for no other reason than theatrics. All major democratic concerns had been met in eariler compromises.

    It's disgusting.

    Update: And for what little it is worth considering economics is far outside of my comfort zone, I'm falling into the camp of thinking that the bailout plan as proposed isn't that great of an idea.

    Why?

    It has a bit to do with the big picture view of capitalism that Bill Whittle wrote of in Trinity, (Part 1). As with most of Whittle's essays it is brilliant and insightful in a "why didn't I think of/see that?" sort of way, but it is a lengthy screed, so I'd set aside a good half-hour (and get a nice fresh cup of coffee) before you snuggle into it.

    There is also a second part, helpfully titled Trinity, (Part 2) that I won't get a chance to dive into until this evening, but both are pushing me back to my fundamental, capitalist core beliefs that government intervention in most things is almost always bad.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:44 AM | Comments (14)

    September 25, 2008

    Alien Obama

    Professor David Demming lets cultural incongruity Barack Obama have it with both barrels:

    When Obama refers to "my Muslim faith," the verbal gaffe resonates as a Freudian slip because of Obama's thinly veiled hatred for this country's unique culture and institutions. Obama sat for 20 years in a church where the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr preached "goddamn America." He only resigned from the congregation when it became politically expedient to do so. When earlier this year, Michelle Obama said "for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country," can we conclude that her husband disagrees? Is it not remarkable that Michelle Obama can be so small-minded as to find nothing in the history of the United States that merits her admiration but the personal success of her husband?

    What is Barack Obama for? His campaign motto is "change." But even a 6-year-old child understands that "change" can be either good or bad. Lacking specifics, the invocation of "change" as policy is completely empty. As we witness Obama's minions mindlessly endorse the meaningless maxim of "change," it only can call to mind the barnyard animals in George Orwell's "Animal Farm" chanting "four legs good, two legs bad!"

    The choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate has been devastating for the Obama campaign precisely because she is everything Obama is not. Palin is not ashamed of her culture or country. She is not embarrassed by being an American, but naively embraces her birthright. Unassisted by affirmative action, Palin has risen to national prominence on the basis of her character, intelligence and natural gifts. In a word, she has guts. This is a woman who is proud of her country, not because it has granted her personal success, but because she respects what America stands for: freedom, opportunity, and individualism.

    Obama is a vapid demagogue, a hollow man that despises American culture. He is ill-suited to be president of the United States. As the weeks pass, more Americans will come to this realization and elect McCain/Palin in a landslide.

    And he's right: Barack Obama's life story, half-lived and half-told in two self-aggrandizing auto-biographies, is not the story of America or of Americans, but the story of a "citizen of the world." Barack Obama cannot hold quintessential American values because he has not lived a life that celebrates or even respects American culture.

    His mother Stanley Ann was the offshoot of an odd and vain man who was determined to name his child after himself, regardless of sex. She became radicalized in high school in Washington state, and met the freshman Senator's Kenyan communist father in a Russian language class in Hawaii. Three months after she became pregnant she married Obama's father, though he was still married to his first child's mother in Kenya (no doubt, we can expect Andrew Sullivan to launch an investigation into Obama's paternity any day now). Barack Obama, Junior was born six months later, abandoned by his foreign father within several years, and spent his youth in Indonesia with a new stepfather, boning up in his English via correspondence courses. Barack Junior finally left Asia many years later to move in with his grandparents and go to high school in Hawaii.

    Barack Obama apparently never set foot on the U.S mainland until he graduated high school and went to Occidental College for two years, before transferring to Columbia and developing into the radical leftist we know today.

    Barack Obama despises America and American values because he has never known or experienced them, as he did not grown up in a normal American culture.

    The heartland of America, the small towns and suburbs, the "baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet" that forms the core of our cultural experience is alien to Barack Obama. He cannot love it, share it, or reflect it, because he does not know it.

    What does Barack Obama know? What is his vision of America?

    He never experienced his first taste of mainland American until he was already a grown man, and his experience was further indoctrination and immersion in universities with a radical leftist bent. He was further radicalized by 20 years of indoctrination in a Christian cult founded on the teaching of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X, one that taught a self-segregating, blame-casting "black values system" that added spiritual alienation to his pre-existing cultural alienation. He embraced an infamous domestic terrorist as a friend and partner in schemes designed to undermine core American cultural values to push small "c" communism and radicalism, and pissed away the future of a generation of Chicago's school children as he helped launder $150 million of educational grant money to former terrorists and radicals that sought to indoctrinate, instead of educate.

    Barack Obama isn't anti-American, but he is un-American. Our cultural memory and experiences are something he read about in books, but never lived, and something he cannot feel.

    He is not one of us.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:03 AM | Comments (57)

    Terrorist-Coddling Obama Bundler Brags About Meeting Ahmadinejad

    As they fire up more centrifuges and continue to refine the rocket motors for their ICBMS, the Iranians hope that these useful idiots represent change they can believe in:

    Calling it a "major step forward" in relations between Iran and the United States, leading activists Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans of CODEPINK Women for Peace — along with more than 150 other U.S. peace group representatives — met Wednesday afternoon with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here following his appearance at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

    [snip]

    "U.S. government officials are quick to stir up hostilities with Iran, but the American people are tired of war," said Benjamin, co-founder of the nonpartisan women's peace group CODEPINK. "The peace movement represents the sentiment of the majority of Americans who want our two countries to find ways to work together and improve relations. We are modeling the behavior we want to see our government adopt."

    As Hot Air notes, Evans is a major bundler for Barack Obama, pledged to raising over $600,000 for the freshman Senator, and here she is, trying to make nice with a regime that practices Holocaust denial, that publicly threatens the state of Israel with destruction on a regular basis, and that is working on nuclear weapons to carry out that threat.

    Barack Obama has a close partnership with a domestic terrorist who's group bombed government buildings, fire-bombed a judge's family at home, and murdered law enforcement officers during a bank robbery. Obama and the terrorist used that relationship to abuse education grants and launder $150 million to radical groups to indoctrinate school children and their parents.

    Now Obama gladly takes more than a half-million dollars collected from the founder of a group that wants us to lose in Iraq and Afghanistan, even as she idolizes the worst state sponsor of terrorism in modern history.

    Who's side is Barack Obama on?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:43 AM | Comments (9)

    September 24, 2008

    How About a Sub?

    John McCain is suspending his presidential campaign tomorrow in order to return to Washington to work on the economy, and wants to postpone Friday's scheduled debate with Barack Obama.

    The Obama campaign, however, wants the debate to continue.

    What to do?

    My friend Ray Robinson emailed me with an excellent compromise: have Sarah Palin step in Friday in McCain's place at the debate.

    The proposal—if accepted by the Obama campaign—would solve several problems at once.

    For better or ill, the national spotlight on Palin would reveal whether or not Palin is capable of holding her own in the national spotlight, and depending on the questions asked, could shred light on her suitability to lead if needed.

    The Obama campaign has bent over backwards to belittle Palin as a small town mayor incapable of performing under the pressure.

    Now is a great time to prove it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:43 PM | Comments (39)

    September 23, 2008

    A Wasilla Rape Kit Doc Emerges

    From Chief Long of the Wasilla Police Department, via Kristie Smithers, City Clerk, with the notation:

    While searching electronic files, I ran across the attached email sent to Chief Savage regarding SART exams paid for by the City of Wasilla in 2000 and 2001.

    I have redacted the names of the victims in accordance with state law.

    SART = Sexual Assault Response teams. These are the rape kits paid for by the City of Wasilla for rapes that occurred in 2000-2001.

    All four of these rapes occurred after the law was signed in Alaska protecting sexual assault victims from having to pay for the cost of rape kits. Experts, including Del Smith, the Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, Lauree Hugonin, Director, Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, and Trisha Gentle, Executive Director, Council on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault, noted in committee testimony that no law enforcement agencies in Alaska were known to have billed rape victims for the cost of forensic medical exams, but that some hospitals had done so.

    As noted above, the city of Wasilla paid for the only two rape kits used in in 2000, and the two used in 2001. Four kits were used over these two years, for a total of $2,238.

    Considering the small number of sexual assaults reported during her six years as mayor, it is very plausible that Mayor Palin would not know about such small expenditures. Quite possibly, the city spent more on toilet paper and paper towels during that same time period.

    Update: Jim Geraghty finishes off the faux scandal with the Wasilla Debunking Kit.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:13 PM | Comments (26)

    Is He Ready to Be Vice President?

    Well, he's bad enough...



    ...but are we ready for this man to be a frayed strap away from the Presidency?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:32 PM | Comments (3)

    FactCheck.Org Misses the Target

    My days of considering FactCheck.Org a reliable source are over.

    In a release yesterday that targets NRA claims made against Barack Obama, FactCheck.Org simply failed to do their research in several instances, and were more than willing to take at face value claims made by the Obama campaign that were disputed or counterfactual.

    Patterico does the bulk of debunking the debunkers, but I'll tackle one specific claim in more detail just to show how lacking their research really was.

    The FactCheck.org article claimed stated:

    NRA Claim: "Ban Rifle Ammunition Commonly Used for Hunting and Sport Shooting"

    False: Obama is not proposing to ban hunting ammunition. And he did not, as claimed in an NRA TV spot featuring a Virginia hunter named Karl Rusch, vote to "ban virtually all deer hunting ammunition." What Obama voted for was a measure to ban "armor-piercing" ammunition, which the measure's sponsor has said repeatedly would not cover hunting ammunition.

    This claim is based on Obama's vote on S. 397 in the U.S. Senate. Obama was one of 31 senators who voted in favor of S. Amdt. 1615 to S. 397 which sought to "expand the definition of armor piercing ammunition."

    The amendment applied only to handgun ammunition "capable of penetrating body armor" and to rifle ammunition that is "designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability," however.

    It's true that common high-powered rifle bullets are capable of penetrating the vests worn by police, which are a defense chiefly against lower-velocity handgun rounds. But does that mean hunting ammunition is "designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability"? That's the NRA's argument, and it was repeated on the floor of the Senate by Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He said flatly that the measure "would ban nearly all hunting rifle ammunition," without any elaboration. However, the measure's sponsor, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, said his amendment was not intended to cover hunting ammunition:

    Sen. Kennedy (July 29, 2005): This is not about hunting. We know duck and geese and deer do not wear armor vests; police officers do.

    Kennedy's measure failed by a vote of 64 - 31.

    By the way, the NRA has used this ploy before. It ran ads in 2004 claiming Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry had voted "to ban deer-hunting ammunition" when he had actually voted on an earlier occasion for this same Kennedy amendment on armor-piercing rounds. Kennedy said then:

    Sen. Kennedy (March 2, 2004): My amendment will not apply to ammunition that is now routinely used in hunting rifles or other centerfire rifles. To the contrary, it only covers ammunition that is designed or marketed as having armor-piercing capability.

    FactCheck refers to the Kennedy amendment, but let's read it for ourselves:

    SA 1615. Mr. KENNEDY submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 397, to prohibit civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

         On page 13, after line 4, insert the following:

        SEC. 5. ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION.

         (a) EXPANSION OF DEFINITION OF ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION.--Section 921(a)(17)(B) of title 18, United States Code, is amended--

         (1) in clause (i), by striking "or" at the end;

         (2) in clause (ii), by striking the period at the end and inserting a semicolon; and

         (3) by adding at the end the following:

         "(iii) a projectile that may be used in a handgun and that the Attorney General determines, under section 926(d), to be capable of penetrating body armor; or

         "(iv) a projectile for a center-fire rifle, designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability, that the Attorney General determines, under section 926(d), to be more likely to penetrate body armor than standard ammunition of the same caliber.".

         (b) DETERMINATION OF THE CAPABILITY OF PROJECTILES TO PENETRATE BODY ARMOR.--Section 926 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

         "(d)(1) Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this subsection, the Attorney General shall promulgate standards for the uniform testing of projectiles against Body Armor Exemplar.

         "(2) The standards promulgated under paragraph (1) shall take into account, among other factors, variations in performance that are related to the length of the barrel of the handgun or center-fire rifle from which the projectile is fired and the amount and kind of powder used to propel the projectile.

         "(3) As used in paragraph (1), the term `Body Armor Exemplar' means body armor that the Attorney General determines meets minimum standards for the protection of law enforcement officers.".

    The following language would indeed ban most centerfire handgun hunting ammunition as being armor-piercing:

         "(iii) a projectile that may be used in a handgun and that the Attorney General determines, under section 926(d), to be capable of penetrating body armor; or

    It may not have been Senator Kennedy's intention to ban handgun hunting ammunition, but the fact of the matter is that bullet-resistant vests used among uniformed police officers on patrol nationwide are designed to stop common low-to-medium velocity handgun bullets (SWAT teams typically wear much heavier ballistic vests featuring large plates such as those worn by the military, designed to stop common assault rifle rounds).

    The overwhelming majority of commercial, factory-loaded ammunition for hunting-class centerfire handguns will penetrate bullet-resistant vests, because the majority of these handgun calibers are high-velocity. While most ballistic vests will typically stop common defense rounds such as low-to-moderate velocity .38 Special, 9mm, 40S&W, and 45ACP, they begin having problems with higher velocity +P and +P+ loadings that are increasingly more common in these calibers. We want our police protected against unduly dangerous ammunition, but none of these listed are properly classified as armor-piercing.

    Likewise, .357 Magnum, .41 Magnum, .44 Magnum, .454 Casual, 500 S&W, and literally dozens of other hunting and long-distance target cartridges (.357 SuperMag, for example) will penetrate most common soft body armor worn by law enforcement agencies, and there is no language in the Kennedy Amendment that exempts these various cartridges, nor the various bullet designs commonly used in hunting or sport shooting in these calibers.

    Based upon this alone, FactCheck.Org is at least partially incorrect, but the ambiguity in the Kennedy Amendment continues:

         "(iv) a projectile for a center-fire rifle, designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability, that the Attorney General determines, under section 926(d), to be more likely to penetrate body armor than standard ammunition of the same caliber.".

    Kennedy, either by intent or negligence, does not define what constitutes a center-fire rifle bullet "designed" with armor piercing capability, nor does he define what constitutes "standard ammunition". Would that include hard cast lead bullets? Ammunition that uses bullets with full-metal jackets, commonly used as practice ammunition? How would this amendment view high velocity ballistic tip or hollowpoint ammunition? Does that affect higher velocity +P or +P+ loadings that are common in many centerfire loadings, including many kinds of ammunition designed for hunters, and self defense for both police and civilians?

    We don't and can't know due to the vague language Kennedy used, and his proposed language to determine the capability of projectiles to penetrate body armor contains a "trojan horse."

         "(3) As used in paragraph (1), the term `Body Armor Exemplar' means body armor that the Attorney General determines meets minimum standards for the protection of law enforcement officers.".

    "Body armor that the Attorney General determines meets minimum standards" could mean any armor classification arbitrarily determined by the Attorney General, whether that means almost useless (and therefore almost never issued) Category I armor, the slightly more effective and generally agreed-upon minimum of II-A, or perhaps even higher (and probably most commonly issued) Level II, or even Level III-A armor.

    We simply don't know what level an Attorney General might determine to be the minimum, and the lower the level, the more common ammunition runs the risk of becoming unfairly classified as "armor-piercing."

    FactCheck's fact check of the NRA claims largely consisted of taking politicians at their word and a shallow, almost negligent reading of the laws and language they've supported.

    The rest of us have a word for that.

    "Fiction."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:17 AM | Comments (16)

    The Terrorist's Partner

    Stanley Kurtz has published his long-awaited research into the archives of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and the conclusions he draws are not surprising—Barack Obama blatantly lied earlier year when he tried to dismiss his relationship with terrorist Bill Ayers.

    As Kurtz shows in his Wall Street Journal article Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools, Obama and Ayers were partners in a radical program that was focused more on indoctrinating children and their parents than education. Working together, Obama and Ayers funneled $160 million to to community organizers and far left peers of Ayers such as former SDS radical and Maoist Mike Klonsky.

    Ayers and Obama used grant money that was supposed to be used for improving the educational experience of Chicago's children for political activism and agitation.

    Kurtz concludes:

    Mr. Ayers's defenders claim that he has redeemed himself with public-spirited education work. That claim is hard to swallow if you understand that he views his education work as an effort to stoke resistance to an oppressive American system. He likes to stress that he learned of his first teaching job while in jail for a draft-board sit-in. For Mr. Ayers, teaching and his 1960s radicalism are two sides of the same coin.

    Mr. Ayers is the founder of the "small schools" movement (heavily funded by CAC), in which individual schools built around specific political themes push students to "confront issues of inequity, war, and violence." He believes teacher education programs should serve as "sites of resistance" to an oppressive system. (His teacher-training programs were also CAC funded.) The point, says Mr. Ayers in his "Teaching Toward Freedom," is to "teach against oppression," against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation.

    The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.

    Barack Obama was either an infamous terrorist's long-time patsy, or an infamous terrorist's long-time partner, and no one thinks Obama is enough of a rube to be his patsy. Obama earned his partnership with Ayers through a shared vision of radical activism.

    Professor Steve Diamond's blog provides much-needed historical context, which shows that Obama/Ayers were using the CAC to fund an insurgent campaign in the "Chicago School Wars" that occurred from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, and which was fought over the fate of Chicago's public schools.

    One side in this war was controlled by Mayor Richard M. Daley, Jr., son of the legendary Mayor Daley.

    And the other side was led by Ayers and a small group of reformers that had emerged several years earlier in 1988 during a battle to create a new power center in the Chicago schools, the so-called Local School Councils, or LSCs. The LSCs were an effort to rein in the power of unionized teachers, school principals and school administrators, in the wake of an unpopular teachers' strike in 1987.

    This milieu around Ayers also included, as far back as the late 80s, Barack Obama and the Developing Communities Project (DCP) that had hired Obama as its Executive Director in 1985. The DCP was a leading participant in the campaign to establish the LSCs.

    Thus, in fact, the "radical" Bill Ayers and his ally Barack Obama, a Democratic political activist and lawyer on the rise in Chicago, were engaged in an anti-union effort to influence the direction and nature of the entire Chicago public school system. It would lead them into a battle with Mayor Daley himself.

    By all means, read all of Diamond's explanation to get a true understanding of just how radical of a leftist Barack Obama truly is.

    Barack Obama is an authoritarian leftist, one who sacrificed the future of a generation of inner city children, using money meant to provide them with an education to further his political goals.

    As parents, we can't risk giving him the opportunity to do so again.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:13 AM | Comments (9)

    September 22, 2008

    The Palin Rape Kit Circus Continues

    We have fresh information regarding poorly-researched claims made in the media (including CNN, US News & World Report, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, and literally dozens of other "professional media") that Sarah Palin presided over a Wasilla, AK city government that charged rape victims for the forensic medical examinations designed to collected physical evidence of sexual assaults. With very little variation from one media source to the next, media accounts attempted to portray Palin as a callous monster out to re-abuse victims.

    The best evidence available indicates these are entirely false claims.

    As I reported earlier today, the City of Wasilla can find no evidence that anyone was ever billed for the cost of these examinations, a point reiterated in a second statement by Wasilla Police Chief Angela Long this afternoon:

    I found no documents within the police department showing sexual assault victims were billed for forensic exams. Nor have I been able to find any documentation regarding a decision to bill those victims. Case reports don't contain financial billing information.

    Financial records are retained by the Finance Department, and the Finance Director was unable to find any records of billing within records still being held.

    The Wasilla PD can find no evidence that victims were billed for rape kits. The only other city government entity (the Finance Department) that would possibly have such information only keeps billing records for six years, and is therefore of little use, as it no longer keeps records that would have been created under Palin's administration.

    Outside of Wasilla, however, other government officials and experts have testified that there were no known instances of rape victims being bill for examinations, and the best evidence of this may be the minutes of the committee that helped draft the state legislation.

    On March 6, 2000, Del Smith, the Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, testified in support of HB 270 (the bill outlawing the billing of rape kits) and the minutes noted:

    He commented that he does not think that a victim ought to even see a bill related to sexual assault whether it is on their insurance form or not. He emphasized that a police agency investigating a crime should pay because that is the cost of doing business in the collection of evidence no matter what the crime; he does not know of any police agency that has requested payment.

    Testifying in front of the same committee, Lauree Hugonin, Director, Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (ANDVSA) noted that "billings have not come from police agencies but have come from hospitals." Trisha Gentle, Executive Director, Council on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault noted that police departments were willing to pay for the exams, but that it was an internal decision on the part of the hospital as to who pays the hospital bill.

    Despite the spin recently being applied by astroturfing Obama supporters, there was never any evidence that victims were being charged by any police departments including Wasilla's Police Department under Palin. Testimony instead indicates it was callous hospitals that attempted to bill victims on rare occasions of insensitivity.

    It is also true that protective mechanisms were in place in Alaska that would have picked up the cost of such kits, even if State law had not changed in 2000.

    The State of Alaska Violent Crimes Compensation Board (VCCB) was "was established in 1971 by the Alaskan Legislature to help bring financial relief to innocent victims of violent crimes in Alaska."

    Among the things the VCCB would pay for are the medical bills of victims of violent crimes (including sexual assaults), counseling, and transportation to medical and counseling services.

    A former worker with VCCB notes via email:

    Rape kits and other medical expenses of this type would be paid by the VCCB, 100% guaranteed. The City of Wasilla could have technically 'charged' the victim but even if they did, the VCCB would have paid the bill in full. I still know the a few of the Board members and the supervisor and I can tell you that they are very liberal with the way that they pay the victims bills.

    Despite claims to the contrary, there is no record that the Wasilla Police Department ever charged rape victims under Sarah Palin's leadership, nor were State law enforcement or sexual assault victim's advocates aware of such attempts anywhere in Alaska as the proposed bill was being discussed. As committee minutes show, the offenders experts were worried about were hospitals, not police, and not Sarah Palin.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:05 PM | Comments (63)

    Pelosi, Dems Attempt to Cement "Worse Congress Ever" Legacy

    After failing their effort to flee the field last week regarding the nation's financial crisis, the liberal Democratic leadership took another step towards record mediocrity today, when it was discovered they were trying to sneak in an extension to the ban on offshore drilling:

    "Since the Democrats took control of Congress, Americans have seen prices at the pump increase by 75 percent. Americans watched as Democrats, led by Speaker Pelosi, took a five-week vacation this summer while they suffered. Americans also watched as Democrats brought a hoax, no energy-energy bill to the floor last week. And today, Americans watch as Democrats prevent access to American energy in a bill designed to keep the government functioning. Once again, when it comes to providing solutions to help lower fuel prices for Americans, Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats are more out of tune than a rusty piano.

    "Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats have made clear their desire to appease environmental extremists while fooling the American people into thinking that they support Republican efforts to open up America’s energy resources."

    Pelosi and House Democrats are attempting this even as oil prices are skyrocketing.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:15 PM | Comments (5)

    Were Rape Victims Billed in Wasilla, Or is This Just More Astroturfing?

    Wasilla, Alaska got it's first full-time police force in 1993, when eight uniformed officers formed the city's "thin blue line." More than a decade later, the small-town police force has tripled in size, to 24 commissioned officers.

    As with small town police forces everywhere, the majority of the WPD's work involves motor vehicle accidents (MVAs), petty theft (larceny), and DWIs. WPD also deals with sexual assaults.

    CNN reports this morning that Palin's town charged women for rape exams, the latest in a series of media accounts dealing with the charges. The account is true enough, in that that Wasilla was one of several small Alaskan police forces with limited budgets that found it difficult to deal with the cost of forensic medical examinations. Wasilla had a policy of allowing the City to bill victims (or more likely, their insurers) for rape kits, which can cost up ot $1,000. The policies allowing billing the victims in these small towns was finally outlawed by the state in 2000.

    Palin was mayor of Wasilla from 1996 until the time the state law (AS 18.68.040) banned the practice of charging victims August 12, 2000.

    We also know, via contact with the Wasilla City Clerk, that there were no rape kits charged to victims or insurers in fiscal 2000 (their computerized system only goes back that far), meaning that there is only the possibility of the unknown number of rapes in the 49 (or less) sexual assaults prior to the beginning of fiscal 2000 in mid-1999.

    From the beginning of 1996 until the end of 2000, there were 49 reported sexual assaults in Wasilla, which "includes all associated sex crimes."

    Of those 49 (or less) sexual assaults, we don't how many were rapes, or how many of those rapes required rape kits for which the city billed the victims.

    The current Wasilla Police Chief Angela Long, responded via City Clerk Kristie Smithers that:

    The Finance Department searched all financial records on our system for fiscal year 2000, 2001 and 2002. There are no records of billings to or collections from rape victims or their insurance companies in our system. The financial computer system goes back to the beginning of fiscal year 2000, and accounts receivable backup documentation goes back six (6) years per our records retention schedule.

    A review of files and case reports within the Wasilla Police Department has found no record of sexual assault victims being billed for forensic exams. State law AS 18.68.040, which was effective August 12, 2000, would have prohibited any such billings after that date.

    The Wasilla City Finance Department can't provide us with much of anything useful, but the Police Chief seems to state that the Police Department records don't show any evidence that any victims were billed.

    I'm attempting to clarify if that means that no rape victims were ever billed for rapes in Wasilla from 1996 to mid-1999 (the 2000-2002 data is irrelevant) despite the fact then Police Chief Charlie Fannon reserved the right to do so, but Fannon has declined multiple media requests for comment, and I doubt he'll start with me.

    At the same time, current Police Chief Long's statement of, "A review of files and case reports within the Wasilla Police Department has found no record of sexual assault victims being billed for forensic exams" would seem to stand on it's own, would it not?

    If current Police Chief Long's information is correct, then Mayor Palin didn't know that rape victims were charged for rape kits, because none were.

    If that is indeed the case (and I'm not 100% sure that it is), why, then, is this story about nothing even making the rounds, and where did it come from?

    The entire "scandal" seems to have been manufactured around September 9, when stories began to run through the progressive blogosphere, seemingly out of nowhere. Far left Americablog was the most-linked source, and he credits a small blog called Stop All Monsters.

    The blog, features a tagline of "A blog dedicated to rooting out and stopping all monsters. Sarah Palin, for instance," has only been in existence since July, and is written by a character who claims to be a writer/stand-up comedian based in Los Angeles.

    And while it is merely speculation, given current events and the way this meme spread from an obscure blog to the mainstream media in a matter of days, it may be fair to ask if the author has any ties with Winner & Associates and "astroturfing" expert David Axelrod of the Barack Obama campaign.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:30 AM | Comments (38)

    RE: $700 Billion Bailout

    I'm not an economist, and won't attempt to try to influence your opinion on the Wall Street meltdown, or the bailout proposal presently in the news. I'm simply not qualified to comment meaningfully on the subject in any way, shape, or form.

    What I will suggest is that readers go to Memeorandum.com, and follow the economic stories being posted there, and carefully read related blog posts. Most of the bloggers, of course, don't have any more expertise on economic policy than I, and all they are doing is echoing "fears and peers;" reacting to their own biases and prejudices and echoing the blog posts of like-minded pundits. That said, there are some ideas and reservations worth considering come from both sides of the aisle when people stop pointing fingers long enough.

    Good luck, folks. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:18 AM | Comments (7)

    Sects, Lies, and Videotape

    Led by The Jawa Report, a group of bloggers that has used their skillset to target, investigate, and bring down al Qaeda Web sites, Rusty Shackleford has posted research that has identified a Obama-connected public relations firm and it's employees as being behind the creation, uploading and publicizing of anti-Palin smear ads using proven-false smears and a technique called astroturfing, a technique perfected by Obama Campaign manager, David Axelrod.

    Within an hour of the report, those named in it have feverishly begun trying to remove evidence, including deleting videos and accounts used in the astroturfing effort.

    I'm not a lawyer and won't pretend to know which campaign laws (if any) were broken, but it certainly appears that Barack Obama's campaign manager is involved if not orchestrating these efforts, and people have certainly gone to jail on far less evidence.

    Watch the story develop in the blogosphere at Memeorandum.

    Barack Obama's chickens may have finally come home to roost.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:53 AM | Comments (6)

    September 20, 2008

    Huff-Po Writer Declares Imminent Coup; Openly Suggests Revolution

    The imminent coup is coming from the Bush Crime Family, of course, and the revolution must come from left wing "patriots" if the Democratic Congress doesn't immediately begin impeachment proceedings.

    No, I'm not kidding. She's serious as a heart attack:

    As I see it now, we have but two options and I have long alluded to hoping against hope that one of these options would not be the only one left to a peaceful people. The first and frankly most preferable option is for Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the members of this latest Business Plot.

    No time needs to be wasted on hearings as we already now have in writing, formally as presented to Congress, the intentions of this administration to nullify Congressional powers permanently, to alter Judicial powers permanently, and to openly steal public funds using as blackmail the total collapse of the US economy if these powers are not handed over. You do see how this is blackmail, do you not? You do see how this is a manufactured crisis precisely designed to be used as blackmail, do you not?

    The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won't act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us - the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger - then what is left for us to do? I don't want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will.

    It doesn't appear that the most extreme elements of the far left are willing to risk the possibility of losing another election.

    I can only hope the lawful authorities are monitoring such enticements towards insurrection with all due seriousness, and find a nice, well-lit and cheery cell for those who require one.

    Update: In an update, Alexandrovna is furiously trying to claim that what she wrote didn't mean what she so clearly did, and claims I must be " near ready to call 911 and report me to the secret police," before snorting that I must be "taking heroine with his [my] coffee."

    Now not to brag, but yes, I've taken a heroine or two in my day.

    What I haven't done is get tanked on Smirnoff (or perhaps heroin) and angrily belched out that there should be an immediate impeachment, or else:

    The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution.

    Words mean things, even if the writer later claims that they don't, and the thought of taking responsibility for those words becomes too much to bear.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:56 PM | Comments (204)

    Palin = Princess Di With A Rifle?

    That is the interesting contention of Amanda Platell in the U.K. Daily Mail.

    It is rather refreshing to see a media account about Gov. Palin that isn't spiteful or inartfully designed to tear her down from the outset, but genuinely curious in tone.

    It's also pathetically sad that we have to go overseas to find it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:08 AM | Comments (6)

    September 19, 2008

    ACORN Cracked... Again

    This sounds familiar:

    Republican National Committee officials say they aren't surprised to hear a Durham County elections official suspects voter registration forms gathered by a community activist group may be fraudulent.

    The RNC's chief counsel, Sean Cairncross, on Friday said the group, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has a history of gathering fraudulent or incomplete voter registration forms. Cairncross disputes ACORN's claim that it is a nonpartisan organization.

    Refresh my memory: don't these thugs have ties to a certain community organizer?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:04 PM | Comments (11)

    Elon Poll: McCain/Palin Appeal Crushes Obama/Biden in NC

    It is fair to call a 54-37 advantage "crushing,": isn't it?

    Republican presidential candidate John McCain fared better than his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, when North Carolinians were asked about their opinions of the two candidates.

    Fifty-four percent of people surveyed in an Elon University Poll view McCain favorably, compared to 37 percent who view Obama favorably.

    Asked about the vice presidential candidates, Republican Sarah Palin was viewed favorably by 49 percent. The Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, was viewed favorably by 41 percent.

    Gut reaction? North Carolina is about as much a battleground state as New York, just leaning the opposite way.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:57 AM | Comments (5)

    Dreams From My Pastor

    You can't have a mentoring relationship of over 20 years without some give and take and melding of ideas, and it looks like the reflexive tendency to stoke racial conspiracies that are a well-documented part of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's character have rooted and grown deeply in at least one member of his flock, Barack Obama.

    This morning in the Wall Street Journal, talk show host Rush Limbaugh rightfully rips Barack Obama for a racially-charged Spanish-language campaign ad designed to bully Hispanic voters into the Democratic camp, using fear and distortions so great as to be outright lies:

    I understand the rough and tumble of politics. But Barack Obama -- the supposedly postpartisan, postracial candidate of hope and change -- has gone where few modern candidates have gone before.

    Mr. Obama's campaign is now trafficking in prejudice of its own making. And in doing so, it is playing with political dynamite. What kind of potential president would let his campaign knowingly extract two incomplete, out-of-context lines from two radio parodies and build a framework of hate around them in order to exploit racial tensions? The segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s were famous for such vile fear-mongering.

    Limbaugh then shows that the Limbaugh "quotes" used by the Obama campaign came from several parodies before concluding:

    The malignant aspect of this is that Mr. Obama and his advisers know exactly what they are doing. They had to listen to both monologues or read the transcripts. They then had to pick the particular excerpts they used in order to create a commercial of distortions. Their hoped-for result is to inflame racial tensions. In doing this, Mr. Obama and his advisers have demonstrated a pernicious contempt for American society.

    We've made much racial progress in this country. Any candidate who employs the tactics of the old segregationists is unworthy of the presidency.

    "Any candidate who employs the tactics of the old segregationists is unworthy of the presidency."

    Indeed, that should be automatic and reflexive disqualification in this day and age. For that matter, a candidate that goes a radical church based on a racist cult theology advocating the killing of God if God isn't sufficiently committed to one race above all others shouldn't be a factor in his party's nomination process, but Barack Obama, who was a member of a church espousing Black Liberation Theology for 20 years, is still here.

    It is the height of hilarity this campaign season that the same media and blogosphere critics who are in hysterics over Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin belonging to a Assemblies of God church—the world's largest Pentecostal denomination—until six years ago when she joined a more traditional church, is utterly unconcerned that Barack Obama was a proud member of a church build upon the principles of Black Liberation Theology—a faith breach-birthed from the the radical politics of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X—until the inherent racism seeped out into YouTube of Jeremiah Wright's sermons.

    But Jeremiah Wright's influence still remains in Barack Obama, as does the influence of long-time terrorist friends and fundraisers, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

    Perhaps Rush should consider himself lucky that he was merely the victim of racial slander, and not the target of a nail-studded pipe bomb.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:07 AM | Comments (5)

    September 18, 2008

    Hacker Exposed. Guilty Party Remains Running For President

    David Kernell, a 20-year-old University of Tennessee-Knoxville student and son of Tennessee state representative (D-Memphis), has been contacted by the Secret Service and FBI as part of a formal investigation into the hacking of the private email account of Alaska Governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

    We're sure to learn more about the case as it develops, but as it does, I think I'll largely echo Vanderleun's advice to cut the kid a little slack.

    Certainly, he is an adult and is presumably intelligent enough to know what he did was both illegal and immoral, but it appears that he may also be a victim himself, of sorts. An entry on a blog alleged to be Kernell's speaks in the first person of having been institutionalized on several occasions for acute depression starting when he was just nine, and again when he was 14 or 15. In the tumultuous five years since his mid-teens until his current age of twenty, it would far from surprising to discover that this young man again needed inpatient medical care to deal with his personal demons. If he still is in such a state, I'll merely pray for him and hope that he can get the care that he needs.

    What I am far less inclined to forgive is how we got to this point.

    In less than a month, Sarah Palin has gone from the well-liked governor of a remote state to the most slurred and slandered politician in America today.

    I'd like to be able to point a finger at an isolated source acting in bad faith as the culprit in the most vicious string of unfounded personal attacks I've seen against a politician and that politician's utterly blameless family in my lifetime. I'd like to be able to point my finger at Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic for all the vicious smears he has pushed as a political Perez Hilton (minus the charm and influence, of course). But Sully is just an angry boil; a sign of infection, wishing he could be the cause.

    In the concerted effort to destroy Sarah Palin, her husband, and her children, we've seen the progressive blogosphere and professional media adopt the no-holds barred, street-fight viciousness of a community organizer fighting for scraps. The petty brutality has trickled down from the man they idolize, a man cool enough to befriend and use aging terrorists and racist ministers as they can help him, and callous enough to discard friendships decades old if it suits him, without a backward glance.

    For all his eloquence behind a teleprompter, Barack Obama is still at heart a thug, and his disciples learned well from their master.

    In Wasilla, Alaska, two Democratic National Committee "opposition researchers" are scouring the archives of the Palin's hometown paper for any hint of a scandal.

    It will never stop.

    Until it stops working.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:37 PM | Comments (28)

    Architects of Fanny Mae Collapse Are Core Obama Advisors

    Ace has the Doomsday List of Obama advisors that had a hand in the collapse.

    If Barack Obama respects the American people he should ask these individuals to step down from their roles in his campaign for the financial trauma they've helped cause.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:31 PM | Comments (2)

    Eeyore: Don't Vote For a Candidate Because "She's Cute"

    Sound advice, I should think.

    Likewise, you probably shouldn't vote for a candidate just because his wife is proud of her country for the first time.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:53 PM | Comments (4)

    "We Are The Vermin We've Been Waiting For."

    Treacher unloads on the anti-free speech tactics of the "Obama Action Wires" talking points that left wing activists are using to try to intimidate opponents and overwhelm radio station phone systems.

    It's the same oppressive mindset that is behind other intimidation tactics, such as the release and abuse of the Palin family's phone number, the hacking of Sarah Palin's email account, and the unrelenting "opposition research." They now go far beyond debating the qualifications and judgment of candidates, and now have adopted tactics meant to bully, slander, smear and humiliate the candidates, their spouses, and even minor children of candidates.

    Today's progressive radicals still have the mindset of Bill Ayers, they've merely found new tactics to employ.

    Bristol Palin is being harassed by a petty celebrity trying to goad her into having an abortion. Others, having discovered family telephone numbers, have left obscene messages demanding nude photos.

    How long until unhinged "progressive" activists target Willow Palin, a 14 year-old girl, with unfounded rumors designed to sully her reputation? (Answer: They already have).

    How about elementary school-aged Piper? When are they going to insist she's being molested, or is deviant in some way?

    How about baby Trig? Many pro-abortionists are already irate the Down's Syndrome child was allowed to live.

    What is next, Obamaphiles?

    I shudder at the thought.

    Update: The bullying tactics of the official Obama campaign revealed:

    A message goes out over Barack Obama's Web site with the names, phone numbers and e-mails of editors and producers foolish enough to host Obama critics. With Mr. Obama's extensive digital following, and his extensive fund-raising and contact lists, shutting up the Democratic nominee's critics with a fraction of Mr. Obama's millions of supporters is relatively simple. The digital legions plug phone lines, crash servers and intimidate the advertisers of these media outlets. This must be another instance of the "new" politics that Mr. Obama frequently talks about.

    These are just the official tactics admitted to by the Obama campaign. It kind of makes you wonder what they're up to that they won't admit.

    Headlining Drudge now:

    OBAMA TELLS SUPPORTERS: 'ARGUE AND GET IN THEIR FACE'

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:19 AM | Comments (15)

    September 17, 2008

    Hope and Change

    A drug-abusing minor celebrity has offered 17-year-old Bristol Palin a $25,000 bounty to abort her child.

    Hackers have broken into Palin family email accounts, and posted some of the contents, including family photos, online.

    Another site claimed to have a Palin family phone number and left a message asking for nude pictures of 17-year-old Bristol.

    For once, I'm at a loss for words.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:21 PM | Comments (15)

    The Freshman's Arrogance

    New York Post columnist Amir Taheri continues to hammer Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama today for secretly meddling in U.S. foreign policy in Iraq for his own naked political gain. Taheri first made these allegations on Monday, quoting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on the record as saying that when Obama visited Iraq in July, he tried to convince Iraqi government officials to not work with President Bush's Administration.

    Obama told the Iraqis that President Bush's administration was in a "state of weakness and political confusion," and tried to convince the Iraqis to wait to negotiate on troop-level agreements until the next administration took office in 2009. At the time of his trip in July, Obama had a comfortable lead in the polls over John McCain and was assuming he would likely be President.

    The American Spectator reports from sources inside the campaign that Obama's advisers were stumped for more than five hours trying to figure out a response to Taheri's article, because:

    • the account was true
    • there were at least three other witnesses to the conversation between Obama and Zebari
    • the campaign felt there were enough reporters in Iraq that "were aggressive enough" to debunk a denial, causing the campaign even more embarrassment.

    Instead, Obama's campaign attempted to rebut Taheri's article with a snide accusation that Taheri was confusing the Status of Forces agreement with a Strategic Framework Agreement, with a statement that read:

    "This article bears as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial. Barack Obama has consistently called for any Strategic Framework Agreement to be submitted to the U.S. Congress so that the American people have the same opportunity for review as the Iraqi Parliament," said Obama spokeswoman Wendy Morigi. "Unlike John McCain, he supports a clear timetable to redeploy our troops that has the support of the Iraqi government. Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations, nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades."

    Tellingly, the Obama campaign never attempted to push the Post for a correction or retraction of Taheri's charges, and observers quickly noted the campaign's response seemed to confirm the story.

    Taheri's response in today's New York Post gives the Obama campaign both barrels, first stating that if there was any confusion about the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA), the confusion came on the part of the Obama campaign, as the documents are closely intertwined. Tom Maguire notes the campaign's apparent confusion in Barack Versus Barack On Iraq, which shows Obama's own web site is consistent with Taheri's claims.

    Ed Morrisey at Hot Air excoriates Obama for his "me first, country second" arrogance.

    First, Senator Obama has no authority to negotiate on behalf of the executive branch, which has sole authority to conduct foreign policy. Second and most important, Obama attempted to interfere against the interests of the United States. He can ask all the questions he wants, but when Obama started pressing Iraqi officials to stop negotiations with the executive branch — in other words, break one level of diplomatic contact and freeze a military alliance in time of war — that crossed a line and clearly violated the Logan Act. It also makes clear that Obama would do anything to get elected, even harm diplomatic relations between the US and an ally.

    And while many are focusing on Obama's interference in foreign policy, Taheri also noted in his Monday article that Obama tried to use his trip to pressure the military to support his political goals.

    As he has made clear on numerous occasions, the first-term Senator has consistently pledged a date-based withdrawal built according to his own timetable, not a conditions-based withdrawal determined by upon security and political considerations and competencies on the ground.

    Obama pressured U.S. commanders for a "realistic withdrawal date," a date that would have been used as a transparent sop to his radical left-wing political base, and an attempt to unethically put those U.S. military commanders in a position of potentially influencing the course of the 2008 U.S. presidential elections. Commanders declined to be baited.

    Barack Obama attempted to compromise the pledge of military commanders to remain apolitical, while actively undermining the foreign policy of the current administration while our soldiers are still deployed.

    Barack Obama clearly values what is best for Barack Obama, but does he value anything else?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:58 AM | Comments (4)

    September 16, 2008

    Obama: Don't Listen to McCain. Do What He Says!

    Barack Obama is presently droning on about the economy with the kind of rhetoric you would expect from a liberal of the bigger-the-government-the-better-the-government stripe, but what I thought was hilarious was his attack against John McCain for suggesting we need a 9/11 type commission to study what has gone wrong recently, only to turn around several minutes later and insist that we need a regulator's committee.

    So we need a committee, not a commission.

    Is that what Obama means by "change?"

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:45 AM | Comments (6)

    Infanticide-Attempt Survivor Speaks Out Against Obama

    Hope is the reason Gianna Jesson won't be voting for Barack Obama.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:13 AM | Comments (3)

    September 14, 2008

    The Official Wasilla Banned Books List

    Some panicky progressives keep claiming (erroneously) that while as Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin banned book in the public library, or tried to ban books, and some of the rumors being passed around even attempt to named books that the rumor creators said were banned.

    Want a full, official list of every book ever banned in Wasilla, AK?

    Here you go, taken from the official source (PDF).

    No books have ever been banned in Wasilla at the request of Sarah Palin, or anyone else. Further, only one of the five books challenged even occurred during her terms in office.

    Reality, folks.

    Try it sometime.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:45 AM | Comments (72)

    NY Times Advocates 3rd Bush Administration

    After reading the NY Times rail against Sarah Palin's style of governance, making it very clear that they find it reprehensible when political appointees are replaced by incoming elected officials, I can only assume that they will protest loudly if the next President does not keep President Bush's appointees once he takes office.

    It's good to know they support such a continuity in government, doesn't it?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:50 AM | Comments (5)

    September 12, 2008

    The Outing of Barack Obama

    If you can warp time to imagine Richard Nixon consorting with Eric Robert Rudolph for more than 20 years on public policy issues, then you can begin to understand the relationship between Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama and one of the men who made him in Chicago machine politics, Bill Ayers. What you may not be able to understand is why Obama's campaign is apparently working with Ayers to suppress the extent of their relationship.

    Who was Bill Ayers?

    Ayers was a founder and leader of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group that declared war upon the United States, bombed government buildings, murdered law enforcement officers during armed robberies, fire-bombed a judge's home, and had planned what could have been the largest terrorist mass murder in America prior to 9/11. That attack was only thwarted by the premature detonation of massive roofing nail-studded pipe bombs by Ayer's girlfriend and fellow terrorist, Diana Oughton, bombs destined for a non-commissioned officers dance at Fort Dix. The blast of just some of the pipe bombs leveled a four-story Greenwich Village townhouse; four more nail-studded bombs were recovered in the rubble, along with 57 sticks of dynamite. The anti-personnel bombs created by the Weathermen were designed to kill hundreds.

    That Obama and Ayers have long had a relationship has never been in doubt, but until recently, Obama attempted to minimize that relationship, describing Ayers as little more than an college professor, someone who lived in his neighborhood, with whom he'd had minimal contact. A compliant media has even tried to claim the Weathermen never killed anyone other than their own members, a transparent falsehood.

    But the facade of a distant relationship the Obama campaign has constructed between the candidate and the aging terrorist is slipping. In a recent interview with Bill O'Reilly, Obama admitted a bit more about the extent of his relationship with Ayers.

    Ayers and Obama had partnered together at the Woods Funds on various projects as members of the board of directors, in the legislature on striking down a crime bill that would have sentenced youth offends to an adult prison for a second violent crime, and most interestingly, on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), a school reform project written by Ayers that collected $49 million from the Annenberg Foundation and was tasked with raising and distributing $98 million more.

    According to the NY Times, Obama was nominated to the CAC board in 1995 and was elected chairman, despite having a paltry resume in regards to education experience, and in spite of the fact that the board had far more qualified education experts on the board for consideration, including two college presidents.

    The same article notes that Bill Ayer's helped write the CAC proposal and that as soon as Obama was seated, the board was pushed to start approving enrichment program grant proposals "quickly," with little apparent regard for the quality of the proposals. A board member stated in 1998 that "the project proposals by and large were awful," and ran counter to the goals and educational strategy of the Chicago Public Schools.

    As Patterico notes, the enrichment programs that the CAC doled out money to under Obama's watch seemed geared more towards indoctrination than education, as at least some of the money Ayer's helped secure was funneled to Ayer's peers, including fellow 1960s radical Mike Klonsky, who received one of the first CAC grants of $175,000 for his Small Schools Workshop (Klonsky's blog was recently removed form the Obama campaign web site when Klonsky's radical past was exposed).

    What do we know about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge other than it was deemed a disastrously-run failure, and just how close were Ayers and Obama working together?

    That is a question
    that Professor Steve Diamond of Santa Clara University Law School would like answered, but instead of getting answers, he's run into a wall of Obama supporters that he claims is a part of a secret unit of the Obama-Biden campaign similar to Richard Nixon's =""Plumbers," a group designed to prevent leaks of information that could be damaging to the campaign.

    Obama's Plumblers are tasked with limiting access to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge documents housed at the University of Illinois Library in Chicago, and according to Diamond, were behind attempts to blunt the efforts of Stanley Kurtz of the National Review to obtain the documents, some of which may have been removed before Kurtz was afforded access.

    Who are Obama's Plumbers?

    If a Democratic source of Diamond's is correct, the suppression effort is being led by none other than Bill Ayers himself, and includes other members of "Progressives for Obama" that have direct access to David Axelrod, Obama's campaign manager.

    Another named member is former CAC executive director Ken Rolling. Rolling, as it turns out, was responsible for awarding the grant that brought Barack Obama to Chicago in his first job as a community organizer. Ayers later helped place Rolling as the CAC executive director.

    It appears there is a distinct possibility that Barack Obama was brought onto the board the CAC by Bill Ayers and pushed into the chairmanship despite not being nearly as qualified as others of the board for one simple, central purpose; to help launder (for lack of a better word) grant money into the hands of Ayer's contemporaries in the far left extreme of Chicago's Marxist/Communist education community, such as the $175,000 funneled to Klonsky.

    Ayers, Klonsky, and other radicals decided long ago that they cannot win with pipe bombs, and decided to continue their war against America by indoctrinating children via the application of Marxist educational theory. Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Mike Klonsky, and other radicals of the 1960s never gave up their attempts to undermine America.

    They just went underground, until they had a suitably pliable champion to be their figurehead, and that champion, Barack Obama, would rather that relationship remain hidden.

    Update: I contacted Professor Diamond via email to follow-up, and he is disputing substantial parts of what Batchelor attributes to him in the Human Events article, and I confused something Batchelor claimed and misreported it as Diamond's statement.

    First, the mis-attribution I made.

    Professor Diamond states that the does not have contacts in the Democratic Party, and he's right; it was Batchelor that claimed he had party sources. Diamond emphasises that based upon what he knows, there is "no basis to conclude... that Axelrod or anyone else from the campaign is involved" if such an effort is underway, and he did not hit any sort of a wall of Obama supporters, which was my attempt to describe the role of poltical plumbers as a barrier.

    He further wants to clarify that he doesn't think anyone associated with Joe Biden would have anything to do with any CAC coverup attempt that may be underway, and he does not know if Obama's plumbers exist in fact. If they do, it doesn't seem they &qout;are committed to breaking the law" if necessary, as Nixon's were.

    Everything else related to the Human Events article must stand or fall based upon John Batchelor's sources and claims.

    And Barack Obama and Bill Ayers have a $150 million failure to explain.

    Update: A closely related story of Obama using the Woods Fund to advance his career at Pajamas Media.

    Oh, what a tangled web...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:41 PM | Comments (8)

    Naomi Wolf: Still Dumb as a Stump

    On Fox News Live Desk discussing Sarah Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson, Wolf claimed that Palin "falsely linked al Qaeda to 9/11."

    Uh-huh.

    Drugs are bad, kids.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:43 PM | Comments (5)

    September 11, 2008

    Gibson Blows the Exclusive

    You would think that a nationally-recognized news anchor who landed the most coveted interview of the 2008 elections would have done his research to be fully prepared, so that when the interview aired, he wouldn't look like a fumbling, pretentious ass.

    And then there's Charlie Gibson of ABC News, a journalist I respected until just hours ago.

    Given the opportunity to interview Alaska Governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin—and some would argue, given the responsibility to be both thorough and fair—Gibson attempted to trap Palin with a question designed to portray her as a religious fundementalist:

    GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?

    PALIN: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.

    GIBSON: Exact words.

    PALIN: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words when he said -- first, he suggested never presume to know what God's will is, and I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words.

    But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side.

    That's what that comment was all about, Charlie.

    But Gibson's "quote" of Palin's "exact words" was anything but an exact quote; the statement Gibson attributed to Palin was for all intents and purposes fiction, real sentences ripped apart and rearranged to mean exactly what journalists wanted them to mean.

    Here is what Palin really said:

    "Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That’s what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."

    The words in bold are those journalists simply removed from their report, in order to try to cast Palin as a religious extremist.

    They tried turning a servant's simple prayer asking God for guidance, into the raving of a false prophet telling the congregation that she knows the mind of God.

    Journalists doctored the quote so that this manufactured Palin would scare American voters.

    Nice work trying to set a trap, Charlie.

    And great work doctoring the original quote, Gene Johnson of the Associated Press.

    I'm sure you've both made your bosses proud.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 PM | Comments (27)

    Another Nice, Normal, Entirely Sane American For Obama

    So right, so wrong, and yet so perfect on many levels.

    Spot the celebrity, kids.

    Do you get the feeling Boy George and Sully want to make Barack Obama the meat filling in a manwich?

    h/t Ace, who is getting my cleaning bill... KRYMB!

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:39 PM | Comments (10)

    Thank you, Joe Klein

    If it wasn't for you, I would not have realized that the easily-fooled, knuckle-dragging rubes that I call my neighbors are delusional morons, that the small towns I've lived in and around for most of my life are nothing more than bland and unimportant suburbs, and that the farmers I know are just corporate shills. Further, I would not know that all of us are part of a mythical America that is subservient and somewhat less important that the magnificence of that metropolis you call home, and of far less importance than the power and majesty of The One.

    Amen.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:37 PM | Comments (16)

    September 10, 2008

    I'll Ignore Media Requests, So Please Charge Me with Murder

    I'm not going to link Andrew Sullivan nor The Atlantic, the magazine that continues to destroy their reputation by paying him a salary for unmitigated hate, but it is amusing, in an Amy Winehouse kind of way, as he allows his naked (and please, let it be only figurative) adoration of Barack Obama to combine with his irrational hatred of Sarah Palin to produce gemstone-quality insanity.

    His latest?

    In response to Sarah Palin's rather rational decision to not take questions from the same media that savaged her and her family for days after she was announced as John McCains running mate, Sullivan take umbrage with a primal squeak.

    If you want to know what it's like to live in Putin's Russia, the Republican party is giving you a good taste. This is the most appalling dereliction of duty by the press that I have ever seen in my adult life. If they had any integrity, they would stop covering her at all under these conditions. We're now well into the second week in which someone who could be president of the United States next January has not been available to the press.

    Why, it's a perfect metaphor, isn't it?

    Freezing out those who attacked her and her family with a string of false rumors and innuendo (many of which can be traced directly to Sullivan itself) until she has a no-questions-barred interview with a talented journalist is exactly the same thing as journalists critical of Putin continuing to wind up dead!

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:36 PM | Comments (7)

    Broken Man

    Though he fronts a party that has tried hard to use the argument that John McCain doesn't have the temperament to be President, it is Barack Obama that seems to be falling apart under pressure:

    Barack Obama responded Wednesday to the John McCain campaign's call for an apology concerning his "lipstick on a pig" remarks, by calling the controversy "phony and foolish" and defending it as an "innocent remark" that was taken out of context.

    Obama said his comment was meant to compare the policies of McCain to those of President Bush, and was in no way a reference to Republican vice presidential Sarah Palin.

    Obama accused the McCain campaign of "lies and phony outrage" and "Swift-boat politics." He said the "made-up controversy" was "cat nip for the news media."

    The Illinois senator used the pig analogy at a campaign event in Lebanon, Va., on Tuesday while describing his Republican opponents.

    "John McCain says he's about change, too, and so I guess his whole angle is, 'Watch out George Bush.' Except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics … That's not change. That's just calling something the same thing, something different," Obama said.

    Oh, where to begin?

    How about the accusation being levied by some that Obama's comment prior to the "lipstick" comment above was plagiarized from this Tom Toles cartoon? (h/t reader Andy B.)

    Obama has already been accused of stealing lines from Deval Patrick, Mario Coumo, and Cesar Chavez, and chose a Vice Presidential candidate with his own history of oratory theft. If Barack Obama once again appropriated someone else's words, he is going to have some trouble finding credible people to explain it away this time.

    As for his initial bad (whether by carelessness or malice) choice of words, the McCain-Palin campaign's charge of purposeful disparagement, and Obama's overly defensive, passive-agressive response, a clearly rattled Obama is becoming his own worst enemy.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:15 AM | Comments (15)

    BBQ'd

    Ouch. From the McCain campaign.

    I can't read Barack Obama's mind.

    I can't tell you with certainty whether his use of the time-worn phrase "you can't put lipstick on a pig" was an innocent use of the phrase as it has traditionally been used, or if it was a not-so-subtle slap at Gov. Sarah Palin.

    I can tell you that using such a loaded phrase, when so many Democrats are still furious at Obama's perceived disrespect towards Hillary Clinton (especially considering his previous incidents of sexism, such as when he dismissively addresses a reporter as "sweetie"), is the work of someone who is either a neophyte, or who has a political deathwish.

    He may have thought he was being coy with his "pig" comment, but if he keeps generating controversial statements that can reasonably be interpreted as a personal attack, it's his campaign that is going to get cooked.

    Update: CBS forced YouTube to remove the McCain ad linked above,but it can still be seen here.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:19 AM | Comments (7)

    September 09, 2008

    The Left's Rhetorical Suicide Bombers

    Sarah Palin fired the librarian who didn't want to let her ban books.

    Sarah Palin was once part of an Alaskan separatist political party.

    Sarah Palin cut funding for special needs students in schools.

    Sarah Palin faked a pregnancy to cover up for her oldest daughter.

    Sarah Palin is a racist who openly utters ethnic slurs against Eskimos.

    Sarah Palin endangered her son's military unit by announcing his deployment to Iraq.

    When Governor Sarah Palin burst onto the national stage as John McCain's Vice Presidential pick, it set the journalistic and political pundits classes that considered her a dark horse candidate back on their heels in shocked surprise. The immediate, visceral delight among conservatives, moderates, and even a surprising number of Democrats to Palin's selection and unique biography triggered an immediate shift in media coverage.

    Palin's coming out also triggered panic on the political left as they saw the "buzz" of the Democratic National Convention vanish into the ether, and the backlash against "Caribou Barbie" on the left was vicious and immediate as slur after slur were slung at her and her family the overwhelming majority of them false.

    Palin never fired the Wasilla librarian or wanted to ban books, and the list of books  she is accused of wanting to ban was a list of books copied from a university Web site, and included books published after Palin became mayor.

    Palin first registered as a Republican in 1982 and has always been a Republican; the Alaskan Independence Party official who first claimed Palin was a member quickly admitted her mistake the next day.

    Instead of cutting spending for special needs programs as claimed in a Washington Post article, Palin actually increased funding by more than $3 million.

    Sarah Palin did not fake her pregnancy with her youngest son Trig to cover up her daughter's teen pregnancy. Sarah and Bristol had concurrent pregnancies for a month, and Bristol is still carrying her child with Levi Johnston.

    Sarah Palin is far from being a racist who slurs Eskimos; her husband's family and her children are part Yup'ik Eskimo.

    While the venom and volume of the slurs begin launched against Sarah Palin are notable, they are unsurprising in today's politics. Barack Obama and John McCain have both had rumors and slurs directed against them during the campaign, some of them quite fierce.

    What separates the smears against Sarah Palin from the directed at Obama and McCain is the apparent willingness of some of those creating and propagating the smears to put their names on the line in order to impeach Palin's reputation as a form of rhetorical suicide bombers.

    Foremost among them is Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic. Sullivan is openly a Barack Obama supporter, and has been a key conduit of taking obscure smears into the public spotlight. Sullivan has attacked Palin as a Christian extremist, and went so far as to link and repost portions of a sermon from Palin's minister that were doctored to make him sound like Barack Obama's racist conspiracy theorist former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

    Sullivan helped push the slur that Palin engaged in an extramarital affair with her husband's former business partner without any credible shred of evidence supporting such a claim, and was also among the first to actively promote the conspiracy theory that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy, claiming that her youngest son, Trig, was actually her daughter Bristol's child. Even after it was revealed that Bristol Palin was pregnant concurrently with her mother, Sullivan still pushed for Sarah Palin to release her medical records. In continuing to foist up on improbable smear after another against Sarah Palin no matter how obtuse or unhinged the attack was, Sullivan went a long way to destroying his reputation. He has also tarnished the reputation of The Atlantic in the process.

    Paul Kane of the Washington Post infamously and daftly misrepresented a spending bill where Palin exercised her line item veto, and claimed that as governor, Palin "reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent." The reality is that Palin increased funding for Covenant House by $3.9 million, a three-fold increase. Despite widespread criticism and a debunking by FactCheck.org, Kane and the Post have refused to correct the false representation of Palin's record.

    Jon Soltz, a former U.S. Army Captain, Iraq War veteran, and chairman of Votevets.org, is claiming that gov. Palin violated operational security by revealing that her eldest son, Track, would be deploying to Iraq. Soltz repeated the smear on another prominent political web site, the Huffington Post.

    But the claim Gov. Palin violated operational security is demonstrably false, which Soltz, as a former soldier, should have know before posting his claims. CNN's Anderson Cooper dismantled Soltz's transparently partisan attack, pointing out that the Pentagon announced Track Palin's unit was deploying to Iraq back in May, and that the unit itself had announced a public deployment ceremony a month before Palin was announced as John McCain's running mate. Two separate field-grade officers contacted have confirmed that Palin in no way violated operational security.

    Some news agencies have released far more about Track Palin's deployment and his unit, including claiming to know to which province his unit would be deploying in Iraq. Without the benefit of any evidence at all, Soltz claims that the McCain-Palin campaign must be behind this disclosure. Though it damages his credibility and tarnishes the veteran's group he chairs, Jon Soltz has put his credibility and that of VoteVets.org on the line in hopes of undermining a proud soldier's mother for releasing already public information.

    Despite these smears directed at Gov. Palin--and some that are worse--Palin and John McCain have surged in the polls. In months to come, those who have sacrificed their reputations in hopes of tarnishing Palin's name may wonder if the sacrifice was worth it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:22 PM | Comments (17)

    Yon: Where Eagles Dare

    I had a few minutes with Micheal Yon this morning via IM. Mike is in Afghanistan, and joined up with a British unit several weeks ago. He has already seen lots of combat that the mainstream media simply isn't covering — rural and urban, ambushes and hit-and-run attacks, mostly small arms and RPGs that have cost the Taliban dearly. Organizationally, they simply aren't as sophisticated as the Iraqi insurgency was, and they're taking heavy casualties.

    A case in point explaining the kind of fighting ISAF forces are facing in Afghanistan might be the battles that took place on a humanitarian mission Michael covered in Where Eagles Dare. Several hundred Taliban died trying to stop a convoy that had no other purpose than to help the Afghan people by providing them with more electric power.

    It's well worth a read, and if you can donate a couple of bucks please do, as his coverage is all supported by reader donations.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)

    But Wasn't he Worried It Was A Plot to Give Him AIDS?

    Rev. Jeremiah Wright finds a use for part of the US of KKK-A.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:30 PM | Comments (2)

    September 08, 2008

    Schooled

    Barack Obama took the day off from campaigning Monday to accompany his daughters to their first day of school Monday, in Chicago's prestigious University of Chicago Lab School , a large, private facility.

    It seems that the $50 million in Annenberg Challenge money he blew through creating social welfare programs for old leftist terrorists and other Ayers' allies couldn't quite bring Chicago's public schools up to his standards.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:52 PM | Comments (8)

    Confirming the Obvious: Palin Race Smears a Steaming Pile of Moose Hooey

    It's been debunked, the author discredited, and key players in the smear apparently linked to the Obama campaign.

    The smear is now being deleted fast and furiously by the very same liberal bloggers who hoped the manufactured hate would dupe moderates and independents into thinking Sarah Palin is a racist.

    To go ahead and drive the stake deeply into the heart of this smear, through the coffin, and into the earth beyond, I contacted those who would know Sarah Palin the best, journalists in and around her hometown of Wasilla, AK.

    Kari Sleight, publisher of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, Palin's hometown newspaper kills the slur dead, responding via email:

    I have not heard the rumor about Barack Obama. Rumors of the Eskimo slurs surfaced during Gov. Palin’s gubernatorial campaign and were quickly dismissed as such.

    I have personally known Sarah Palin for 11 years and have never heard her utter anything remotely racist. Her husband, Todd, is half Yup'ik Eskimo, and her children share the same heritage.

    This slur is as dead, but don't worry... I'm sure others are just around the corner.

    Update: Sean Cockerham, state politics reporter at the Anchorage Daily News concurs that the racist slurs against Palin are false, with a to-the-point:

    We've heard nothing like this.
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:10 PM | Comments (4)

    Yes, Adam. But Not For the Reasons You Think

    Over at the Huffington Post, liberal writer/director Adam McKay laments of the 2008 Presidential elections that "We're Gonna Frickin' Lose This Thing," and goes on to prove that the far left wing may lose this election for Democrats. It won't be for the reasons he thinks, but because of their own inability to find common ground with vast majority of Americans.

    Something is not right. We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate. We're coming off the worst eight years in our country's history. Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R's have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we're going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science? That's not odd as a difference of opinion, that's logically and mathematically queer.

    There's a lot of self-delusion contained in that one paragraph.

    Barack Obama is a brilliant orator with a great personal story, points almost everyone will concede. But narrative isn't leadership, and Barack Obama is one of the least experienced candidates the Democrats have ever offered up as a presidential candidate, and he arguably holds the title of the least experienced major party candidate in history. Obama also voted with the most unpopular Congress in the history of the United States 97-percent of the time.

    Joe Biden, his selection for Vice President, is a man who has been in the Senate longer than many Obama supporters have been alive, yet his party never gave him a position of leadership that was required by seniority. In a campaign espousing "hope and change, " Americans see Biden as the consummate Washington insider; even his son is a lobbyist. Biden also voted along party lines 97-percent of the time last year.

    As for claiming that the Bush presidency was the "worst eight years in our country's history" — well that kind of gross hyperbole may be fine in Hollywood, but is such an absurd statement that it doesn't justify addressing.

    McKay's conspiracy theory of why Obama is in trouble is just as far-fetched and delusional as his understanding of history.

    It reminds me of playing blackjack (a losers game). You make all the right moves, play the right hands but basically the House always wins. I know what you're going to say " But I won twelve hundred dollars last year in Atlantic City!" Of course there are victories. The odds aren't tilted crazy, but there is a 51%-49% advantage. And in the long run, the house has to win. The house will win.

    So what is this house advantage the Republicans have? It's the press. There is no more fourth estate. Wait, hold on...I'm not going down some esoteric path with theories on the deregulation of the media and corporate bias and CNN versus Fox...I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country. And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it. And that's the 51% advantage.

    Obama is losing because the press is in the tank... for McCain.

    Yes, McKay's quite sincere. And he's not done, either.

    I'm not even getting into the fact that the religious right teaches closed mindedness so it's almost impossible to gain new voters from their pool because people who disagree with them are agents of the devil. I just want to look at two inarguable realities: A) we have no more press and B) the Repubs are screwing with the voters on the local level.

    Adam McKay claims that Barack Obama and Joe Biden is a dream ticket for Democrats, thinks the mainstream media is in the tank for Republicans, and thinks that religion is being used to make Americans stupid, biased, and Republican.

    But he has a solution.

    1) We give definitive clear speeches like Biden and Obama gave the other day about how no one talked about any issues at the Republican Convention and how they outright lied. But we do them over and over again. 2) We use the one place where it's still a 50-50 game -- the internet -- as much as we can. 3) But most importantly we should bring up re-regulating the media and who owns it and what that conflict of interest is a lot more. By pretending there's no conflict of interest we're failing to alert the public that they're being lied to or given a looking at a coin at the bottom of a pool slanted truth. Every time a pundit or elected official is on any TV news program it should be a polite formality to mention that GE has made such and such billions off the war in Iraq by selling arms or that Murdoch is a right-wing activist with a clear stake in who wins and who taxes his profits the least. Disney, GE, Viacom, and Murdoch -- all want profits and the candidate and agenda that will get in their way the least.

    Tell American they're too dumb to realize that politicians lie. Attempt to regulate free speech until only liberal speech is free. Make Marxist/Communist anti-capitalist rhetoric a required part of evening newscasts.

    Congratulations, Adam McKay.

    It is precisely this kind of delusional, arrogant, self-centered attitude that may very well make your nightmare come true.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:25 PM | Comments (19)

    Another Foreign Celebrity For Barack Obama

    This time it was British comedian Russell Brand in his opening monologue at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards:

    "Now as a representative of the global community, a vistor from abroad, I don't want to come across as a little bit biased, but could I please ask of you, people of America, to please elect Barack Obama. Please! On behalf of the world!

    "Some people - I think they're called racists - say America is not ready for a black President.

    "But I know America to be a forward-thinking country right? Because otherwise, you know, would you have let that retarded cowboy fellow be a President for eight years?

    "We were very impressed. It was nice of you to let him have a go, because in England, George Bush wouldn't be trusted with a pair of scissors."

    Update:The U.K. Telegraph adds:

    Brand also took a shot at Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

    Speaking of Palin's daughter's boyfriend, Levi Johnston, Brand said: "That is the safe sex message of all time. Use a condom or become a Republican!"

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:58 AM | Comments (18)

    September 07, 2008

    Biden's Senior Moment

    o rly?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:23 PM | Comments (4)

    Obama's "Sambo" Smear Merchant Now Posting Prominently at BarackObama.com

    Charley James, the expatriate, cartoonishly progressive blogger that smeared Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin as being the overtly racist and sexist governor of a racist and sexist state, now has his smears prominently linked and displayed at BarackObama.com:


    Click image for full-screen)

    The campaign can and does delete blogs created by "difficult" supporters, like the diary kept by long time Obama associate, SDS veteran, and Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) chairman Mike Klonsky.

    Why is James' smear of Governor Palin still online?

    Update: Charley James isn't even his real name, if this comment can be believed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:09 PM | Comments (5)

    September 06, 2008

    Meet One Of Barack's Bosses

    Sorry, Michelle. It isn't you. Who is it?

    Here are some clues:

    • Official member of Barack Obama's campaign. You know, one of those folks eligible for something Obama calls "firing" should they attack a candidate's family --- properly or otherwise.
    • Only one of 35 bundlers to raise over $500,000 for Obama, on par with Hollywood moguls Daivd Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg
    • Not only a registered lobbyist, but Lobbyist of the Year (2006)
    • Not only Lobbyist of the Year, but he played a lobbyist (himself) on HBO's K Street

    You'll have th click over to Perfunction to get the details.

    This goon is such a a powerful lobbyist and Obama campaign figure that he can go directly against Barack Obama's explicit public promise to fire anyone who attacks Sarah Palin's family during the same week Obama made the promise (and it's still fresh in everyone's minds), and walk away without a scratch.

    Barack Obama isn't in charge of his campaign, and Obama's puppeteers such as this man are arrogant enough to show that in public, without fear of Obama living up to his promise.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:34 AM | Comments (5)

    September 05, 2008

    Races High

    The only card in his deck.


    Image via PLZMARRYMEKTHX

    As a far-left liberal, Obama just can't help himself. Identity politics is simply part of who he is.

    Update:comments closed due to spammers.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:34 PM | Comments (3)

    Organize This

    Some folks are having way too much fun making light of (or tearing apart) the community organizer line on Barack Obama's already thin resume, and left-wing bloggers and media types are not amused.

    They got their marching orders (no doubt an "important action alert!") and have begun astroturfing blogs and news sites with the following absurd comparison virtually overnight:

    Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor.

    That's a fun gross exaggeration to play with.

    Let's do our own moronic comparison, using actual Democrats from this millennia for comparison instead of religious figures born thousands of years ago.

    Bull Conner was a community organizer and George Wallace was a governor.

    Their work, of course, was assisted by decades-earlier work of another Democrat community organizer, Nathan Bedford Forrest. Does anyone remember the community he helped pull together?

    Of course you do.

    Is it fair in any way to put Obama into this company? Of course it isn't. But Barack Obama has as much (or more) in common with these segregationists and Klansman as he does Jesus.

    Actually, that isn't true.

    To the best of my knowledge, none of these men were part of to a cultish theology that said if God didn't favor their race, then he should be murdered. Barack Obama went to a radical church that practiced this God-threatening Black Liberation Theology for more than 20 years.

    A little more relevant for Barack Obama are a few other folks a little closer to his physical and ideological homes.

    Charles Manson organized a community of his own, one that Bernadine Dorhn was certainly impressed with. You remember Bernie Dorhn, don't you? She and her husband Bill Ayers had helped form yet another community, one called the Weather Underground. Years later, when they were done with their declared war against the United States, they helped community organizer and friend Barack Obama organize his first political fundraiser in their home.

    If liberals want to play games about the meaning and definition of the words community organizer, then by all means, lets play.

    It will be a lot more fun for us than them.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 PM | Comments (26)

    Obama/Biden Email Spam Machine Blast Out Another Whopper

    Talk about phoning it in:

    Bob --

    John McCain just accepted the Republican nomination and adopted the most conservative platform in the history of his party.

    After days of negative attacks -- and no mention of real proposals to fix our economy, get more people health care, or make America safer -- the party that brought you eight years of disastrous policies is asking for four more.

    Well, not if we have anything to say about it.

    Across this nation, people like you have joined this movement because you believe that we are better than the past eight years. And now that we are entering the final stretch, it's going to take all of us to bring the change we need.

    Step up at this crucial moment and make a donation of $5 or more to change our country.

    After the last eight years, it's up to you to keep America's promise alive.

    How can John McCain pull us out of the deep hole we're in when he voted with George Bush more than 90% of the time?

    The American people deserve more than a 10% chance at change.

    No matter what McCain says, we can't bring about change by relying on the same ideas that have failed us for the last eight years.

    Show the McCain campaign that people coming together, giving what they can afford, and working toward a common purpose will transform this country.

    Change begins with you. Please make a donation of $5 or more now:

    https://donate.barackobama.com/changeweneed

    Thanks for everything you're doing,

    Joe

    Seriously, "the most conservative platform in the history of his party"?

    John McCain?

    I knew some were alleging that Barack Obama was smoking again due to the pressures of the campaign trail, but I'd just assumed they meant cigarettes.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:39 AM | Comments (6)

    Media Play Dumb To Smear McCain/Palin

    MSNBC's Mark Murray and ABC News' Jake Tapper seem to have found a new way to help Barack Obama, playing dumb and purposefully misconstruing a McCain/Palin fundraising letter in order to claim the Republican ticket is being dishonest.

    Murray writes:

    This afternoon, the McCain campaign issued a Palin fundraising solicitation for the joint McCain-Palin-RNC fund. (After this week, McCain no longer can raise money after accepting $84.1 million in public funds, but the Republican National Committee and state parties can.)

    "I cannot tell you how special last night was for me and how enthused I am to be John McCain's running mate," Palin said in the email solicitation, adding: "Unfortunately, as you've seen this week, the Obama/Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward me, my family and John McCain. The misinformation and flat-out lies must be corrected."

    Unless we're mistaken, neither Obama nor Biden nor the campaign has attacked Palin's family.

    Echoing Murray hours later with unerring precision, Tapper writes:

    Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sent out a fundraising solicitation today that charged that "the Obama/Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward me, my family and John McCain."

    I asked spokespeople of the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee just which "Obama/Biden Democrats" they're referring to.

    The response I got was that Obama spokesman Mark Bubriski erroneously attacked Palin as a supporter of Pat Buchanan.

    That's it. That's the evidence.

    An attack on Palin herself.

    In other words, they can't name one person affiliated with the Obama-Biden campaign who attacked the Palin family.

    So, the only "Obama/Biden Democrats" in existence are those staffers in the Obama campaign?

    Sorry, all you folks with Obama '08 bumper stickers, Obama buttons, and Obama-Biden bumper stickers on your car, you aren't "Obama/Biden Democrats." Even though you've contributed money to the campaign, and think Obama is the best thing since sliced bread, and your proudly think of your self as an Obama Democrat, you aren't. Why? Because Jake Tapper and Mark Murray say so.

    As I wrote to Tapper in his comments (and this being ABC News, we'll see how it stays up):

    Please, Jake, you're better than this.

    The actual candidates will of course take the high road, but it is rabid Obama/Biden supporters in the blogosphere and media--including your counterpart Brian Ross--that smear Palin and her family.

    On the Blotter, Ross tried to portray a 1997 lawsuit filed against thrown out by a judge as a current scandal. The judge dismissed it for having no merit. But spin away, boys! It is what you do.

    Gust this week Obama-supporting media have accused Obama of slashing funding for special needs programs when she actually raised them 175%, just as she was accused of slashing funding for pregnancy prevention programs when she raised those as well.

    The Obama media lies about Sarah Palin, and then won't retract.

    But are you referring to lies against her family only? How about the fevered insistence of left-wing "journalists" that Trig Palin was the son of his sister? How about media claims that Levi Johnston was being forced into a "shotgun marriage" with Bristol Palin, when they were already hoping to get married before they found out she was pregnant?

    Americans have had a declining respect for the media at least since I was in j-school in the early 1990s. That decline is part of the reason I switched majors.

    It looks like I made a smart choice.

    John McCain and Sarah Palin have terrified the mainstream media/leftwing blogosphere, to the point they are now reduced to reporting direct lies.

    CNNs Soledad O'Brien claimed that Palin, the mother of a Down's Syndrome child, cut funding for special needs programs 62-percent, a lie so blatant that even the openly pro-Obama partisans at the Daily Kos felt compelled to call them on it.

    The Washington Post tried to claim that Governor Palin slashed funding for teen moms, when the very documents they show prove that she expanded funding by $3.9 million dollars.

    At The Atlantic, the same out-of-control Obama partisan-who-will-not-be-named who demanded medical evidence to prove that Bristol Palin wasn't her brother's mother (even after she revealed her own concurrent pregnancy) doctored the headline of old news story to insinuate that while Sarah Palin was a mayor of town of thousands, that she was at fault for a rise in methamphetamine in an area the size of West Virginia.

    Mainstream media journalists at the Associated Press lied and claimed Palin said the Iraq war was a mission from God. They lied. The truth of the matter is that only three suited fools from Chicago think they're on a mission from God, and Jake and Elwood aren't running.

    The media—yes, those cheering fans spotted during Obama's acceptance speech—are more willing than ever to lie, cheat, and steal their way to an Obama advantage in this election.

    It is pathetic. But it is what they have become.

    Update: The comment cited above at ABC News? Deleted in less than a half-hour. Good thing there are such things as screen captures.

    The last time this happened, Jake Tapper wrote to tell me he wasn't responsible for deleting comments and that he'd ask ABC News about it. Now he has another example to cite. He also just said via email that referring to him a s a member of the Obama-supporting media was "nonsense."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:31 AM | Comments (9)

    McCain vs. Bush?

    We all know Barack Obama is a lightweight, but even his own partisan cable news channel sometimes forgets he's running.

    Nice job, morons.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:07 AM | Comments (0)

    September 04, 2008

    Like Hell

    At The Politico, NBC political director Chuck Todd weighed in on last night's speech by Republican Vice Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin, and claimed that "Conservatives have found their Obama."

    The Republican National Committee and conservatives in both parties should angrily demand an immediate retraction.

    Less than seven years after the terror attacks of 9/11, no conservative would dream of nominating for president a candidate who has a deeply-layered 21-year relationship with a terrorist who managed to bomb the U.S. Capitol Building that Obama bin Laden failed to strike.

    No conservative would tolerate the ascension of a candidate who belonged to a radical cult whose pastor shrieked that God should damn America, or who followed a theology for two decades that said their God must chose their race alone above all others, or be murdered.

    No conservative Democrat or Republican would stomach the though of an insufferable first spouse whose patriotism just arrived as a current event, and that exists only as a fickle emotion that will evaporate away again with a November loss.

    Sarah Palin has a real track record as a reformer in two elective offices, not just empty words.

    Sarah Palin lives as a proud example of what America's heartland can produce, not as arrogant elite who laughs at American workers when he thinks no one is listening.

    No sir, Sarah Palin is not our Barack Obama.

    And you, sir, owe the Governor an apology.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:46 PM | Comments (7)

    Andrew Sullivan Lies Again

    Andrew Sullivan, never been burdened with the weight of intellectual honesty, feels attacking a 17-year-old girl and the paternity of her Down's Syndrome infant brother in a national publication is fair game.

    Rightfully ridiculed and mocked for his below-the-belt personal attacks again Sarah Palin's children, Sullivan moved on to another smear against Palin, in an entry he titled (and one which will not be linked) "Wasilla: The Meth Capital Of Alaska"

    The problem with this particular smear?

    The original article is called Troopers dub Mat-Su area the meth capital of Alaska, and Sarah Palin was only in charge of the small town of Wasilla. Mat-Su or more formally, the Matanuska-Susitna Valley area, is roughly the size of West Virginia.

    Frankly, Sullivan's continued willingness to lie in support of naked partisanship for Barack Obama is an embarrassment for The Atlantic, and an affront to the other talented writers who call the magazine home, and I wonder if the magazine's advertisers appreciate the kind of writing with which their products are now being associated.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:07 PM | Comments (10)

    Questioning His Judgment

    Barack Obama's "great friend" is off to jail.

    Tony Resko?

    A good guess, but no, I wasn't talking about Obama fundraiser, friend, and kickback artist Tony Rezko. He's in jail already.

    Bill Ayers?

    No, Barack's friendly neighborhood terrorist, part of a group who formally declared war upon the United States before joining Obama in a close 21-year relationship spanning multiple left-wing organizations, is still "guilty as hell, free as a bird."

    Bernadine Dohrn?

    No, the Weather Underground terrorist and Charles Manson groupie that idolized Sharon Tate's murder—especially the part where a fork was stabbed into Tate's eight-months-pregnant womb—who spent time on the FBI's Most Wanted list before hostessing Barack Obama's very first political fundraiser, was never charged with any of the bombings she is though to have been a part of, including the San Francisco Police station bombing that killed one police officer and wounded many more.

    Um... Corrupt Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick?


    Took you long enough
    :

    Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice and will step down as the mayor of the nation's 11th-largest city as part of a plea deal in a sex-and-misconduct scandal that has plagued the Motor City for months.

    As part of the deal, Kilpatrick also pleaded no contest to assaulting or obstructing a public officer. He'll serve two concurrent four-month jail sentences and pay the city $1 million over a five-year probationary period.

    Barack Obama talks about having the "judgment to lead."

    The question is, which cell block?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:15 PM | Comments (4)

    After Palin Speech, Media Supporters Still Claim Obama is the Better Candidate

    Of course, they aren't running against each other, though you would be hard-pressed to notice that in most mainstream media/liberal blogosphere reactions to her speech last night.

    Jonathan Alter of Newsweek tries to argue that Obama's longer exposure as an inexperienced candidate on the national stage some how makes him a more qualified leader than Palin, claiming that Obama's "countless tough interviews" and media-created "reputation for fluency in discussing affairs of state" is in some way a replacement for executive experience. Can you imagine any sane person trying to make that argument outside of the bizarre standards of liberal politics?

    Job candidate: "No sir, I don't have any experience running a factory, but I've been going to tough interviews for 18 months, and I can sound like a plant manager in conversation."

    Good look with that argument, Jonathan.

    At the far left The Nation, Ari Melber wrote convincingly, " Owwie! Stoooooop!" He also (reflexively) mentioned the Karl Rove boogeyman, assuring that some of his readers will splatter their Depends.

    Gloria Steinem embarrassed herself and other dormitory feminists in the L.A. Times this morning, trying to claim that a highly-successful self-made leader, a governor with a nation-leading 86-percent approval rating, is the wrong woman, with the wrong message. Uh-huh.

    Sarah Palin isn't "qualified" in Steinem's rheumy eyes because Palin made her way to the top her own way, on her own merits, bucking all conventions and societal mores. But Palin didn't follow Steinem's approved path, and so an increasingly irrelevant Steinem, like all oppression junkies, frets that other women might begin to ignore the stilted, one dimensional feminism she offers when they see a confident, competent leader of another ideology who has proven she can "have it all," and it well on her way to doing it all. Steinem instead insists that the candidate that calls dismissively addresses female reporters as "sweetie," is the new standard-bearer for women's rights.

    On the air and in print, liberal pundits are attacking Palin today. Some attack her record, some disgusting still attack her family, and some attack her for merely being a woman (prompting Hillary Clinton's aides to go on the record decrying these sexist attacks). These liberal bloggers/journalists—the line between them all but removed— continue insisting that Obama, a candidate with far less executive experience than Palin, is a better choice.

    That's an interesting argument to make... if they were running for the same job.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:41 AM | Comments (16)

    September 03, 2008

    Palin Delivers

    Just over, and on first pass, it looked like Obambi versus Godzilla.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:08 PM | Comments (3)

    Biden: My Opponent is Ready. My Running Mate is Not.

    Who says there's no more honesty in politics?

    Granted, the comments are made roughly a year apart. The question remains: what has Barack Obama done in that timespan—other than merely running for the job—to make himself suitable to lead America?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)

    Right Where She Wants Them


    (image courtesy: www.GetLiberty.org)

    It is worth noting that Governor Palin vigorously supports the culling of wolves.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:58 PM | Comments (2)

    Sign of the Times

    It says quite a bit about the state of modern journalism that one of the last national media outlets to post a story about the family of Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin is the National Equirer—and something else again that the Enquirer article is less partisan in tone and apparently more solid in their sourcing than network and cable news channels, national newspapers, and magazines that have published outlandish claims that even Bat Boy would know better than to report.

    The venom and vigor with which journalists have gone after Palin and her family is unsurprising. According to the practitioners of liberal theology, Palin is a gender traitor for being a conservative, and perhaps even worse, an embarrassing reminder of their own self-centeredness. Palin is guilty of what many of the left consider a most serious offense, knowingly carry to term a child with disabilities and furthermore, pledging to love and care for him.

    Such a reminder of self-sacrifice cuts those who use abortion as a political tool and rallying cry. For those souls who have been in the position of being forced to choose, and chose to terminate their pregnancies, the delivery of Trig Palin and the joy he obviously brings to his family re-opens those old wounds.

    Bristol Palin's pregnancy is even worse for liberal Democrats who view abortion as little more than a post-coital "easy button," and the baby is precisely the kind of pregnancy that Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama advocates killing. Barack Obama is a man who voted to refuse medical care for babies that survive abortions, and then unashamedly lied about it.

    Obama was also quite blunt about the fact that if his daughters got pregnant at roughly the same age as Bristol Palin, that he would advocate the killing of his grandchild, stating:

    ...I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16.

    Barack Obama's advocacy to his daughters is an unmistakable reflection of his character, or rather, his lack of it. In Barack Obama's responsibility-free zone, children are not a blessing to be celebrated, but an illness to be cured. He considers a growing human child in the womb a STD—a sexually transmitted disease.

    Barack Obama equates unborn children with bacteria, viruses, and parasites. That certainly explains why he could oppose an act to provide medical care to abortion survivors, even the federal version of the bill that was unopposed by so much as a single liberal in the Senate. By his own words, Barack Obama views abortion as nothing more than a form of disease control, and the unwanted children as the disease.

    Bristol Palin's family, however, views children as most Americans outside of certain community-based realities do, as a blessing, as the promise of new life, of joy... and of hope. And most certainly of a wonderful change.

    But the live birth of babies from atypical pregnancies aren't "a change we can believe in" if we're Obama supporters in the media.

    Pitted against a Vice Presidential candidate Mark Steyn correctly categorized as hyper-American, the cadaverous, sullen selfishness of Obama's all-too-typical campaign is exposed as being "just words."

    Barack Obama is a lawmaker who has passed no important laws, a community organizer who renounced his community, a Senator who has spent more time with those who have declared war against America than with Americans defending our country.

    His only real accomplishments are autobiographies he hopes some will confuse with the truth. But we know the truth. He is a husk of a man. There is no substance inside.

    And so when Barack the Anointed was confronted by the unexpected choice of a real reformer, a self-made leader who not just fought against machine politics, but dared to have a rich life full beyond what Obama could allow others to have, it is unsurprising that his supporters in the libel blogosphere and libel media—let's address them for what the really are—rushed out to undercut her and her family.

    For Barack Obama to thrive, there must be woe in America. Recessions must always be just around the corner. Ever expanding government must be your key to success and happiness. There can be no other way.

    Sarah Palin and her family aren't perfect, and they don't claim to be.

    Her sister made a bad choice, and married a bad cop, a man who drank in his patrol vehicle, who uttered death threats again her, her father, and even the governor. He was and is animal who broke laws, shot animals out of season, and tasered his own son. You read the affidavit for yourself, and tell me Sarah Palin did anything unethical or out of line in response.

    Todd Palin got a DWI in 1984. The media wants to make a big deal about that. They purposefully avoid mentioning that Barack Obama admits using cocaine and marijuana far more recently.

    Bristol Palin and her boyfriend Levi Johnson are having a child. Some want to crow that this is proof of the failure of the Palin family as parents, and of abstinence education. They purposefully turn a blind eye to the fact that parents can only guide children so far. Parents teach, but children have to make their own way, their own decisions, and their own mistakes. It is how they respond to their mistakes that shows their character and how they were raised. That the Johnson and Palin families have rallied around their children and the child resulting from their union thus far is impressive.

    Her husband was the member of Alaska's 3rd largest political party, a group that championed Alaskan sovereignty. Some in the media have decided this is a huge scandal, while they've ignored for years that Hawaiian Democrats (including Senate Democrat Daniel Akaka in every session of Congress since 2000) have championed that state's sovereignty as a kingdom. Has anyone ever question Obama on his views of Hawaii's independence? Don't make me laugh.

    We don't expect the media to be non-partisan or unbiased. We should, however, expect them to be reasonably honest, a lowered standard that still sadly seems far too high.

    The National Enquirer can no longer be laughed at as "just" a tabloid. It isn't because that publication has raised it standards. It's because other journalists have so nakedly abandoned their own.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:25 AM | Comments (4)

    September 02, 2008

    Liebs

    Wasn't planning on blogging the RNC tonight, but during Joe Lieberman's speech, my wife made a good point.

    Lieberman's speech espousing John McCain's and Sarah Palin's "America First" beliefs also reflects Lieberman's own belief in America over party.

    The Democrats are going to strip Lieberman of the positions and power he's earned during his time in the Senate for the speech he's giving now. He's willing to put America ahead of party as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:59 PM | Comments (12)

    You Know...

    ...I've been watching the debates rage on conservative and liberals blogs, television news programs, and print op-ed pages for four days about their resumes, their values, and their suitability to be on a national ticket with so little experience, and now more than ever, I'm firmly convinced that Palin vs. Obama is shaping up to be one hell of a Vice Presidential debate.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:09 PM | Comments (9)

    Totally Rational Columnist of Indeterminate Political Persuasion Threatens Race War if Obama Isn't Elected

    If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness - and hopelessness!

    Always sunny in Philadelphia, indeed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:52 PM | Comments (10)

    What Day Will Barack Obama Drop Out?

    For reasons only "progressive" minds can fathom, several bloggers on the left think—or more likely, are perhaps wishing—that Sarah Palin, John McCain's newly-announced choice for Vice President, will drop out of the Presidential race.

    Jeralyn Merritt, probably once the most consistently rational member of the leftist blogosphere, is actively promoting a drop-out pool.

    Merritt claims that McCain must force Palin out because she wasn't adequately vetted, and then quite seriously suggests that Obama was:

    Obama presented himself for 17 months to the American people, they heard him debate more than a dozen times, they made their own decision that he was ready for the job and the Democrats voted him their nominee.

    Obama wasn't unilaterally appointed by a party's nominee in a transparent play for the evangelical and female vote. As if Sarah Palin could fill Hillary Clinton's shoes by virtue of her gender. As if women wouldn't see that Sarah Palin is the antithesis of Hillary Clinton on issues. As if anything would evoke Palin's lack of qualifications more than to compare them to Hillary's.

    We now know far more about Sarah Palin in just four days than we've learned about Barack Obama in 17 months. That is just sad. It's a pathetic reflection of the mainstream media's unwillingness to do their jobs for fear of finding stories that would hurt the candidate so many of them openly desire to win.

    But periodically appearing to read teleprompters isn't vetting, not matter how many months a candidate has done it, and Obama's ability to perform in set-piece debates is both dubious—Hillary once famously took him apart—and irrelevant. Barack Obama really has never been fully vetted. He hasn't even come close.

    You want examples?

    If Obama does not share the radical cultural and religious views of Jeremiah Wright, then why was he a member of Trinity United Church of Christ for more than two decades?

    Of all the churches in Chicago, why did Obama chose a church that espouses Black Liberation Theology? The doctrine was conceived by James Cone, based upon the rhetoric of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X and the civil rights movement. It is a radical religion primarily based upon the oppression of blacks by whites. How can Barack Obama make the claim that he is a post-racial candidate, when his entire religious focal point was one of bitter victimization?

    We don't know, because no one has ever vetted Obama over his radical and openly racial faith, which is a cult that views whites as an enemy incapable of redemption, and views the Trinity as either "black" in spirit, or deems God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit to be false and not only not worth following, but worth killing.

    Cone writes in A Black Theology of Liberation:

    "Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love."

    Jeralyn, does Barack Obama believe God a murderer if he isn't racially-biased toward blacks, as Obama's church and pastor for more than 20 years believes? We don't know, because Barack Obama has never been vetted in depth about his belief system.

    To their great dishonor, the media has focused more energy on Sarah Palin's religious background in just the few days since her announcement as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate than they have on Obama's in the entire campaign. The extent they've explored Obama's faith stops at his declaration that he isn't a Muslim and that he is a Christian, even though he goes to a church that stretches the definition of Christianity to the breaking point, if not beyond.

    And what, my dear friends, of Obama's three decades-long relationship with terrorists?

    If John McCain had so much as ever shaken Eric Robert Rudolph's hand in an anonymous campaign stop, is there any doubt that the far left blogosphere would use such information to push the candidate out of the race?

    You do remember Rudolph, don't you? He was behind the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. He bombed a lesbian nightclub and abortion clinics as well. A relationship to someone like Rudolph should be a career-killer for any politician.

    But Barack Obama is closely aligned with not one, but two infamous domestic terrorists, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. What is remarkable about their relationship is that Barack Obama befriended Ayers and Dohrn well after their status as terrorists was well known. Despite knowing Ayers and Dohrn were terrorists, he befriended them, and worked with them.

    The Weather Underground that Ayers helped found and Dohn helped lead are responsible for bombings and armed robberies that left law enforcement officers dead and wounded in at least two states.

    They declared war upon the United States. They bombed American government buildings. They bombed police stations, and conducted armed robberies. Their attempt at mass murder—the planned bombing of a soldier's dance at Fort Dix—only failed because Ayers' then-girlfriend Diana Oughten screwed up while building the massive roofing nails and dynamite bombs (the same key components Rudolph used, it is worth noting) and blew herself and two other terrorists up as well.

    Barack Obama knew Bill Ayers was a terrorist when they first met. Barack Obama knew that Bernadine Dohrn was a terrorist when they met, and probably knew she was a fan of Charles Manson's murderous cult as well. He still chose to work with Ayers in numerous groups in leadership positions, and the relationship was close enough for Obama to start his his political career with a fundraiser at Ayers' and Dohrn's home.

    What makes it all the more fascinating is that Barack Obama will not repudiate his 21-year relationship with Bill Ayers and Bernie Dohrn. Barack Obama threw his own grandmother under the bus without a thought, portraying her as a racist for short-term political sympathy.

    He tossed his friend and mentor Jeremiah Wright under the bus when it became politically advantageous for him to do so, then his church and congregation, and he hasn't looked back. Father Michael Fleger, the radical priest who advocated lynching a gun store owner, was also a friend of many years (at least 22) tossed aside by Obama without a look back.

    But Barack Obama won't repudiate his relationship with American terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernie Dorhn. He repudiates what they did, but makes a point of not assailing who they are or what they believe. Of all the people in his life that have popped up during this campaign, Barack Obama has shown more loyalty to these two terrorists that he has shown anyone else, including his own pastor, church, and grandmother.

    But the media hasn't pressed Obama about this relationship, and why Obama started and still maintains this relationship. They refuse to investigate the $100 million in education grants that Ayers and Obama burned through in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge with no results, some of which was funneled to their friends.

    Barack Obama simply hasn't be vetted about key aspects of his life that would reveal his character and his potential suitability as a leader.

    So, Jeralyn, when are you going to push for him to step down?

    Update: wrong word choice above; switched from "refute" to "repudiate."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:22 AM | Comments (42)

    August 30, 2008

    Is the Obama Campaign Behind Smear Sites?

    This is an interesting find. Charles Johnson does the rundown, showing that Sarah Palin Supports Gay Rights and Obamadefense.com share the same IP address of 74.208.74.232.

    Copy and paste that into your address bar, and guess where you end up being redirected? Obama campaign Web site, Fight the Smears.

    Johnson also notes that other pro-Obama and anti-McCain web sites trace back to the same IP address. Are there IP sleuths out there who can conclusively run down the ownership of these sites?


    If Barack Obama's campaign is associated with these sites (not yet proven by any stretch, I hasten to add), the campaign would seem to be in direct violation of campaign laws.

    Are there any campaign law attorneys out there who could speak to this possibility with more authority?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:23 PM | Comments (17)

    August 29, 2008

    The Class of Kos

    The sewer elves of the Daily Kos—the same "progressives" that wanted to "out" Chief Justice John Roberts' four-year-old son Jack—are back in the slime, trying to claim that new Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin's son Trig isn't hers.

    They're trying to claim Palin's eldest daughter is actually the mother of Palin's youngest child.

    They just can't seem to accept that people unlike themselves might actually chose to bring a Down's child into this world, instead of terminating it as an inconvenience... or as Obama might call it, a punishment.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:28 PM | Comments (16)

    Think Progress Covers Up Child Abuse in Palin Nomination Smear

    Just the kind of integrity-free poison we've come to expect:

    In Dayton, OH today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will announce that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be his vice presidential running mate. Palin, who entered office in 2006 after running as a reformer, is touted by conservatives as being “a politician of eye-popping integrity.”

    But Palin’s reformer image took a hit last month when she was accused of attempting to get a state trooper fired. That state trooper was her former brother-in-law who had gone through “a messy divorce” with her sister. After the trooper’s boss wouldn’t act on the governor’s request, she fired him. Though Palin says she doesn’t “have anything to hide” and she “didn’t do anything wrong there,” an investigation has found that one of her aides pushed the firing:

    Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday revealed an audio recording that shows an aide pressuring the Public Safety Department to fire a state trooper embroiled in a custody battle with her sister.

    Palin, who has previously said her administration didn’t exert pressure to get rid of trooper Mike Wooten, also disclosed that members of her staff had made about two dozen contacts with public safety officials about the trooper.


    Of course, there is nothing that has suggested Palin had any direct involvement with pressure brought against her former brother-in-law, and it was her aides that were accused of wanting the state trooper fired.

    And perhaps part of the reason the governor's aides wanted this trooper fired wasn't because he was part of a divorce, but because he shot a cow moose... out of season.

    It could also have been because he was caught driving drunk... in a patrol car.

    May be it even might have had something to do with the fact he tasered his 11-year-old-son.

    Of course, Think Progress leaves that all out.

    It doesn't help the smear they're trying to create.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:38 AM | Comments (42)

    It's Palin!

    Oops, sorry. This one.

    I guess we'll know soon enough, won't we?

    Update: Mark Levin makes the case for the Alaskan Governor:

    Palin is by all accounts a principled conservative and government reformer who can contribute mightily to the decision-making that occurs in the White House. She has more executive experience in her two years as governor than Obama, Biden, and McCain combined. She is a mother of five in what appears to be a loving and functioning family. And she is someone Republicans, conservatives, and others can rally behind in the future.

    From a purely tactical aspect, Palin would knock the legs out from under Obama's monopoly hold on "change." And attacks on her "inexperience" will only highlight one of Obama's greatest vulnerabilities — and he's at the top of the Democrat ticket. And because Hillary Clinton spent months telling women voters that they are being dissed by Obama, some percentage of women who normally would not vote for McCain will take a second look if Palin's on the ticket. There is no question that a Palin selection would cause the Obama camp headaches.

    Bill Kristol , MSNBC, and the Chicago Tribune just called it for Palin according to their sources as well.

    Is it true that Palin is McCain's Veep pick, or an elaborate head-fake?

    We'll now within a few hours, but if it is Palin, I think Levin is right... providing she doesn't have any significant skeletons in her closet, she's going to be a huge problem for Obama on a number of fronts. Check out her Wikipedia biography. It has to terrify Obama's camp.

    All the major networks are now quickly confirming. Over at Hot Air, they are dancing in the comments.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:03 AM | Comments (11)

    Time Well Spent

    I pledged my time last night to watching a dedicated, talented African-American man build his dream. Of course, I'm talking about Ice Cube in "Are We Done Yet?"

    Having read Tom Maguire's analysis of Obamamessiah's warmed-over populist platitudes, I strongly suspect watching the dollar-rental movie was a much better value.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:42 AM | Comments (1)

    August 28, 2008

    David Neiwert's Interesting Idea of Double Standards

    Firedoglake's resident shrieker David Neiwert has his underoos in a bunch because of what his addled mind considers a racist double standard regarding how various morons have been treated after threatening presidential candidates:

    It seems there may be a reason federal law-enforcement officials are not interested in pursuing serious charges against the white-supremacist tweakers who were caught this week in Denver: The man making the decision is a Republican operative. And when it came to a threat against John McCain by a black man, he had a completely different approach.

    The AP story describing the official pooh-poohing of the threat gives us a clue:

    "We're absolutely confident there is no credible threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention, or the people of Colorado," U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said in a statement.

    But when a black man in prison sent John McCain a threatening letter containing baby powder, it was another story altogether:

    The man accused of sending a threatening letter to John McCain through McCain's Colorado headquarters office detailed the contents of his letter in an exclusive interview with 7NEWS Friday.

    Marc Ramsey, an inmate in the Arapahoe County Jail, admitted that he sent the letter.On Friday afternoon, the US AttorneyTroy Eid announced Ramsey will be charged with knowingly threatening to harm or kill through the U.S. mail. The charge is punishable up to five years in federal prison and up to $250,000 fines.

    "We won't stand for threats of this kind in Colorado," Eid said. "A death threat is not a legitimate form of political expression," Eid said.

    Hmmmm. Let's see: Men with rifles, a caches of other guns and ammo, all talking about killing Obama ... they're not a "serious threat." But a man in jail sending baby powder, well, that's a "serious threat."

    Lighten up, Francis.

    Despite the injustices seen in the black-helicopter rantings of Neiwert, reality is something quite different.

    Marc Ramsey, the black inmate, managed to successfully send the MCCain campaign the following letter, laced with a white powder.

    Senator McCain,

    IF you are reading this then you are already Dead!
    Unless of course you can't or don't breathe.
    There are numerous substances which are deadly for humans to inhale.
    There are just as many time periods for signs of illness to show, by which time it's to late.
    Who expects to develop cancer 40 years after Vietnam?
    Only those that knew the risk and side effects of Agent Orange.
    DoD, DOW, Diamond Shamrock, U.S. Surgeon General
    You're out of time.
    Allahu Akbar

    Akeem Ramsel El

    For the threat, Ramsey faces up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

    The three morons that Neiwert thinks is getting off lightly? They're only doing so in Neiwert's bizarre community-based reality:

    Shawn Robert Adolf, age 33. Adolf is charged with one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, one count of possession of body armor by a violent felon, and one count of possession of Methamphetamine.

    Nathan Dwaine Johnson, age 32. Johnson is charged with one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, and one count of possession of Methamphetamine.

    Tharin Robert Gartrell, age 28. Gartrell is charged with one count of possession of Methamphetamine.

    If convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, the defendants face not more than 10 years in federal prison, and up to a $250,000 fine. If convicted of possession of body armor by a violent felon, the defendant will face not more than 3 years in federal prison, and up to a $250,000 fine. If convicted of possession of Methamphetamine, the defendants face either 2 years in federal prison, or up to 20 years, depending on the amount of Methamphetamine possessed.

    Adolf faces a sentence ranging up to 15 years and up to a $500,000 fine, or up to 35 years if he was arrested with enough meth.

    Johnson faces a sentence ranging up to 12 years and up to a $250,000 fine, or up to 33 years if he was arrested with enough meth.

    Gartrell, the high-on-meth driver that started this whole mess with a traffic stop, faces 2-20 years in prison.

    And yet in Dave Neiwert's fantasy world, it is these guys are getting off lightly compared to the self-described terrorist sympathizer's potential sentence of up to five years.

    That's some racist double standard.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:00 PM | Comments (2)

    Oops!... He Did It Again

    Get ready for Barack Spears and the Temple of Duh:

    As if a Rocky Mountain coronation were not lofty enough, Barack Obama will aim for Mount Olympus when he accepts his party's nomination atop an enormous, Greek-columned stage - built by the same cheesy set team that put together Britney Spears' last tour.

    [snip]

    "We've done Britney's sets and a whole bunch of rock shows, but this was far more elaborate and complicated and we had to do it in far less time," said Allen, of RDA Entertainment.

    "The biggest challenge has been making sure we don't damage the playing field underneath."

    Asked who is harder to satisfy - the Democrats or Britney - Allen replied: "I better not answer that."

    Honestly? I just hope Obama remembers his underwear.

    (h/t/ Hot Air)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:25 PM | Comments (2)

    Democrats Against Obama... Starring Barack Obama

    As the overwhelming majority of Americans who aren't political junkies begin to get to know Barack Obama, it becomes increasingly obvious why first-term Senators with exceedingly thin resumes rarely ever run for President.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:13 PM | Comments (4)

    Do Not Blaspheme, Non-Believers

    Instead of making a good-faith effort to explain his 21-year working and personal relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Barack Obama has chosen another route in an attempt quell the building controversy; he's having his campaign incite his followers to shout down his critics.

    Obama's campaign has previously threatened broadcasters who would carry an ad linking Obama to Ayers, and has also asked the Department of Justice to shut down the group that made the ad.

    The intense campaign to silence dissenting voice has also included a recent campaign email asking Obama supporters to deluge Chicago-based broadcaster WGN with complaints to pressure the radio station to cancel an appearance by Stanley Kurtz, a writer with National Review who is researching the documents of the Chicago Annenburg Challenge.

    The Challenge, co-founded by Ayers and chaired by Obama, took tens of millions dollars in grant funds and public and private matching funds with the stated goal of increasing the quality of education in Chicago. The program was utterly ineffective, and some critics are suggesting that the challenge was little more than a slush fund for left-wing radicals. At least $175,000 was funneled to Ayers' friend, SDS radical, Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML) chairman and Barack Obama supporter Mike Klonsky's Small School Workshop.

    I wrote earlier this week:

    Barack Obama wants to convince us that it shouldn't matter that Bill Ayers, Ayer's dead terrorist bomber girlfriend, his terrorist wife and their cronies declared war on the United States and murdered its citizens. The murders, the treason, the bombings of American targets in a war they declared... all distractions.

    I was dead wrong. The Barack Obama campaign doesn't want to convince us of anything. It simple wants to threaten and bully critics into silence.

    Freedom of speech is nice, if you can keep it. As a blogger, I wonder how much we'll have left if ever faced with a Justice Department run by the Silencer in Chief.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:22 AM | Comments (15)

    August 27, 2008

    Aww... I Upset Sully

    "Even by the still-falling standards of the degenerate conservative movement, this was a disgusting post."

    Degenerate, disgusting, whatever.

    What he doesn't and can't call me is wrong.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:40 AM | Comments (14)

    Ayers: Bombing America Not A Big Deal

    Someone should ask Barack Obama point blank: at what point during his 21-year relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers (and to a lesser-documented but no less real extent, Ayer's terrorist wife and Charles Manson fan, Bernadine Dohrn) did Ayers and Obama discuss Ayer's involvement with the Weather Underground, and what was said?

    In over two decades of knowing each other and running in Chicago's political cauldron of aging New Left radicals, SDS leftovers, graying Weatherman, Marxist-Leninists, angry activist priests and fringe religions, the "glory days" of the 1960s and 70s must have come up in conversation.

    Did the bombings ever come up in conversations at one another's homes? Did they ever have side conversations before or after the official business of their many working relationships in the ABCs Coalition, the Woods Fund, and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge?

    Mr. Obama owes us an explanation.

    For his part, a three-year-old interview in a current Ayer's story fills in part of the puzzle:

    In the interview, conducted three years after the September 11 attacks, Ayers argued the U.S. government had carried out "many other acts of terror ... even recently, that are comparable," and claimed he and his bomb-planting comrades were "restrained" in their actions.

    Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, served with Barack Obama on the board of the charitable Woods Fund of Chicago for three years and helped launch Obama's political career in Illinois by hosting in his Hyde Park home an informal campaign event for the future state senator in 1995.

    Ayers claimed the Weathermen were driven by "hope and love," not despair, and said he did not think the group's violent acts, targeting federal officials and local law enforcement officers, were "a big deal."

    What a very interesting psychological profile Mr. Ayers must have.

    Was it "hope" or "love" that led his fellow Weathermen to purchase two cases of dynamite, lengths of pipe, and roofing nails to build anti-personnel bombs?

    Ayers was the boyfriend of fellow Weatherman bomb-builder Diana Oughten. Oughten was thought to be constructing massive pipe-bombs that used roofing nails for shrapnel in a Greenwich Village townhome, when they accidentally went off.

    The target of those bombs wasn't to be a statute in an empty park at night.

    It wasn't a federal building targeted at a time when most employees would have gone home.

    The anti-personnel bombs she and other Weathermen were constructing were designed expressly to take the greatest human toll possible, and they were to be placed at a non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey, targeting young soldiers, their wives, their girlfriends.

    The multiple bombs were built to cause as much loss of life as possible, similar what Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold tried to do with their failed propane bombs at Columbine.

    But the Weathermen never made it to their target of choice. The bombs they meant for innocents detonated as they were being assembled in a townhouse basement, killing terrorists Oughten, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbins.

    Perhaps they would be happy to know that the bombs worked as designed, if prematurely. From the pieces of Oughten they were able to collect after the blast and other evidence, they think Oughten was standing over one of the bombs, perhaps with her hands on it, when it went off.

    If the Weathermen had been successful in detonating multiple nail-filled bombs a dance filled with off-duty soldiers and their dates, would Bill Ayers still claim that the bombings of his group were " no big deal"?

    Bloody taffeta and lace and the images of shocked, mutilated survivors would have changed that equation.

    Just because the Weathermen were spectacularly unsuccessful in their attempts to prepare for mass murder doesn't make them any less vile.

    Nor does it excuse Barack Obama from consorting with them for over 20 years.

    Update: Andy McCarthy runs very much a parallel route, Bill Ayers: Unrepentant LYING Terrorist.

    Due to spammers, comments are closed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:19 AM | Comments (7)

    FactCheck.Org: Obama Lied About his Born Alive Votes

    Barack Obama coverup attempt fails:

    At issue is Obama's opposition to Illinois legislation in 2001, 2002 and 2003 that would have defined any aborted fetus that showed signs of life as a "born alive infant" entitled to legal protection, even if doctors believe it could not survive.

    Obama opposed the 2001 and 2002 "born alive" bills as backdoor attacks on a woman's legal right to abortion, but he says he would have been "fully in support" of a similar federal bill that President Bush had signed in 2002, because it contained protections for Roe v. Wade.

    We find that, as the NRLC said in a recent statement, Obama voted in committee against the 2003 state bill that was nearly identical to the federal act he says he would have supported. Both contained identical clauses saying that nothing in the bills could be construed to affect legal rights of an unborn fetus, according to an undisputed summary written immediately after the committee's 2003 mark-up session.


    The choice of a temple theme for Obama's stage now seems even more appropriate, as his nomination is indeed turning out to be a Greek tragedy.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:02 AM | Comments (0)

    August 26, 2008

    The Left's Obama Assassination Fantasy

    There are a lot of people who have hopes of Barack Obama being the target of an assassination attempt during the Democratic National Convention this week in Denver, and not all of them are his enemies. The arrest of a four drug users with stolen weapons and a single outlandish assassination claim has made that all too clear.

    Local news reporters see the possibility of a career-enhancing national story. National news reporters in mass market liberal enclaves see an opportunity to once again push a meme they've been hammering at for over a year, of a racist American heartland. This meme, of Americans as violent backwards yokels, is a meme that smug Europeans dearly love as it helps them maintain the delusion of continental sophistication in the face of their own cultural decline.

    Of course, none of this would be possible without the unhinged few in a nation of 300 million that would like to see Obama dead, including thus far a halfwit bail-bondsman wannabe, a Charlotte, NC man suffering the lingering effects of a brain injury, and now a quartet of meth-addled idiots with rumored ties to white supremacists and outlaw bikers.

    As you may well imagine, bloggers pounced on the story as the local news did, taking shreds of information and trying to determine just how serious of a threat Barack Obama faced.

    As it turns out, not much at all:

    A half dozen federal security officials have told The Mouth that the supposed plot to assassinate Barack Obama during his Thursday acceptance speech in Denver by four armed dope suspects was considered a bunch of hooey.

    Tharin Robert Gartrell, 28, and several other drug suspects linked to white supremacist groups were busted Sunday after Aurora, Colo., cops saw him driving a rented pickup erratically.

    "What's in plain view? Guns and a bulletproof vest," a federal agent assigned to the Democrats' Denver nominating convention told The Mouth. "One rifle had a scope sighted in at 750 yards. But he said they werent his guns."

    Cops went looking for Gartrell's pals at two hotels. At the second hotel, their knock on a door prompted a suspect to leap out his sixth-story window and break his ankle in the fall, sources said. During interrogation, one of the suspects dimed out a buddy for allegedly threatening to kill Obama, officials said.

    "They all had meth with them. There is no evidence of a plot other than one guy's word, and meth heads aren't that reliable (with the truth)," the federal agent said.

    Meth heads aren't exactly known for being a member of any reality-based community, and so the story might have flown completely under the radar as so much drug-addled hot air were it not for the fact that weapons, ammunition and a spotting scope were recovered during the initial arrest.

    But what of the weapons, and the plot alleged by a single suspect? Police have not released much in the way of detail about the weapons or any plot, but as no key details have been released to the contrary, it seems likely the scope rifles were likely factory deer rifles and conventional commercial scopes, details which authorities are expected to release in a press conference later today.

    The claim of the rifle being sighted at 750 yards is simple hearsay repeating of the suspect's claim; one cannot determine wher a weapon is zeroed with any certainly by simply looking at the weapon's scope. If the police haven't fired it, they simply don't know if it is sighted at 750 yards, or if it has even been sighted at all. One must also take into account that the weapons were plain view with no protective case in the suspect's pickup truck when confiscated, and the jarring of a moderately-sized pothole could easily render a scope's zero worthless at all but close range.

    There is little chance that those arrested posed any serious threat, or even had a plan at all.

    An average shooter with a scoped rifle can hit a man-sized target at 100 yards with regularity. An average shooter who has been practicing can make the same shot at 200 yards with no discernible change in point-of-aim. A good shooter who knows his gun, ammunition, and wind conditions can make the shot at 300 yards most of the time, but much beyond that, wind drift, ballistics, shooter experience, imperfections in trigger control and limitations of the weapon and ammunition make such shots improbable even on a stationary target with plenty of time to prepare and fire.

    Simply put, there is very little chance that anyone outside of a highly trained team of a well-trained precision long-distance shooter and a equally competent spotter could make such a shot as one at 750 yards, nor even any verified opportunity that Obama would present himself as a target in any venue at that sort of range.

    Many leading liberal bloggers, of course, aren't waiting around to determine if there was an actual threat to Obama. A possibility of a threat, however non-viable, is all the excuse they need to blame the racist and ideological hate that liberals just know is at the core of every Republican's soul, and even claim that McCain needs to denounce such morons, as if he had any role, knowledge, or ties to a group of no-account meth users.

    I could of course point out that these same liberal bloggers and their ideological kin have been silent in recent years as Andrew Mickel, a radical left-wing progressive Indymedia contributor, earned a spot on death row for assassinating a police officer because of his exposure to radical left wing ideologies. I could just as easily point out they've turned a blind eye time and again to video games, tee shirts, "art," and left wing hate speech which has advocated violence again conservative political figures, authority figures, and the the military. Hell... even Barack Obama himself includes among his friends of many years left-wing terrorists and murderers.

    But perhaps the most sinister undertone is the hint of hopefulness among a certain element of the left wing that perhaps someone will succeed in assassinating Barack Obama.

    Such a tragedy would serve as a confirmation of their firmly held beliefs that conservatives are evil, and could possibly trigger a backlash that would fill the anarchists among them with glee. At the same time, an Obama death would provide progressives with a martyred hero in place of what troubles many of them the most; deep-seated and well-placed fears that Barack Obama is precisely what his record suggests, a shallow, vain, and arrogant opportunist who has created impossible expectations with little possibility that he capable of coming close to meeting those impossibly inflated expectations.

    In places liberals don't want to talk about, they'd rather have a martyr than a failure. That is the reason they pounce upon even the remotest possibility of Obama's untimely end with such fervor.

    The audacity of hope, indeed.

    Update: Druggies never posed a threat.

    Three men who authorities initially feared were plotting to assassinate Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention are facing only gun charges — signaling they never posed a real threat.

    A federal law enforcement official in Denver said the three men and a woman also arrested on Sunday are not expected to be charged with making threatening statements, conspiracy or other national security-related crimes.

    [snip]

    The likelihood of an assassination attempt on Democratic presidential candidate Obama was downplayed by law enforcement officials in Colorado and Washington.

    "We're absolutely confident there is no credible threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention, or the people of Colorado," U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said in a statement.

    Another AP account offers telling information, including statements that could reasonably be interpreted as clues that the weapons may have been small caliber, perhaps rimfire rifles.

    "The capability and their opportunity and what they had for their weaponry — I don't see that they would have been able to carry it out," the official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

    Nearly any centerfire rifle would have to be assumed as at least a somewhat credible threat as an assassination weapon out to several hundred yards at a minimum, but the official seems to indicate that the weapons recovered were not viewed as a significant threat with his remarks about the capability of those arrested and their weaponry. While rimfire rifles can indeed be lethal at close range, they fire tiny bullets at relatively low velocities, severely limiting their effective range.

    This seems to be further hinted at in concluding paragraphs:

    Law enforcement officials were also investigating whether the men were linked to vandalism shootings that targeted at least two federal buildings in Denver over the past two weeks. Windows were shot at the U.S. Custom House and the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Station on the same street in Denver's downtown Federal District.

    Additionally, a bullet was recovered from a Hertz rental car that was hit on Aug. 15, and authorities are now looking to see if it could have matched the guns seized from the men.

    If shots fired into federal buildings are only considered vandalism, it once again seems to indicate rimfire weapons. Additionally, most centerfire bullets, rifle or pistol, will either complete penetrate through the sheet metal and glass of cars, or shatter upon impact, in most cases not leaving behind much to recover. A rimfire bullet fired into a vehicle, however, could very well not have enough escape the vehicle or fragment, meaning that authorities could recover a bullet and potentially link it to other attack via the rifling marks left on a bullet.

    Comments closed due to spammers.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:41 AM | Comments (47)

    August 25, 2008

    Obama: Leave My Terrorist Friends Alone!

    This attempt by Barack Obama to minimize the murderous acts of his long-time terrorist friends is pathetic.

    Allahpundit notes:

    His argument is so weak that it doesn't really qualify as an argument: Yes, we're friendly, but it's ancient history and I denounced what he did, so what’s the big deal about socializing with, um, an unrepentant terrorist? As for the submoronic point about Ayers's crimes having been committed when Obama was eight — a staple of the left's feeble defense of him on this subject — imagine what the reaction would be if Bobby Jindal, say, had struck up a chummy pen pal correspondence with Charles Manson while in his late 20s.

    Charles Manson, you say? Yes we can.

    On the morning of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, along with a million other readers of the New York Times (including many who would never be able to read the paper again), I opened its pages to be confronted by a color photo showing a middle-aged couple holding hands and affecting a defiant look at the camera. In retrospect, the article's headline could not have been more flesh-crawling: "No Regrets for a Love of Explosives." The couple pictured were Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, former leaders of the 1960s' Weather Underground, America's first terrorist cult. One of their bombing targets, as it happened, was the Pentagon.

    "I don't regret setting bombs," Ayers was quoted in the opening line of the Times' profile. "I feel we didn't do enough." In 1969, Ayers and his wife convened a "War Council" in Flint, Mich., whose purpose was to launch a military front inside the United States with the purpose of helping Third World revolutionaries conquer and destroy it. Taking charge of the podium, dressed in high-heeled boots and a leather miniskirt -- her signature uniform -- Dorhn incited the assembled radicals to join the war against "Amerikkka" and create chaos and destruction in the "belly of the beast." Her voice rising to a fevered pitch, Dohrn raised three fingers in a "fork salute" to mass murderer Charles Manson, whom she proposed as a symbol to her troops. Referring to the helpless victims of the Manson Family as the "Tate Eight " (the pregnant actress Sharon Tate had been stabbed in her womb with a fork), Dohrn shouted: "Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach! Wild! "

    Oh, yes, kids.

    The lovely Ms. Dohrn, Mrs. Bill Ayers, is not just the hostess of Barack Obama's first fundraiser, but an enthusiastic fan of the way Charles Mason's cult murdered a woman who was almost nine months pregnant. Dorhn is suspected of multiple terrorist acts, including building and planting the bomb that detonated at San Francisco's Park Police Station, killing one police officer and blinding another.

    Bill Ayers admits directly being involved in attacks on New York City Police Headquarters, the Capitol building, and the Pentagon.

    Fellow Weathermen had 100 sticks of dynamite and boxes of roofing nails they were making into pipe bombs to massacre revelers at an non-commissioned officers dance at Fort Dix. Ayer's girlfriend at the time, Diana Oughton, was building one of the nail-filled bombs when it went off in her hands. Instead of unsuspecting soldiers and their innocent dates, these terrorists killed only themselves, that time.

    Dohrn worked at the law firm of Sidley Austin thanks to Ayers family connections with the firm. Other famous lawyers at Sidley Austin you might know include summer associate Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson, later Michelle Obama.

    Funny, how the incestuous circle ties itself in knots.

    Barack Obama has been involved with the Ayers clan since 1987, when Obama led the Developing Communities Project, a component of the ABCs Coalition coordinated by Bill Ayers and led by Ayer's father. The Woods Fund, the Chicago Anneberg Challenge... Barack and Michelle Obama has a paper trail with the Ayers clan and Bernadine Dohrn that goes back more than two decades, and appears to be not just professional, but personal. Obama felt comfortable having his first fundraiser at the home of well-known terrorists, and I wonder; did the Obama's ever return the favor, having Dorhn and Ayers as guests in their mansion? Does Barack Obama's "judgment to lead" include exposing his elementary-aged daughters to cold-blooded killers in their own home?

    Barack Obama wants to convince us that it shouldn't matter that Bill Ayers, Ayer's dead terrorist bomber girlfriend, his terrorist wife and their cronies declared war on the United States and murdered its citizens. The murders, the treason, the bombings of American targets in a war they declared... all distractions. And I was eight.

    The simple fact of the matter is that though he has been given numerous chances, Barack Obama will not refute his terrorist friends. Instead, he just attempts to minimize their crimes.

    Americans have every right to question why.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:50 PM | Comments (13)

    The Monochromatic Coalition

    Unity, Obama style:

    When talking with the Sun-Times, the Hillary Clinton steering committee member had a word to say about sell-outs:
    Taking a final shot at Jones, Cobb said, "Calling me an 'Uncle Tom’'is beyond the pale, especially considering where he is [close] with Mayor Daley and with [Gov.] Blagojevich, I am hardly the Uncle Tom here."

    Identity politics — it's what's for dinner in Denver. Can anyone doubt that this same kind of political tactic took place all over Chicago and the US? The fact that it’s still happening now says that Denver may turn out to be a meltdown — if not in front of the cameras, then off-stage.

    If Team Obama wanted a show of unity from the Pepsi Center, this indicates that they haven't achieved that goal, probably because they've never set the example. For a campaign that promised post-racial politicking, its candidate and surrogates haven't been above race-baiting at the drop of a hat. This goes hand in hand with Obama's repeated baseless smears of John McCain as a racist. Emil Jones just followed Obama's lead, as Obama has followed his.

    Post racial = everybody is a racist, so the word no longer has any meaning?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:48 AM | Comments (4)

    August 23, 2008

    Oh, the Gaffes We'll Have...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:15 AM | Comments (29)

    And While Democrats Still Wait For A Special Sign from the Obamamessiah...

    The rest of the world already knows Barack Obama's running mate is Joe Biden.

    It's rather sad, really. Back on August 10, David Plouffe, Barak Obama's Campaign Manager, promised in an email to supporters that they could, "Be the first to know who Barack selects as his running mate."

    Obama for America

    Dear xxxxxxx --

    Be the First to Know Barack Obama is about to make one of the most important decisions of this campaign -- choosing a running mate.

    You have helped build this movement from the bottom up, and Barack wants you to be the first to know his choice.

    Sign up today to be the first to know:

    http://my.barackobama.com/vp

    You will receive an email the moment Barack makes his decision, or you can text VP to 62262 to receive a text message on your mobile phone.

    Once you've signed up, please forward this email to your friends, family, and coworkers to let them know about this special opportunity.

    No other campaign has done this before. You can be part of this important moment.

    Be the first to know who Barack selects as his running mate.

    Thanks,

    David

    David Plouffe
    Campaign Manager
    Obama for America

    But the email and text message quite obviously didn't come to them first as the campaign promised.

    If Barackophiles went to FoxNews.com, or CNN, or the NY Times instead of signing up for a silly little text message to be delivered sometime tomorrow morning, they would already know Biden is Obama's pick.

    It's got to be disappointing when you discover that the candidate you helped elect into office lied to you. It must be worse to find out he's lying to you, when he hasn't even nailed down the nomination yet.

    Disappointment? Buyer's Remorse? Disillusionment?

    Check.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:13 AM | Comments (7)

    August 21, 2008

    Crazy So Deep It Needs A Lifeguard

    So, you thought that the validation of Barack Obama's printed, notarized birth certificate by FactCheck.org would be enough to shut down the Obama Truth MovementTM (OTM)?

    Guess again, suckers. A PUMA is suing to stop Obama's nomination:

    In the lawsuit, Berg states that Sen. Obama was born in Kenya, and not in Hawaii as the senator maintains. Before giving birth, according to the lawsuit, Obama's mother traveled to Kenya with his father but was prevented from flying back to Hawaii because of the late stage of her pregnancy, "apparently a normal restriction to avoid births during a flight." As Sen. Obama's own paternal grandmother, half-brother and half-sister have also claimed, Berg maintains that Stanley Ann Dunham--Obama's mother--gave birth to little Barack in Kenya and subsequently flew to Hawaii to register the birth.

    Berg cites inconsistent accounts of Sen. Obama's birth, including reports that he was born at two separate hospitals--Kapiolani Hospital and Queens Hospital--in Honolulu, as well a profound lack of birthing records for Stanley Ann Dunham, though simple "registry of birth" records for Barack Obama are available in a Hawaiian public records office.

    And just so we're clear here: this latest attempt to disqualify Barack Obama is fratricide—sniping done by Hillary Clinton supporters loyal to the Democratic Party, and not by Republicans.

    Just like the rumors of a Michelle Obama "whitey" tape.

    Just like attempts to claim Obama never registered for the Selective Service.

    Just like an attempt to claim Obama is a Muslim, and an Indonesian ineligible for executive office, because of what his step-father wrote on a school registration form when he was a child.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:24 PM | Comments (13)

    New Ad: Ayers Succeeded Where Bin Laden Failed. What Kind of Friends Do You Have There, Barack?

    Simple, direct, and to the point.

    Ben Smith at the Politico really disgraces himself by trying to start the meme that the ad tries to smear Obama as a Muslim and Muslims as de facto terrorists.

    Uh, Ben? Bill Ayers—Barack's buddy of more than two decades—is not a Muslim.

    Nice try there, Bucket, but you can't carry the water on this one.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:34 PM | Comments (9)

    Death of a Breastman?

    University of Iowa political science professor Arthur Miller, accused of trying to trade amateur mammography for grades, has gone armed and missing:

    Officers are walking Hickory Hill Park, a 185-acre wooded park in northeast Iowa City, through the rain to see if they can find Arthur Miller, a 66-year-old political science professor who was last heard from Tuesday morning.

    Police believe Miller has a high-powered rifle and intends to harm himself. There is no evidence he wants to harm others, police said, but the park is still closed and nearby residents have been warned not to linger in their yards.

    Miller's cell phone, wallet and ammunition were found in his car, located outside the park Wednesday morning.

    It sounds like the authorities expect a suicide, which, considering the public embarrassment and potential of a lengthy prison sentence, isn't all that surprising.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:47 AM | Comments (2)

    Charming! Obama's Only Executive Role A Disaster

    Anyone the least bit familiar with Barack Obama's rise to power knows "hope" and "change" are just words; he's built his career the old-fashioned way, by making powerful allies and casting those no longer useful to him aside.

    It is those same business-as-usual allies in Chicago that are now protecting Obama from deeper scrutiny of his 21-year relationship with the Ayers family, specifically his involvement in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge with infamous domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

    At the moment the internal documents for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge are in a special collection at the Richard J. Daley Library. Think they'll ever see the light of day?

    As the Chicago Tribune's John Kass put it:

    The relationship between the ambitious Obama and the unrepentant Ayers is a subject that excites Republicans, who haven't really thwacked that pinata as hard as they might. It really irritates Obama and his political champion, Chicago's sovereign lord, Mayor Richard M. Daley.

    "This is a public entity," Kurtz told us Wednesday. "I don't understand how confidentiality of the donor would be an issue."

    You don't understand, Mr. Kurtz? Allow me to explain. The secret is hidden in the name of the library:

    The Richard J. Daley Library.

    Eureka!

    The Richard J. Daley Library doesn't want nobody nobody sent. And Richard J.'s son, Shortshanks, is now the mayor.

    Kurtz can forget about getting his hands on those documents in any useful form, and the only way they'll come to light before November is if the mainstream media starts to get irate that Obama is abusing their love for him one again. Even if that were to happen, odds are that any documents released would be "sanitized" to remove embarrassing or incriminating information. The Chicago political machine, if anything, is a wood chipper.

    Not all the Chicago Annenberg Challenge documents were buried, however. At least until a few managed to slip out before the door was slammed. Those documents that have been uncovered seem to indicate Barack Obama was a spectacularly incompetent chairman, blowing through tens of millions of dollars of grant money with little or nothing to show for it.

    Well, that's not entirely true.

    At least $175,000 was funneled to Ayers friend, SDS radical, Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML) chairman and Barack Obama supporter Mike Klonsky's Small School Workshop. For a man who gripes about corporate handouts, it seems quite possible that Obama and Ayers may have used Annenberg Foundation grants as a form of welfare for radicals.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:53 AM | Comments (6)

    Obama's Twisted Argument for Infanticide

    I heard an audio clip purporting to be Barack Obama's argument again the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA) last night, but wasn't 100% sure that the audio is Obama.

    Ed Morrissey notes that Guy Benson was able to dig up the Illinois legislature transcripts featuring Obama's arguments against BAIPA, and then Ed proceeds to take Obama's convoluted arguments for infanticide apart.

    This passage is really remarkable for the willfully obtuse nature of Obama's arguments. By the time this debate took place, Jill Stanek had already revealed that doctors weren't providing medical care to infants born alive during abortions, at Christ Hospital, and a subsequent investigation proved that other abortion providers also abandoned such infants to die. That was the entire reason for the debate. Obama acts as if this is some curious academic hypothesis.

    Instead of addressing the actual issue of infanticide, Obama twists it into a protection for abortion. He frames his own hypothetical as an abortion "for the health of the mother", but the circumstances of the mother's health has no bearing at all on whether a live infant should receive medical care. How would treating a live infant threaten the health of the mother?

    Obviously, there is no physical connection between the care of the live baby and that of the mother once the baby has been born. This seems to leave us with just two options.

    (1). Either Barack Obama is such a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth left wing ideologue that he blinded himself to the fact that the Born Alive Infant Protection Act was not about the abortion rights of the mother, but the right to life-saving medical care for the living human baby, or;

    (2). He was well aware of what the bill was about, and coldly chose for infanticide, not once, not twice, but on three separate votes for reasons he either cannot explain or will not explain to avoid being viewed as a monster.

    As a man who coldly stated that he would see his own grandchild aborted because he wouldn't want his daughters "punished with a baby" as the result of an unplanned pregnancy, anything is possible.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:13 AM | Comments (4)

    August 20, 2008

    Down The Memory Hole at ABC News

    We know from prior experience that probing or corrective comments aren't appreciated by ABC's investigative blog The Blotter. Those comments that are "problematic,"—asking the journalists to correct shoddy research is one recurring example—disappear rather quickly.

    That same fine tradition of "disappearing" comments is also now a proven tactic of the fine ABC News folks who monitor Jake Tapper's comments (I'll give Tapper himself the benefit of the doubt for now).

    In the post where Tapper notes that Obama and McCain are playing hardball I left the following at 10:43:48,and immediately did a screen capture (Full text below image).

    Barack Obama has been deeply involved with the entire Ayers clan--proud terrorist Bill, brother John, lefist lawyer dad Thomas--since 1987.

    That's 21 years.

    That's as long or longer than he's been with the Black Panther-inspired teachings of Black Liberation Theology screamed weekly from the pulpit of AIDS conspiracy-monger Jeremiah Wright.

    That's as long or longer than he's called lynching advocate Michael Fleger his mentor and friend.

    So please tell us, Barack Obama, why you have such deep ties with an unashamed terrorist that belonged to a group that that bombed federal buildings, committed armed robberies and murders, and even planned to slaughter innocents at a non-commissioned officers dance at Fort Dix, had Ayer's girlfriend not screwed up making the pipe bombs to be used in the attack, blowing herself to bits instead.

    Please tell us, Barack Obama, how you could sit on the board of the Woods Fund, the Chicago Public Education Fund, the ABCs Coalition, etc with Ayers, and be comfortable in the company of a terrorist.

    Tell us why you chose to start your political career at the home of one of your oldest allies, a man who once proudly declared war on the United States, and took up arms against it.

    We're all ears.

    Here are the two posts that came before and after my 10:43:48 comment that was deleted by an ABC News employee, as if it never appeared at all.

    It's one thing to delete comments that are profane, trolling, personal attacks, or off-topic. Deleting a comment that lays out a compelling case for a more extensive investigation of the multi-decade relationship between a Presidential candidate and a terrorist?

    That's partisan censorship of the most biased kind.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:21 PM | Comments (3)

    For Less than a Dollar a Day, You, Too, Can Sponsor an Obama...

    Sad, sad news... one of Barack Obama's "lost" half-brothers has be discovered living in a hut in a shantytown on the fringes of Nairobi.

    We can't expect presidential candidate Barack Obama to support all the children his father sired around the world, but luckily, with the Obama Family Fund, there is something you can do:

    For less than a dollar a day, you, too, can help sponsor an Obama.

    -OR-

    You can help save Obama School. Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School is a Kenyan School named after the Illinois Senator, and one the Senator promised to support...though apparently only in spirit.

    Save Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School is a non-profit created by USAF veteran, Kenyan-American milblogger Juliette "Baldilocks" Ochieng.

    Help her keep his promise. Its the only thing associated with the name "Obama" really worth giving money too.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:07 AM | Comments (4)

    The Chicago Way

    Britain's Channel 4 did a longish (9:21) but well-researched expose on who Barack Obama really is; a typical Chicago Machine politician.

    (h/t Obama's Con)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:46 AM | Comments (3)

    Obama Lashes Out Over Infanticide Charges, Hides Behind His Daughters

    The Barack Obama Campaign is fighting back hard against charges that the candidate supporters what amounts to infanticide with a series of votes in the Illinois State Senate.

    CBN News Senior National Correspondent David Brody has been in the thick of the controversy and provides a very balanced account of the "he said, she said" going on between the Obama camp and National Right to Life committee.

    Having read both arguments, I tend to side with NRLC as being the more truthful.

    Perhaps I'm being overly simplistic, but if Stanek is correct, and they have to issue both a birth and a death certificate for the child, Mr. Obama, it isn't an abortion. It's infanticide.

    The campaign, in attempting to defend its candidate, has used his daughters as elementary-aged human shields:

    The suggestion that Obama – the proud father of two little girls – and others who opposed these bills supported infanticide is deeply offensive and insulting.

    Brody even seems to buy into that argument.

    Obama is a father of two young girls. You can bet that attacks like that will get him or any father riled up. That language seems to be way over the top. His critics can paint him as a pro-choice liberal. That's fair but to go any further is really beyond the pale. Is Obama really sinister, a monster? That narrative may fly in some conservative circles and in chat rooms but most Americans won't buy it.

    Perhaps Mr. Brody needs to be reminded of the words he quoted coming out of Mr. Obama's mouth in March.

    "When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information."

    "I don't want them punished with a baby."

    Barack Obama is a very wealthy man by any measure, quite capable of raising any grandchild that would result from a daughter's accidental pregnancy. That he would so casually call his own grandchild a "punishment" worth eradicating is certainly the sign of a monster in my eyes.

    Your opinion may differ, but it seems to me that a man who could so casually announce that he would support—no, advocate—the killing of his own grandchild to get rid of an inconvenience, a "punishment," is certainly the kind of monster who can hear a heart-wrenching first-hand account of a nurse holding an uncared-for abortion survivor until the baby died, and still be opposed to stopping such inhumanity not just once, but on multiple occasions.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:24 AM | Comments (6)

    August 19, 2008

    A Terrorist Founded It. Obama Was Its Chairman.

    That's all some need to know about the Chicago Annenburg Challenge.

    Others may want more details explaining why Barack Obama directly lied about the extent of his involvement with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, founder of the Challenge. Obama has claimed that Ayers was just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," which isn't even close to being true. Obama has had a relationship with Ayers since at least 1987...roughly as long of a relationship as he's had with racist conspiracy theorist Jeremiah Wright, lynching advocate Michael Fleger, and the other far left liberals, Marxist-Leninists, and SDS veterans that make up Obama's base of power in the infamously corrupt world of Chicago Democratic politics.

    Obama kicked off his political career with a fundraiser at the home of Ayers and fellow Weather Underground terrorist (and Charles Manson fan) Bernadine Dohrn. Bill Ayers and Obama sat on the board of directors for the Woods Fund. Obama also had a relationship with Thomas Ayers (Bill's father) as Chicago Public Education Fund on the Fund's Leadership Council. He also served alongside Thomas Ayers and Bill's brother John Ayers on the "Leadership Council" of the Chicago Public Schools Education Fund. Obama was part of the ABCs Coalition, created by Thomas Ayers and coordinated by Bill. The truth of the matter is that to Barack Obama, terrorist Bill Ayers is "just some guy in the neighborhood" to which he has deep and abiding personal, professional, and political ties dating back two decades.

    How deep do those ties go? Thats a very good question that it seems some people don't want answered. NRO's Stanley Kurtz had been granted access to review 132 boxes of internal documentation from the Chicago Annenburg Challenge at the Richard J. Daley Library, only to have that access barred.

    Kurtz seems to think Bill Ayers might be behind blocking access to these documents. It rather makes you wonder what information those documents may hold.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:22 AM | Comments (4)

    RNC Accuses Obama Bundler of Supporting Iraqi Insurgency

    Considering that the bundler in question is Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, it certainly seems possible:

    The RNC quoted a January 15, 2006 column by Robert Novak that said, "Code Pink, At A Mock War Crimes Tribunal In Istanbul June 27, Signed A Declaration That The Iraqi Insurgency 'Deserved The Support Of People Everywhere Who Care For Justice And Freedom.'"

    Evans represented Code Pink at the mock war crimes tribunal. In addition to expressing Code Pink's support for the insurgency, Evans published a statement from Istanbul personally endorsing the insurgency that has killed thousands of American troops and free Iraqis:

    "We must begin by really standing with the Iraqi people and defending their right to resist. I can remain myself against all forms of violence, and yet I cannot judge what someone has to do when pushed to the wall to protect all they love. The Iraqi people are fighting for their country, to protect their families and to preserve all they love. They are fighting for their lives, and we are fighting for lies." (AlterNet, June 26, 2005)

    Evans has a close relationship with the Obama campaign. She hosted Obama's first Hollywood fundraiser in February 2007, along with Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and her ex-husband Max Palevsky.

    According to Evans' Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, Evans is on a first name basis with Obama and discussed Iraq policy with Obama at another Hollywood fundraiser on June 24, 2008.

    Evans is listed on the Obama website as having bundled between $50,000 and $100,000. She has also contributed the maximum $2300 to his primary campaign, according to FEC records.

    But lest you think Evans is just another patriotic Democrat who was perhaps a bit overzealous with her opposition to the Iraq War, remember what she said just months ago about 9/11.

    In addition to supporting the insurgency in Iraq, Evans recently expressed her agreement with Osama bin Laden's reasons for attacking America on September 11, 2001 in an interview broadcast June 3, 2008:

    Jodie Evans:..."We were attacked because we were in Saudi Arabia, that was the message of Osama, was that because we had our bases in the Middle East, he attacked the United States."

    Paul A. Ibbetson: "Do you think that's a valid argument?"

    Evans: "Sure. Why do we have bases in the Middle East? We totally violated the rights of that country. Why do we get to have bases in the Middle East?"

    Also in that interview, Evans said Code Pink's goal is to "undermine the war effort (of the United States") and that she wished Saddam Hussein was still in power.

    Of course, this is an RNC press release quoting Evans apparent admission of treason or sedition (I'm not a lawyer, and don't claim to know which, if either, applies) , so I'd like to hear from our lefty readers precisely how Evans' work for the insurgency has been taken out of context.

    If these allegations can be substantiated in any way, should the Obama campaign return the money Evans helped bundle? Should Obama keep up ties with a person who seems to have not admitted proudly opposing her own nation during war time, but also active worked against it?

    I don't think Obama needs to give back all of the money Evans bundled, but it would send a clear signal that he will not tolerate the undermining of American foreign policy and the sacrifices of American servicemen operating in harm's way if he were to return Evans' individual contributions, along with those contributions that may have come from other individuals of similar dubious character. It would also be wise for Obama to sever further ties with Evans and other members of Code Pink, a radical organization now best know for protests attempting to shut down a Marine recruiting office and calling Marines "assassins," or worse.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:31 AM | Comments (5)

    Dems in Distress

    Perhaps with "patriotism" being a word most often spit than said by those on the far left, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that the Democratic National Committee screwed this up:

    Some viewers contacted 9NEWS Saturday, questioning the design of the credentials to see Sen. Barack Obama accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination at INVESCO Field at Mile High.

    The viewers say with the stars and blue field in the lower left corner, it looks like an upside down American flag. Published flag etiquette states the stars should always be displayed in the upper left corner. An upside down flag represents an international symbol of extreme distress.

    Matt Chandler with the Obama campaign says the flag is not upside down. He says it is a stylized flag designed to blend the stars on Senator Obama's shirt with the flag blowing in the wind.

    Natalie Wyeth with the Democratic National Convention Committee sent 9NEWS the following statement Saturday night: "The DNCC community credentials incorporate patriotic design elements. They do not depict an actual American flag. The DNCC has full and complete respect for the flag and all rules of display."

    A composite of two images in a hologram, the credentials show the following.

    What an interesting parsing by these two Democrats. Obama loyalist Chandler actually asks us to ignore our lying eyes, which clearly shows an inversion with the stars in the lower right orientation, while Wyeth parses that this isn't an actual flag, so the perceived slight is the fault of those who see it, not the fault of the DNCC.

    The concerns of those Americans who understand flag etiquette and the meaning of an inverted flag has been compounded by some on the far left, who have noted that this is not the flag they are familiar with either, lacking the orange, crackling glow to which they have become accustomed.

    (h/t Weasel Zippers and Hot Air, which notes another possible source for the inverted flag in an update.)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:30 AM | Comments (5)

    August 18, 2008

    Jeremiah Denton Must be Lying, Too

    As Andrew Sullivan, Jane Hamsher, Steve Benen, and other liberal bloggers try to discredit John McCain's story of compassion shown by a North Vietnamese prison guard as being stolen from a similar experience related between Russian author Solzhenitsyn and another prisoner, I'm forced to ask: when are the going to go after Jeremiah Denton?

    Denton was another U.S Navy pilot shot down in Vietnam, a contemporary of McCain's in the same brutal North Vietnamese prisons ... and also the beneficiary of surprising Christian compassion from the North Vietnamese:

    Denton also found strength in his fellow captives. The Americans were forbidden to communicate with each other. But that didn't stop them. They communicated in Morse code and other number-based codes they devised and transmitted through blinks, coughs, sneezes, taps on the wall and even sweeps of a broom.

    "I experienced what I couldn't imagine human nature was capable of," Denton said. "I witnessed what my comrades could rise to. Self-discipline, compassion, a realization there is a God."

    He also experienced periodic compassion from the North Vietnamese. Sometimes the guards would weep as they tortured him.

    One experience, he will never forget. Denton kept a cross, fashioned out of broom straws, hidden in a propaganda booklet in his cell. The cross was a gift from another prisoner. When a guard found the cross, he shredded it. Spat on it. Struck Denton in the face. Threw what was left of the cross on the floor and ground his heel into it.

    "It was the only thing I owned," Denton said.

    Later, when Denton returned to his cell, he began to tear up the propaganda booklet. He felt a lump in the book. He opened it. "Inside there was another cross, made infinitely better than the other one my buddy had made," Denton said.

    When the guard tore up the cross, two Vietnamese workers saw what happened and fashioned him a new cross. "They could have been tortured for what they did," Denton said.

    Denton survived the war and returned home, and like McCain, became a Republican Senator.

    It is also worth noting that Denton switched parties to become a Republican precisely because of the far Left's attacks on the military—including those from people like John Kerry—in the first place.

    Update: And via Instapundit, a confirmation of McCain's story from another Hanoi Hilton alumni, reporting he first heard the story in 1971, two years prior to Solzhenitsyn's book coming out.

    Will Sullivan, Hamsher, Benen, the Kossacks, etc apologize for attempting to discredit McCain?

    Update: What's even worse than accusing McCain of stealing Solzhenitsyn's work? Finding out that Solzhenitsyn didn't write such a story. The walkbacks will be very interesting indeed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:15 PM | Comments (29)

    No Common Ground?

    The progessive blogosphere and Andy Sullivan—but I repeat myself—have decided to accuse former POW John McCain of stealing a story from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Russian sent to the gulags (forced labor camps) for writing ill of Stalin in a letter to a friend... a typical application of the Soviet version of the Fairness Doctrine.

    Here is McCain's story:

    Solzhenitsyn's tale read:

    Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.

    As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

    There are, of course, no recorded instances of crosses or other Christian images ever being recorded in prisons. I jest, of course.

    In Kilmainham Gaol, in the spot where a mortally wounded James Connolly was strapped to a chair before a firing squad on May 12, 1916, a cross stands. Of course, it came later.

    Mamertine Prison was originally constructed around 386 B.C. but is best known for it's upside-down crosses because it's most famous alleged resident, Saint Peter, was crucified upside-down. While we don't have any witnesses that crosses or the Christian fish symbol was written in the dirt of the prison floor during the incarcerations of Peter and Paul, it seems likely such imagery was commonplace, and I'm reasonably certain neither Saint was familiar with the Russian writer who came nearly two millennia later.

    Christian imagery is common in prisons around the world long before Solzhenitsyn was born, spreading as Christianity spread.

    With the brutality of man's inhumanity to man common throughout the history of prisons, is it surprising in the least that in prisons around the world, guards and prisoners, enslavers and slaves, found a shared common ground in Christianity?

    To disbelieve such things are possible is to not renounce John McCain, but to insist jailers are not human, just unfeeling robots incapable of grace or compassion. But I prefer to think that God is in all prisons.

    It's one of the places where he's needed most.

    Update: Uh-oh. Another U.S. Navy pilot who became a POW in North Vietnamese prisons is telling similar stories of surprising North Vietnamese Christan compassion. Are progressives going to try to assail his honor as well?

    Why not?

    They already drove him out of the Democratic Party.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:54 AM | Comments (22)

    Bitter and Clingy Revisited

    Capturing yet again the feelings of every American from Honolulu to San Francisco, Barack Obama gave his contempt for American voters another go while raising millions first from from South Asians, then rich ($28,000 per couple) liberal Democrat donors, uttering a similar refrain:

    "Now, you want to win. And saying it doesn't make it so," Obama said. "It would be nice to think that after eight years of economic disaster, after eight years of bungled foreign policy, of being engaged in a war that should never have been authorized and should never have been waged, that cost us a trillion dollars and thousands of lives, that people would say, 'Let's toss the bums out. Toss the bums out, we're starting from scratch, we're starting over. This is not working.'

    "So I understand why a lot of folks are saying, 'This should just happen. Why are we having to run all these television commercials? Why do we have to raise all this money? Just read the papers. These are the knuckleheads who have been in charge. Throw ‘em out.'"

    Poor Barack. He just can't seem to understand why people even want to have an election. Surely his coronation " should just happen." He shouldn't should have to go around this country raising money; it's hard. Everyone should vote for him because he's great. And we've got knuckleheads who have been in charge, you see.

    And why do we have knuckleheads in charge, Saint Barack?

    Must be all those blue collar, white collar, and no collar Americans who keep bitterly clinging to their guns, their religion, and Presidents that don't think America is as mean, broken, and horrible as Barack and Michelle Obama think it is.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:19 AM | Comments (0)

    August 15, 2008

    Silk Purses, Hog's Ears

    Via TPM Election Central comes word that Barack Obama's presidential campaign is once again trying to create a new marketing theme, and this one will launch tomorrow.

    Why this design?

    According to an Obama aide, the new effort dovetails with a renewed push by the Obama team in Pennsylvania to poke fun at John McCain's recent claim that he would rather hear the roar of "50,000 Harleys" than the cheering of 200,000 Berliners.

    As the Obama camp was quick to point out, McCain opposed legislation that would have forced the U.S. government to buy American-made motorcycles.

    The Obama camp's push on the issue includes running this recent ad, which was running in the York market and mocks McCain's Harley quote while pointing out McCain's position on American-made bikes, in two new markets in Pennsylvania beginning tomorrow -- the Pittsburgh and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre markets.

    Obama's Pennsylvania campaign, the aide says, will be hitting the ground this weekend in around five towns around the state with stickers and flyers bearing the above "Buy American, Vote Obama" logo.

    The events will feature a few dozen actual Harley riders for Obama that have been recruited for the weekend's events.

    "Harley riders aren't typically supportive of Democratic candidates," the aide says. "But we're making a play for them by saying that Obama's economic policies are the true patriotic ones."

    They. Don't. Get. It.

    Patriotic purchasing doesn't come from buying products just because they're made in America, but instead comes from choosing American-made products because you have faith that American companies such as H-D put the time and effort into building a quality American-made product you can be proud of, making you want to own it.

    There is nothing patriotic about forcing Americans to buy specific products, but socialists like Obama are by nature anti-capitalistic, so should we be surprised that his campaign gets this wrong?

    Perhaps progressives really think that bikers are bitter, clingy knuckle-draggers that can be influenced by such a half-hearted effort, but I think they are going to be sorely disappointed. The pandering is simply too transparent and insincere.

    Should Obama need bikers, however, I think we can find some that are a bit more his speed.

    To thine own self be true, Obamamessiah.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)

    A Perfect Home

    I never quite appreciated how good of a fit Matt Yglesias was for his new home at Think Progress until I got a chance to see him in action this morning, hacking away with the intellectual dishonesty that has given Think Progress the reputation it has so richly earned (but surprisingly, hasn't yet found a way to tax).

    John McCain deems the Georgia-Russia war the "first serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War"...

    Satyam notes "the Gulf War, 9/11, and the Iraq War, to name a few" as possible alternatives. But beyond McCain’s seemingly poor memory, the interesting thing is the confusion in terms of high-level concepts. It was just a little while ago that McCain was giving speeches about how "the threat of radical Islamic terrorism" is "transcendent challenge of our time." Now Russia seems to be the transcendent challenge. Which is the problem with an approach to world affairs characterized by a near-constant hysteria about threat levels and a pathological inability to set priorities.

    I'm no McCain fan by any stretch of the imagination, but it takes a person of true intellectual dishonesty to twist McCain's words the way these Soros drones have done.

    As we now stand, Russia and the United States, two nuclear powers equipped with continent-killing ICBMs with MIRV warheads, are indeed in a diplomatic crisis over the recent Russian invasion and occupation of Georgia. It is the first serious international crisis since we last stood toe-to-toe with Moscow during the Cold War.

    Is Yglesias actually daft enough to suggest that acknowledging a new or renewed threat is wrong, and that it should be ignored so you can stick with your party's pre-planned script? That's not mature statecraft. That's sticking your head in the sand... beach sand.

    The Iraq War was and is a regional conflict, with little threat of expanding into a serious international crisis. The same holds true with the lower-intensity invasion of Afghanistan that began after 9/11; neither country had the weaponry or diplomatic power to engage in serious force projection outside of their regional spheres.

    McCain was perfectly precise with his choice of words to describe the current crisis, just as he was when he described Iraq as the first major conflict since 9/11, leaving out Afghanistan precisely because it wasn't a major conflict, but a campaign waged primarily via special forces teams incorporating with indigenous forces and air support.

    Of course, no one at Think Progress understands the first thing about the military other than the mention of them gets their spit glands revved, so that is hardly surprising.

    That Yglesias would use his own blanket ignorance as an excuse to once again imply McCain is going senile is pathetic, but it's what we'd come to expect from the support mechanism of the community reality-based he now so deservedly calls home.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:58 AM | Comments (13)

    August 14, 2008

    OTM Strikes Out Again

    You've got to hand it to the Obama Truther Movement (a driven mix of Hillary loving PUMAs and conservatives)... they let few things stand in the way of their absolute certainty that Barack Obama is an Indonesian-Kenyan Muslim draft dodger...including the facts.

    What I can't get is why they spend so much time focusing on trying to disqualify him using questionable documents, when his proven record is so much worse.

    Who gives a crap if his last name was Soetoro as a child, when he choses infanticide today?

    Why should I care if Barack Obama was labelled a Muslim (obviously meant to imply he might be a terrorist), when he started his political career at the home of proud, publicly known domestic terrorists with whom he's had a long relationship?

    There are plenty of real reasons to criticize Barack Obama. Let's stick to those, shall we?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:53 PM | Comments (10)

    August 13, 2008

    Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Shot Killed: UPDATE: Shooter Was Fired Employee Former Employee Claim Walked Back

    Details are still coming in, but it appears a man showed up at Democratic Party headquarters, asked for chairman Bill Gwatney by name, was denied a meeting, and then pushed his way in and then shot Gwatney before fleeing.

    KATV reports that police chased the suspect and that he is now believed to be dead, though that is unconfirmed at this time; Fox 16 only confirms he was shot by police.

    Please pray for Mr. Gwatney and his family.

    We'll update as more information becomes available.

    Update: Ark Times blog has the most detail on this developing story, including the claim that the shooter switched vehicles during his attempted escape, and that he in custody. There are contradicting reports about the shooter's condition.

    Update: Among other sources, WREG seems to be going the "airing the theory" route, noting Gwatney owns multiple car dealerships and that the suspect made comments about losing his job recently. That does not mean the suspect was a Gwatney employee of course—he could just as easily have some other reason for targeting Gwatney, personal or political—but until the suspect is identified, we simply won't know more.

    The most recent update to the Ark Times blog also notes that Gwatney's dealerships had recent layoffs, the shooter was apparently one of Gwatney's employee's (still not officially confirmed), and that the shooter died en route to the hospital.

    The national media is slow to catch up on the suspected motivations of the shooter. I'm certain that this is out of concerns for accuracy, and not an attempt to let misplaced anger simmer for as long as possible for those who would ascribe a political motivation.

    Like clockwork: The paranoids denizens of the Democratic Undergound, Think Progress, and other "progressive" sites have laid the blame squarely at the feet of conservatives, talk radio... and racists?

    Update: Gwatney has died.

    There is some disagreement over the suspect's ID but the aforementioned Ark Times blog presently states:

    ...the suspect was a former employee of a Gwatney car dealership. News reports are identifying him as Tim Johnson, 50, of Searcy. According to one report, unconfirmed he was a body shop worker at a Gwatney dealership in Sherwood. A woman who answered the phone there hung up after issuing a no comment to a question. A Little Rock police spokesman, however, told Arkansas Business that the shooter was not a Gwatney dealership employee.

    RTT News (a source I am not familiar with) cites police sources as confirming Johnson as the shooter.

    8:26 PM Update: Significant media backtracking on earlier claims that Johnson was a Gwatney bodyshop employee, and once again returning to the latest iteration of the Ark Times blog, there may be no direct link at all:

    Johnson had no prior police record, according to the Little Rock police and a motive was still unknown. "This is one of those where we may never know," said Police Lt. Terry Hastings.

    Immediately after the shooting, police sources said they were working to confirm tentative information that the suspect was a former employee of a Gwatney car dealership. The Little Rock police said, however, at an afternoon news conference that the shooter, whom they did not identify, was NOT a Gwatney employee and, so far as they knew, never had been, contrary to some reports mentioned here earlier in the day. Hastings said they hoped to learn from family more about Johnson's background.


    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:54 PM | Comments (6)

    August 12, 2008

    Obama Rumor Conclusively Debunked

    Sorry to whiz in the conspiracyverse's corn flakes, but here's one anti-Obama rumor conclusively put to rest.

    Now if we can just get other folks to drop their quixotic quests to target Obama over inane technicalities, we can more focus on dismantling him based upon things that actually matter, such as his character, his experience, his associations, and his radical political goals.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 PM | Comments (7)

    August 10, 2008

    Taint Obama


    From Russia, With Love.

    Or As Barack Obama's childhood mentor "Uncle" Frank would say, Smash On Victory-Eating Red Army.

    And as a bona fide imperialist war for oil intensifies, the progressive Left remains strangely muted.

    Update: As his meager voting record show, he doesn't have what it takes to be a leader, but Barack Obama makes a great follower.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:44 AM | Comments (1)

    August 08, 2008

    Barack O'Borrow? Probably Not

    There is the claim that Barack Obama took an anecdote in The Audacity of Hope from a story told about G. Gordon Liddy in All the President's Men from 1976, or perhaps 1962's Lawrence of Arabia.

    The YouTube video comes courtesy of the G. Gordon Liddy show, so it is rather obvious which source he'd prefer Obama cite, but I'm not willing to to say Obama necessarily borrowed this story. The only reason this claim merits a second look is the fact that Obama used the words of his friend Deval Patrick on several occasions without immediate attribution.


    I've seen similar firsthand stupid tricks at parties and bars from high school through college, performed by young men fueled with testosterone and alcohol and a momentarly lapse of common sense. This form of a tough guy routine, followed with some sort of gritty catch phrase, is almost certainly older than Obama or Liddy or Lawrence of Arabia, and I would not be surprised at all to discover similar acts of bravado in ancient Greece or Rome.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:56 PM | Comments (2)

    August 07, 2008

    Unintentially Appropriate

    The funny thing about true believers of any religion is how accidentally appropriate their signs and symbols may be seen by others. The L.A.-based ad agency sees—uh—"people coming together" for Obama.

    Those of us who aren't as in love with the Freshman Senator would rather not grasp the symbolism.

    Update Baldilocks finds a creepy Star Trek parallel.

    This is a little closer to the reality he promises:

    Next Up: His new campaign song, Don't Fear the Reamer.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:21 PM | Comments (26)

    Selective Editing?

    A man has be arrested for making threats against Barack Obama.

    Notice any difference in how the story is told, however?

    CNN's version:

    A man is being held in Florida on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, according to court documents.

    An affidavit filed by a Secret Service agent in U.S. District Court claims that Raymond Hunter Geisel, of Marathon, Florida, threatened to "kill, kidnap and cause bodily harm upon a major candidate for president of the United States, that is, Senator Barack Obama."

    The affidavit says Geisel made the threats while attending a bail bondsman training class in Miami.

    During an interview with the Secret Service, Geisel denied threatening Obama, but told agents that "if he wanted to kill Senator Obama he would simply shoot him with a sniper rifle."

    He later said that comment was a joke, the agent said in the document.

    AP's version:

    A man who authorities said was keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in court Thursday on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

    Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, was arrested by the Secret Service on Saturday in Miami and was ordered held at Miami's downtown detention center without bail Thursday by a federal magistrate.

    A Secret Service affidavit charges that Geisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in Miami in late July. According to someone else in the 48-member class, Geisel allegedly referred to Obama with a racial epithet and continued, "If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself."

    Obama was most recently in Florida on Aug. 1-2 but did not visit the South Florida area.

    Another person in the class quoted Geisel as saying that "he hated George W. Bush and that he wanted to put a bullet in the president's head," according to the Secret Service.

    Geisel denied in a written statement to a Secret Service agent that he ever made those threats, and the documents don't indicate that he ever took steps to carry out any assassination. He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush.

    Geisel's court-appointed attorney declined comment.

    In the interview with a Secret Service agent, Geisel said "if he wanted to kill Senator Obama he simply would shoot him with a sniper rifle, but then he claimed that he was just joking," according to court documents.

    A search of Geisel's 1998 Ford Explorer and hotel room in Miami uncovered a loaded 9mm handgun, knives, dozens of rounds of ammunition including armor-piercing types, body armor, military-style fatigues and a machete. The SUV was wired with flashing red and yellow emergency lights.

    Geisel told the Secret Service he was originally from Bangor, Maine, and had been living recently in a houseboat in the Florida Keys town of Marathon, according to court documents. He said he used the handgun for training for the bail bondsman class, had the knives for protection and used the machete to cut brush in Maine.

    In the affidavit, the Secret Service said Geisel told agents that he suffered from psychiatric problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, but he couldn't provide the names of any facilities where he sought treatment.

    Sorry, AP, I don't want to get sued, but need the whole thing for comparative purposes.

    The suspect also hated President Bush and is quoted as wanting to put a bullet in his head, so he's an equal opportunity assassination fantasist.

    Why CNN didn't think that detail was newsworthy?

    CBS 4's hack editing job was even worse, cutting the Bush reference out of the middle of the story but overlooking the reference in the last line:

    Federal authorities in Florida are holding a man accused of threatening to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

    The man, Raymond Hunter Geisel, was ordered held without bail at a Thursday court hearing.

    The Secret Service says Geisel made the threat while training to be a bail bondsman in Miami in late July. A search of Geisel's SUV and hotel room uncovered a loaded handgun, knives, dozens of rounds on ammunition, boy armor, and a machete. The SUV was also wired with emergency lights.

    Geisel claims he's originally from Bangor, Maine. He said he made no threat against either Obama or the president.

    I can only speculate as to why the media would remove the threat against Bush in these accounts. Is it because it is harder to portray Obama as the victim when he isn't the only one threatened, or just harder to sell the meme that the offender is probably a murderous racist when he threatens a white president as well?

    Update: Updated to include AP's story. Will remove it if they ask.

    Update: Interesting. After two hours of commenters blaming ignorant/racists/morons/Republicans/Hillary Clinton fans/Southerners/rednecks/anti-black/Fox News/Rush Limbaugh and white people in general, CNN shut down comments on their story at 6:45 PM, just two minutes after "hollowpoint" posted:

    While he wasn't arrested for it, the racist nutjob also said that he'd like to put a bullet in Bush's head… yet CNN doesn't feel that was relevent enough to include on their blog story? The extra two sentences would've taken up too many bytes?

    Or was it that CNN wanted to portray the nutjob in question as a "typical" right wing racist who wanted to kill Obama? Letting your partisan mask slip a bit are you, CNN?

    Given the nature of this election, don't even try to make the excuse that it wasn't relevant, or that the story as presented doesn't create a false impression of the man arrested.

    Sometime later—perhaps the 8:19PM update now showing—CNN finally posted the entire story, including the threats made by the suspect against President Bush.

    After 3-4 hours of letting half-truths percolate to establish the narrative, CNN then they filled in the rest of the story, after the damage was done.

    They could have posted the correct story, the entire story, before 4:00 PM. CNN posted only part of the story, allowing paranoia, biases, and dark fantasies to fester. All of these raging emotions would have been muted, if not eliminated, if it was revealed what CNN know for the beginning, which was the fact that Bush was also a target of Geisel's rage.

    CNN significantly altered a story to play upon people's fears.

    That cannot lightly be excused.

    Update: Curiouser and curiouser... you can still access the original URL of the CNN story at:
    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/07/breaking-man-held-for-obama-assassination-threat/

    Interestingly enough, however, if you go to the CNN Political Ticker and scroll down, the exact same story now has this URL:

    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/08/new-details-man-held-for-alleged-obama-assassination-threat/

    Perhaps most telling however, is that all the comments associated from the previous story—the racially-tinged, poltically motivated anger they helped generate with their selective editing"have not been ported over to the new URL.

    The whitewash continues... and then gets worse.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:00 PM | Comments (30)

    Obama: America Sucks, and Only I Can Save It

    The Obamamessiah has spoken:

    "America is …, uh, is no longer, uh … what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don't want that future for my children."

    Hot Air caught the story, and has similar statements from American's favorite pessimist, Eeyore Michelle Obama.

    For a couple who wants to lead this nation, the Obamas don't seem to have much faith in it.

    Update: Yeah, it does sound like him:

    "The Republic is no longer what it once was." - Palpatine/Darth Sidious in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

    Though in defense of Obama/Darth Tedious, Palpatine didn't have 20 years of influence from a kooky religion being drummed into his head telling him how horrible his country was...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:49 AM | Comments (43)

    August 06, 2008

    A Curious Attraction

    The Democratic National Committee has decided to lash out against the McCain campaign, unwisely stumbling down a path I predicted yesterday with a Mac vs. P.C. on Oil satire.

    They've launched a new campaign to link John McCain to "big oil," blithely ignoring the fact that their campaign was prebunked before it saw the light of day. They also chose to ignore the fact that the middle class and working class that makes up their base are the owners of the oil companies, with their pensions tied up in oil company stocks. When Democrats attack, these companies, they're attacking the retirement plans of average Americans.

    There is also the pesky little detail of Obama himself taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions for oil-industry related individuals as well. With this their best idea, it has become rather obvious why Howard Dean flamed out as spectacularly as he did during his abortive presidential run.

    But that is neither here, not there.

    The DNC has new goodies online, from buttons to bumper stickers to yard signs.

    Notice a common thread in all of them?

    Yes, a no doubt unconscious attraction to that infamous symbol that frames the murderous live's work of Che, Lenin, Mao, and Stalin, the communist red star, first in their blessed revolutionary hearts and coming to a bumper sticker near you!

    Being ever helpful, I took their campaign logo to it's logical conclusion.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:36 AM | Comments (18)

    Who's the Stuffy Old Candidate?

    While the Paris Hilton response to John McCain's ad mocking Barack Obama as a man simply famous for being famous is something some people have actually spent time analyzing (Ann Althouse's readers have done a great deal), and the response is dismissive of Obama— Hilton wisely only refers to him as "the other guy," though I'm sure Timmy Noah, Max Blumenthal and David Gergen will find racial overtones in that as the well—the lasting effect of the ad will be based on how the two Presidential campaigns reacted.

    Obama's campaign reacted with a huffy "Whatever," while McCain's camp quickly embraced it, and used it to execute a bit of political judo, noting that even a vacuous blonde starlet of no special talents has crafted an energy plan more viable than Obama's.

    The old man showed an ability to laugh at himself and roll with the punches, while a humorless and stiff Obama campaign showed itself unable handle even a playful needling.

    McCain may have the chronological advantage in age, but Obama's stiff old fogey routine turned this bit of unexpected theater into a clear McCain camp win.

    Some words of advice for the Obama camp, courtesy of Sgt Hulka.


    "Lighten up, Francis."
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:14 AM | Comments (6)

    August 05, 2008

    Global Warming Fauxtography?

    Brian Ledbetter of Snapped Shot passed this along, a draft report from a global warming group that was too lazy to find an image of a flooded home that suited their ethos, and instead purchased a stock Photoshop creation to better sell their alarmism to the McMansion set.

    If they put such little work in the images, it you wonder how much effort they put into the science of the report, doesn't it?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:36 PM | Comments (40)

    False Post-tenses?

    According to author Ron Suskind (who shockingly, is trying to sell a book to the "Bushitler" base) the Bush Administration ordered the CIA to forge and backdate a document that would be used as false pretenses to help justify the Iraq War.

    According to Suskind, the forged letter written to justify the invasion was released in December, 2003.

    But the war began 9 months prior to the release of the document in the media, meaning they would have forged a document they didn't use for its intended purpose.

    His "false pretenses" motive is obviously wrong.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:39 PM | Comments (40)

    "Jeremiah Wright In a Skirt"

    Barack Obama's radical allies just keep cropping up:

    While the media hounded Wright for his anti-American rants and while presidential hopeful Senator Barack Hussein Obama divorced him as his personal pastor, Obama’s head will be crowned by Leah Daughtry, who ardently believes in the same Marxist "Black Liberation Theology" preached by Wright.

    As noted in more detail in a New York Times profile, Daughtry is Howard Dean's Chief of Staff and is running the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

    The part-time pastor preaches in a church with a call for slave reparations posted in the sanctuary, on a banner reading, "They Owe Us" (but perhaps not as much as she owes D.C.).

    As for her theological roots:

    ...Leah, who was raised according to a strict religious code that forbid females to wear pants, lipstick or makeup, took part in the protests at the age of 13. Her eyes brightened when she recalled those demonstrations and the assorted groups that joined together to give them strength, just as her voice took on extra passion when she discussed black liberation theology and the writing of James Cone.

    It was this writing that Jeremiah Wright, Obama's longtime pastor, cited to support the sermons that led Obama to cut ties with Wright in April. Daughtry didn’t want to comment on the sudden distance Obama put between himself and his pastor, except to say that it pained her to see such a meaningful and private relationship come to such a public and distorted end. But she didn't put any distance between herself and Cone's book "A Black Theology of Liberation, " which she suggested I read and which relies on the words of Malcolm X to make its religious arguments. "Some may find it disconcerting, " she replied, when I asked if she feared driving away voters by standing behind ideas that could be deemed radical. "But they are far outnumbered by Americans who are concerned about the disparities. At the basis of black liberation theology is the understanding that God has a special place in His heart for those at the bottom of the ladder. " All colors are clinging there, she said, and went on to talk about the hegemony of corporations, the oppression of the people. " The right of self-determination is the concern. If I do all the right things, I will live a full and abundant life — this should be true. But it's not. Something's wrong with the equation. Americans may not call this liberation theology, but they have the sense that things aren't fair."

    That's one way of spinning it.

    Cone is known for radical views, arguing in the preface of A Black Theology of Liberation, "There will be no peace in America until whites begin to hate their whiteness, asking from the depths of their being: 'How can we become black?'"

    Cone formed the core of Black Liberation Theology in the vitriol of Malcolm X and the militant Black Power movement, justifying the righteousness of a one-sided hate.

    As Stanley Kurtz documented:

    While Cone asserts that blacks hate whites, he denies that this hatred is racism. Black racism, says Cone, is "a myth created by whites to ease their guilt feelings." Black hatred of whites is simply a legitimate reaction to "oppression, insult, and terror." Cone derides accusations of black racism as a mere "device of white liberals."

    Indeed, one of the most striking features of Black Theology and Black Power is its strident attack on white liberals. According to Cone, "when white do-gooders are confronted with the style of Black Power, realizing that black people really place them in the same category with the George Wallaces, they react defensively, saying, 'It's not my fault' or 'I am not responsible.'" But Cone insists that white, liberal do-gooders are every bit as responsible as the most dyed-in-the-wool segregationists. Well before it became a cliche, Cone boldly set forth the argument for institutional racism--the notion that "racism is so embedded in the heart of American society that few, if any, whites can free themselves from it."

    The liberal's favorite question, says Cone, is "What can I do?" He replies that, short of turning radical and putting their lives on the line behind a potentially violent revolution, liberals can do nothing.

    Presumably, Cone would view Obama's domestic terrorist friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn as "good" liberals.

    The real liberal question to blacks, says Cone, is "What can I do and still receive the same privileges as other whites and--this is the key--be liked by Negroes?" Again, he answers, "Nothing." To prove it, he pointedly dismisses the original bogus white liberal, Abraham Lincoln, who after all was more concerned with holding the Union together than with ending slavery.

    For Cone, the deeply racist structure of American society leaves blacks with no alternative but radical transformation or social withdrawal. So-called Christianity, as commonly practiced in the United States, is actually the racist Antichrist. "Theologically," Cone affirms, "Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man 'the devil.'"

    James Cone informs us that the white man is the Devil... or close enough to it. What's more, he does not believe we can atone for the apparent sin of being born white. Barack and Michelle Obama found a comfortable church home for 20 years in a congregation devoted to this man's toxic home-brewed theology, as so demonstrated in bombastic, often racial terms by their pastor and mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

    We're now approaching Obama's presumed coronation in Denver, and find that this convention is being anchored by not just an adherent, but a pastor of the same warped theology. Obama, Wright, Cone, and Daughtry share a values system that holds capitalism to be oppressive, and socialism as the way beyond racism.

    Democrats proudly boast that they are the "big tent" party. Perhaps it's time they start consider being a bit more selective.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:15 PM | Comments (7)

    Mac & P.C. On Oil


    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Hi. I'm P.C."







    Future Weapons, anyone? "And I'm Mac."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Uh, aren't you a television host? Didn't I see you on QVC?"







    Future Weapons, anyone? "Yes. And no."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Racist."







    Future Weapons, anyone? "Excuse me?"







    unbearably PC "Sorry. It's reflexive at this point."










    "McCain "Color me... aw never mind."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Senator McCain, so glad that you could join us. Care to explain to everyone how you're in the pocket of 'big oil?' Hmmmm?"







    "McCain "Yes. And no."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "What is it with all you bald-headed white people?"







    "McCain "Excuse me?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "'Yes. And no.' Why don't you just admit that you sold your soul to the oil companies, like I said in my ad?"







    "McCain "Because it isn't true. You grossly inflated individual contributions, which by the way, you miscast as corporate contributions, which we didn't take..."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Distractions."







    "McCain "...and you neglected to mention that you took almost $400,000 for individuals in the oil industry for yourself."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Uh...Distractions?"







    "McCain "As far as it goes, however, I don't mind representing the interests of what you call 'big oil.'"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "See? Always trust in me."







    "McCain "Hold your water, sunshine. What I mean is that I represent the people who make up the average shareholders and investors in oil companies."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Fat cat Republicans?"







    "McCain "No. I'm talking about the union workers, the teachers, the state government employees and small businesses that have their pensions invested in oil company stocks.

    You know the majority of oil company stocks are held in retirement portfolios of average Americans right?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Uh, no they aren't."







    "McCain "Yeah. You didn't know that, did you?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Umm, David Gergen said only rich people own oil company stocks."







    "McCain "No he didn't. He said my Moses ad mocking your divinity was racial code calling you 'uppity.'"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Ah, that's right."







    "McCain "Though he probably thinks those 'rich' teachers, unionized workers, and other people who might not vote for you are calling you 'uppity' too. Truth be told, I think he's a bit 'touched' in the head."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "That much time with the Clintons will do that to a man."







    "McCain "True dat."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "What?"







    "McCain "True dat?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "What does that mean?"







    "McCain "I have no idea."







    "I'm unbearably P.C."







    "McCain "But I hear you're doing good with your fund-raising."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "I'm wildly popular."







    "McCain "So you've said before. I ran into one of your big contributors just the other day in fact."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Them asses love me."







    "McCain "Did you mean 'The masses love me"?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Sure. What ever floats your yacht."







    "McCain "Boat."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Distractions."







    "McCain "So did you want to meet him?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""I'm not really the touchy, feely kind.. it's why I like Internet contributions so much."







    "rage boy "We Love you Barack!"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Um, err..."







    "rage boy "My brother and I are huge fans!"








    "McCain "And huge donors."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Um..."







    "rage boy"We love you Barack!"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""I'm not supposed to be seen with..."







    "McCain"And why is that?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Because stupid, racist crack— because, bitter, clin— Aw, Hell. Because some stupid people think I'm Muslim."







    "McCain "But you aren't."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""So? It doesn't matter whether things are true or not. You just have to convince people that the lies are the truth."







    "McCain "Do tell."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Come on, McCain. You've been in national politics a lot longer than my 143 days. You know we have to lie to the people to get elected. Some of us more than others, but still..."







    "McCain "Go on...."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""And all I need is to get them to believe until November. And he doesn't help."







    "rage boy"I can haz Jerusalem?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Not this time around."







    "rage boy"Then I'm shutting down the phone banks!"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Well, let's not do anything rash..."







    "McCain"'Hope' and 'Change,' Senator Obama?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""'Change' doesn't fuel my jet, McCain."







    "McCain"Indeed."



    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:14 AM | Comments (8)

    August 04, 2008

    Race Card Solitare

    If McCain's comparisons of Barack Obama and Paris Hilton are offensive, the Democratic nominee should start by blaming the person who first made that comparison.

    Himself.

    And in context:

    There's nothing exotic or complicated about how phenoms are made in Washington, and, more to the point, how they are broken.

    "Andy Warhol said we all get our 15 minutes of fame," says Barack Obama. "I've already had an hour and a half. I mean, I'm so overexposed, I'm making Paris Hilton look like a recluse."

    The new senator from Illinois is dazzling another venue, in this case the Gridiron Club. It is early December and Obama won't start his new job for a few weeks. But he comes well steeped in the basic physics of hype.

    "Well steeped in the basic physics of hype"?

    RACIST!

    (Big hat tip to Seton Motley of Newsbusters.org)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:21 PM | Comments (0)

    The Pain Tool

    How arrogant is Nancy Pelosi in making this statement?

    "We have a planet to save. We have an economy to grow," Pelosi said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos". "And we can do that if we keep our balance in all of this and not just say but for drilling in unprotected and these protected areas offshore, we would have lower gas prices."

    In what alternate reality do Democrats believe that continued reliance on the building of oil rigs in third-world nations is better for the planet than building much cleaner, greener oil rigs off our shores?

    We're going to need the oil regardless of where it comes from, and the Democrat-led Congress is conceding the chance to "go green" by switching as much of our consumption as possible to domestic extraction methods we can control. Pelosi isn't saving the planet, she is forfeiting a unique opportunity in this nation's history to help create an environmentally-friendly domestic conventional energy market.

    But then, Pelosi isn't trying to save the planet, she's trying to drive up prices. She and other liberal democrats are hoping to force us to concede to their desire for funding more R&D into alternative energy sources that do not yet exist. In effect, she wants us to put a substantial amount of our eggs in a basket that hasn't been built yet, and starve for years to come while it is being constructed, and hope that it works.

    And they say Democrats don't support faith-based initiatives.

    Which brings us to the second point, our economy. How can we grow an economy when Democrats are doing all they can to put a stranglehold on the extraction of fuels and development of energy sources that makes it run?

    It is devastatingly clear that Democrats are purposefully crippling the economy by refusing to take steps to lower conventional energy prices, and indeed, are taking steps to make our energy concerns become a crisis by habitually and continually challenging attempts to extract proven domestic energy sources, and challenging attempts to upgrade or build new power plants. They want us to panic, and agree to fund new, unproven energy sources and technologies under duress.

    That isn't democracy. That's extortion.

    As for prices, elementary students can readily grasp the concept that raw materials acquired locally are going to be cheaper that paying the same globally-set prices for that material, and then paying the costs of having to ship them halfway around the world... but again, this isn't a concern for this crop of Congressional Democrats. They view your pain view it as a tool to wrest concessions from you.

    So much for all the empty rhetoric about caring about the middle class.

    * * *

    CY Commenter "Matt" related this experience on The Economy Killers thread last week:

    Ya know something?

    Ive been going through a program called troops2roughnecks. It is a class put on by the troops transition team.

    Well we had our first class today, and I learned an interesting tidbit of information that the politicians seem to ignore.

    Like any big business, oil and drilling companies do things with tactical intent. Back in the 70s and 80s the drilling companies drilled thousands and thousands of oil and natural gas wells off the coast of the US, then capped them. They do this because they, and everyone else, knows that business is an investment. So you drill and cap, then when market price rises you extract. That way you did a bulk of the work at a lower price. Then the ban was enacted, so these wells sat and were not exploited.

    Now we are looking at the ban being lifted.

    According to the instructor who has over thirty years of experience in the oil fields, and has worked in everything from a routabout to CEO claims that the oil (and these are proven wells) can be turned over to market within six months. SIX MONTHS!

    According to him, there were over 3000 wells dug in the Gulf, around a thousand dug off the coast of California, and between 500 and a thousand dug off the east coast. He says that something like 90% of them were proven oil.

    So is there someone in the oil industry who out there can confirm or deny what this guy told Matt on the record? Are there thousands of proven and capped oil and natural gas wells off our coasts that can be producing a flow of domestic energy in months, that Nancy Pelosi and our Democrat-led Congress are stone-walling?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:35 PM | Comments (8)

    Activists: Killing Animals is Bad, Targeting Researcher's Family with Firebombs is "Necessary"

    All my friends on the left were outraged by the Tennessee church attack last week because of the reasons for the attack cited by the deranged shooter. They (not law enforcement) subsequently labeled the shooting "domestic terrorism."

    I'm sure they will issue equally ferocious condemnations of this attack shortly.

    The FBI today is expected to take over the investigation of the Saturday morning firebombings of a car and of a Westside home belonging to two UC Santa Cruz biomedical researchers who conduct experiments on animals.

    Santa Cruz police officials said Sunday the case will be handed to the FBI to investigate as domestic terrorism while local authorities explore additional security measures for the 13 UCSC researchers listed in a threatening animal-rights pamphlet found in a downtown coffee shop last week.

    [snip]

    While a spokesman said he didn't know who committed the act, the Woodland Hills-based Animal Liberation Front called the attacks a "necessary" act, just like those who fought against civil rights injustices. Spokesman Dr. Jerry Vlasak showed no remorse for the family or children who were targeted.

    "If their father is willing to continue risking his livelihood in order to continue chopping up animals in a laboratory than his children are old enough to recognize the consequences," said Vlasak, a former animal researcher who is now a trauma surgeon. "This guy knows what he is doing. He knows that every day that he goes into the laboratory and hurts animals that it is unreasonable not to expect consequences."


    You heard the man. According to our learned left-wing doctor, researchers that are trying to get an understanding of how the brain works deserve to have their children burned to death.

    The local police captain was less than impressed.

    Clark, the Santa Cruz police captain, said it was "unconscionable" for anyone to defend such acts: "To put this on par with any of the human rights issues is an absolute insult to the integrity of the people who fought and went through the human rights movement. This is what people do when they have an inability to articulate their point in any constructive way. They resort to primal acts of violence. Any reasonable person would need a logic transplant to begin to understand this level of degraded thinking."

    Degraded thinking? From the animal rights crowd?

    Surely, you can't be serious.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:55 AM | Comments (8)

    August 02, 2008

    Herbert's Hissy Fit

    Bob Herbert is not happy:

    Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

    In addition to being unhappy, Herbert's also a purposefully dishonest hack—Harold Ford was linked to "tacky, sexually provocative white women" because he infamously attended a Playboy Superbowl Party, as Accuracy in Media hammered home:

    He [Ford] was at an event where scantily-clad women were featured attractions. How can a Democrat, a member of a political party that caters to feminists, defend that?

    Would it have been accurate to depict the Playboy-type model in the ad as black? Anybody who takes a passing glance at Playboy knows that the vast majority of the "models"―the Playmates or Playboy Bunnies―are white. By chance, I was flipping through my cable channels the other night and came upon a show on the E! channel titled "The Girls Next Door," featuring Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and his current crop of Playboy "girlfriends." All of his girlfriends are white. A quick visit to the Playboy website finds no black models at all.

    So an ad featuring a white and blonde Playboy-like floozy, saying, "I met Harold at the Playboy party," is quite accurate, regardless of whether Ford is black or white. But desperate pro-Democratic Party liberal media figures want to find something despicable in a commercial that is based on a simple truth.

    Likewise, it is a simple truth that like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, Barack Obama is famous primarily for being famous.

    During his short time as a state legislator in Illinois, he accomplished very little of note and arguably less than many of his state office peers. Not even through his first term as a U.S. Senator, Obama is running for President based upon even less. He has not been able to establish himself as anything other than a Senate backbencher, has pushed through no bills of national significance, failed at consensus building, and has proven to be unwilling or unable to reach across the aisle to build bi-partisan support.

    Like Britney Spears, Obama is great on stage, and a trainwreck of non-stop gaffes when left unattended by handlers. Like Paris Hilton, Barack Obama is famous, but no one can precisely explain why he is famous. He has risen to astronomical heights based on "buzz" instead of accomplishments, and if he falls in November, is likely to never be heard from again.

    He is nothing more or less than a political pop star.

    Bob Herbert, of course, doesn't want to admit this fact. Like so many who have peddled to Obama's defense, his greatest fear is that Barack Obama might be judged by the content of his character... or his lack thereof.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:56 PM | Comments (53)

    August 01, 2008

    Obama's Netroots Supporters Continue "Blog Burning"


    Let's Party Like It's 1933.

    Tell me once more how progressives love free speech.

    This blog has been locked due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations. You may not publish new posts until your blog is reviewed and unlocked. This blog will be deleted within 20 days unless you request a review.

    Its the same message Concrete Bob received and Rosemary posted for him.

    This is bulls**t as it appears that someone does not approve of the idea of free speech especially when the speech doesn't conform to their ideas.

    Online activists thought to be loyal to Barack Obama are once against using Google's software tools to target rival political blogs for elimination as spam blogs. This occurred earlier this year when Democratic bloggers with a preference for Hillary Clinton also found themselves locked out of their own blogs, all because of spurious and apparently orchestrated claims that these blogs are spam blogs. Pro-Obama activists were blamed for those attempts at censorship as well.

    Like John at Argghhh!, I don't think for a second that the Obama campaign has any official knowledge of this attempt to hamstring or terminate rival political viewpoints, but as Obama once won an election by exercising procedural tricks to have his rivals thrown off the ballot, it is certainly in line with the kind of character he has displayed in the past.

    Update: Republican revolt in "Pelosi's Politburo."

    Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats fled the House of Representatives, turning off the microphones and the lights as Republicans continued to debate energy policy without them.

    They seem to be having loads of fun with it:

    Rep Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) just pretended to be a Democrat. He stood on the other side of the chaber and listed all of the GOP bills that the Dems killed.

    He then said "I am a Democrat and here is my energy plan" and he held up a picture of an old VW Bug with a sail attached to it. He paraded around he house floor with the sign while the crowd cheered.

    Update: Drat! Another good 2-minute hate down the toilet.


    08/02/08 Update: As noted in the Instapundit link above posted yesterday, the lockout is not targeted at specific sites, but is widespread.

    From Blogger's Blogger Buzz:

    We've noticed that a number of users have had their blogs mistakenly marked as spam, and wanted to sound off real quick to let you know that, despite it being Friday afternoon, we are working hard to sort this out. So to those folks who have received an email saying that your blog has been classified as spam and can't post right now, we offer our sincere apologies for the trouble.

    I jumped the gun when I accepted emailed claims from some of my fellow bloggers without verifying them independently , and I apologize.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:30 PM | Comments (20)

    The Economy Killers

    Welcome to a preview of your future, now.

    Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have recessed Congress without passing a single appropriations bill, and the WSJ informs us that this is the first time that has happened since the 1950s.

    They've effectively shutdown Congress, because of one simple reason: despite a steady increase in global demand that assures energy prices will continue a relentless rise in the long term, they refuse to allow any new domestic energy production.

    Oil.

    Natural Gas.

    Coal.

    Nuclear.

    It doesn't matter. We have it, we need it, but Democrats don't want us to tap it, dig it, drill it, or use it. They feel that it is their responsibility to force Americans into using unproven energy sources, many of which are still on the drawing board. They will simply starve the nation's economy of our current resources, forcing every higher energy prices, forcing us to try to migrate to energy sources we don't yet have and which may not work, relying on an infrastructure that hasn't been built, and which may cost trillions.

    Nancy Pelosi wants you to pay ten dollars for a gallon of gas. You'll be forced to drive a smaller car, restrict your travel, and use less carbon-producing fuels.

    Harry Reid wants fewer coal and nuclear-fired electricity plants, and to charge you ever more for your air conditioning, your cooking, your electronics, your necessities, and your toys.

    You'll payer higher costs on everything—food, clothes, medicines—and those higher costs will be passed along to businesses. Those businesses may have to start laying off all but critical personnel, and those surviving businesses will pass along the higher prices of their products and services to you, if you still among those who have a job.

    You'll be forced to cut back on usage, or consider pouring money into expensive more energy-efficient appliances and home upgrades to "save" the environment and what remains of your bank account. So much for that college fund for your kids, or saving for your retirement, or having money set aside for family emergencies or illnesses.

    How bad do you think it will get if Barack Obama, the untested progressive freshman Senator who seems to think he is running a coronation instead of a campaign, is elected President?

    Do you think think that the exalted candidate of the fringe left environmental movement and Friend of Gore is going to suddenly shift towards a common-sense energy policy if elected? He doesn't have one now, so why would he change when he was the unwavering support of global warming truthers and a unified far left Congress behind him?

    Of course, this may not be an issue for you. You may not mind adjusting to newer, smaller vehicles that cost more and can do less. You might think that the increased taxes are worth it. You may have extra money in your home budget that you would otherwise waste on frivolous things if not required to use them to pay for necessities like natural gas and electricity. I'm thrilled for you. Really. I am.

    But for those of us who don't have extra money laying around in piles, this should be your wake up call.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:15 AM | Comments (10)

    New "Distraction" Alert: Obama Accused of Collecting $24,321.41 From Gaza Strip

    Which is illegal if true, but the illegality of foreign campaign contributions well over the $2300 individual limit pales in comparison with the probability that the vast sum of money most likely would have come from Hamas, a terrorist group that had endorsed Obama earlier in the year.

    For his part, Obama has publicly maintained that while he "understands" Hamas' view of him, he will not meet with them (Obama campaign advisor Rob Malley resigned in May for meeting with Hamas).

    It may also be worth noting that Obama's church of 20 years, Trinity United Church of Christ, reprinted an article in their July 22, 2007 church bulletin by Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzook, denying Israel's right to exist (Obama has since severed ties with the church).

    Obama has been consistent in condemning Hamas and defending Israel's military responses to rocket attacks.

    Apparently, that message hasn't been received in Gaza.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:14 AM | Comments (4)

    July 31, 2008

    Two Americas: One Where Kids Are Always Useful Political Props...

    .. and that other America, where John Edwards has discontinued a scholarship program to send rural high school graduates to college, now that he is no longer running for President.

    Presumably, he now needs that money for another kind of child support.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:06 PM | Comments (8)

    The Morning After

    John McCain's latest ad comparing Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears didn't impress me that much, but appears to have made an impression on all the right people.

    Why is such a simple association gaining traction, when far more troubling aspects of Obama's life being ignored or swept away?

    People don't want to think about the fact that Barack Obama has no executive experience, that this legislative accomplishments are meager, and that his resume is thin. It scares them to look too deep into what he hasn't been able to accomplish... and so they don't.

    People don't want to think about the fact that Obama is the first presidential candidate in our nation's history with direct ties to domestic terrorists, or radical, conspiracy-mongering clergy... and so they don't.

    They look at the commanding stage presence. They bask in his oratory, carefully scripted not to offend, or to ask too much. They indulge themselves in his promise that he can be everything they need. They set aside reason. They set aside details. In a swoon, they think only about how he makes them feel now.

    While followers of Obama have often been compared to religious zealots, the comparison is a false one. Zealots—true believers—can tell you from rote memory the articles of their faith, the details, the specifics that touch their core, often by chapter and verse.

    Obamaphiles have been challenged time and again to answer what Obama believes in, to provide the substance behind their devotion, to explain what makes Obama "the One."

    Most supporters offer a blank look when asked about his substance. Others get confused, then angry, though they don't even know why. Some rattle off a list of party-held positions or personally-held beliefs. Some, like the candidate himself, simply wave off such requests for substance as a "distraction."

    Rachel Lucas and others come the closest in accurately describing Obama lust. It isn't a religious experience. It's beer goggling.

    After almost eight years of frothing media pounding on the Bush Administration in particular and Republicans in general, and the addled mumblings and several years of toothless bravado of Democratic leadership, continuous campaign chasers, and plenty of cheap shots, we're all tipsy, tired, and ready to fall into the arms of the first attractive thing that comes along.

    Barack Obama sweeps in wearing a pretty smile. He tells us we're beautiful. He utters sweet nothings in our ears, telling us we are the ones we've been waiting for.

    He whispers, "It's different not because of me, but because of you. Because you are tired of being disappointed and tired of being let down. You're tired of hearing promises made and plans proposed in the heat of a campaign only to have nothing change."

    And as he smiles that beautiful smile, and it all sorta make sense if we don't try to dig too deep. He's trying hard to charm our pants off, and we're inclined to believe him, because believing is easier.

    He's pretty, and he's glitzy, and he's popular, and he's hoping you won't realize the trainwreck he is until the morning after the election.

    Paris. Barack. Britney.

    It resonates for a reason.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:42 AM | Comments (12)

    July 29, 2008

    Selective Outrage

    Sunday's shootings at a Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, TN was a horrible tragedy caused by a man with a laundry list of psychological issues and naked hatred against anyone unlike him.

    As horrible as these events were, the death toll at the church could have been far worse. Jim David Adkisson was armed with a semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun and 76 cartridges, but only managed to fire three rounds before being overpowered by the congregation. I wrote about the string of small miracles that occurred at the church, a series of coincidences that kept an awful event from becoming even worse.

    As innocuous as that post was to most normal people, online progressive activists and bloggers, wasting no time in trying to twist the tragedy to their political advantage, flooded my inbox and the comments section of that post with crude language and spittle-flecked, half-formed thoughts of rage.

    Some claimed that by writing this post, I was "a lying fascist thug," apparently for merely pointing out that in addition to his stated hatred of gays and liberals, he targeted a church "after expressing beliefs to neighbors in the past that he had an abiding anger against Christianity, an anger that appears rooted in his childhood." It was later confirmed that Adkisson did have issues with religion dating back to his childhood, and that the specific church he targeted was one that was once attended by his ex-wife.

    Another went off on a rant in another direction, hissing, "So if he had targeted a mosque, that would be OK because it wasn't a church, I presume. You know, them 'sand people' and all that..."

    Rarely have I seen strawmen created and then slaughtered with such ferocity, especially by a political group so thoroughly untroubled by the thought of the slaughter most experts predicted would occur in Iraq if their calls for an immediate pullout in Iraq had been heeded in the past few years.

    Another stated "your side launched a terrorist attack yesterday. Two innocent Americans died. Why does your side hate America so much?"

    Indeed, the meme that the attack was domestic terrorism seems quite popular among some on the far left, and they have trotted out this tragedy as example of a specific kind of domestic terrorism, one that they've branded as "eliminationism."

    They spare no bile or blame in asserting that Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and others in the conservative movement indirectly contributed to Adkisson's abbreviated rampage.

    Give their newfound concern about domestic terrorism, and their stated disgust with those who would advocate threats of harm as a political tool via eliminationism, I find it the pinnacle of hypocrisy that they offer unswerving support and near-Messianic devotion to a political candidate who began his ascension up the political ladder with a fundraiser at the home of a well-known pair of domestic terrorists.

    Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn belonged to a group that declared war against the United States, bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and other buildings, and attempted to blow up a dance of American soldiers and their dates, only to have the pipebombs prematurely detonate instead, taking only terrorist souls.

    The leftwing political blogosphere has no tolerance for domestic terrorists at all...

    ...unless they're long-time friends of their Presidential candidate.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:20 AM | Comments (262)

    July 25, 2008

    When Denied A Chance to Turn Wounded Troops Into A Photo Op, Obama Declined to Meet with Them at All

    Why did Barack Obama cancel his visit to see wounded U.S. soldiers yesterday at Landstuhl Medical Center in Ramstein, Germany?

    According to the Politico and the Chicago Sun-Times, the Obama campaign is blaming the military, claiming that the Obama campaign was told the visit "would look too political."

    But according to MSNBC, Obama and his Senate staff could have visited wounded troops; he simply couldn't bring along his campaign staff and the media.

    The campaign's response? They withdrew the request to visit the troops.

    The official said "We didn't know why" the request to visit the wounded troops was withdrawn. "He (Obama) was more than welcome. We were all ready for him."

    If he can't use them as props, it seems Barack Obama has little use for the military. Come to think if it, that is roughly how they factor into his feckless foreign policy plans as well.


    Update: Spin away, fanboy. Greg Sargent tries to cover for Obama, citing what we already knew: that Obama's campaign staff (and the media) was prohibited from visiting the hospital. It's a particularly weak attempt at deception, as it overlooks—purposefully, it seems—that there was precisely nothing stopping Obama from bringing members of his Senate staff with him, or simply visiting the troops himself.

    But Sargent also claims that Obama didn't bring his Senate staff with him.

    Uh-oh.

    So explain something to me, Obama fans: how can Obama go on his "look at me" tour of American bases with only his campaign staff, and not with any of his Senate staff, and still claim his trips were part of a congressional fact-finding delegation?

    If he only brought his campaign staff, and no Senate staff as Sargent claims, then I'd like to know if American taxpayers picked up any of the costs associated with his multi-nation, round-the-world trip, or it was Obama's campaign alone that picked up the bill.

    Update: HuffPo contributor Brandon Friedman also tries the dishonest route:

    Barack Obama canceled a pre-planned visit to the troops in Germany yesterday after being told by the Pentagon that the trip would violate a Pentagon policy prohibiting campaign stops on military installations. No problem there.

    No problem, of course, except for the fact that flatly isn't what the Pentagon said.

    Let's type this slower so that Friedman, Sargent, and the Obamaphiles in the media can follow along:

    Obama was never told he could not visit wounded soldiers. In fact, he was told they were prepared for his visit.

    What he was told is that he could not bring his campaign staff and the mass media. He had to go as a Senator, not a president candidate.

    Once Barack Obama found out he would have to visit wounded American soldiers alone—guarded only by his massive Secret Service and State Department security detail—he balked.

    Let's make that a bit more clear:

    Barack Obama withdrew his request to visit the troops.

    He could have gone, but made the decision not to go on his own, without his campaign entourage.

    It's so simply even a journalist could get it right... if they wanted to.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (68)

    So Did Obama "Blow Off" Troops, Or Didn't He?

    Writing in today's New York Daily News, James Gordon Meek states that U.S. Army officials have disputed an email sent out by an American serviceman stationed at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, where the author claims that Barack Obama disrespected American servicemen by refusing to meet with them.

    The email was published here in full yesterday, and read:

    Hello everyone,

    As you know I am not a very political person. I just wanted to pass along that Senator Obama came to Bagram Afghanistan for about an hour on his visit to "The War Zone". I wanted to share with you what happened. He got off the plan[sic] and got into a bullet proof vehicle, got to the area to meet with the Major General (2 Star) who is the commander here at Bagram. As the Soldiers where lined up to shake his hand he blew them off and didn't say a word as he went into the conference room to meet the General. As he finished, the vehicles took him to the ClamShell (pretty much a big top tent that military personnel can play basketball or work out in with weights) so he could take his publicity pictures playing basketball. He again shunned the opportunity to talk to Soldiers to thank them for their service. So really he was just here to make a showing for the American's back home that he is their candidate for President. I think that if you are going to make an effort to come all the way over here you would thank those that are providing the freedom that they are providing for you. I swear we got more thanks from the NBA Basketball Players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from one of the Senators, who wants to be the President of the United States. I just don't understand how anyone would want him to be our Commander-and-Chief. It was almost that he was scared to be around those that provide the freedom for him and our great country.

    If this is blunt and to the point I am sorry but I wanted you all to know what kind of caliber of person he really is. What you see in the news is all fake.

    Meeks' article counters:

    But angry Army brass debunked the Obama-bashing soldier's allegations, which went viral Thursday over the Web and on military blogs such as Blackfive.

    The e-mail claims Obama repeatedly shunned soldiers on his way to the Clamshell - a recreation tent - to "take his publicity pictures playing basketball."

    "These comments are inappropriate and factually incorrect," said Bagram spokesman Army Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, who added that such political commentary is barred for uniformed personnel.

    Obama didn't play basketball at Bagram or visit the Clamshell, he said. Home-state troops were invited to meet him, but his arrival was kept secret for security reasons.

    Meek's article provides another much needed perspective to the story of Obama's visit to Bagram, and makes what I think is a fair case that the officer who wrote the Bagram email was basing his email on his limited first-person perception of events, and that he wrote his post without the benefit of knowing all the facts.

    It is vitally important for us to know that Barack Obama didn't play basketball in Afghanistan, nor did he visit a specific tent. We should be grateful that Meek ferreted out the truth and debunked those scurrilous allegations.

    But LTC Nielson-Green's refutation of these two rather minor specific points does not at all address the most important allegation made in the viral email, the author's perception that soldiers on base were "blown off" by the junior Senator.

    In fact, the PAO admits that Obama only met with selected soldiers. Only service-persons from Illinois were invited to meet him, and soldiers not from Illinois (the author of the email is from Utah) were indeed not met by the junior Senator. Though no doubt a touchy situation for the military, the key premise holds.

    The same handful of faces are seen in all the pictures released to the media from Obama's visit. If you were not a soldier from Illinois or otherwise selected serviceman, you were not allowed to meet Obama. The question then arises whether the decision to limit contact with the troops was a decision made by the military brass, if that was a decision made by the Obama campaign, or by joint agreement.

    The second email published, from someone at an air base as Obama swung through Iraq stated in part that Obama's visit was "A disgraceful PR stunt, using the troops as a platform for his ego and campaign."

    To date the second email has gone unchallenged and a senior officer I interviewed confirmed on background that Obama's visit to Iraq was nothing more than a campaign stop masquerading congressional delegation visit.

    Update: James Gordon Meek of the Daily News has posted an update in the comments, noting contact with the author of the email, and his dialing back of the now viral claim. It reads:

    "I am writing this to ask that you delete my email and not forward it. After checking my sources, information that was put out in my email was wrong. This email was meant only for my family. Please respect my wishes and delete the email and if there are any blogs you have my email portrayed on I would ask if you would take it down too. Thanks for your understanding."

    My military sources don't seem to agree with Meek's assertion that the email constituted a violation of military regulations barring political statements, as the email was sent only to family members. That the email was distributed beyond that was beyond his control.

    It bears noting that the Iraq email has not be challenged by anyone, and Obama's refusal to meet with wounded GI's because his campaign staff and the media couldn't come with him is a far bigger story, and one that has done Obama far more damage.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:35 AM | Comments (50)

    July 24, 2008

    G.I. In Afghanistan: Obama "Blew Them Off"

    Blackfive posted this email yesterday and has another supporting account (added below in an update) from another member of the military who was also present during Obama's carefully scripted P.R. World Tour.

    I think you should read it.

    Hello everyone,

    As you know I am not a very political person. I just wanted to pass along that Senator Obama came to Bagram Afghanistan for about an hour on his visit to "The War Zone". I wanted to share with you what happened. He got off the plan[sic] and got into a bullet proof vehicle, got to the area to meet with the Major General (2 Star) who is the commander here at Bagram. As the Soldiers where lined up to shake his hand he blew them off and didn't say a word as he went into the conference room to meet the General. As he finished, the vehicles took him to the ClamShell (pretty much a big top tent that military personnel can play basketball or work out in with weights) so he could take his publicity pictures playing basketball. He again shunned the opportunity to talk to Soldiers to thank them for their service. So really he was just here to make a showing for the American's back home that he is their candidate for President. I think that if you are going to make an effort to come all the way over here you would thank those that are providing the freedom that they are providing for you. I swear we got more thanks from the NBA Basketball Players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from one of the Senators, who wants to be the President of the United States. I just don't understand how anyone would want him to be our Commander-and-Chief. It was almost that he was scared to be around those that provide the freedom for him and our great country.

    If this is blunt and to the point I am sorry but I wanted you all to know what kind of caliber of person he really is. What you see in the news is all fake.

    I guess it should come as little surprise, then, that Obama has dropped meetings with U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany—including wounded soldiers from the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan— in favor of meeting with French and German civilians.

    Priorities, you know.

    Update:

    The second email from a member of the military in Iraq , forwarded to me from Blackfive:

    I had a first hand view of Barrack Obama's "fact finding" mission, when he passed through this base.

    While I can't name it, it's one of the largest air bases in the region, with up to 8000 troops (depending on influxes and transients in mobilization/demobilization status), mostly Airmen and Soldiers, but some Marines, Sailors, Koreans, Japanese, Aussies, Brits, US Civil Service, contractors including KBR, Blackwater and Halliburton, among others in the news. The overwhelming majority of all of these are professional, courteous and disciplined.

    Problems are rare.

    Casualties are also rare. This base has a large hospital for evacuation—twenty plus beds. I have yet to see a casualty in one, though I am told there are about three evacuations a week through this region, of which two on average are things like sports injuries, vehicle accidents or duty related falls and such. You can tell from the news that the war is going well. The ghouls are now focusing on Afghanistan, since there is no blood to type with here.

    This oped is of course subjective and limited, but I will try to present the facts as I saw them. I wasn't able to see much, which makes a point all by itself.

    When his plane arrived (also containing Senators Reed and Hagel, but the news has hardly mentioned them), there was a "ramp freeze." This means if you are on the flight line, and not directly involved with the event in question, you stay where you are and don't move. For a combat flight arriving or departing, this takes about ten minutes, and involves the active runway and crossing taxiways only. For Obama's flight, this took 90 minutes, during which time a variety of military missions came grinding to a halt. Obviously, this visit was important, right?

    95% of base wanted nothing to do with him. I have met three troops who support him, and literally hundreds who regard him as a buffoon, a charlatan, a hindrance to their mission or a flat out enemy of progress. Even when the rumors were publicly admitted, almost no one left their duty sections to try to see him, unless they were officers whose presence was officially required.

    Mister Obama's motorcade drove up from the flight line and entered the dining hall toward the end of lunch time. Diners were chased out and told to make other arrangements for food, in the middle of the duty day.

    Now, there are close to 8000 troops on the base and its nearby satellites. No one came up from the Army side (except perhaps a few ranking officers). The airbase resumed operation, once he cleared the flightline, as if nothing had happened. The dining hall holds about 300 people and was not full. The troops did not want to meet him and the feeling was apparently mutual. In attendance, besides the Official Entourage, were the base's senior officers, some support personnel, and a very few carefully vetted supporters who'd made special arrangements. No photos were allowed. No question and answer with the troops. No real acknowledgment that the troops existed.

    Obama left around 1530, during the Muslim Call to Prayer, so he's not a practicing Muslim. He was in a convoy guarded by (so I'm told) both State Department and Secret Service Personnel.

    Less than three hours…

    Within 48 hours he was in Afghanistan. It takes most troops longer than that to in-process and get cleared on safety, threats, policies and such. Yet he somehow made a strategic summary by not talking to anyone and not seeing anything.

    Twenty-four hours after that, he was in Kuwait, back here, and then home, so fast we didn't even know he arrived the second time at this base.

    I can't imagine any officer of the few he met told him anything other than what they tell the troops, and what their own leadership at the Pentagon tell them—we're winning. Our troops are stomping the guts out of the insurgency. The surge worked and is working. If the insurgents have to divert to Afghanistan, it means they can't fight in Iraq anymore. We should not change the rules and retreat with the enemy on the ropes as we did in Vietnam. We should finish kicking their teeth in. The Iraqi government now controls 10 of 18 provinces, with US assistance in the rest. Let us win the war. 90% of the troops I know, even those opposed to the war, say that is the way to win. Victory comes from winning, not from "change." In fact, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is on record as opposing Obama's strategic theory.

    Since he obviously knew in advance that's what they'd tell him, and since he didn't care to talk to the troops (we're told by the Left that the troops are horrified, shocked, forced to commit atrocities with tears in their eyes, distraught, burned out, fed up with losing, etc) and find out how they feel, and was barely in country long enough to need a shower and a change of clothes, we can only call this for what it is.

    A disgraceful PR stunt, using the troops as a platform for his ego and campaign.

    In comparison, I've seen four star generals and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on this base. They each held an all ranks call, met with and briefed the personnel, and took questions on every subject from tour length to uniform design to rules of engagement to weapon choice to long term policy, from the newest airmen to the senior NCO with TEN 120-180 day tours since Sep 11. It's very clear they want to know what the troops think, and to keep them informed of events. It's equally clear mister Obama does not.

    From here we must move to my op part of the oped.

    Obama clearly doesn't care about the troops, doesn't care about America, doesn't care about anything except hearing his own voice and the chance to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue…From where he'll bring us the proven Democratic wartime leadership of Bosnia and the Balkans (US forces still there), Somalia (US forces prevailed despite being ill equipped by executive order, and taking heavy casualties), Haiti (what were we doing there again?), Desert One (oops?), Vietnam (where we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory), Korea (still there), WWI, and the fluke success of WWII won by such wonderful liberal notions as concentration camps for Japanese Americans, nukes, FBI investigations of waitresses who dated soldiers in case they were "morally corrupt" and the (valid) occupation of and continued presence in Italy, Japan and Germany for 60 years, which they are conveniently pretending won't happen with Iraq.

    That's not "change." That's "failure we can do without."

    Update: Second-day coverage continues here.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:04 AM | Comments (43)

    On The Surge: McCain Was Sorta Right, Obama Was Dead Never Wrong

    It is rather amusing watching the media and lefty bloggers chase after John McCain for the candidate's continued insistence that the surge set the stage for the Sahawah or Awakening movement. McCain may be using questionable terminology when claiming that the surge predated the awakening, but only if we're talking about the increase in troop strength, which alone would have accomplished nothing.

    What made the surge successful—and what McCain can quite fairly argue—is that the counterinsurgency doctrine that began prior to the formation of the Sahawah movement and capitalized on the growing Sunni discontent with al Qaeda is part of or are at least a precursor to the official surge of additional U.S. troops into Iraq.

    Critics in the media and blogosphere somehow seem to be under the delusion that merely an increase in troop strength was the reason for the surge succeeding, but it was changes in strategy and tactics used by the greater number of soldiers that made the difference. Of course, how are liberals supposed to get their facts straight when even their experts can't?

    McCain was right to go after Barack Obama's confused history of the surge the Sahawah movement, the decline of Shia militias, and the influence political and military movement by U.S. forces had in making each possible.

    American forces provided support, funding, material, and often carried out raids on behalf of the Sunni tribes battling al Qaeda. Perhaps the Sunni tribes could have eradicated al Qaeda in time on their own—they had the home field advantage—, but it is a incontrovertible historical fact that they did not achieve their success without substantial U.S. assistance. Did the Sunni Awakening movement officially begin before the official start of the surge? Yes. Did it begin without any U.S. involvement? No. Could it have succeeded? We'll never know. It should worry the American people that Barack Obama does not seem to understand any of this.

    Likewise, the more recent decline of Shia militias occurred because U.S. force trained and equipped the Iraqi the IA forces that stormed Barsa and Sadr City, we provided air and ground support during those raids, and of course, were securing other areas which freed up Iraqi forces to take the lead in these assaults which seem to have largely broken the Madhi Army and related Shia gangs. The success of Iraqi security forces over Shia militias did not happen in a vacuum, but because of substantial U.S. involvement. Barack Obama does not seem to understand this.

    The security gains made in Iraq simply would not have occurred as quickly or as successfully as they did without U.S. forces. That Barack Obama would try to minimize that is understandable, as it to admit American forces were vital to the current state of affairs in Iraq would be an admission that he was wrong about the surge, and as we all know, Barack Obama is never wrong.

    And so Barack Obama wasn't wrong about standing against the surge. He was not wrong for advocating the abandonment of the Iraqi people when things got tough. Barack Obama is never wrong.

    And just pray the freshman senator isn't elected to a position where he'll "never be wrong" about issues affecting your life.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:30 AM | Comments (31)

    July 23, 2008

    The Sunshine Patriot

    Grim at Blackfive tears Obama a new one:

    They say "victory has a thousand fathers," but to Sen. Obama, the Surge is a bastard.

    Grim is responding, at least in part, to Joe Klein's meltdown, in which the panicking journalist attacked John McCain for pointing out that McCain is willing to lose the election in order to win the Iraq War, while Obama has been committed to losing the Iraq War as a plank of his political platform since 2006.

    Obama's shift was a calculated appeal to the far left progressive base, a move which eventually helped him lock-up the Democratic nomination. He has stuck to that commitment. Even now, as Obama made clear to Couric, he would not have supported the surge.

    His record of statements related to the war on Iraq is extensive and well-documented. He was opposed to the war from the start as noted in his over-hyped 2002 speech, adopted the position in 2004 that a withdrawal without victory " would be a betrayal of the promise that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing from a national security perspective" and a dishonoring of the sacrifice of American soldiers.

    By 2005-2006, Obama had made his final evolution, changing positions again and committing to unconditional withdrawal for his presidential run; victory was no longer on his agenda.

    On October 22, 2006, Obama proclaimed the urgent necessity for "all the leadership in Washington to execute a serious change of course in Iraq." That change was decidedly not in the direction of stepping up our war effort by sending additional troops—a shift advocated by some conservative critics of administration policy and at that point being seriously considered by the White House and the Pentagon. Quite the contrary: the change Obama had in mind was to initiate, as quickly as possible, a "phased withdrawal" from Iraq. There was to be no more talk from him about leaving a "stabilized" situation. Nor, for Obama, was the issue debatable. His latest predictive judgment was that "We cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve."

    It is clear that since 2006, Obama had far less interest in winning the Iraq war than he did withdrawing American troops. Getting out was Barack Obama's primary concern. Winning was not. John McCain's charge that "I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign" is deadly accurate.

    Joe Klein can shriek all he wants that McCain's line of attack is "scurrilous" and "smacks of desperation," but the simple fact remains that Obama's record, scant as it is, betrays his character. It shows him to be what Thomas Paine described during our own nation's founding war as a sunshine patriot:

    THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

    When times in Iraq became toughest, Barack Obama wilted. When tyranny threatened, he committed to conceding the field. Being a politician, and a liberal at that, he proudly made his desire to run away from conflict and abandon the Iraqi people to whatever fate befell them part of the central core of his campaign.

    "Vote for me. I shirk from difficulty. " he seemed to be saying. "Vote for me. I will not require sacrifice. Vote for me. I promise safety. Vote for me. I will bend to your will."

    And such is the core of his appeal.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:44 AM | Comments (5)

    July 22, 2008

    Obama: Surge Was An Unnecessary Success

    Katie Couric—well known for creampuff interviews—nonetheless presses a befuddled Barack Obama into admitting that even with today's perfect 20/20 hindsight, he'd still reject the surge.

    Couric: But talking microcosmically, did the surge, the addition of 30,000 additional troops ... help the situation in Iraq?

    Obama: Katie, as … you've asked me three different times, and I have said repeatedly that there is no doubt that our troops helped to reduce violence. There's no doubt.

    Couric: But yet you're saying … given what you know now, you still wouldn't support it … so I'm just trying to understand this.

    Obama: Because … it's pretty straightforward. By us putting $10 billion to $12 billion a month, $200 billion, that's money that could have gone into Afghanistan. Those additional troops could have gone into Afghanistan. That money also could have been used to shore up a declining economic situation in the United States. That money could have been applied to having a serious energy security plan so that we were reducing our demand on oil, which is helping to fund the insurgents in many countries. So those are all factors that would be taken into consideration in my decision-- to deal with a specific tactic or strategy inside of Iraq.

    Couric: And I really don't mean to belabor this, Senator, because I'm really, I'm trying … to figure out your position. Do you think the level of security in Iraq …

    Obama: Yes.

    Couric … would exist today without the surge?

    Obama: Katie, I have no idea what would have happened had we applied my approach, which was to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation. So this is all hypotheticals. What I can say is that there's no doubt that our U.S. troops have contributed to a reduction of violence in Iraq. I said that, not just today, not just yesterday, but I've said that previously. What that doesn't change is that we've got to have a different strategic approach if we're going to make America as safe as possible.

    What character... admitting to 25 million Iraqis that their lives are nothing more than marks to be counted against in a ledger, chits with a firm price. Gives you pause when considering what he'll do if allowed into office to socialize your healthcare, doesn't it?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:27 PM | Comments (33)

    Mac & P.C.


    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Hi. I'm P.C."







    "McCain "And I'm—wait a second, don't I get to go first?"



    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Not as long as there is a New York Times."







    "McCain "Color me surprised."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "So now you're going to drag race into this? I had hoped we could keep our discourse on a higher level."







    "McCain "Race? That's a figure of speech, and one that has been around for years."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "I will not stoop to answer your suggestion that as an African-American, I do not understand 'white' English."







    "McCain "Who said anything about race, or English... and why would you care about English, anyway? You want everyone to speak Spanish—even though you don't."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "I find your semantic arguments a tiresome distraction from the business of changing America"







    "McCain "Do you now?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "America needs Change. It needs Hope. And I can bring that. You? You are old."







    "McCain "So's the AARP, and they vote."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "And a wonderful, proud organization they are. Fighting for civil rights for decades—"







    "McCain "Uh, they're old people."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Not all of them, and I resent the implication that the struggle for equality for all races is somehow an antiquated—"







    "McCain "No, I mean they're old people—the American Association of Retired Persons?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Oh, snap."







    "McCain "Indeed."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Once again Senator McCain, you keep trying to return to politics as usual."







    "McCain "I'm just trying to make sure you understand what you're talking about."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Oh really? Are you not the same Senator McCain, that—in his old age—suggested that there would be a battle against terrorism on the 'Iraq/Pakistan border,' Senator? Hmmmmm?"







    "McCain "Perhaps you should show up for your committee meetings more often, Senator Obama."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "And why is that, Senator McCain? Did they redraw the maps? Did they move continents? Just because you were born in Pangea—"







    "McCain "Panama."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Whatever. You're obviously starting to 'lose it' just a little bit, eh, Senator Hagel?"







    "McCain "My last name is McCain."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "I know that. I was just checking to make sure you did."







    "McCain "How very cute."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Quit trying to distract us, Senator. How do you explain away your comments about the 'Iraq/Pakistan border"?"







    "McCain "Israel."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Israel? I'm sorry Senator, you lost me."







    "McCain "Hardly surprising..."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "You're dodging the issue."







    "McCain "You won't shut up long enough for me to answer."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Well, I never—"







    "McCain "Of course you haven't. You haven't been in office long enough too. Now will you let me answer the question?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "By all means, Senator McCain. Please explain how 'Israel' explains your comment—your gaffe—about how 'Israel' has anything to do with the Iraq/Pakistan border."







    "McCain "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb, Iran..."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""What?!?!"







    "McCain "Go big, or go home."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""What?!?!"







    "McCain "Of course, that will make your face to face discussions with 'I'm-a-madman-in-jihad' a bit harder."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." " The President's name is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and he deserves to have his views heard."







    "McCain "Oh, they were heard all right. Every time he stated his desire to 'wipe Israel off the map' they heard him loud and clear. And while I know it may come as a shock, they actually think he means what he says."







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "But no politician ever means..."







    "McCain "You were saying?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C." 







    "McCain 







    "I'm unbearably P.C." 







    "McCain 







    "I'm unbearably P.C." "Distractions!"







    "McCain "I'm sure they are. International politics is hard when your'e just getting started, huh?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Distractions!"







    "McCain "Yes, I think we heard that."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""This does not help my children!"







    "McCain "Neither did that church."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Just stop it."







    "McCain 







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""You're only angry because you're old, and I'm new and exciting, and I offer—"







    "McCain"'Change' and 'Hope'?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""No, 'Hope' and—"







    "McCain"Waffles'?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Stop that. I don't like distractions."







    "McCain"So we've noticed. And the pressure?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""It's not... Look. I offer 'Home' and 'Change.'"







    "McCain"You mean 'Hope'?"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""'Hope.' And 'Change.' And I'm new and exciting, and I promise lots of new government programs, and enhanced features... I'm like Windows Vista. You? You're old Senator McCain."







    "McCain"From Pangea, as I recall."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Precisely. You're old—like eunuches, or something."







    "McCain"You mean 'Unix.'"







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""That's what I said."







    "McCain"Not quite. But you may have something with the Vista comparison."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""See? You even admit it. I'm unstoppable. And you, you're old. Like eunuches."







    "McCain"Unix. Which runs Macs. But that's okay, Senator Obama...you're certainly more P.C."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Thank you."







    "McCain"And I wish you all the success of Microsoft's Bob."







    "I'm unbearably P.C.""Well, I'm not in it for the personal fortune , but thank you, Senator McCain. But I thought his first name was Bill?"







    "McCain"Indeed."








    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:23 AM | Comments (42)

    July 21, 2008

    Lost in Translation

    I was out of town and missed the Maliki withdrawal kerfluffle over the weekend, but it looks like it was likely much ado about nothing anyway, and perhaps nothing more than a translation error, even according to the Obama-backing Times.

    Frankly, I'm just glad we're at a point where Iraq is beginning to stabilize enough that we can realistically begin to discuss drawing down American assets in Iraq in victory—quite a bit different circumstance than the long-held Democratic Party position, which was (and still is) for a reckless withdrawal with all possible speed, regardless of what that withdrawal with mean to Iraqi civilians or to the region.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:30 AM | Comments (5)

    Obama Overflies Iraqi Mass Graves

    Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama overflew the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Najaf today, where the mass graves for an estimated 240,000 victims of sectarian violence killed since 2007 were visible even from altitude.

    Senator Obama was on his way to meet with American soldiers completing the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in Kuwaiti ports, while miles away Iranian and Saudi delegations were meeting in an emergency summit in Kuwait City in an effort to keep the Iraqi Civil War from boiling over into open regional conflict. Both sides have accused the other of providing advanced weaponry and training, while faulting American leaders for the bloody collapse of the Iraqi state.

    Except, of course, none of that really happened.

    Barack Obama is in Baghdad today for one reason and one reason only: the current President wisely ignored the first-term Senator's repeated calls to abandon the Iraqi people, and instead listened to advice to change commanders, strategy, and tactics in Iraq. The resulting COIN doctrine implemented by American forces under General David Petraeus and a surge of American forces into Iraq coincided with a popular Sunni revolt against the al Qaeda-led insurgency known as the Awakening movement, which was followed by the fracturing of the Shia Madhi Army and other militant groups.

    If we had listened to Barack Obama in 2002, Saddam Hussein (or his murderous son Qusay) would still be brutally repressing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, and some of the world's most accomplished terrorists (such as Abu Abbas, 1993 WTC bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) would still be calling Iraq home. I doubt Obama would be flying to Baghdad.

    If we had listened to him in 2005-2006 when things were at their worst, then the nightmare scenario of an open Iraqi civil war fought with the backing of Saudi Arabia and Iran and verging on a wider regional war would possibly be playing out. I doubt Obama would be flying to Baghdad.

    So by all means, let the journalists of the New York Times paint his visit as an accomplishment of some sort.

    Just keep in mind that if we had followed the starter Senator's judgment at any point during his political career, Iraq could have been too dangerous a place for his flight to even consider touching down.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:57 AM | Comments (19)

    July 18, 2008

    Still No Good Explanation for Obama's Plan For A State Security Apparatus

    Our good friends on the far left have plenty of snark to drop in this post, suddenly finding an aversion to Third Reich analogies after seven years of BushHilter and comparisons of the RNC to Nazis.

    What they have not done, nor even seriously attempted, was to explain the comments the media so carefully edited-out of a speech that Obama recently gave, where he advocated a "civilian national security force" that is "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the nation's military.

    As I noted in my last comment to that post, "national" means United States, or domestic in nature, not a international force. Security means "police."

    Unless Obama was uttering "just words," he was advocating domestic state security. That he would make plain his intentions to make his SS "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the strongest military in the history of Planet Earth should be a cause for concern for everyone, and not just because he's talking of creating another massive bureaucracy and colossal tax burden.

    Why does a free nation that already has the FBI, ATF, and DHS on the federal level, SBIs, state police, and highway patrols on the state level, in conjunction with local sheriffs and police agencies, with the backing the Army and Air Force National Guard and Coast Guard units for the most extreme emergencies, need an additional national domestic security apparatus dwarfing all current federal law enforcement agencies, equal in power and scope to the military?

    How does the Democratic frontrunner make a call for such an alarming organization, and the media not report it. Worse, how do they get a way with erasing those words from transcripts of the speech?

    I'm getting a lot of snark from those on the political left for stating that I didn't like Obama's plan any better in the original German, but precious few explanations of why a free nation would need such an imposing force, one only useful against it's own citizenry.

    Update: closing comments due to surge in comment spam.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:41 PM | Comments (70)

    Worst House Speaker in History Labels Bush a Total Failure

    Legislators fear for their lives, simply because they come to work. Some have been assassinated by car bombs, others by gunfire, while simply going out among their constituents. During their legislative meetings there is always the (increasingly) slight risk of a mortar attack or a suicide bomber. And yet a fractious Iraqi Parliament just learning democracy has still accomplished far more than the U.S. House of Representatives under Nancy Pelosi.

    Her horrid leadership has managed to drag Congress to the lowest approval ratings in history. Pelosi's Congress is polling nine points lower than Nixon's just ten days before he resigned.

    So Nancy... dear... I think you might have a wee bit of a projection issue going on.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:56 AM | Comments (14)

    July 17, 2008

    Herr Obama's Security Service

    Barack Obama's recent call for "civilian national security force" that is "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the nation's military didn't sound any better than it did in the original German.

    Does that perhaps explain why those comments are being suppressed by a compliant media?

    Update: Anyone know what a "conbatant" is?

    Snark at excitable Andy's spelling error aside, his defense of Obama is an original one, essentially, "Bush is Hitler, Obama is only Himmler."

    Why, that's just far more reassuring isn't it?

    [Comments closed due to spammers]

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:57 AM | Comments (58)

    July 16, 2008

    Flapjack's Gone Daft

    We never could have anticipated that Barack Obama would be so un-schooled as to think that the nuclear genie can be be put back in the proverbial bottle, that military or dual-use technology can be selectively unlearned, but there he goes.

    "As long as nuclear weapons exist, we'll retain a strong deterrent. But we will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy," Obama said.

    He added, "The danger ... is that we are constantly fighting the last war, responding to the threats that have come to fruition, instead of staying one step ahead of the threats of the 21st century."

    How can Obama claim he will stay "one step ahead of threats of the 21st century," by pretending 20th century technologies can be selectively recaptured and caged?

    How can he claim to be ahead of 21st century threats, when he won't face the problems generated by 6th century ideologies?

    And does anyone believe that his naive pacifism will be reciprocated by tyrants and dictators?

    Obama's speech is filled with platitudes, but we're electing a President, not a bubble-headed pageant winner, and the first-term senator is proving yet again that he simply doesn't have the judgment for the job.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:37 PM | Comments (12)

    July 15, 2008

    O'Hanlon: Flapjack's Position on Iraq "Height of Absurdity," Hints ObamaMessiah Is Too Incompetent for Presidency

    Michael, tell us how you really feel:

    Michael E. O'Hanlon, a Democratic defense analyst at the Brookings Institution who has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Iraq, said he could not believe that Obama would put such a definitive timeline into print before a trip to Iraq, where he is to consult with Iraqi leaders and U.S. commanders.

    "To say you're going to get out on a certain schedule -- regardless of what the Iraqis do, regardless of what our enemies do, regardless of what is happening on the ground -- is the height of absurdity," said O'Hanlon, who described himself as "livid." "I'm not going to go to the next level of invective and say he shouldn't be president. I'll leave that to someone else."

    Actually, that is exactly what he is intoning, he just doesn't want to be blamed for suggesting it: Barack Obama shouldn't be president.

    The presidency doesn't come with training wheels, which O'Hanlon, most conservatives, many moderates and independents, and an increasing number of Democrats (to their horror) are starting to realize as they weigh the candidate's possibility of success.

    Obama lacks executive experience, leadership experience, has no record of bipartisanship or significant legislative accomplishments, and has padded his resume to a shameless degree. With zero governing and wafer-thin legislative experience, he is running his campaign entirely on personal charisma and vague promises.

    But Obama's storied charisma is wearing thin, and his gimmicks—such as labeling every unfavorable eventuality or troubling flaw in his hoped-for ascendancy a "distraction"—are starting to be picked up on, and picked apart.

    His speeches, like the one he gave today, incorporate not just the nuance and shading of truth we expect from politicians, but outright, direct and unambiguous falsehoods based upon how he wishes the world was, not how it is.

    Obama claimed in his speech today:

    Iraq's leaders have not made the political progress that was the purpose of the surge.

    That is a direct lie. Iraqi has made significant progress in 15 of 18 fronts, according to the U.S. embassy. I'd note that this is far more progress than the U.S. Congress has made during a comparable time period. Obama isn't part of the solution for Iraq's government. He's part of the problem in America's.

    They have not invested tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues to rebuild their country.

    Really?

    Try Solar powered infrastructure improvements, at that.

    You'd think that a Democrat would like the fact that Iraq is "going green" as it reinvests in it's infrastructure. Instead, he, like his fellow elected Democrats, dally in Congress as they have for decades, philosophizing about energy sources that might be at some point in the distant future, while ignoring practical solutions to our current energy needs. We'd all love to live in world of cute fuzzy bunnies and unicorns where utterly clean energy sources existed, but that mythical source doesn't yet exist, and isn't powering the machines at the local neonatal intensive care unit, keeping our little miracles alive.

    Most Americans understand that and deal with those practicalities. Congressional Democrats such as Barack Obama don't.

    They have not resolved their differences or shaped a new political compact.

    That too, is a lie, as the passing of amnesty laws and the releasing of hundreds prisoners (including Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein) was one of those key sticking points of a new government including Iraqi Sunnis that sat out the country's formation.

    Nor did Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ever call for a timeline for withdrawal; his statements were misinterpreted, and were literally lost in translation. This a fact Obama doubtlessly knew before claiming Maliki said this in his speech, but it was convenient lie for Obama, and one he desperately wishes were true. He needs it to be true. He'll pretend it is true.

    But it isn't.

    Betraying a radical politicized worldview that is more cult theology than a practical governing philosophy, Barack Obama is beginning to scare his political enemies and most ardent supporters alike.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:04 PM | Comments (4)

    July 14, 2008

    Flapjack: Let's Not Talk About The War in Iraq

    Flapjack* pens an op-ed in the New York Times entitled "My Plan for Iraq" which is fascinating in that:

    1. his overly vague rhetoric proves he has no actual plans, only vacuous suggestions;
    2. it skates by the proven fact that his judgment on the surge was dead wrong, making the reader wonder about his judgment yet again; what kind of man brings up one of his greatest weaknesses, unsolicited?
    3. it reminds readers that had Obama's long-called-for headlong retreat be actualized, Iraq would have already been lost to chaos, billions in dollars of American military equipment would have been abandoned, and every casualty's sacrifice would have been in vain;
    4. the security vacuum he would have created (and still desires to create) would have likely triggered a genocide followed by a regional war that would make $10/gallon gas look reasonable.

    As he makes clear by his own hand, Barack Obama has no plans for success in Iraq, only plans for retreat.

    * Flapjack. Nickname for Barack Obama, coined by an eight-year-old. Obama starts on one side (the far left) until an issue gets hot, and then as the political heat becomes to great, he then flips his position.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:40 AM | Comments (8)

    About That New Yorker Cover...

    It looks like the political firestorm to start out the week is going to be the cover art on the latest edition of the New Yorker, which shows caricatures of Barack and Michelle Obama.

    The freshman Senator is shown dressed in traditional African apparel, "fist-bumping" Mrs. Obama, who is portrayed with a wild afro in a black shirt, combat boots, and camo fatigues with a AK-47 slung across her back, while an American flag burns in the fireplace and a portrait of Osama bin Laden hangs on the wall in what is apparently the Oval Office.

    Mike Allen of The Politico notes that the Obama Campaign is not amused:

    The Obama campaign quickly condemned the rendering. Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

    It is tasteless and offensive, but then, much of the content of the New Yorker falls into that category if you live outside the neo-Copernican worldview of a magazine that sees Manhattan as the center of the universe. Those of us outside of that self-involved hemorrhage of land between the Hudson and East Rivers are simply part of a bitter and clingy "not us" to the magazine's erudite familiars.

    It is perhaps this great unknowing of life to the left of the West Side Highway that causes even the caricatures of the Obama family to be wildly inaccurate. A lampoon is only effective when it contains truth, and certain elements of the imagery fall apart under even passing review.

    There is precious little truth, for example, in the casting of Michelle Obama as an apparent black nationalist. When mentioned by her detractors, Mrs. Obama is more likely to be mocked as a Hyde Park Eeyore than a militant disciple of Bobby Seale. Depictions of her as an Affirmative Action-enabled whiner with dubious patriotism are not uncommon, but she has never been portrayed as being violent.

    In that vein, there has never been any suggestion that either one of the Obama's would come within spitting distance of a firearm, much less actually touch (or wear) one. While his record on firearms is as anorexic as the rest of his resume, Barack clearly stated his intentions to outlaw all handguns of any kind, and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns as well during his short turn in state government. A parsing of his web site betrays that the first-term Senator does not recognize the right of self defense in any form, and contains only a vague nod towards hunting and target shooting, as if the Founders though that the taking of a pheasant was of such importance that it must be enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

    Other parts of the caricature were sadly more on target in displaying common attacks directed against Obama.

    Barack Obama does have a multi-level "Muslim problem."

    Militant Islamists want him to be president—Hamas even has phone banks in Gaza touting his candidacy—because they see a "soft" candidate that will allow them breathing room to operate. Dictatorships (including belligerent Islamic nations) look at Obama's pledge to abandon Iraq at any human cost as a sign of weakness, cowardice, and foolishness, and foresee an "all-talk" Neville Chamberlain in the White House that will allow them their localized brutalities with no interference.

    American Muslims see a candidate that shuns them, and even forces them off camera.

    Add in the fact that Obama's Muslim half-brother Abongo is militantly-Anti-European, and the junior Senator certainly has an image problem. The rumors that Obama is a secret Muslim trained in Islamic madrassas in his youth, when combined with real photos of Obama in traditional African dress, help portray as Obama as an insider not to be trusted.

    Even his surname—Ted Kennedy once famously mangled it—is a problem, sounding too much like that of al Qaeda's infamous leader. His middle name of "Hussein" has also been turned into a smear by some, encouraging some dim-witted but well-meaning supporters to interject it as their own in hopes of diluting its impact on xenophobes.

    As for the flag burning in the Oval Office fireplace in the image, it is obviously meant as an attack on the patriotism of both the candidate and his wife for numerous deeds, statements, and dubious entanglements with radicals.

    Obama's political career is based entirely upon relationships he developed with far left radicals in Chicago, from race-hustling ministers, to old Marxists and communists, to the infamous domestic terrorists in whose home he started his improbable political run.

    The caricature based upon rumors associated with Barack Obama in the New Yorker is distasteful. A picture based upon just the facts would even more inflammatory.

    Update: Michelle Malkin shows far worse examples of political art, and suggests the improbable.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:14 AM | Comments (9)

    July 11, 2008

    Obama goes After NASCAR Crowd

    Brilliant.

    Unfortunately for the driver, he intends to send the pit crew home halfway through the race and then blame the inevitable loss on the previous sponsor.

    Update: Michelle Malkin has more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:40 PM | Comments (9)

    U.S. Commanders: Flapjack's 16-Month Withdrawal Plan Nearly Impossible

    We've known this, of course, even strictly for a logical standpoint, much less the moral view. To do as Obama has pledged to the Copperheads would mean the abandonment of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer-purchased U.S. equipment, and is not just an abandonment of the Iraqi people and an affront to those who have sacrificed so much to get Iraq where it is today.

    Still, it's nice to see his hollow, defeatist-placating rhetoric exposed as being "very dangerous."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:25 AM | Comments (8)

    July 10, 2008

    Find 'Em First

    Jesse Jackson is as offended as the rest of us over how Barack Obama regards his fellow Americans with disdain, but goes the extra yard and suggests rather crudely that the first-term Senator from Illinois should be castrated.

    After watching Obama flip and flop on every issue, pandering first to one special interest group, then reversing course to pander to another, what makes the good Reverend so sure Flapjack has a pair to begin with?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:06 AM | Comments (5)

    July 09, 2008

    Stop the Smears

    Like you, from time to time I'm forwarded chain emails, and because of what I choose to blog about, invariably quite a few of those are political in nature.

    One I got this evening regarded a Navy pilot shot down in Vietnam in 1967 by the name of Mike Christian, the Pledge of Allegiance, and a flag sewn from scraps of cloth with a bamboo needle.

    According to the good folks at Snopes, the story is absolutely true.

    What got me, though, was the picture that accompanied Christian's story in the email, and the caption under it.

    The man in the photo, Barack Obama, is accused of not placing his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance.

    I am glad to say this is absolutely false.

    It was the National Anthem.

    Now don't you feel better?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:34 PM | Comments (34)

    An ABC News Poll They Don't Want You to See

    It looks like the Messiah isn't doing so well with a certain demographic.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:48 PM | Comments (2)

    July 07, 2008

    I'd Look Forward to Seeing This Headline Again in the Future...

    ... they've now run it twice, just to make sure you know where they stand—but rather doubt David Broder and the editors of the Washington Post will have the integrity to attach similar language to the epitaph of the senior Senator from West Virginia when the time comes for his remembrance.

    I'm sorry, West Virginia, but it's an embarrassment that the Kleagle is still the state Byrd.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:26 PM | Comments (10)

    July 04, 2008

    Obama vs. Obama

    According to BarackObama.com, Barack Obama "put his political career on the line" campaigning as "a candidate for the United States Senate in 2002" when he opposed going to war in Iraq.

    They phrase it like this:

    Now, I am not an Obama fan by any stretch and I didn't pay a lot of attention to him until he began running for President, but wasn't he just an Illinois state senator, speaking on the undercard of a Jesse Jackson speech on October, 2 2002?

    Obama didn't announce his 2004 U.S. Senate bid until January of 2003.

    His speech in Chicago would have long ago disappeared, lost in time like any other speech by any other unknown state legislator, had he not made it a focal point of his following campaigns.

    Claiming that he "put his career on the line" by making a then obscure speech in front of a handful of agreeing Marxists organized by former Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) radicals Marilyn Katz and Carl Davidson is a significant exaggeration.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:41 AM | Comments (7)

    July 03, 2008

    Words are Nice. Actions Are Better.

    Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama is on a tour across America designed to rehabilitate his reputation, after a CNN poll conducted on June 26-29 revealed that a surprising number of Americans—Democrats (10%), Independents (29%), and Republicans (40%), or 25% overall—say that the candidate lacks patriotism.

    I must wonder how much a string of speeches will do to convince people that Obama loves America. They are, after all, "just words."

    He certainly loves parts of America. San Francisco. Chicago. New York. D.C. University towns and union enclaves. Where left wing ideologies and identity politics hold sway, you'll find a part of America that Obama likes and understands.

    The rest of the nation may as well be another world for the freshman Senator, as remote to him as the Indonesian schools of his youth are to the rest of us.

    He doesn't seem to understand that the America outside of his comfort zone doesn't associate the sincerity or depth of love with this nation with fealty to the political party in charge at the time. He's used to seeing feckless American liberals threaten to leave the country if a Republican wins an election—though regrettably, few of these fickle souls live up to their word—and associates that as a normal behavior. Instead of "My country, right or wrong," his life story is a tale replete with a string of associates and mentors that boldly proclaim "my country, my way, or God damn you all."

    Speeches are nice, and he certainly plays a teleprompter as lyrically as a human being can.

    But Barack Obama has lived his life in the counterculture of America. He counts among his greatest influences a communist poet, a lynching advocate priest, a crackpot conspiracy-mongering reverend, and the detritus remnants of the last great experiment in American self-loathing.

    The majority of Americans have been raised with a nearly instinctual love of this nation that is not tied to who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and that doesn't associate pride or shame in their nation of birth solely on the policies and actions of elected officials that will blow away on an electoral wind.

    The freshman Senator from Illinois is surprisingly insulated from the American experience, even as he claims to credit America for his success. He claims to believe in the America, but every policy he outlines, every dream he frames, is nailed to an ever-engorging government. A program for this. A policy for that. Restrictions here, entitlements all around, and a tax on both your houses to pay for it all.

    Barack Obama is in love with the possibilities of American government. It's too bad he has so little trust in the American people.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:16 AM | Comments (15)

    July 02, 2008

    Durham Democratic Party/Satanic Cult Shuts Down Web Site After Second Official Arrested

    Demonic Change we Can Believe In?

    Diana Palmer, 44, of Cottage Woods Court, surrendered to police Wednesday afternoon. She was charged with being an accessory after the fact of assault with a deadly weapon and was being held in the Durham County Jail under a $95,000 bond.

    [snip]

    Palmer is first vice chair of the Durham County Democratic Party. Johnson resigned her positions as third vice-chair of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice-chair of the Young Democrats following her arrest.

    The county party disabled its Web site Wednesday afternoon.

    www.durhamdemocrats.org/ is indeed offine, but their backup site is functioning.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:24 PM | Comments (7)

    "We're Bringing a Pitiful, Helpless Giant to Its Knees."

    Mr. Obama, perhaps you should worry less about disassociating yourself from law-abiding American Muslims, and spend more time running away from your long-time terrorist friends.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:51 AM | Comments (2)

    Insert "Loan Ranger" Puns Here

    Is anyone actually surprised?

    I can't feign outrage over Barack Obama using his position as a new U.S. Senator to help secure a lower rate on a loan for The Home That Resko Built Helped Cut a Deal On.

    Obama had no prior relationship with the lender, was taking out a $1.32 million loan below market rates, without paying the customary fees. So what?

    This is politics folks, and this a typical example of why people go into a line of work that exposes them to constant ridicule and scorn. It's about amassing power and prestige for the payoff of parlaying that influence into personal gains, be they monetary, or the advancement of philosophical beliefs.

    Barack Obama did precisely what every other politician does, and nothing more.

    The only reason this story merits any attention is that Obama's campaign has created a mythology around him that casts him as a reformer.

    It is an excellent marketing gimmick, and he'll ride it as long as it is effective and helps the brand he is creating, but make no mistake; like all other politicians operating at this level, Barack Obama holds one conviction, and one conviction only: I'm going to get mine.

    And he did.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:02 AM | Comments (19)

    June 30, 2008

    Some Obama Fans Really Are In a Cult

    Too bad they worship someone other than the Obamamessiah:

    Prosecutors said Craig's victims met him through a shared interest in Satan worship. They alleged Craig shackled his victims to beds, kept them in dog cages and starved them inside his Albany Street home.

    He was charged with beating one victim with a cane and a cord and with raping a woman.

    Johnson, who was third vice-chair of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice-chair for the Young Democrats, was charged with two counts of aiding and abetting. Prosecutors said she knew her husband planned the crime and watched as they were committed.

    She has resigned her positions with the Democratic Party, said state Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham.

    When reached for comment this afternoon, Obama said, "this is not the Satan-worshiping third vice-chair of the Durham County Democratic Party that I knew."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:05 PM | Comments (17)

    Code Pink Founder: "I Wouldn't Characterize Anybody Who Fought in Vietnam As A War Hero."

    This quote was from Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, an organization that gave $600,000 in cash and supplies in "humanitarian aide" to an insurgent-controlled Fallujah several years ago in our current war (the Marines won anyway, which is perhaps why Code Pink is leading the assault against the Marines in Berkeley).

    That is just one toxic outburst is a collection of indefensible comments from the radical fringe of the Democratic Party laughably called "progressives" in a series of personal attacks levied at Presidential candidate John McCain and chronicled by Ben Smith in a Politico article.

    Prominent progressive blogger John Aravosis attacked McCain for breaking under brutal torture in North Vietnamese prisons, and labeled the unwilling use of McCain in a North Vietnamese propaganda film as "disloyalty." Tellingly, Aravosis has never uttered similar words of disapproval against Jane Fonda, who willingly and famously posed for propaganda photos on North Vietnamese antiaircraft guns that were used to shoot at American pilots like McCain.

    Other angry souls associated with MoveOn.org, CounterPunch, the Huffington Post, and Mother Jones also have expressed interest in attacking McCain's military record.

    Democrat Wesley Clark—notable for his scarcity of support in the military, notes fighter pilot Lex—also attacked McCain's military experience as an example of poor leadership experience, without, or course, expressing how Obama's thin resume has prepared him to lead anything as consequential as a Cub Scout Troop.

    We've known that Barack Obama's base among the radical fringe would bring out some long-seated uglinesses in part of the Democratic Party that makes up his base, but I don't think that anyone could have expected it would come out this soon, this hard, this transparently.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:13 AM | Comments (19)

    He Just Can't Help Lying, Can He?

    An email fired out to supporters by the Obama Campaign:

    Tonight is the crucial financial reporting deadline for June.

    Right now is the time to step up and own a piece of this campaign. I need your help to take on John McCain, the Republican National Committee, and the shady so-called 527 groups that are dedicated to attacking this campaign using millions of dollars in unregulated contributions.

    Please support this movement by making a donation of $25 by Midnight tonight:

    https://donate.barackobama.com/deadlinejune

    Together we are setting a new standard for how presidential campaigns will be organized and funded.

    For the first time in a generation, a presidential campaign is putting staff in every single state for the general election. Our staff and the Obama Organizing Fellows are getting to work right now to build on grassroots energy in all 50 states.

    And -- unlike John McCain -- we're going to do it without contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs that have held too much power for far too long in this country.

    By putting our organizational and financial future in your hands, it's clear who will be responsible for our success and who we will be accountable to in the White House: the people.

    But in order to match the resources of our opponents, we're going to have to do more and get more people involved than ever before. Your donation of $25 right now will help make that happen:

    https://donate.barackobama.com/deadlinejune

    I'm counting on you to take the lead and build this campaign.

    The stakes couldn't be higher, and every American who hopes for something better from their government is counting on us.

    Thank you,

    Barack

    We see Obama is still signing his name to an lie so obvious that even NPR is smacking him around for it. The only 527s of note have been those formed to support the election of Hillary Clinton... or Barack Obama. There are no significant Republican 527s in 2008, and none are expected. Obama's fundraising pitch is based upon a lie.

    I guess we'll know soon how many of his supporters are willing to accept being lied to time and again.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:50 AM | Comments (5)

    June 25, 2008

    Not Alex, Thank God

    Like many of you I saw the insipid MoveOn.org "Not Alex" ad, in which a young liberal mother proves her lack of knowledge of our military (we don't draft), ignorance of term limits (John McCain won't still be President in 17 years), parental consent laws (at 18, Alex can make his own decisions, including joining the military is he so desires) and selfishness (send someone else's child to defend her freedoms). At least we can be thankful that Alex's mother didn't exercise her option for "choice"... this time, at least.

    Over at Hot Air this morning, Ed posts a rebuttal video from the family of Eric Egland, an Air Force veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.

    I don't know if it is simply a matter of perception, an artifact of the campaign season, or a real and growing divide, but it seems that the values and ideals held by those on the far left are becoming more and more divorced from those traditional values generally credited with this nation's success up until now. They don't seem to be pushing away from just the right, but from the center as well.

    Is anyone else seeing anything like this?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:26 AM | Comments (25)

    June 18, 2008

    Obama Volunteers Boot Muslims From Stage

    I don't think for a second that the freshman Senator is himself anti-Muslim—his father's family and many of his half-siblings are Muslim—but this incident once again shows he is part of anything other than a post-racial campaign:

    Two Muslim women at Barack Obama's rally in Detroit Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women's headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.

    The campaign has apologized to the women, all Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally.

    "This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter to Obama's commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "We sincerely apologize for the behavior of these volunteers."

    He can blame the volunteers that forced these Muslim women off stage today in two separate incidents by different Obama volunteers, but these incidents aren't the first and second audience-shaping controversies for Obama's campaign. In April, campaign volunteers issued a directive to "Get me more white people, we need more white people" for Michelle Obama's appearance at Carnegie Mellon.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:25 AM | Comments (20)

    June 17, 2008

    Obama Gaffes Again

    Somebody get a history book for the clueless freshman Senator from Illinois (my bold):

    And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.

    And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, "Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims."

    For the moment let's ignore that terrorist recruitment in general (and for al Qaeda in particular) is on the decline and Barack is making up his inconvenient untruths as he goes along, to focus instead on his insistence that Bill Clinton's flawed policy of treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue is somehow a winning strategy. We'll use Obama's own 1993 WTC bombing example to debunk his claim.

    It's quite simple: where is the 1993 World Trade Center bomb-builder? Is he in a U.S prison, as Obama claims? Not even close.

    Though grossly neglected in the media, Abdul Rahman Yasin conducted the first attempted chemical weapons attack on U.S. soil by terrorists with the 1993 World Trade Center bomb. The bomb that detonated in the WTC garage in 1993 was built by Yasin to create smoke filled with sodium cyanide *(update, see below) which he hoped would rise through elevator shafts, ventilation ducts, and stairwells to suffocate 50,000 people.

    Fortunately for those in the World Trade Center that day, the bomb burned hotter than Yasin expected, and incinerated the cyanide as it detonated instead of spreading it in toxic smoke.

    Yasin fled the United States after the bombing to Iraq, and lived as Saddam Hussein's guest in Baghdad until the invasion. He is still free, and wanted by the FBI.

    Once again, Barack Obama is dead wrong on the facts.

    Update: It now appears that the claim that Yasin used sodium cyanide in the bomb is on very weak ground, and is more than likely false From an online term paper that does a good job of synthesizing the story.

    Forensics in World Trade Center Bombing in 1993

    ... So, what were the evidences, which supported the statement of the Judge Duffy, that there had been cyanide in the WTC bomb? The main question to be solved here lied in the following: what could be the consequences of mixing cyanide with nitric or sulfuric acids, both of which had been found in the bomb fragments? The FBI chemist Steven Burgmeister was the main person to be inquired about the results of the forensic chemical analysis. The thing is, that Burgmeister never made it clear, that he had come to any positive conclusions as for cyanide' presence in the explosive. (Dwyer, 1994, p. 237) This is an abstract from the Burgmeister's interview by one of the prosecutors during the trial:

    Prosecutor: What happens, when sodium cyanide is mixed with nitric or sulfuric acid?

    Burmeister: There is formed hydrogen cyanide, which is a gas, and which is extremely toxic.

    Prosecutor: When you say, that hydrogen cyanide is very toxic, could you give an idea of how toxic it is?

    Burmeister: Very toxic, if you breathe, you are dead… (Burgmeister, 1994, p. 6911)

    One of the proofs for FBI agents was the discovery of the bottle with sodium cyanide at the place, where the terrorists were preparing their explosive. But it is clear, that this does not directly prove there was any cyanide in the bomb. The fact is that sodium cyanide may be used for different purposes, for example, for photography. Its cost is very low, and it is sold in tons for industrial use. There have been also carried out technical analysis as for how much cyanide would be needed to create such an explosive, and how it is possible to create hydrogen cyanide and the assertions of the Judge Duffy were not confirmed by the FBI. (Dwyer, 1994, p. 240)

    It seems that the cyanide claims I cited in this and the previous blog entry were based upon the words of Judge Duffy, based upon his interpretation of what he heard from FBI chemist Steven Burgmeister, yet Burgmeister neither confirmed nor denied cyanide was in the bomb. I'm not sure how Duffy got from Burgmeister's statements to his conclusion. Forensics did not recover any cyanide at the bomb site, only a small quantity at the sit where the bomb was constructed.

    None of that matters to the central thesis, which is that Obama was wrong about terrorist recruitment and about his daft view that combating terrorism is best done as a law enforcement matter.

    Law enforcement is the enforcement of laws after they have been broken and a crime has been committed. Preemption is not an option using this model; you can't arrest a terrorist until they have broken a law, and you can't do that unless you have jurisdiction, cooperation with local law enforcement, a judge who will give you a warrant, etc. Good luck with that.

    The terrorists use asymmetrical warfare as their tool of choice, and common sense dictates that the proper response is also military in nature.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:04 PM | Comments (86)

    They Never Change

    Pfleger's baaaaack:

    Two weeks after his controversial sermon on race sparked a national uproar, Rev. Michael Pfleger returned Monday to his office at St. Sabina Catholic Church, expressing gratitude to Cardinal Francis George and saying activism would always be a part of him.

    Pfleger said he would wait to make further comments until mass Sunday, when he plans to address his entire congregation for the first time since George suspended him. St. Sabina, one of the most vibrant Catholic churches in the city, is predominantly African-American and draws nearly 2,000 worshipers.

    "I'm good. I'll speak Sunday and give my talk then," Pfleger said as he sifted through a desk full of papers. "I'm grateful to be back and to do what I'm called to do. I'm grateful to the cardinal for letting me back."

    When asked if he was the same "Michael Pfleger" as before, he said: "I'm me. I'm not changing. This is how I've been since I've been born. I'm not changing."

    I find it refreshing that like the other radicals in Barack Obama's closet, Michael Pfleger is the same person today as he was yesterday, as he was more than 20 years ago when he first became a moral compass for Barack Obama. Jeremiah Wright, likewise, seems to have never veered from his course in the decades Obama followed him until now, even after those controversial views were exposed. These men have strong views and convictions that are unwavering. Their core values have apparently remain unchanged. Most of Obama's associates have also remained true to themselves.

    Obama kicked off his political career at the home of domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn. The Obama campaign has tried to minimize their relationship, but the facts remain that Obama has extensive tied to Ayers.

    Obama and Ayers served together for many years at the Woods Fund, and Obama was chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $50 million education grant project for which Ayers wrote the grant proposal. Steve Diamond at the blog Global Labor and the Global Economy makes a compelling argument that it was a concerted effort of the Ayers family, including terrorist Bill, his father Thomas, brother John, and Bill's Manson Family-admiring wife (and fellow Weatherman terrorist) Bernadine Dorhn that "made" Obama's poltical career:

    Thus, we have one possible answer to the question: Who "sent" Obama? It was the Ayers family, including Tom, John, Bill and Bernardine Dohrn.

    It is highly unlikely that a 30-something second year lawyer would have been plucked from relative obscurity out of a left wing law firm to head up something as visible and important in Chicago as the Annenberg Challenge by Bill Ayers if Ayers had not already known Obama very well. One possibility is that Obama proved himself to the Ayers's in the battle for local school control when he was at the DCP in the 80s.

    Diamond also ties Obama's present Presidential campaign to other radicals, including the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a faction of which later became the Weathermen:

    As it turns out, there are other ex-SDS types around the Obama campaign as well, including Marilyn Katz, a public relations professional, who was head of security for the SDS during the disaster in the streets of Chicago in 1968. She is close (politically) to Carl Davidson, a former vice president of SDS and longtime Fidelista, who is webmaster for a group called Progressives for Obama, that is headlined by other former 60s radicals like Tom Hayden and the maoist Bill Fletcher. Davidson and Katz were key organizers of the 2002 anti-war demonstration where Obama made public his opposition to the Iraq war that has been so critical to his successful presidential campaign. Davidson apparently moved into the maoist movements of the 70s after the disintegration of SDS.

    None of these people have deviated from established characters and viewpoints that are unerringly radical in nature when compared to the traditional values of most Americans.

    This web of radical associates strongly suggests that the actual substance of Barack Obama is quite different from the carefully-scripted character his campaign message machine has tried to forge in the media. It strongly suggests that his continual, inevitable surprise at the uncovered radicalism of his dearest friends and oldest contacts is entirely feigned.

    The Obama campaigns attempts to minimize his troubling, decades-long relationships with radicals is nothing more than more or less than the work of a campaign feverishly trying to hide a past that most conservative Democrats and independent voters would find revolting.

    From his absolutist views on the Second Amendment in favor of outlawing most common firearms, to support of a radical view of reproductive rights "too close to infanticide" that suggests babies who survive abortions should be left to die, to a "dazed and malaised" return to Jimmy Carter's failed economics, the greatest challenge to Barack Obama's campaign is consistently Barack Obama himself, and his requirement of us that we believe a lifetime shaped by and shared with the most radical fringes of society was a lifetime spent in the dark, not knowing who these people really are, unaware of the influence they had over him.

    Barack Obama requires potential voters to accept that he doesn't know his friends, his family, nor himself. Should someone with such a stunning lack of awareness be President?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:55 AM | Comments (5)

    June 16, 2008

    POT MEET KETTLE: Obama Says Black Men Should Be Better Fathers

    Frankly, I agree with the general sentiment. He's raised valid points few will argue.

    That said, I did notice that Obama gave his speech at the Apostolic Church of God, and not Trinity United Church of Christ. Obama recently quit Trinity at roughly the same time it was discovered that Rev. Jeremiah Wright was refusing to relinquish control of the church, and lynching advocate Rev. Michael Pfleger issued forth his most recent offensive comments against Hillary Clinton in specific and white people in general in front of a congregation roaring their approval.

    Someone should ask Obama if absentee fatherism is any worst than purposefully exposing their children to the hate speech of that radical church for nearly the entirety of their short lives. One doesn't have to be an absentee father to be a bad one, a point that a man closely aligned with a cadre of racists, conspiracy theorists, political radicals, anti-Semites, and domestic terrorists would no doubt rather ignore.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:33 AM | Comments (8)

    June 13, 2008

    Che We Can Beleive In?

    Nope, not concerned about liberal judges, at all.

    (h/t Gabriel Malor)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:10 AM | Comments (2)

    Krauthammer: Iraqis Have Done "Nothing;" Somehow Obama Has Done Less

    And here's his sarcastic list of the "nothings" they've accomplished that "cut-and-run Barry" Obama tries to pretend haven't happened:

    1. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent the Iraqi army into Basra. It achieved in a few weeks what the British had failed to do in four years: take the city, drive out the Mahdi army, and seize the ports from Iranian-backed militias.
    2. When Mahdi fighters rose up in support of their Basra brethren, the Iraqi army at Maliki's direction confronted them and prevailed in every town — Najaf, Karbala, Hilla, Kut, Nasiriyah, and Diwaniyah — from Basra to Baghdad.
    3. Without any American ground forces, the Iraqi army entered and occupied Sadr City, the Mahdi army stronghold.
    4. Maliki flew to Mosul, directing a joint Iraqi-U.S. offensive against the last redoubt of al-Qaeda, which had already been driven out of Anbar, Baghdad, and Diyala provinces.
    5. The Iraqi parliament enacted a de-Baathification law, a major Democratic benchmark for political reconciliation.
    6. Parliament also passed the other reconciliation benchmarks — a pension law, an amnesty law, and a provincial elections and powers law. Oil revenues are being distributed to the provinces through the annual budget.
    7. With Maliki having demonstrated that he would fight not just Sunni insurgents (e.g., in Mosul) but Shiite militias (e.g., the Mahdi army), the Sunni parliamentary bloc began negotiations to join the Shiite-led government. (The final sticking point is a squabble over a sixth Cabinet position.)

    You would think that the media would do more to force Obama to recognize that his view of Iraqi is frozen in time in 2006. AFP, Reuters, McClatchy, the Associated Press, etc., all have journalists in the region. Many have multiple reporters, videographers, and photographers throughout the country of Iraq itself.

    At least one of those news agencies, the Associated Press, has benefited directly and publicly from the new laws passed by the Iraqi Parliament that have largely been ignored in the press. Pulitzer-winning AP photojournalist Bilal Hussein, captured with a known al Qaeda leader, was released from prison several months ago directly as a result of Iraq's new amnesty law, and not, as the news organization would have you believe, because he was found innocent.

    But the media refuse to push Obama and other Democrats to admit to their failure to recognize the massive changes sweeping Iraq since the 2006 elections.

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid still doggedly insists that the U.S. "surge" is a continuation of Bush's original policies, and that strategically, tactically, and politically, nothing has changed. He still shrilly insists the war is "lost" acting as if the Sunni and Shia Awakening movements, Iraqi political advancement on both domestic and foreign policy fronts, and the impressive performance of Iraqi security forces successfully executing a cascade of large-scale operations, never occurred.

    Nancy Pelosi presides over the other half one of the most unaccomplished Congresses in U.S. history, with the lowest approval rates in history, currently a dismal 10.3% lower than even George W. Bush's 29% approval rating. She take a similar route as Reid, insisting that there is no progress... but said if there was, it is because of the efforts of Iran. She will not credit the American and Iraqi forces with their hard-won successes. Instead, she would give credit to those training and arming forces those fighting against the Iraqi government.

    Neither Reid, nor Pelosi, nor their anti-war allies will concede progress in Iraq because they've thoroughly wedded their political futures to failure there, and have left themselves no viable escape routes. This means that Democrats have created for themselves a vicious trap, where for the good of their party, they have to pull against two democracies (the United States and Iraq), against freedom, and against peace.

    They have created for themselves a hell where for their aspirations to come true, they must hope for a failed state, crippled by resurgent brutality. The must hope that recent successes change back for the worst. History may well well look back on the post-surge Democratic House and Senate of 2007-2008 as being the most anti-democratic Congress since similar Democrats (called copperheads) attempted to concede the U.S. Civil War.

    Barack Obama took the lead early in attacking the Iraq War, even when he was just a state Senator in Illinois and had no access to intelligence information to base that opinion upon. He doggedly stuck to that position through the worst of Iraq's violence in 2006, riding a cry of withdrawal and defeat to prominence, first in the U.S. Senate, and then within scant months of graduating from his mediocre stint in state politics, into the Democratic Presidential race.

    His strident, unwavering opposition to the war is the entirety of his appeal; without the conflict, his resume of unaccomplishments and rote university-indoctrinated progressive politics make him an entirely conventional and uninteresting urban Democratic candidate, if one admittedly better at reading a teleprompter than most.

    For this reason, Barack Obama is forced to continue running on a platform of failure in Iraq. He cannot acknowledge that his position on the war has been proven wrong. To make that concession—admitting that John McCain was right to take the unpopular position of supporting the "surge" now that the situation has so radically changed in favor of success—is to admit defeat in the general election.

    Instead, Barack Obama has hitched his entire political future to becoming a political Frankenstein. He combines the worst aspects of two Presidents reviled by many; Jimmy Carter's naive pacifism and horrific grasp of taxation and economics, with George W. Bush's dead-certain stubbornness, tightly-scripted and excessively-controlled (one might even say Rovian) public relations, arrogant detachment, and inflexibility.

    Obama is a man wedded to a singular message, which he markets as "hope and change."

    But his "hope" is reliant on a return of brutal sectarian and terrorist violence, the collapse of the first Arab democracy, and the extinguishing of freedom. His "change" entails a headlong and arbitrary retreat, regardless of what threats the ensuing security vacuum will cause in the lives of Iraqi men, women, and children just beginning to cautiously embrace a less violent, dictator-free society.

    Barack Obama has staked his future on dragging two nations back into the past, into defeat. That is not a change we can accept from a man who has never shown at any point in his life that he is capable of being a leader.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:54 AM | Comments (5)

    June 12, 2008

    You Don't Want to Go There

    Judging by all the links noted on Memeorandum to this Salon article, the left has decided to raise a huge stink about a Fox News caption labeling Michelle Obama as "Obama's baby mama."

    There are two reasons they should drop this tempest in a teacup quickly. The first is that Michelle Obama has referred to herself in similar terms ("My baby's daddy Barack Obama" is the same thing as calling herself "Obama's baby mama"), making them look rather childish and petty.

    The second is that they don't want to start a legitimacy argument related to this particular candidate. Barack Obama Sr. never divorced his first wife Kezia Obama. His wedding to Ann Dunham when she was three months pregnant with the junior Senator was illegitimate, and so was the junior Senator. This isn't "new" news—the information has been out there for anyone to see—and it shouldn't be that big of a deal, but his supporters shouldn't start conversations that they may not want to finish.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:39 PM | Comments (48)

    June 11, 2008

    Rallying for Defeat

    John McCain is presumably learning a hard lesson as Democrats and their willing accomplices in the media unfairly rip him (yet again) over comments about Iraq taken utterly out of context.

    The exchange that has Democrats licking their chops began when co-host Matt Lauer asked about the surge strategy in Iraq: "If it's working Senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?"

    McCain replied: "No, but that's not too important. What's important is the casualties in Iraq, Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine. American casualties and the ability to withdraw; we will be able to withdraw. General [David] Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are.

    "But the key to it is that we don't want any more Americans in harm's way. That way, they will be safe, and serve our country and come home with honor and victory, not in defeat, which is what Senator Obama's proposal would have done. I'm proud of them. And they're doing a great job. And we are succeeding and it's fascinating that Senator Obama still doesn't realize that."

    From that exchange, all Democrats heard was "No, but that's not too important."

    The deceptively shortened quote was possibly taken out of context by ignorance, but far more likely by design. What McCain seemed to be saying is that arbitrarily-decided pullout dates (such as the 16 month "run for the exits" date favored by Obama) are asinine; conditions on the ground should indicate when a withdrawal is feasible, and he thinks he'd have a better idea of when that might possible be the next time General David Petraeus briefs Congress in June.

    Common sense, isn't it?

    John "find me a river" Kerry twisted McCain's words, perhaps filtered through a too tight magic hat, and claimed:

    McCain's comment was "unbelievably out of touch with the needs and concerns of most Americans," saying that to families of troops in harm's way, "To them, it's the most important thing in the world."

    Kerry claimed "an enormous, fundamental flaw in his candidacy for the presidency, which supposedly has hung on his strength as commander in chief and his understanding of foreign policy."

    Kerry's foreign policy, like freshman Senator Obama's, is based upon the goal of losing the war, hoping that even at this late date a defeat could be portrayed as Bush's loss, not a concerted effort by the leaders the modern Democratic Party to cost their nation a war in the hope of establishing short-term political gains.

    These Copperhead Democrats naturally view a desire for victory a "fundamental flaw," one that is "unbelievably out of touch" with their goals.

    Ignored by the media in McCain's comments was his noting that Obama and many of his supporters still refuse to concede progress in Iraq, despite across-the-board gains.

    Democrats have spent the past seven years excoriating George W. Bush for doggedly holding an absolutist view on certain issues, immune to acknowledging changing conditions. I find it highly amusing that they now rally around a political neophyte with many of the exact same personality traits.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:47 PM | Comments (31)

    Get Your Racist Checklist Here

    Here you go, haters.

    I'll have you know this does not help Michelle Obama's children.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:23 AM | Comments (1)

    June 10, 2008

    Welcome Back Carter

    Despite the hopes of Democrats, the economy isn't going to tank, at least not unless Barack Obama gets into the White House.

    While the media would like to help along the meme that McCain's financial plan of low taxes and lowered government spending is a continuation of Bush's economy, that is fiction. McCain's policies are in line with Ronald Reagan's successful conservative economic plans; of the two Presidential candidates, it is Obama's plan that is more like those practiced by Bush.

    The bloated government and increased spending seen under the Bush Administration is horrific from a fiscally conservative standpoint, and a prequel to what would occur if the ultra-liberal Obama campaign lives up to its promises, creating more than $87 billion in new government and entitlements. Obama will need to substantially raise taxes to fulfill even some of his campaign promises.

    Think Bush is bad? Obama will be worse, pulling for "higher income taxes, Social Security taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes," and taxes on job-creating small businesses straight out of the "dazed and malaised" days of James Earl Carter's failed one-term Presidency. I'm sure I am not alone in hearing from parents concerned that an Obama presidency will ruin the economy for their children.

    This is just on the home front, where Obama thinks he's strongest. Overseas, Obama is even more of a dismal failure.

    We are not losing in Iraq, despite the best efforts of Democrats in Congress and on the Presidential campaign trial. Oh, they've certainly tried, but the war is actually progressing well enough that a Iraqi Sunni sheik is pressing to go to Afghanistan to help fight al Qaeda there. He trusts America. Democrats? Not so much.

    As for Iran, the mullah's no doubt salivate at the possibility of an Obama presidency, and the reasons why are obvious.

    They seek to exploit Obama's status as a foreign policy naif pledged to a campaign of pacifism to recreate the glory days of their Islamic Revolution. I'd remind you that these were their glory days due in no small part due to Carter's ineffectual Presidency, which Obama is already emulating with his stated policy of unconditional talks with tyrants. Other strongmen in the region also smell Obama's fear, which is why they are actively campaigning for him.

    He's a well-rounded candidate, the first-term senator from Illinois. Obama's foreign policy is equally incompetent as are his domestic policies, all of which are as bad or worse than that of the thirty-ninth President.

    Higher taxes. Bigger government. Intrusive regulations.

    Welcome Back, Carter.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:52 AM | Comments (14)

    Impeachment: Just Do It

    Former Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has filed articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush.

    I hope that the Democrat-controlled Congress will not treat this event with the seriousness that it deserves, and instead, high on their own fumes, launches full-blown impeachment proceedings.

    Let's do this thing.

    We've been listening the fringe left grow ever more hysterical over the past few years, perpetrating the "Bush lied, people died" hyperbole so long and hard that they now accept their fevered fantasies as fact, even as their own politically-motivated investigations proven otherwise.

    So let us see the Democrats make their very best case for impeachment. Let us see every one of their "facts" placed under extreme scrutiny in a national spotlight, carried across network and cable news and wire services in an onslaught of continuous wall-to-wall coverage, with nary a second of coverage ignored.

    Support your rhetoric. Make your best case directly to the American people. Lay out all the facts, under oath.

    Give it your best shot, impeachment fans.

    We can hardly wait.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:01 AM | Comments (36)

    June 09, 2008

    Eeyore to Get New Tail

    Though I doubt it helps her much.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:33 PM | Comments (2)

    Prequel: Obama's Legacy Already Lamer Than Gore's

    At least manbearpig is falsely credited with creating something of value.

    Obama? Not so much.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:35 PM | Comments (1)

    Vote for Obama, You Bunch of Knuckle-Dragging, Bible-Thumping, Gun-Toting Racists

    That is the subtext, oui?

    Joyce Susick is the type of voter who might carry Barack Obama to the White House — or keep him out. A registered Democrat in a highly competitive state, she is eager to replace George W. Bush, whom she ranks among the worst presidents ever.

    There's just one problem.

    "I don't think our country is ready for a black president," Susick, who is white, said in an interview in the paint store where she works. "A black man is never going to win Pennsylvania."

    Susick said her personal objection to Obama is his inexperience, not his color. "It has nothing to do with race," she said.

    Obama has national political experience that is dwarfed by that of Dan Quayle, a resume devoid of leadership experience, economic policies that look like they were designed by Jack Kevorkian, and a collection of friends and associates better viewed by a grand jury than an electorate, but the media wants you to think that only your inherent racism is keeping you from voting from him.

    Why, you don't even know how racist you are.

    Many voters hide their feelings from pollsters and it is possible that some do not even realize race's influence on their behavior.

    You might even be racist and senile.

    Robert Miller, 72, who lives in a government subsidized room in Bedford, said the Constitution should be amended so it will "not let any colored people run for the White House." He seemed unsure about his voting record in recent elections, but vividly recalled voting for Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.

    You may not recognize the symptoms, folks, but you know the cure: vote Obama.

    Update: Carol Platt Liebau discusses the meme.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 PM | Comments (4)

    The General Election Gets Dirty

    Over the course of the weekend my comment sections on several posts was hit by anti-McCain comments (summarily deleted) that appear to be astroturfed, claiming that McCain's actions during his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese was dishonorable, echoing a theme that his drawing disability pay for lingering injuries resulting from his torture was dishonorable (and apparently sinfully unattractive to at least one key Obama-supporting blogger).

    After a 2004 campaign in which Democrats were first to play up the service of one Vietnam veteran, they are now lurching back towards the more familiar ground of spitting upon them. We should expect more of this.

    This morning I was sent a chain email (origins murky and unknown, but based upon stilted syntax and racial overtones, I'll suggest it originated from a Clinton supporter prior to Obama's clinching of the nomination), including pictures of Obama's African relatives as the new "First Family."

    It included pictures of his Kenyan grandmother, Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama, Obama's stepmother Kezia, half-bother Abongo, half-brother Malik, his father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., and other unidentified African family members.

    The email mentions (but doesn't show a picture) of Raila Odinga, Prime Minister of Kenya who claims to be Barack Obama's cousin. The email claims that Odinga signed a 'Shariah pact' with Kenyan Muslims (disputed) and that Odinga's son was named after Fidel Casto (fact).

    It mentions Barack Sr. was born and buried a Muslim.

    It also alludes to the Democratic frontrunner as literally being a bastard, as Barack Sr. never divorced his first wife, and also the candidate's parents took part in shotgun wedding, citing Barack Jr. in his autobiography as saying, "How and when the marriage occurred remains a bit murky, a bill of particulars that I have never quite had the courage to explore."

    Having not read the book, I cannot verify if that quote is accurate, but all of the other claims are apparently undisputed in Obama's Wikipedia bio. Facts or not, these are irrelevant cheap shots, as if the candidate had a say in the matter of when he was born, or under what conditions.

    It also claimed that Abongo "Roy" Obama, the candidate's half-brother, is a militant Muslim, and cites Barack's book (it didn't say which book) as saying the black man must "liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture," claims also published to little fanfare.

    Neither of these lines of attack—on McCain's shattered teeth and other abuse in the Hanoi Hilton, or on Obama's origins and distant African relatives—are libel to convince any voters to change their minds, but it does seem to show that the 2008 general election is going to be one of the nastiest Presidential elections yet.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:32 AM | Comments (3)

    June 07, 2008

    Fighting the War With the President We'd Like To Have

    Fred Kagan, via Instapundit:

    For any voter trying to choose between the two candidates for commander in chief, there is no better test than this: When American strategy in a critical theater was up for grabs, John McCain proposed a highly unpopular and risky path, which he accurately predicted could lead to success. Barack Obama proposed a popular and politically safe route that would have led to an unnecessary and debilitating American defeat at the hands of al Qaeda.

    The two men brought different backgrounds to the test, of course. In January 2007, McCain had been a senator for 10 years and had served in the military for 23 years. Obama had been a senator for 2 years and before that was a state legislator, lawyer, and community organizer. But neither presidential candidates nor the commander in chief gets to choose the tests that history brings. Once in office, the one elected must perform.

    You can have at the helm a President who have seen the worst of human nature, survived it and thrived, or a man who has never led anything as consequential as a Cub Scout troop.

    There is a truism among small arms trainers that you will not rise to the occasion when the fecal matter hits the fan, but you will default to your level of training.

    Precisely what is Barack Obama prepared for?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:26 PM | Comments (6)

    June 06, 2008

    Sodom and Obama

    I can think of no better words to describe the unrepentant man-love Mark Morford gushes forth with regarding ObamaMessiah:

    Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

    The unusual thing is, true Lightworkers almost never appear on such a brutal, spiritually demeaning stage as national politics. This is why Obama is so rare. And this why he is so often compared to Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., to those leaders in our culture whose stirring vibrations still resonate throughout our short history.

    Wow. Most adults can at least fake objectivity (or make their fandom more opaque) when discussing politicians, but Morford is merely one of an embarrassing string of media figures giddily in love with the idea of being in love with their idol. He is incapable of addressing Obama as the quite flawed human man that the is. Barack Obama is far from being a "Lightworker" whatever that is, and as his associations with various pastors and priests have made clear, he'd prefer to be a "Darkworker," thank you very much and pass the Black Liberation Theology.

    In reality, far from being the antidote to George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama is far closer to being the flip side of the more corroded parts of the very same coin.

    Smug. Arrogant. Stupid. Unerringly Partisan. These are some of the more choice (and publicly repeatable) words of critics directed at George W. Bush.

    Often used to describe the sitting two-term President's personality, up-bringing, detachment, and cocksure certainty, words such as "smug" and "stupid" and others like them apply equally well to the new Democratic President candidate, even though he has yet to complete a single term in office on the national stage.

    Ivy-League educated with admitted substance abuse in their younger, more intemperate days, Barack Obama and George Bush have far more in common than either man would like to admit. Bush is viewed as out-of-touch for his family's wealth and dynastic political successes; Obama for his Hyde Park liberal elitism and association with a string of America-damning radicals and cadre of domestic terrorists.

    Both men deliver prepared speeches (Bush adequately, Obama eloquently), but both gaffe frequently when forced off-script. Bush mangles syntax with reckless abandon; Obama mangles history (including his own) with feckless disregard for the facts.

    Bush and Obama are both exceedingly stubborn men, and will not change policy viewpoints, even though emerging realities render their positions comically obsolete. The "surge" in Iraq bookends this commonality. For years Bush refused to acknowledge a new strategy and tactics were needed in the war, while in 15 months since the surge was implemented, Obama has resolutely refused to acknowledge that the new strategy and tactics have worked. Neither man will admit that his position was at fault. Their egos are too large.

    Before winning office in 2000, George W. Bush created a record as Governor of Texas as someone who was capable of bridging the partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans. That bipartisanship did not survive the brutal politics of Washington D.C. Barack Obama's campaign has attempted the impossible stunt portraying him as "post-partisan," a candidate beyond political parties. Morford is one of many who are eager to brush aside reality to embrace that comforting fable, but nothing in Obama's record supports that construct.

    Obama, in his short political career, has actually established a clear record of either abdicating responsibility (voting "present" time and again), or of taking radically liberal partisan positions, in every level of government in which he has ever served. It is no accident that the National Journal listed him as the Most Liberal U.S. Senator, even to the left of Socialist Bernie Sanders. Barack Obama is not bi-partisan. He is radically polarized when engaged, and out of touch the rest of the time, a near-perfect mirror image of everything liberals claim to hate about George W. Bush.

    But Mark Morford can't see that. More importantly, he won't see it. Having poisoned himself with hatred against our sitting President, he creates an illusion where Obama is the antidote to Bush, when instead he is hair of the dog.

    Jesus wouldn't support watching babies die, even in San Francisco. Only someone of far darker values would find holiness there, in the place where Morford worships a false idol as a god.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:38 PM | Comments (17)

    The Latest. The Greatest.

    The Final HamNation.

    Obama on Your Shoulder.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)

    June 05, 2008

    Surviving Barack Obama

    The pro-life movement has often referred to abortion advocates as "baby killers" for supporting the deaths of inconvenient and unwanted pregnancies, though rarely has that criticism been as valid as when applied to radical left-wing freshman senator, Barack Obama.

    Obama supports the negligent homicide—and I use that term after careful consideration as being the most accurate descriptor—of babies that survive the best efforts of abortionists and accidentally enter the world alive.

    As Michael Gerson noted with obvious revulsion in the Washington Post in April:

    Obama has not made abortion rights the shouted refrain of his campaign, as other Democrats have done. He seems to realize that pro-choice enthusiasm is inconsistent with a reputation for post-partisanship.

    But Obama's record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion -- a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called "too close to infanticide." Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" because of a crisis pregnancy -- hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.

    Yes, you heard that correctly. Even though wealthy and quite capable of supporting an inadvertent pregnancy, the Democratic Party's choice for President would consider his own grandchild a punishment. Should the child somehow survive the abortion "Grandpa Barack" apparently wants, Obama would support withholding medical care to his born grandchild. Barack Obama would let him or her die in the hospital through purposeful neglect after having been born alive.

    There is no hope here. This is not the kind of radical, dehumanizing change that most Americans realize Obama supports.

    Daniel Allott continues shredding Obama's radical support of postpartum infanticide in the Wall Street Journal's The Audacity of Death today, beginning with an interview of Gianna Jessen, an abortion survivor that Obama would have seen die, and then launches into the specifics of Obama's chilling record:

    As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama twice opposed legislation to define as "persons" babies who survive late-term abortions. Babies like Gianna. Mr. Obama said in a speech on the Illinois Senate floor that he could not accept that babies wholly emerged from their mother's wombs are "persons," and thus deserving of equal protection under the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

    A federal version on the same legislation passed the Senate unanimously and with the support of all but 15 members of the House. Gianna was present when President Bush signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act in 2002.

    When I asked Gianna to reflect on Mr. Obama's candidacy, she paused, then said, "I really hope the American people will have their eyes wide open and choose to be discerning. . . . He is extreme, extreme, extreme."

    "Extreme" may not be the impression the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have bought Mr. Obama's autobiography have been left with. In "The Audacity of Hope," Mr. Obama's presidential manifesto, he calls abortion "undeniably difficult," "a very difficult issue," "never a good thing" and "a wrenching moral issue."

    He laments his party's "litmus test" for "orthodoxy" on abortion and other issues, and even admits, "I do not presume to know the answer to that question." That question being the moral status of the fetus, who he nonetheless concedes has "moral weight."

    Those statements are seriously made but, alas, cannot be taken at all seriously. Mr. Obama has compiled a 100% lifetime "pro-choice" voting record, including votes against any and all restrictions on late-term abortions and parental involvement in teenagers' abortions.

    To Mr. Obama, abortion, or "reproductive justice," is "one of the most fundamental rights we possess." And he promises, "the first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act," which would overturn hundreds of federal and state laws limiting abortion, including the federal ban on partial-birth abortion and bans on public funding of abortion.

    Then there's Mr. Obama's aforementioned opposition to laws that protect babies born-alive during botched abortions. If partial-birth abortion is, as Democratic icon Daniel Patrick Moynihan labeled it, "too close to infanticide," then what is killing fully-birthed babies?

    It is of course, infanticide.

    If Barack Obama is smart, perhaps he can restart the false "Obama is a Muslim" meme to distract us away from his far more damnable short-comings as a father, presumptive grandfather, and human being.

    Update: Read this, via Rightwingsparkle in the comments at Ace of Spades:

    Jill Stanek, a registered delivery-ward nurse who was the prime mover behind the legislation after she witnessed aborted babies' being born alive and left to die, testified twice before Obama in support of the Induced Infant Liability Act bills. She also testified before the U.S. Congress in support of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

    Stanek told me her testimony "did not faze" Obama.

    In the second hearing, Stanek said, "I brought pictures in and presented them to the committee of very premature babies from my neonatal resuscitation book from the American Pediatric Association, trying to show them unwanted babies were being cast aside. Babies the same age were being treated if they were wanted!"

    "And those pictures didn't faze him [Obama] at all," she said.

    It's not that Obama didn't know. It's that he doesn't care.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:03 AM | Comments (26)

    June 04, 2008

    RE: The Michelle Obama "Whitey" Video

    I've not posted on the existence of the alleged Michelle Obama "Whitey" rant being pushed by pro-Hillary bloggers who will not be named. They, of course, claim Republicans are behind acquiring such a video, a bit hard to swallow considering the dirty tricks team the Clinton's have put together between Little Rock, Pennsylvania Avenue, and New York. Frankly I think it is a bogus claim, as it lacks specifics or credible sourcing, even this latest version, pulled from (shocking, I know) another pro-Hillary blog.

    The Michelle Obama Rant Tape was filmed between June 26th - July 1st 2004 in Chicago, IL at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Conference at Trinity United Church: specifically the Women's Event.

    Michelle Obama appeared as a panelist alongside Mrs. Khadijah Farrakhan and Mrs. James Meeks.

    Bill Clinton spoke during the Conference, as did Bill Cosby and other speakers, but not at the panel Michelle attended.

    Michelle Obama spoke at the Women's Event, but referenced Bill Clinton in her rant --- his presence at the conference was the impetus for her raving, it seems.

    For about 30 minutes, Michelle Obama launched into a rant about the evils of America, and how America is to blame for the problems of Africa. Michelle personally blamed President Clinton for the deaths of millions of Africans and said America is responsible for the genocide of the Tutsis and other ethnic groups. She then launched into an attack on "whitey", and talked about solutions to black on black crime in the realm of diverting those actions onto white America. Her rant was fueled by the crowd: they reacted strongly to what she said, so she got more passionate and enraged, and that's when she completely loses it and says things that have made the mouths drop of everyone who's seen this.

    The "tape" is a DVD that Trinity United sold on its website, and possibly offered free for download up until March 2008 when Trinity's site was scrubbed and the DVDs were no longer offered for sale.

    Despite all the damning specifics offered, it is the last sentence that makes this claim so unlikely.

    Early on in the heat of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright fiasco, major news organizations purchased dozens, if not hundreds of DVDs from Trinity United Chruch of Christ. Some were looking merely for Wright's rants, and some were not doubt hoping to observe the family in the congregation during one of Wright's more obscene rants to trap Barack in a "gotcha" moment. If they would have likely uncovered a rant like the one proposed above they wold have run it that very night. Do you think that the media could sit on such a bombshell? They may like Barack, but they love an exclusive, and the rush would be on to see which network or cable news show could scoop the others.

    If Michelle Obama was caught in such a rant on video, and the video was sold on DVD or was available for download from the church, it would have been exposed months ago. Pro-Hillary bloggers can continue to KKKarry on pushing this story, but I see no reason to find their claim credible.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:39 AM | Comments (15)

    June 01, 2008

    One Campaign in Two Sentences

    I've had extremely questionable judgment for the past twenty years.

    Would you give me four more?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:07 AM | Comments (6)

    May 30, 2008

    The Men in His Life

    Father Michael Pfleger, lynching advocate and 22-year friend and mentor to Barack Obama, found his testimonial whitewashed from the official Presidential campaign website by Monday, even before his latest rant against Hillary Clinton and white entitlement before Obama's long-time and current congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ.

    Predictably, as he always does when one of his associates is revealed as a radical, Obama feigned shock proclaimed his disappointment. Pfleger apologized.

    Both men would like for you to think that this kind of outburst was unexpected and rare, but it seems that public radicalism has characterized Pfleger's entire career, and perhaps drew the men together to when Obama met Pfleger for the first time more than 20 years ago.

    Michael Pfleger is just one of the men who have helped mold the man who is now the presumptive Democratic nominee. Hiding behind a cool facade and rigidly-enforced message discipline is a candidate who has had his philosophies and ideals forged around men who have roots in fomenting race-hatred and hard-left political ideologies.

    Barack Obama, Sr. abandoned his son when he was a toddler and only met with him once more before dying in 1982. Obama Sr. first married to a woman named Kezia in a tribal ceremony and never divorced her. Senior left a pregnant Kezia in Kenya with and infant soon to enrolled at the University of Hawaii on an academic scholarship. It was there he took his second wife, Ann Dunham, who did not know he was already married. Barack Hussein Obama, Junior was born six months later. Senior left his second wife and son when he was admitted to Harvard, and divorced Dunham in 1963. Senior returned to Kenya with another American woman he met at Harvard and joined the Kenyan Ministry of Transportation as an economist, writing a paper Problems Facing Our Socialism that advocated 100% taxation. This aligned him with Kenyan communists, and alienated him from the sitting government, and effectively torpedoed his career.

    Frank Marshall Davis was a member of the Communist Party USA, mentored Obama during his high school years, and was alleged to be his role model as a black man when few others were around to make an impression, as Obama was only one of three black students at his school as he was being raised in the home of his white grandparents. Obama wrote admiringly of Davis in Dreams from my Father. A poet, Davis' poems "Smash-on, victory-eating Red Army" and "Christ is a Dixie Ni__er" which dismissed Jesus as " another New White Hope" probably wouldn't endear Davis to too many of Obama's supporters of any race.

    Reverend Jeremiah Wright came into Obama's life after the future senator graduated Columbia and became a community organizer, railing against the Reagan Presidency, "where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds."

    Wright led Trinity United Church of Christ, a church dedicated to Black Liberation Theology, a toxic mix of Marxism and Black Nationalism based upon the work of James Cone, who claimed in Black Power and Black Theology (via Say Anything):

    Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community. . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

    Wright's sermon "The Audacity of Hope" which stated that we live in a society "where white folks greed runs a world in need" inspired Obama's second book, using that same title.

    Wright's racism, paranoia, and conspiracy theorizing, including his most recent outbursts that finally forced Obama to repudiate his pastor after doggedly following his teaching as a member of Wright's congregation for 20 years, are well-documented and mercifully do not need to be repeated. What is not as well know is that while Obama has distanced himself from Wright, he has not renounced membership in the radical church Wright grew and lorded over until his recent retirement.

    Lest you begin to think Barack Obama sought guidance merely from men consumed by a love of radical political ideologies driven by race hatred comes Bill Ayers, who proves that Obama's fascination with radical and sometimes violent political ideologies is color blind.

    Ayers is well known as an unreformed domestic terrorist, who was part of the Weather Underground, a radical leftist group that bombed American government buildings, targeted a soldiers' dance for a mass-murder (before Ayer's then-girlfriend Diana Oughton blew herself and other Weathermen up while making pipe bombs for the attack), and which later killed police during an infamous armored car robbery along with members of the Black Liberation Army.

    Obama kicked off his political career at Ayer's home, and served with Ayers as a member of the ultra-liberal Woods Fund. Ayers has also served with Obama on numerous panels and they knew each other in social circles. Before he became a debilitating factor in Obama's presidential campaign, Ayers was said to be regarded as a friend of Obama, according to his campaign staff.

    By comparison, Father Michael Pfleger, while a frothing radical in any other company, actually looks sedate compared to other men who have helped shape and mold Barack Obama.

    There are other men in the freshman Senator's life who have no doubt had a far more benign influence on who he has become, but one is forced to wonder what kind of radicalism floats through Obama's mind, based upon the company he's kept.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:00 PM | Comments (7)

    May 29, 2008

    Another Obama Preacher Problem

    I emailed Allahpundit yesterday, wondering why Barack Obama's favorite lynching advocate priest and spiritual mentor of 22 years quietly saw his endorsement drop away from the faith testimonials page at barackobama.com.

    As you may remember, Father Michael Pfleger has a history as a radical leftist, and the long-time friend of Obama, Jeremiah Wright, and Louis Farrakhan once called for a local gun shop owner to be dragged into the street by an angry mob and "snuffed out."

    That outburst didn't get him removed from Barack's list of supporters, but Allahpundit thinks that he may have found the rant that did.

    Does Barack Obama know any sane people?

    And while we're on the subject: Why is Barack Obama still a member of this church? Why does he expose his children to such hatred by calling this congregation home?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:56 AM | Comments (2)

    NC Dem Offers Forced Servitude to "Honor" Slain Students

    What could possibly go wrong?

    Students in North Carolina's private and public colleges would be required to mentor public school-age children to receive a bachelor's degree after 2012, under a bill filed this week.

    Sen. Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, named the proposed community service program in memory of two college students who were shot to death earlier this year – Eve Carson, the student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Abhijit Mahato, a Duke University graduate student.

    The bill would require any student seeking a bachelor's degree to spend 20 hours per semester mentoring and tutoring a public school-age child. The bill doesn't specify for how many semesters the mentoring would be required.

    It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

    Two college students were murdered by street thugs who were drop-outs, so Rand's obvious reaction is to force more college students to spend time with failing students that come from similar environments as the killers.

    If Rand wanted to actually do some good, perhaps he could get on board with organizations pushing for allowing CCH holders to carry on college campuses, instead of providing a victim delivery service.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:14 AM | Comments (4)

    May 28, 2008

    Most Ethical Congress Ever Rides Again

    With stories like this popping up with disturbing frequency, no wonder Congress has such dismal approval ratings.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:43 AM | Comments (3)

    May 27, 2008

    Barack's Imaginary Uncle, Bad Memory, or Bad Reporting?

    So Barack Obama's uncle helped Patton's 3rd Army liberate the concentration camp at Auschwitz, which is a neat trick, considering that the 3rd Army never made it into southern Poland. It was instead Russians that liberated the camp, and if that wasn't embarrassing enough for the rookie Senator, his mother was an only child.

    Still going on the assumption that his material grandparents knew how many children they have, it would seem apparent that his Kenyan father's side must have provided the uncle that helped liberate the camp, or Obama was lying on Memorial Day about his family's military service. Could he really be that dumb?

    Something has to be off here... there is no way he would simply create an uncle. If his mother was an only child, then the uncle wold have to be on his father's side, but I somewhat doubt that Kenyan Luo tribesmen left Africa, and served in either the 3rd U.S. Army under Patton or the Russian Army.

    As we missing something here, or is Obama blatantly lying about his family's military sacrifices in a Memorial Day speech?

    Update: Only CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic and WaPo's Karl Vick seems to have the "uncle at Auschwitz" claim, which does not appear in Obama's prepared remarks and can't be heard . Either Obama ad-libbed a line afterward and can't be in the video and the media was only working from prepared remarks (which happens more often than you'd suspect) , or Gavrilovic both implausibly made up that same claim.

    Update: The Obama camp has responded, and indicates that it was not Obama's uncle (he didn't have one) but his great uncle that served in the 89th Infantry Division, and the camp he was part of liberating was not Auschwitz in southern Poland, but Ohrdruf, part of the Buchenwald camp system, in central Germany, which was liberated four months later.

    The Washington Post isn't impressed, and for good reason. It wasn't a "lie". He just didn't get any of the truth right.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:49 AM | Comments (21)

    Dumber Than Bush, Dumber Than Quayle

    I pretty much ignored political news this weekend, only to find out that the top story on Memeorandum.com this morning was of a gaffe Barack Obama made regarding Memorial Day.

    On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes—and I see many of them in the audience here today—our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

    As you may imagine, "I see dead people" is a crack being used in blog posts with a great degree of derision and amusement as the freshman Senator's opponents have a field day with his chronically gaffe-prone campaign.

    Obama's latest unintelligent statement behind us, Jimmie at the Sundries Shack accurately snipes:

    After this campaign, I swear, I don't want to hear one more person crack wise about Dan Quayle ever again. Quayle had a couple very unfortunate gaffes and was forever painted as immature and plain old dumb.

    Barack Obama, on the other hand, has enough gaffes to his credit to start a fleet of charter boats and not a single soul in the MSM has even breathed the "D" word about His Deific Changiness. His goofs are coming at a rate of a couple a week now, far more than Dan Quayle ever did and certainly more than George Bush, who has become the Golden Standard of Chimpitude to the left for his verbal advenures[sic].

    He makes excellent points.

    Quayle was hammered by Democrats as a vice presidential candidate in 1988 for being too inexperienced, serving just two terms in the House and one full-term in the Senate before being selected as George H.W. Bush's running mate two years into his second Senate term(versus Obama, who announced his run for President 1/3 the way through his very first Senate term).

    Based upon his weak debate performance against Lloyd Bentsen and a series of frankly stupid comments he made as a candidate and vice president, Quayle was hammered an an intellectual lightweight worldwide.

    When Bush '41 was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat in 1991, the world seemed terrified:

    Newspapers in France, Germany, Italy and Britain this week also puzzled over a political system that allows a man of relatively little national experience to stand next in line to the leadership of the world's most powerful nation.

    In Italy, La Repubblica in Rome referred to what it called America's "cardio-constitutional crisis," and Il Giornale of Milan heard echoes of European history in Mr. Bush's situation.

    In a front page editorial on Tuesday, Il Giornale said, "The invincible President becomes politically vulnerable because of his heir, just as, in the centuries of the dynasties, the absence or the frailty of a successor could undermine the most powerful of kings."

    In Germany, a dispatch from Washington that appeared Tuesday in the General Anzeiger of Bonn described the American President as "the most powerful single person in the world" and noted how "carelessly" the American political system chooses its Vice President.

    "Dan Quayle may grow with the position as did Harry Truman," the report said. "But the world would rather put its destiny into the hands of a man who has already proven himself."

    One of the bluntest reactions came from The Financial Times of London, the bible of the city's business and banking community. In an editorial on Tuesday, the paper wrote: "Mr. Quayle was a cynical political choice in 1988 and, thankless as the Vice President's job often is, he has done little since to convince that he is qualified to serve as chief executive in his own right."

    In Paris, Le Monde on Monday called Mr. Quayle "a man who inspires, rightly or wrongly, more jeers than confidence" and wondered whether Mr. Bush would now change his mind about keeping him on the Republican ticket in 1992.

    And yet, for all the fear he inspired, Quayle was smart enough that he knew not to start his political career at the home of domestic terrorists who are still proud for attacking their nation, and who still harbor a fondness for cult-leading murderer Charles Manson.

    Obama? He did.

    Quayle didn't attend a church for two decades built upon a "religion" that is a mix of Marxism, racial identity politics, and Christianity. Obama did, and as a matter of fact, he's still a proud member of that congregation.

    Quayle didn't follow a radical, racist pastor espousing conspiracy theories and hate. He didn't include among his other decades-long mentors a radical priest who espouses support for the murder of people he doesn't like. Obama? He did, only recently dropping Pfleger's endorsement from barackobama.com where it resided between endorsements from Rev. Delman Coates and "Eileen P.".


    Quayle—along with most third-graders—even somehow seems to know how many states there are in the United States, something Obama hasn't yet grasped.

    Barack Obama is far more prone to foolish associations and questionable statements Dan Quayle ever was, and yet has compiled more collective idiocies in just one campaign that Quayle has managed in his entire political career.

    Our current President, George W. Bush, is lambasted by the political left for a Quayle-like tendency for verbal gaffes known as Bushisms and is widely regarded by them as an idiot, (even as he has somehow outsmarted them into winning the White House twice), and yet the worst of Bush's 7+ years in office is only on par with what Obama offers up as standard fare.

    The same press that excoriated Bush and Quayle for lesser offenses is giving Obama a free pass for a continuing series of verbal stumbles, stumbles that would have them tied up in knots denouncing the intelligence of Republicans. Is it because Obama is an African-American that they refuse to question his intelligence, or is it because he's a Democrat?

    If the former, the media is racist; if the latter, they are biased to the point of being incompetent. Perhaps they are both. Andrew Sullivan was a Quayle apologist who is now firmly behind Obama and seemingly blind to his faults. Other members of the media are just as bad, or worse.

    Don't get me wrong. Barack Obama isn't an idiot.

    Barack Obama is pretty, he reads a teleprompter beautifully, and when given the time to compose a speech, he writes beautiful words as well, empty though they so often are. He just doesn't do well when forced to think on his feet, or under pressure.

    By that standard, he is "dumber" than Bush, and "dumber" than Quayle, issuing forth a staccato beat of misstatements and empty platitudes when under the slightest pressure. That should not be a surprise. He's a remarkably shallow candidate with a considerable record of ducking responsibility and hard decisions in his meager legislative record, and is utterly lacking of any meaningful executive experience.

    It would nice for the press to acknowledge these truths. It would be nice of the to recognize that Obama isn't the Messiah.

    He isn't even a decent Brian.

    Update Good Grief. Two huge gaffes in one speech?

    Has anyone copyrighted the term "Obamanation" yet?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:41 AM | Comments (10)

    May 23, 2008

    Thrill Kill Hill

    Oh no, she didn't:

    Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.

    "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

    I never thought I'd see the day that a candidate would suggest that part of the reason she's remaining in the race is the possibility of her rival being murdered.

    If someone informs her that the Obama assassination myth is merely media projection against "bitter" and "clingy" Americans, will she finally go away?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:40 PM | Comments (14)

    May 21, 2008

    But They Support the Troops

    Michael Yon emailed early this morning to warn me American soldiers are being given a travel warning by the federal government.

    The sad part? It isn't overseas, but related to what are now only verbal assaults on the Washington, D.C. metro.

    Recently, there have been local incidents in which military personnel have been verbally assaulted while commuting on the Metro. Uniformed members have been approached by individuals expressing themselves as anti-government, shouting anti-war sentiments, and using racial slurs against minorities.

    It sounds like we've got a few disciples of the William Ayers/Bernadine Dohrn wing of the Democrat Party still active. Fringe leftists haven't murdered uniformed government officials since 2002 in anti-war, anti-government violence, but it is an election year, and tensions are already running high.

    This isn't the kind of "hope" and "change" I think most of us expected.

    5/27 Update: This one is for those authors and moderators of blog entries at the Village Voice, as they don't seem willing to correct misinformation they spread even after being contacted by both Michael Yon and myself. Despite their assertions to the contrary, I went to great lengths to correct this story, spurred on by Yon.

    I not only wrote the Pajamas Media article debunking the substance of this claim; I also wrote a separate article for this very blog, though I didn't update this particular post, because at that point, this post was old news pushed well down the digital page. Perhaps I should have done so.

    That doesn't excuse Edroso's laziness and unwillingness to actually read the blogs he claims to for the Voice, or for their unwillingness to publish my response to them as of 5:47 PM today.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:38 AM | Comments (21)

    May 20, 2008

    Ted Kennedy Diagnosed With Brain Tumor

    The specific diagnosis has yet to be determined, but it is believed to be a malignant glioma, which could mean he has anywhere from 1-5 years to live depending on how aggressive the tumor is.

    Our prayers go out to the Kennedy family.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:57 PM | Comments (10)

    Obama Aide: We'll meet with Any "Appropriate" Genocidally-Minded, Holocaust-Denying Iranian Leader Without Preconditions... Not Just Ahmadinejad.

    Oh, I feel much better now.

    File this as another reason Bush would want to strike Iran—and hard—before the end of his term.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:49 AM | Comments (1)

    May 19, 2008

    Shhh! You Aren't Supposed to Talk About It

    Michelle Obama is going to be making three campaign stops in Kentucky today, but even if she says something incredibly inflammatory or depressed, her husband requests, nay, demands that only the positive be aired.

    Will it work? Who knows, but one thing is certain: if he doesn't want us to talk about her, he can tell her to leave the campaign trail and go back to the Hundred Acre Wood.

    Chicago. I meant Chicago.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:14 PM | Comments (9)

    A Fine Whine

    Barack Obama has made clear today that he is running an affirmative action Presidential campaign, demanding preferential treatment from both the Republican Party and the news media as the freshman Senator runs for the White House.

    The preferential treatment comes in the form of a unique entitlement: he wants his wife Michelle Obama to be able to campaign for him for president, but wants her held blameless for any controversial or newsworthy comment she makes.

    Democrat Barack Obama has a message for Tennessee's Republican Party: "Lay off my wife."

    Obama, his party's presidential front-runner, and his wife, Michelle, were asked in an interview aired Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America" about an online video last week by the state's GOP taking her to task for a comment some considered unpatriotic.

    "The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record," Obama said. "If they think that they're going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family."

    I'm sure—absolutely positive—that Hillary Clinton would have liked to have had the same standard applied to husband, former President Bill Clinton. His outbursts during his months on the campaign trial have done as much to hurt as help her, but she understands that when you put you spouse on the stage, you make that spouse fair game for criticism when they say or do something newsworthy.

    Barack Obama wants soft and special rules, just for his campaign. I'm sorry, Barack, but it doesn't work that way. You won't get special treatment as President when you deal with the rest of the world, and you don't get special treatment campaigning for the job.

    Man up, or drop out.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:40 AM | Comments (10)

    May 16, 2008

    Huckabee Misfires Again

    Mike Huckabee, the same grating "aw shucks" candidate that nearly shot members of the press on the campaign trail, shot his remaining credibility to shreds today in front of annoyed members of the National Rifle Association.

    During his speech at the annual convention the following transpired, as noted by CNN:

    During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

    "That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak," said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. "Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor."

    Oh my word.

    The dead silence from an upset crowd of responsible gun owners—many of which were legally armed—was obvious in the video. Huckabee beclowned himself, and everyone in the audience knew it.

    Predictably, fringe bloggers on the left tried to make the most of Huckabee's moronic tastelessness. "smintheus" at Daily Kos lied and said "this audience laughed," a falsehood proven by the icy silence that quickly resulted in the video linked above.

    Pam Spaulding helpfully notes what liberals think about gun owners, claiming, "We've already seen the yahoo vote unapologetic about the fact that they'd never vote for a black man — and plenty of them have an NRA card."

    Liberals such as Spaulding would equate gun ownership with Klan membership; I hope that the millions of law-abiding Democrat gun-owning "yahoos" remember that in November.

    Only one good thing came out of Huckabee's comments today... his quick exit from the national stage.

    Update: Some liberals in the comments are questioning whether or not there was laughter at Huckabee's comment that "someone aimed a gun at him and he hit the floor."

    The video link is above, but here's a blow by block chronology, according the the clock on the 2:19 CNN clip.

    There were hundreds of people in that room. No more than a handful made any noise immediately after Huckabee made the follow-up gun comment, and they were silent within two seconds.

    Timeframe, using the CNN counter:
    00:00-00:50 HUCKABEE is giving an apparently good speech generating good applause from the audience
    00:51 -- A loud noise is heard offstage.
    00:52 -- HUCKABEE (turns and points): "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair..." Moderate chuckles from the crowd began to build.
    00:58-1:00 -- HUCKABEE continued: "Somebody aimed a gun at him, and he dove for the floor." The crowd immediately starts to go quiet.
    1:02 -- Crowd is DEAD SILENT. Huckabee looks out at crowd, seems to understand he really made a huge gaffe.
    1:02-2:19. -- HUCKABEE rushes through the rest of the speech shown, rushing past obvious applause lines where pauses are designed.

    The audience is DEAD SILENT on the CNN audio after ingesting Huckabee's comments, though I'm almost certain there was unheard murmuring not picked up by their microphones.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:53 PM | Comments (28)

    Obama: Hezbollah and Hamas Have "Legitimate Claims"

    The U.S. needs a foreign policy that "looks at the root causes of problems and dangers." Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that "they're going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims." He knows these movements aren't going away anytime soon ("Those missiles aren't going to dissolve"), but "if they decide to shift, we're going to recognize that. That's an evolution that should be recognized."

    And just what are these "legitimate claims" that Obama mentions in talking with David Brooks of the New York Times?

    Is it that the existence of Israel is a catastrophe?

    Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director on the board of a nonprofit organization that granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe." (Obama has also reportedly spoken at fundraisers for Palestinians living in what the United Nations terms refugee camps.)

    The co-founder of the Arab group, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, is a harsh critic of Israel who reportedly worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization when it was labeled a terror group by the State Department.

    Khalidi held a fundraiser in 2000 for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

    In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, at which Khalidi's wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.

    Ah, the Woods Fund. Where Barak served with his domestic terrorist friend, Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground, who along with his domestic terrorist (and Charles Manson fan) wife, Bernardine Dohrn, helped kick off Obama's political career at their house.

    Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state, and says (in part):

    "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

    "The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up."

    "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

    Somehow, I don't think that is a change most Americans or Israelis can believe in.

    But what about Hezbollah?

    ...Hezbollah's ideology is inspired by Khomeini, the original leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. According to "The Hezbollah Program", a document that specifies Hezbollah's ideology, Hezbollah's main goals are to fight against "western imperialism", achieve the destruction of Israel, and establish Islamic rule in Jerusalem. It also supports the transformation of Lebanon into an Islamic state in the same spirit as Iran, which Hezbollah takes as the model of an Islamic state. In addition, the party glorifies suicide bombers as martyrs. It promotes violent resistance as a means to an end and teaches that "each of us is a fighting soldier". This ideology—which includes anti-Semitic, anti-western and anti-democratic dogma—is indoctrinated in Hezbollah's schools and kindergartens, which are free for all of Hezbollah's Shi'a supporters.

    I'd really like to know what is legitimate about the claims two terrorist organizations dedicated to the obliteration of Israel in the eyes of Barack Obama.

    Please, Barack... do tell.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:32 AM | Comments (8)

    May 15, 2008

    Bit Dog Barks

    In Israel, President Bush mentioned in a speech that:

    "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," the President said to the country's legislative body, "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is –- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

    Though not mentioned by President Bush, Barack Obama howled in protest:

    "It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power -- including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy - to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

    The White House went on to state that they were not talking about Obama, but as the saying goes, "it's the bit dog that barks loudest." Barack Obama recognized his own weakness in Bush's speech, even though Bush never mentioned him.

    Perhaps we'd all find Barack's stance against meeting with terrorists a lot more sincere if he wasn't friends with several, kicking off his political career at their house.

    Update: Heh. Obama, sweetie, calm down.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:01 AM | Comments (19)

    May 14, 2008

    Obama: "Hold On One Second, Sweetie"

    Here's the video:

    I don't object to the word "Sweetie"... when addressing a female child, or as a term of endearment with a relative or close friend. Using it condescendingly here as Obama did here in addressing a grown, professional woman is demeaning, and the reporter he called "Sweetie" is obviously steamed at the dismissive slight.

    At The Politico Ben Smith has more on the story, and the comment thread there is certainly illuminating. Obama supporters on the site attack Smith, Hillary Clinton, and even the reporter for reporting the slight, instead of admitting that Obama went out of bounds.

    The video says something about Obama's character, but the Politico comments are even more shocking in how it reveals the character of his acolytes.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:55 PM | Comments (11)

    May 13, 2008

    Death of a Strawman

    Hagee, we hardly knew ye:

    The Rev. John Hagee -- who in some eyes threatened to become to John McCain what the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. became to Barack Obama -- has apologized for remarks that offended many Catholics.

    Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement today that he accepted the apology and any dispute is over.

    Liberals had hoped to use Hagee as a counterbalance to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's minister whom the frehsman Senator was finally forced to disavow several weeks ago. Some had tried to draw parallels between the relationship between McCain and Hagee as being on par with Obama and Wright, but the charge was always far-fetched; McCain had merely political ties with Hagee, while Obama was a loyal member of Wright's congregation of 20 years, and regarded the pastor as a personal friend and mentor.

    Obama has now disowned the conspiracy-theory spouting Wright, but he and his family remain at Trinity United Church of Christ, a church that is based upon Black Liberation Theology, a mostly political formulation of racial identity politics, Marxism, and Christianity. This is the same church that gave Louis Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award under Wright's leadership.

    You'll note that murder-minded Reverend Michael Pfleger, a radicalized Catholic priest Obama has known even longer than Wright and a longtime supporter of Farrakhan, also makes an appearance in the video.

    You can see Pfleger in a "guest rant" at Trinity United below praising Wright and Farrakhan below, much to the delight of the congregation.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:07 PM | Comments (5)

    GREAT: Claiming Obama's Coked Up Again

    It isn't exactly a secret that Barack Obama has admitted a drug problem in his past. In "Dreams From My Father" he wrote of using both marijuana and cocaine (Though he says he passed on heroin when it was offered. Good for him).

    Admitted drug use has ended many political campaigns before, but Obama's auto-biographical admission has largely been ignored by a pliant media that are "in the tank" for the first-term Illinois Senator.

    Still, fellow North Carolina blogger John Hawkins went over the top in suggesting that Obama's much-mocked "57 states" gaffe was the result of the candidate wilting under the stress of the campaign, and returning to hard drugs as a result.

    Honestly, my first thought was that he was so coked up that he lost track of how many states we have. Is that implausible? Not at all. This is a guy who admits that he has used cocaine and was headed towards being a junkie at one point. Could he be back at it during a stressful campaign? Sure, he could. When was the last time the guy took a drug test? Has he ever taken one?

    I strongly doubt that a person seeking the Presidency and almost assured of the nomination would run the risk procuring or using drugs on the campaign trail. The risk of getting caught and ending their politician career as a result is simply too high.

    In addition, the kind of person who runs for the Presidency has to be hard; if weak enough to be reduced to drug dependency while campaigning, four years in the pressures of the modern White House would literally kill them. I don't think any of the candidates in either party are that weak, even Ron Paul.

    With all due respect to Mr. Hawkins, he shouldn't be accusing Obama of returning to drug use when there is no evidence to suggest he has done so.

    Pound on his blatant inexperience, his Hyde Park elitism, his dangerous foreign policy, his economy-sapping domestic policies, and the massive tax increases they'll require, and expose the hornet's nest of America-hating rabble that are his friends and mentors. All of these areas are fair game.

    Attacking Obama based upon an insinuation of drug use without any evidence is pushing beyond acceptable boundaries.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:26 PM | Comments (13)

    Obama Garners Coveted Nagin Endorsement

    Democratic President candidate Barack Obama has won the endorsement of New Orleans Mayor and superdelegate Ray Nagin.

    Now that the Mayor is in the first-term Senator's corner, it is recommended that any remaining Manson-obsessed domestic terrorists, angry communist mentors, assassination-inciting clergy, or other inconvenient long-time Obama supporters that he has yet to denounce purchase a snorkel.

    When thrown under one of these buses, you don't want to drown.

    Update: Next under the bus? Gazans for Obama.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:14 PM | Comments (1)

    Articles of Faith

    Some folks are remarking on the creepy Obama worship occurring among otherwise presumably lucid adults, but I wouldn't worry about his deification a great deal. After all, the bar has been set rather low.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:30 PM | Comments (2)

    May 12, 2008

    Obama's Lying Roots

    According to an op-ed in the New York Time called "President Apostate," Barack Hussein Obama was indeed born a Muslim:

    As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother's Christian background is irrelevant.

    Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

    His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is "irtidad" or "ridda," usually translated from the Arabic as "apostasy," but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim's family may choose to forgive).

    I don't personally feel that being born to any particular religion is of any significance; Obama could have been born a Buddist or a Pastafarian for all I care. None of us chose the religion we are born into. If we want to discuss Obama's religion, then by all means ask why he chose a Marxism-tainted bastardization of Christianity when he was an adult, and why he still continues to cling to that discredited faith that is dedicated more to exploiting racial politics than worshiping God.

    That choice is a far more relevant question of his suitability to represent all Americans than any mention of his simply being born to Islam.

    That simply shouldn't have mattered... until, as Charles Johnson notes, the Obama campaign was caught lying about his never having been a Muslim on his own Web site:

    To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.

    That Barack Obama was born a Muslim according to Muslim tradition is a fact. That he chose to dissemble about that to America is an entirely different matter. It shows an Obama campaign that has very little faith of the ability of the American people to think for themselves.

    Barack Obama may have been born a Muslim, but he chose to become a liar. To most of us, that counts far more against him.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:52 PM | Comments (39)

    May 11, 2008

    Lifelike Pictures

    Subject: Barack Hussein Obama
    Painted: 2008
    Artist: John McCain

    (h/t: Instapundit)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:59 PM | Comments (5)

    May 09, 2008

    Obama's Double Standard

    Presidential candidate with terrorist friends fires adviser friendly with terrorists:

    One of Barack Obama's Middle East policy advisers disclosed today that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas - prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.

    Robert Malley told The Times he had regularly been in contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza but is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama's Middle East advisory council.

    "I've never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people," he added.

    So Barack Obama fires a campaign adviser for having contacts with Hamas for the nutty "peace" group to which he belongs.

    Obama, on the other hand, kicks off his political career by attending a fundraiser in the home of a pair of well-known and infamous domestic terrorists that led a group that had targeted and in some cases killed American citizens, including off-duty soldiers and police officers. When this association is highlighted, he labels it a "distraction."

    Clearly, Barack Obama has a problem with others associating with terrorists, but that moral clarity certainly slips when it is to his material benefit.

    That's not change you can believe in. That's moral cowardice and craven opportunism.

    h /t Ace of Spades, who notes that Hamas had endorsed Obama.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:44 PM | Comments (20)

    May 08, 2008

    What's Good for the Goose...

    John McCain's military record has been released after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was filed by the Associated Press.

    It is unknown if Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama will be pressured to release a similar document, listing of all of his current and former associates who have targeted the U.S. military.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:06 PM | Comments (3)

    May 06, 2008

    Calling It: Obama Wins N.C.

    I just got off the phone with Mike Ash, Director of the Durham County Board of Elections in Durham, NC. He doesn't have any numbers as far as percentages of eligible voters making it to the polls at this point, but said several polling locations have already hit record numbers. That is as of 11:30 AM. It appears that the record turnout in early voting on Sunday is expected to continue through today.

    This matters because Durham is something of a bellwether of African-American voter turn-out in North Carolina. A high African-American turnout—and it appears that is indeed occurring—makes a Clinton win impossible.

    At this point, the only thing worth discussing is Obama's margin of victory here in the Tarheel State. If he wins by double-digits, he can claim to have staunched the bleeding over Crackerquiddick and the damage done to him by his pastor of 20 years, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

    If Obama only wins by 5-8 points however, it will be viewed as the sign of a faltering, damaged campaign.

    Update: Turnout in Wake County has been varied, according to Wake County Board of Elections Director Cherie Poucher. There were significant lines at some precincts as polls opened this morning, while at other polling places, traffic has merely been steady. Turnout is higher than it would be for a normal primary, but it is too early to know if we're looking at record numbers. We should know more by approximately 3:00 PM.

    If hinted-at trends continue, Barack Obama's victory here in North Carolina could be significant.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:42 AM | Comments (46)

    Hillary Blown Out?

    I think Drudge's projections of a 15-point Hillary Clinton defeat here in North Carolina are a bit off the mark, but I think that it is still probably more accurate than those who are projecting a close race. There is no severe weather projected to dampen turnout, and enthusiasm for Obama is high in major population centers of the state. African-American voters coming out for Obama in droves based primarily on the color of his skin (content of his character? Yeah, Wright), and his "rock star" persona crafted early in the campaign is dominating university cultures across the state and the Volvo-driving, NPR-listening metropolitan 'burbs.

    Don't expect those voting for him to be able to articulate his platform, but then, this isn't a quiz: Barack Obama will defeat Hillary Clinton here in North Carolina today handily, perhaps by 9 points, more or less.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:35 AM | Comments (6)

    May 05, 2008

    Barack's Willie Horton

    Shankar Vedantam asks this morning in the Washington Post if Jeremiah Wright is Barack Obama's Willie Horton. If confiding ourselves strictly to the idea that only race matters, then yes, Wright is Obama's Horton, but I'm not convinced that the average American is hung up on race in 2008 nearly as much as they may have been a generation ago in the 1988 campaign.

    September 11, 2001 gave Americans a new boogeyman in the back of their psychological closets to replace (or at least grab a share of) the paranoia associated with African-American felons, and that boogeyman is the terrorist.

    Micahael Dukakis was destroyed when Republicans chose to focus on the fact that Willie Horton committed armed robbery and rape while on furlough. As disgusting a bigot at Jeremiah Wright is, he's no killer. No, if Barack Obama has a "Willie Horton," it is going to come in pairs, in the persons of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Why?

    Michael Dukakis may have supported a program that let Willie Horton out of prison, but Dukakis never went to dinner at Horton's house, served on foundations with him, appeared at conferences with him, had money raised by him, and oh yeah, had dinner at his house.

    Ayers and Dohrn, a couple of well-known terrorists, have done that for Obama. Obama's own associates describe his relationship with an unrepetant pair of terrorists as "friendly."

    I think that is a far more valid concern than Horton was to Dukakis, and one that may have more "legs" as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:12 AM | Comments (15)

    April 30, 2008

    The Greatest Story Ever Sold

    It isn't "what did he know, and when did he know it," but instead appears to be "he knew it all along, and is trying to hide it."

    That is the impression left when reading this article in the NY Post today.

    The Rev. Jeremiah Wright would be happy to see Barack Obama's presidential campaign derailed because the pastor is fuming that his former congregant has "betrayed" their 20-year relationship,

    The Post has learned. "After 20 years of loving Barack like he was a member of his own family, for Jeremiah to see Barack saying over and over that he didn't know about Jeremiah's views during those years, that he wasn't familiar with what Jeremiah had said, that he may have missed church on this day or that and didn't hear what Jeremiah said, this is seen by Jeremiah as nonsense and betrayal," said the source, who has deep roots in Wright's Chicago community and is familiar with his thinking on the matter.

    And perhaps most damning:

    "Rev. Wright, as well as other senior members of his church, believe that Obama has betrayed over 20 years of their supposed friendship."

    If the source is correct, other senior leaders of Trinity United Church of Christ know that Barack Obama was familiar with the radical content of Jeremiah Wright's sermons. For Obama to say otherwise is a betrayal of the pastor and the church.

    The obvious implication is that Obama knew precisely what Wright's views and positions were for 20 years, and Obama "never batted an eye" until Wright's positions became too much political baggage for the Senator's presidential aspirations.

    The implication is obvious. Either:

    • Barack Obama believes in the angry, paranoid and racist teachings of Jeremiah Wright and the Marxist liberation theology of his church, and is lying about it in public in hopes of getting elected, which is essentially the betrayal Rev. Wright accused him of in front of the National Press Club Monday morning, or;
    • Barack Obama's membership in Trinity United Church of Christ and his relationship with the pastoral staff and congregation were nothing more than a 20-year lie of convenience and exploitation of the Church and Wright of Homeric proportions.

    No matter how you slice it, Obama is guilty of an epic deception in his quest for power, and potential supporters should start to wonder just how much he's willing to lie to them to get elected if he's already betrayed a 20-year-old relationship in that pursuit.

    I don't know if the United Church of Christ has a process for excommunication, but it would be interesting as an intellectual exercise to speculate about Trinity excommunicating Obama for his actions. He has obviously embarrassed the church and the man who grew it into what it is today, and has done as much as he possible can to separate himself from the church, short of locking the door and burning the congregation inside (a tactic, by the way, actually used by his cousin's supporters in Kenya this past January).

    Exit Question: If TUCC did excommunicate Obama, would it hurt him or help him as a candidate?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:54 AM | Comments (44)

    April 29, 2008

    The DNC IED

    Several people have forwarded me a link this morning to the Democratic National Committee ad against John McCain that shows two American soldiers at the moment an explosion goes off beside them.



    The soldiers are on screen for just a split-second, just long enough for viewers to see that there was an explosion, but not long enough to know if the soldiers pictured survived uninjured, if they were wounded, or if they were killed (note: Both soldiers survived. See final update below).

    More than 3 full decades after the last U.S. soldier left Saigon, the party of Bill Ayers still revels in the imagery of blowing up U.S. soldiers as part of their political expression.

    Update: RNC slams ad as deliberately distorting what McCain said (a fair charge) and demands that the networks pull the ad off the air.

    As for the source of the video clip, we're a little closer to running that down—it was used in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, a movie completed no later than April of 2004. The clip came from the first year of the war.

    Additional Update: Charlie Foxtrot notes that the same networks who placed restrictions on 9/11 imagery did not apparently have the same problem with this Democratic National Committee ad.

    And because it matters, both U.S. soldiers survive the blast (h/t Political Punch).

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:09 AM | Comments (46)

    April 28, 2008

    Sorry, Barack: NC Gov Goes For Hillary

    I first heard the suspicion that North Carolina Governor Mike Easley would buck the huge advantage Barack Obama has in North Carolina's polling to support Hillary Clinton late this afternoon. The Associated Press now confirms it:

    Hillary Rodham Clinton has won the endorsement of North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, a surprise boost to her candidacy in a state where Barack Obama is heavily favored to win the Democratic primary.

    Easley was expected to announce the endorsement Tuesday morning in Raleigh, the state capital, one week before North Carolina's primary on May 6, according to people close to the governor and to Clinton. The individuals spoke on condition of anonymity because the formal announcement was pending.

    With its liberal white enclaves and large population of black voters, North Carolina has been viewed as exceptionally favorable to Obama. Public polling in the state has him leading the former first lady by 10 points or more.

    But Clinton has contested the state in hopes of an upset. Short of that, her campaign aims to peel off enough pledged delegates to stay competitive with Obama.

    The former first lady spent Monday campaigning across North Carolina and has run a heavy television advertising campaign in the state. She was headed Tuesday to Indiana, whose May 6 primary is viewed as much more competitive.

    Easley is relatively well-liked—or at least, isn't heavily disliked—by both Democrats and Republicans in North Carolina, and has enough political capital that his endorsement could actually make things interesting if Clinton continues to close on Obama.

    And yes, she very well should continue to close.

    Obama looks weak and scared for dodging another debate with Clinton. His dodge ie occuring even as Jeremiah Wright's latest rants give Tarheel voters good reason to find Obama's judgment suspect for the two decades (and counting) he has spent at Wright's radical church, where paranoia, anti-Americanism, racism, and conspiracy-theorizing has proven to be not only accepted, but a bizarrely lucrative business.

    I'm not convinced that African-American voters will turn on Obama for Wright's lunacy even as few buy into his hatred, but I suspect that some white and Latino Democratic voters who had been leaning towards Obama now realize that his hopes of prevailing in the general election have been heavily damaged, and they may flip to Clinton instead of throwing away their vote. Thus does Easley's endorsement become important for Democrats on the edge.

    A few weeks ago, North Carolina was predicted as a blow-out victory for Barack Obama. Now?

    Anything's possible.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:30 PM | Comments (3)

    When Jesus Drove a Porsche

    I am not a very good Christian. I can't confidently flip to the right book, chapter and verse Sunday mornings without looking at the index as some others in my congregation can.

    Still, I'm fairly confident that Rev. Jeremiah Wright is not a religious martyr. He has never been publicly crucified. Hoisted on his own petard, perhaps, as he's been caught damning our nation and accusing our government of genocide and racism, even as he has profited handsomely from a theology based upon a devious blend of Marxism and racial politics, but not crucified.

    I'm pretty sure he isn't Jesus, even as he would like to make himself a messianic martyr. Last I checked, Jesus didn't drive a Porsche, and wasn't building a mansion in the exclusive neighborhood of Tinley Park while lecturing his inner-city flock about the evils of aspiring to "middleclassness" in the US of KKK-A.

    Though certainly grist for the media mill, I can't hold Wright's more recent outbursts directly against Obama. Wright's most recent vitriol has come after Obama has made at least minimal attempts to distance himself publicly from Wright's worst comments, even as he clings to the pastor and his warped theology.

    What I can question, however, is Obama's judgment in associating with such a man and other radicals throughout his adult life.

    As a nation, we've only known Jeremiah Wright for a few months now, but Barack Obama has known him for two decades. He knows the man's theology, his ministry, and after two decades, at least something of the man as an individual. Whether or not Obama heard any of Wright's specific rants is frankly irrelevant. In the larger picture, he should know who and what Wright is as a man.

    If the self-righteous, vitriolic narcissist we continue to see in the news is the real Jeremiah Wright, then we have every reason to question Barack Obama's devotion to a racial and radical theology well outside of the mainstream of the American religious experience. It is a matter of his personal judgment and his character.

    Barack Obama promises "change we can believe in" and a new spirit of bi-partisanship in politics.

    Were he a more mature candidate, we would have his record and his experience as a national legislator to judge him on as someone capable of making such a change, but his record is almost non-existent. He has taken few stands (if any) on issues he now claims to be important. The meager voting record he has compiled shows him to be anything but bi-partisan. Instead, he boasts the most liberal voting record in the Senate, to the left of even self-described democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

    With no record of bi-partisan accomplishments, all Barack Obama has to stand on is rhetoric—"just words."

    With mere words being insufficient, few actions to his credit and what little record he has compiled showing him to be a radical leftist instead of the inclusive moderate he claims to be, we're left to judge Barack based upon what we can divine of his character by the company he keeps.

    Radical violence-promoting priest Father Michael Pfleger, whom Obama has known even longer than Wright, and Wright is a man made rich by exploiting Chicago's urban poor via religion. Terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who formally declared war on the United States, and still despise this nation. Michelle Obama, who has an Ivy League education and a job that pays her hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but still finds this to be a "mean" country.

    Barack Obama's minister may have made a mint off of preaching hate and may also be his greatest continuing public relations embarrassment, but his relationship with the man who would liken himself to being martyred like Jesus is just one example of Obama's poor character judgment, or perhaps just poor character.

    A man of few accomplishments to support his rhetorical promises, no proven leadership skills, and a past, present, and future filled with radicals more interested in fighting America than fighting for it, Barack Obama is not a candidate America can trust.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:02 AM | Comments (41)

    April 22, 2008

    PA Voting Forecast

    Bitter and cold, with bluster increasing throughout the evening hours, with little hope of change for tomorrow.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:03 AM | Comments (0)

    April 21, 2008

    Tarheel Dems Attempt to Cover for Obama as He Bails on NC Debate

    Running from a challenge? Unsurprisingly, that's something they can believe in:

    A proposed debate in Raleigh between Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has been called off, officials said Monday.

    CBS had agreed to host a debate next Sunday at the RBC Center and televise the event nationally. Clinton agreed to the date, but Obama, who had earlier committed to an April 19 debate, said repeatedly he wasn't sure whether he could fit an April 27 debate into his campaign schedule.

    The North Carolina Democratic Party said in a statement Monday that the logistics of staging a national event on short notice, if Obama were to agree to the debate this week, were too daunting to try to pull everything together. Democratic officials also said there were "growing concerns about what another debate would do to party unity."

    That is a truckload of bovine excrement, of course.

    The NC Democratic Party could have easily provided for a debate with the resources we have here in the state capitol, even on short notice, and plans were no doubt in place to do just that until Obama backed down from the challenge.

    Leading Tarheel Democrats—including both Democratic gubernatorial candidates—are in the tank for Barack Obama, and they understand that another dismal performance by a faltering Obama could give the Clinton campaign the opening it needs to finish a bruising primary season strong and throw the nomination process even further into turmoil. They don't want to risk his double-digit lead and his overall viability when it isn't absolutely necessary.

    The NC Democratic Primary isn't about producing the most viable candidate. It's about letting the selected candidate get the nomination with as little risk as possible.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:34 PM | Comments (17)

    Hey, Cracker...

    ...who do you hate the most?

    This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women. And when I say people, I don't mean people, I mean white men. How ironic is this? After all this time, after all these stupid articles about how powerless white men are and how they can't even get into college because of overachieving women and affirmative action and mean lady teachers who expected them to sit still in the third grade even though they were all suffering from terminal attention deficit disorder -- after all this, they turn out (surprise!) to have all the power. (As they always did, by the way; I hope you didn't believe any of those articles.)

    To put it bluntly, the next president will be elected by them: the outcome of Tuesday's primary will depend on whether they go for Hillary or Obama, and the outcome of the general election will depend on whether enough of them vote for McCain. A lot of them will: white men cannot be relied on, as all of us know who have spent a lifetime dating them. And McCain is a compelling candidate, particularly because of the Torture Thing. As for the Democratic hope that McCain's temper will be a problem, don't bet on it. A lot of white men have terrible tempers, and what's more, they think it's normal.

    Unreliable white men. Think of how wonderful this land would have been without them.

    The author of this bigoted rant (my bold, by the way) is Norah Ephron, another Barack Obama supporter clinging to "hope" and "change" along with sexism, racism, and bitterness.

    (h/t Hot Air, where Ed has fairly refined, if no doubt unreliable and hateful, thoughts on this rant.)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:21 AM | Comments (12)

    April 18, 2008

    Stupidity and Terrorism

    Bill Ayers, the man described as a casual friend of Barack Obama, who threw a fundraiser for Obama during his state senate campaign, who appeared with him at academic conferences, and who served as a board member under Obama's chairmanship of the liberal Woods Fund, refuses to admit that attempting to blow up soldiers and debutantes or other bombings as a leader of the Weather Underground were acts of terrorism:

    "I've never advocated terrorism, never participated in it, never defended it. The U.S. government, by contrast, does it routinely and defends the use of it in its own cause consistently," he wrote.

    Ayers defines terrorism as "the use or threat of random violence to intimidate, frighten, or coerce a population toward some political end," and he cites, as examples, "an Israeli assault on a neighborhood in Gaza," the Sept. 11 attacks, and "Sherman's March to the Sea" during the Civil War.

    It is, of course, a purposefully false definition provided by an unrepentant terrorist.

    Terrorism is premeditated, politically or ideologically motivated violence against civilians or military targets in non-military situations.

    When the Israeli military launches raids into Gaza with the express intention of neutralizing Hamas (and in the past, Fatah) militants that continually bombard Israel with rocket fire, it is not terrorism. Israel's incursions and return fire into Gaza are purposeful strikes against specific targets of military value carried out with precision weapons only after the risk collateral damage have been evaluated and determined to be minimal.

    The attacks of September 11, 2001 were conducted with the dual designs of attacking symbolic U.S. civilian targets and collapsing economic markets. al Qaeda succeeded in completing 3 of their 4 attacks, but failed their larger goal. These attacks were acts of terrorism, but like many acts of terrorism, were not random by any means.

    Sherman's March to the Sea was conducted by Union soldiers with the goals of strategically, economically, and psychologically breaking the Confederacy. It was a sound strategic decision designed to end the war, and while brutal, it was hardly random, nor was it terrorism.

    Some of the members of the Weather Underground are murderers and armed robbers, but every bombing and attempted bombing committed by the Weather Underground and it's members were acts of terrorism, and therefore every member of the Weather Underground, including Bill Ayers, are terrorists. Period.

    Barack Obama's campaign has attempted to minimize the relationship between Obama and Ayers on the campaign's official site:

    REALITY: OBAMA WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD WHEN THE WEATHERMEN WERE ACTIVE

    Absolutely true, and utterly irrelevant. While Ayers has been forgiven by the ultra-liberal social circle in Chicago, Barack Obama knew as an adult that Ayers was a terrorist, as his actions were well-documented, well known, and among some circles, celebrated. Barack Obama did not have to socialize with terrorist Bill Ayers, but he did.

    REALITY: AYERS CONNECTION IS "PHONY," TENUOUS," "A STRETCH"

    I don't think anyone has accused Obama and Ayers of an intimate love affair, but to deny that Ayers has served with Obama in various social settings over a number of years—which the candidate's web site attempts to minimize— is the same sort of typical disingenuous hackery we expect from run of the mill politicians, not someone who promises "change."

    REALITY: AYERS COMMENTS WERE PUBLISHED ON SEPTEMBER 11; THE INTERVIEW OCCURRED PRIOR TO PUBLICATION

    And Ayer's comments regretting his lack of successful terrorist activity prior to Sept. 11, 2001, is less reprehensible than they were afterward? Why? Simply because more people had a better of the kind of violent radicalism he represented after watching more successful terrorists kill almost 3,000 Americans in front of us on live television?

    Bill Ayers is an aging terrorist who doesn't consider his terrorism as real terrorism. Barack Obama expects those of us outside of his ultra-liberal Chicago social circles to understand that spending time in homes, boardrooms, and in conferences with aging terrorists (Ayers is just one aging terrorist Obama knows) is simply the cost of doing business in Chicago politics.

    I don't think my fellow Americans are that stupid, but Obama certainly seems to be betting his political future that they are.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:56 AM | Comments (32)

    April 17, 2008

    Dear Senator Obama

    Let me pass along a wee little bit of advice regarding equivalence.

    There is no equivalence between your friend of many years William Ayers, his terrorist group's killing of police officers during an armored car robbery, their craven targeting of a non-commissioned officers dance (think Army prom) and other bombings they conducted for "peace," and your attempt to make those terrorist murders equivalent to Senator Coburn's hypothetical statement about a legal interpretation.

    In your attempt at moral equivalence, you try to make actual murders and attempted murders the same as hyperbole.

    Of course, it's all "just words" in a grand game, isn't it?

    Perhaps Ayers—whom you try to explain away as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago"—can better explain what these words may mean to others the next time you attend a political fundraiser in his home.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:13 PM | Comments (31)

    Shameful? He Oughta Know

    So Editor & Publisher/Huffington Post luminary (in the something-burning-in-a-bag sense) Greg Mitchell thinks that last night's Democratic debate—one where the moderators asked the questions real people have been buzzing over, in as much as they care about politics—was A Shameful Night for the U.S. Media:

    In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.

    You should listen. When it comes to shameful behavior in the media, Mitchell is an expert.

    This is the same man who urged the media to help overthrown the government, who admitted to simply making up stories at the beginning of his career, and who attempted to rewrite his way out of that inconvenient truth when it became embarrassing.

    Of course, Greg Mitchell is a newscrafter and partisan advocate, not a journalist, so perhaps it is unsurprising that he would take Gibson and Stephanopoulos to task for asking difficult questions that reflect poorly upon his chosen candidate.

    Asking Democrats hard questions?

    Shameful.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:37 PM | Comments (4)

    April 14, 2008

    Danke, Comrade Obama

    I asked the rhetorical question last week: Is Barack Obama a Communist?

    I posited the question because of the purposeful emptiness of Obama's stated views, his lack of a long-term record, disturbing tendencies in the little legislative record he has established, and a list of troubling personal and professional associations with radicals, cranks, criminals, and conspiracy theorists.

    Little did I know at the time that Obama had already answered my question during in an exclusive fundraiser in San Francisco's Billionaire's Row. As William Kristol points out in the Times, Barack Obama cited Marxist philosophies in describing why Americans go to church and pray to God.

    It isn't faith, says Obama. It is "bitterness" that drives us into the pews. We are frustrated, bigoted, and paranoid, and we arm ourselves with guns and God as a result. It is this nation of violent rubes Obama has protected himself from by cloistering himself among the urban and urbane.

    It is because he holds these views of the rest of us that Obama's two-decade association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his radical church could not be disavowed.

    For Obama to disavow Wright is to disavow his own warped views of religion, the Constitution, and America. His convictions may be poisoned, but he is principled in holding to their acidity.

    It is AmeriKKKa they fear and loath, a dumbed-down, never-evolving nation they've had reinforced in their minds on Sundays for 20 years. It is a country that Barack and Michelle Obama know in their hearts that they are not part of, a people that they cannot be proud of. For all the advantages this country has given them, they are blind to our better nature as a nation.

    I pity the Obamas, but I thank them for finally letting us see who they really are, and what they think of the rest of us.

    Update: Andrew Sullivan accuses Kristol of misrepresenting Obama:

    ...Kristol is deliberately distorting to paint Obama as a cynical manipulator of religious faith for political ends, rather than as a genuine Christian. He's calling him a lying, Godless communist.

    Actually, Obama is neither quite a "lying, Godless communist" nor "a genuine Christian," but something of both, and neither. Obama is a 20-year congregate of Black Liberation Theology, race-defined Marxism in a Christian shell.

    Ultimately, it matters little whether Obama was a Marxist before he found Trinity and Jeremiah Wright's rendition of James Cone's Black Liberation Theology, or if he became imbued with Marxism as a result of his exposure to this bastardized doctrine.

    What does matter is that Obama's views, shaped by Jeremiah Wright over decades, do not represent those of the vast majority of Americans, Democrat or Republican, and that is something Sullivan would much rather ignore about his chosen candidate.

    Update: Juliette Ochieng makes incisive observations about Obama's view through the prism of Black Liberation Theology at her blog baldilocks.

    A taste:

    In Obama's mind, the religion clung to by the "average poor white Pennsylvanian" is BLT's demonic "white" Church. The "white" Church is the tool of oppression for all—including poor whites—and should be shaken off just like other social maladies. Just like anti-immigration (sic) and racism. One will note that, in the defense of the earlier remarks, Obama still does not say anything objectively positive about the religion adhered to by the average rural white Pennsylvanian. What he actually says is that government should answer their prayers.

    Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt notes that while Obama has indeed had an extraordinary life, there are reasons he cannot relate to, and does not understand, the average American.

    Final Update (4/15): A very interesting catch from Professor Bainbridge (h/t Insty). If this is correct, Senator Joe Lieberman, who has worked with Obama for three years, isn't sure if he is a Marxist:

    I know him now for a little more than three years since he came into the Senate and he's obviously very smart and he’s a good guy. I will tell ya that during this campaign, I've learned some things about him, about the kind of environment from which he came ideologically. And I wouldn't… I'd hesitate to say he's a Marxist, but he's got some positions that are far to the left of me and I think mainstream America.

    Bainbridge himself seems to believe that Obama is a modern socialist instead of a Marxist. I'd argue that for all practical purposes as far as American voters are concerned, that is a distinction without much of a difference.

    Final, Final Update (4/15): It may well be noted that Barack H. Obama Sr (candidate Obama's father) stated that there was very little difference between African Socialism and Soviet-style communism, so perhaps he would agree with me about identifying his son's politics, even though he was in favor of communism, and I am not.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 PM | Comments (35)

    Obama Reverses Course

    In a desperate bid to distance himself from yet another unhinged tirade from his former minister of 20 years, Barack Obama is expected to announce later today that he is, indeed, a Muslim.

    Update: Abe Greenwald has a more serious look at the implosion of the freshman senator's campaign at Commentary.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:56 AM | Comments (1)

    April 11, 2008

    Obama Explains God-Crazy, Gun-Humping Pennsylvania Rubes to San Francisco's Billionaire's Row

    Keep in mind that the original source on this is a rather batty Huffington Post contributor, but armed with that bit of information, let's listen to how Obama describes certain parts of fly-over country to his fellow liberal elites in San Francisco, at this event at the Getty home on Billionaire's Row chronicled by zombie.

    "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

    Don't worry if you're not from Pennsylvania though, folks. I'm sure he feels this way about you, wherever you live.

    John McCain and Hillary Clinton aren't missing out of the action, as you may well imagine.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:22 PM | Comments (15)

    April 09, 2008

    Is Barack Obama a Communist?

    It is reprehensible that we are this deep into a U.S. presidential election run and this question is on the table, but that is what can happen when political parties and the media anoint a candidate based upon rhetoric and marketability instead of vetting him for substance.

    A blog called The Obama Report has passed along an Accuracy in Media account that cites Communist Party USA member Frank Marshall Davis as Barack Obama's mentor:

    In his books, Obama admits attending "socialist conferences" and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a "hard-core academic Marxist," which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes.

    However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his "poetry" and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just "Frank."

    The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.

    Ace notes:

    Barack Obama has been swimming in a sea of left radicalism all his life, from his communist dad to his firebrand America-hating preacher to his terrorist buddy Bill Ayers.

    Barack Obama is very vague about his actual politics and few have bothered asking.

    So I'm asking: What are Barack Obama's politics?

    Is Obama "merely" another radical leftist like another one of his mentors, Saul Alinsky?

    Is he a Marxist, as would befit his continued 20-year association with a church founded on the Marxism underlying Black Liberation Theology?

    Is he a socialist revolutionary with Maoist tendencies that wants to wage war against the United States like his close friend, fellow Woods Fund board member, and domestic terrorist William Ayers?

    Is he a communist, like his mentor Davis, his father, his ethic-cleansing, Islamist-coddling cousin, and even his own wife Michelle Obama, who insisted just yesterday the thought that, "someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."

    At this point we simply do not know where along the radical leftist continum Barack Obama's thoughts reside, because no one has ever pressed him on his beliefs or his meager record.

    For the media, it might be nice to know these things before Obama sews up the Democratic nomination.

    Update: Captain Ed has related thoughts on the underlying philosophy of "statism" that plagues both remaining Democratic contenders.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:07 AM | Comments (85)

    April 08, 2008

    Obama: Foreign Policy Expert?

    Yes, that his roughly what Barack Obama asserted during a fundraiser in San Francisco, according to the Huffington Post:

    Last night at a fundraiser in San Francisco, Barack Obama took a question on what he's looking for in a running mate. "I would like somebody who knows about a bunch of stuff that I'm not as expert on," he said, and then he was off and running. "I think a lot of people assume that might be some sort of military thing to make me look more Commander-in-Chief-like. Ironically, this is an area--foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain."

    "It's ironic because this is supposedly the place where experience is most needed to be Commander-in-Chief. Experience in Washington is not knowledge of the world. This I know. When Senator Clinton brags 'I've met leaders from eighty countries'--I know what those trips are like! I've been on them. You go from the airport to the embassy. There's a group of children who do native dance. You meet with the CIA station chief and the embassy and they give you a briefing. You go take a tour of a plant that [with] the assistance of USAID has started something. And then--you go."

    "You do that in eighty countries--you don't know those eighty countries. So when I speak about having lived in Indonesia for four years, having family that is impoverished in small villages in Africa--knowing the leaders is not important--what I know is the people. . . ."

    Barack Obama lived in Indonesia from 1967 to 1971. Born in 1961, he's admitting that he brings to the table the foreign policy experience of a 6-10 year old... is that really the depth of experience that he thinks American voters want in a leader? If so, my experiences playing with G.I. Joe when I was that age qualify me to be Secretary of Defense.

    As for Obama's family in "small villages in Africa" I'm not sure he wants Americans to focus very much on them.

    Supporters of Barack Obama's cousin Raila Odinga were behind an ethnic cleansing campaign that killed more than 600 in Kenya in January of this year, and part of that included burning men, women, and children alive in a church. Odinga had also promised to institute harsh Sharia courts throughout the country and ban the teaching of Christianity if elected... change Kenyan Islamists can believe in.

    As for the experience of his presidential opponents, Obama may have a point about fellow Democratic contender Hillary Clinton having little experience beyond exclusively political trips, but Obama's foreign experiences pale in comparison to those of John McCain, a man born in Panama who moved around the Pacific and the United States as a child as he followed his father's U.S.Navy career. He also built up an impressive travel resume on his own, some of which Obama might have heard about.

    In 1982 while running for office in Arizona, McCain delivered a line on his residency in various parts of the world to an opponent that Obama may well want to remember when attempting to play up his own meager life experiences, foreign policy or otherwise:

    "Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the first district of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi."

    McCain, of course, has gone on to develop a bit more foreign policy experience since then as a representative to the House and later as a four-term Senator.

    Obama? He may have watched Sesame Street in Indonesia while his Kenyan relatives learned communism in East Germany.

    Not quite the same thing.

    Update: Fellow N.C.-blogger Sister Toldjah has closely-related thoughts.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:59 AM | Comments (8)

    April 07, 2008

    MCCain: Dem Positions Evidence of a "Failure of Leadership"

    He would, of course, be right:

    Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars, McCain criticized Obama and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and insisted that last year's U.S. troop buildup in Iraq brought a glimmer of "something approaching normal" there, despite a recent outbreak of heavy fighting and a U.S. death toll that has surpassed 4,000.

    "I do not believe that anyone should make promises as a candidate for president that they cannot keep if elected," McCain told the crowd.

    "To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests, and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility," he said. "It is a failure of leadership."

    The Democratic position on Iraq is one of diligent ignorance and the studied avoidance of reality.

    National Democrats, including both Democratic presidential hopefuls, long ago invested their individual political futures and that of their political party in the gamble that the Iraq War would be a defeat, and they then positioned themselves politically to take advance of the expected loss.

    They did so with reckless disregard, and did precisely what they'd accused Republicans of doing: they "went to war" without an exit strategy of any kind at all.

    Now that the war has turned for the better, al Qaeda has all but admitted defeat, and Sadr's Iranian-controlled militia is on the verge of being dissolved under a united front of Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish leaders, Democrats have no choice but to continue to advocate for defeat. They continue to do everything in their power to salvage a loss, from trying to influence the media as Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have repeatedly done, to promising a defeat by calendar dates as Barack Obama has done time and again in campaign stops.

    General Petraeus' COIN doctrine, the "surge," the Sawha "Awakening" movement, and even Prime Minister al- Maliki's poorly-planned raids into southern Iraq against Iranian-controlled militias have tilted the conflict strongly against al Qaeda and Iran. Democratic politicians find themselves in the unenviable position of having to lie to potential voters and their fellow travelers alike to retain votes and relevance, sharing a delusion that things have not gotten better in Iraq.

    To give up the delusion of a static unchanging conflict, an endless stalemate that can only be changed by our loss, is to lose a key element of their community-based reality.

    Both Democratic Presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton continue to pay lip service to the virulent and vocal fringe that are convinced that the war was irrevocably lost before the battle was joined. They make promises that no responsible military or foreign policy strategist in either party or on the international stage will support, promising defeat, championing genocide, cheerleading for disaster to garner votes... without any intention of actually following through and letting such a disaster happen on their watch.

    Clinton and Obama recognize the passive-aggressive bloodlust of the "progressive" fringe of their party, radicals that do not mind thousands of Iraqis being killing in a genocide, or seeing the Middle East sucked into a violent conventional regional war or nuclear arms race if they can only blame the blood-stained streets on Republicans.

    Obama and Hillary follow their supporter's fickle whims. They will pander to the torches—and—pitchforks base, but as their own strategists have made clear, they will not honor the calls for genocide by apathy. They'll lie to them with a smile on their faces, and then enact the exact same policies that McCain has the political courage to vocalize publicly.

    McCain rightly criticizes his opponent's positions as failures of leadership. Neither Hillary nor Obama have ever led anything of consequence before.

    It is too much to expect them to display leadership now.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:30 PM | Comments (1)

    ISM

    Via the headlines at Hot Air comes a breathtaking Joe Klein entry at the TIME blog Swampland:

    Pete Wehner, former chief White House propagandist for the Iraq war, has taken me to task for claiming that liberalism is more optimistic and therefore inherently more patriotic than conservatism. That takes some nerve. He would compare my statement to the constant drumbeat of right-wingnutters questioning the patriotism of those who do not support the Bush Administration's foreign policy foolishness. But I didn't do that at all. I didn't question the patriotism of conservatives: I simply argued that it is more patriotic to be optimistic about the chance that our collective will--that is, the best work of government--will succeed, rather than that it will fail or impinge on freedom.

    In others words, it is more patriotic to be in favor of civil rights legislation than to oppose it...to be in favor of social security and medicare than to oppose them...and to hope that the better angels of our legislators--acting in concert, in compromise--will produce a universal health insurance system and an alternative energy plan that we can all be proud of.

    Klein can on occasion be astute, but his grasp of the affect of government on the human element is achingly weak from someone who writes about the subject for a living. Government is never comprised of merely the best intentions or has the best work in mind. It is at best a necessary evil, and is often done with the accrual and consolidation of power the goal of lawmakers, their campaign idealism either false from the outset, or leached out of them over time as they succumb to the seductions of power.

    Someone posted this Youtube video to a comment thread of one of my Pajamas Media articles several weeks ago.

    I do not care for the the purposeful misspelling of Obama's name at the end, but the "ISM" cartoon that comprises the bulk of the video neatly diagnoses Klein's disease.

    Government always impinges on freedom. It is government's inherent nature, and for Klein not to understand it's congenital condition is sad to behold.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:30 AM | Comments (1)

    April 03, 2008

    It Also Gets Dark At Night

    I don't see why Jane Fonda's endorsement of Barack Obama qualifies as being newsworthy:

    Jane Fonda, the actress and ardent anti-Vietnam War advocate who visited North Vietnam during those hostilities, has endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president.

    Actress and anti-war advocate Jane Fonda at a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft battery in June 1972 singing an anti-war song with soldiers during her visit to North Vietnam in the Vietnam war has just endorsed Democrat Barack Obama of Illinois for president

    There were no formal ceremonies for the endorsement. In fact, the Obama campaign may just be learning about the actress's approval now as word spreads like lit gunpowder via the Internet.

    Fonda was eating out last night and exited the restaurant, ignoring as celebrities often do the assembled press contingent.

    But a video camera was rolling as she approached the street and someone, perhaps just trying to get her to turn around for a picture, shouted out at her back, "Who are you going to vote for?"

    There was a moment of silence. Then, the actress did turn around toward the cameras, paused and with a smile said simply, "Obama!" Then she got into a car and drove away.

    A radical anti-war activist has decided to vote for a radical anti-war candidate. Why, exactly is this newsworthy?

    If Fonda had blurted out "McCain!"— as her candidate of choice, a man who was being brutally beaten by the North Vietnamese as Fonda was doing photo ops for them on anti-aircraft guns being used against McCain's fellow aviators—that would be news.

    If Obama's terrorist friend Bill Ayers renounced his involvement in bombings of the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and his group's attempting bombing of a soldiers dance at Fort Dix (the plan went awry when his girlfriend blew herself up by accident, instead of the U.S. Army soldiers and their civilian dates that they were targeting), and then shouted out that he would support McCain after targeting servicemen with bombs throughout the time McCain was being tortured, that would be news.

    If Rev. Jeremiah Wright, emerged from his million-dollar mansion to "God D__m Barack" instead of America, or to even simply apologize for exposing his congregation to bigotry and conspiracy theorizing, that would be news.

    But none of those things happened.

    An aging actress who wanted America to lose one war has announced her support for a candidate who wants America to lose it's current conflict.

    It is sad. It is predictable. But it isn't news.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:35 AM | Comments (8)

    April 02, 2008

    Obama: The Baby-Killing Candidate

    I found Saint Obama's view of pregnancy as a "punishment" quite repulsive when he uttered the words earlier this week, but I was not exceedingly surprised, considering his actual political record (not his empty presidential campaign promises) has typically been that of the left-wing radical.

    I did not know how extreme his ideas were regarding abortion, however, until today. Writing in a Washington Post op-ed, Michael Gerson demonstrates that Obama's record borders on quietly favoring infanticide.

    Obama has not made abortion rights the shouted refrain of his campaign, as other Democrats have done. He seems to realize that pro-choice enthusiasm is inconsistent with a reputation for post-partisanship.

    But Obama's record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion -- a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called "too close to infanticide." Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" because of a crisis pregnancy -- hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.

    That Obama opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act—a law, that states, quite simply, that abortionists cannot murder a child that manages to escape the womb alive—is beyond macabre.

    It is profoundly disturbing, to think that a man who would be President, a man who is the father of two young children himself, would oppose a law that protects the weakness and most vulnerable members of our society, babies born alive and defenseless.

    Sadly, his leanings toward infanticide mesh rather consistently with his plans for a headlong retreat from Iraq that most experts suspect would help trigger a genocide.

    As President, Barack Obama won't mind if people die.

    They just have to be the right people—infants and Iraqi civilians—instead of terrorists.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:32 AM | Comments (43)

    March 31, 2008

    Obama Doesn't Want Daughters "Punished" With a Baby

    I goess we could call these his "terminating the family" values:

    "When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information."

    And how is that information working for the community so far?

    Obama is stating publicly that if his daughters can't keep their knickers on when they become teenagers and they get pregnant as a result, he encourages them to get an abortion. Pregnancy is a "punishment," according to Obama, the man who tries to convince people he's not a radical, but just like one of us.

    It was bad enough that Barack Obama wouldn't remove his daughters from exposure to Jeremiah Wright's unhinged rantings, and that he continues to have them attend a church where the current pastor is no less radical in his doctrine.

    Now He's informed his chldren via the media that daddy will drive them to Planned Parenthood if they get knocked up.

    Once again, Barack Obama is making me question not just his ability to lead this nation, but even his ability to be a marginally-responsible father.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:09 PM | Comments (52)

    Running From His Record: Obama's Lies Confirmed by His Own Hand

    I ripped into Barack Obama's utter disdain of firearms and his desire for blanket bans on entire classes of firearms in a post for Pajamas Media back on February 22. The article, Obama Shooting Himself in the Foot with Anti-Gun Stance, noted:

    In his answers to the 1998 Illinois State Legislative National Political Awareness Test, Obama said he favored a ban on "the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons."

    By definition, this would include all pistols ever made, from .22 target pistols used in the Olympics to rarely-fired pistols kept in nightstands and sock drawers for the defense of families, and every pistol in between. Obama's strident stand would also ban all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, whatever their previously legal purpose.

    Obama's desire to ban all semi-automatic firearms (including those most commonly used for hunting and target shooting) and all handguns are positions well to the left of mainstream American views, as are many of the other political positions he took in the 1998 survey.

    Running as a moderate and inclusive presidential candidate a decade later, Obama has tried to explain away his leftist positions on that survey, and an earlier 1996 survey, as being the work of campaign aides who misstated his positions.

    The Politico bursts that explanation this morning, in a report that notes that Obama himself answered questions in an interview with the group that created the 1996 questionnaire, and even included the candidate's hand-written notes on an amended version of their questionnaire.

    Some members of IVI-IPO, the group that authored the 1996 survey, are not happy with Obama's changing views.

    The group had endorsed Obama in every race he'd run — including his failed long-shot 2000 primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) — until now.

    The group's 37-member board of directors, meeting last year soon after Obama distanced himself from the first questionnaire, stalemated in its vote over an endorsement in the Democratic presidential primary. Forty percent supported Obama, 40 percent sided with Clinton and 20 percent voted for other candidates or not to endorse.

    "One big issue was: Does he or does he not believe the stuff he told us in 1996?" said Aviva Patt, who has been involved with the IVI-IPO since 1990 and is now the group's treasurer. She volunteered for Obama's 2004 Senate campaign, but voted to endorse the since-aborted presidential campaign of Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) and professed disappointment over Obama's retreat from ownership of the questionnaire.

    Other members of the group still support Obama, but it frankly doesn't matter.

    Barack Obama has tried to package himself this time around as a uniting, moderating force in American politics, but his dozen-year long record from 1996 through his current Senate ranking as America's most liberal Senator shows him to be well to the left of mainstream positions not only among Americans in general, but even within the Democratic Party.

    Instead of running on his liberal views, Barack Obama is trying to minimize the public's exposure to them without refuting his still-held radical beliefs, just as he's tried to run away from his relationship to a radical Marxism-inspired church with a bigoted, America-damning pastor without quitting the church or severing his relationship with Wright, just as he has no refuted his dinner-party friendship and board of directors relationship with a proud terrorist who lost his girlfriend in the group when she blew herself up trying to create bombs to target a dance for American soldiers.

    Far from being a uniting force in American politics, Barack Obama has shown himself time and again to be a shifty radical attempting to lie his way into higher office. Unfortunately, his hope of surviving the general election un-vetted by the media and his opponents is falling apart.

    Amusingly, the superdelegate system that Democrats created to avoid another embarrassing McGovern-type landslide defeat is primed to fail in it's primary mission by nominating another left-wing radical with little chance of winning, and a real possibility of of suffering another embarrassing landslide defeat once the gloves come off in the general election.

    I can hardly wait.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:29 AM | Comments (39)

    March 28, 2008

    The Pitiful Josh Marshall

    I don't typically go after other bloggers directly, but this particular combination of smugness and idiocy got under my skin.

    Perhaps if one intends to publicly attack a political figure for the craven act of extending a deadline when things start getting dicey in combat, one should actually verify that such an extension has been made.

    It hasn't, according to the AP article appended to the very NPR story he linked to.

    Al-Maliki's office also announced it has given residents in Basra until April 8 to turn over "heavy and medium-size weapons" in return for unspecified monetary compensation.

    The deadline is separate from the three-day ultimatum announced Wednesday for gunmen to surrender their arms and renounce violence or face harsher measures, government adviser Sadiq al-Rikabi said.

    The move instead appeared to be aimed at noncombatants who may have weapons like machine-guns and grenade launchers either for smuggling purposes or to sell to militants or criminal gangs.

    Two different deadlines have been set down, the original being a deadline on small arms, and the second, separate deadline for "heavy and medium-size weapons." The small arms deadline has not been changed, and it is the deadline on larger weapons that takes effect on April 8th.

    On the bright side, he can always find work among his peers.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:38 AM | Comments (43)

    Barack Obama: Lying Again

    Break out your shovels, kids. It's getting deep:

    "Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." The interview will be broadcast Friday.

    Jeremiah Wright has never publicly apologized for any of his rhetoric, from his racial bigotry to his conspiracy theorizing, or his anti-Americanism.

    Even with Wright gone, Trinity United Church of Christ still practices Black Liberation theology, a bastardization of Marxist socialism, racial victimhood, and Christianity—and pretty much in that order of importance—as Karl meticulously detailed in a post at Protein Wisdom. Wright's replacement, the Rev. Otis Moss, will not deviate from those teachings in any significant way, and Moss shows little signs of even toning down the rhetoric, as he compared criticism of Wright's comments to a lynching and compared Wright to Jesus in his Easter sermon.

    Note well:

    The criticism surrounding Wright has not softened the services at Trinity United Church of Christ, where Obama has been a congregant for 20 years. Instead, Moss defiantly defended their method of worship, referencing rap lyrics to make his point.

    "If I was Ice Cube I'd say it a little differently — 'You picked the wrong folk to mess with,'" Moss said to an enthusiastic congregation, standing up during much of the sermon, titled "How to Handle a Public Lynching."

    Barack Obama is lying when he says that Wright apologized, and lies by implication when he tries to convince America that Trinity has somehow changed with Wright's retirement.

    The quarterback may have changed, but Trinity is still playing the same game, using the same playbook based upon radical victimhood, and Barack Obama is still apparently the head cheerleader.

    If Obama was truly offended by Wright's vitriol, he would have walked out on Moss as well, a pastor mentored at Wright's knee and apparently cut from the same cloth, preaching the same shop-worn victimhood at the same church.

    Barack Obama was not offended at the radical messages of hate being preached at Trinity, he was just offended that they was exposed.

    Update: Comments whacked before. Now working.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:26 AM | Comments (16)

    March 27, 2008

    What Change?

    His Vacuousness made an appearance at a townhall meeting in Greensboro yesterday, which was duly recorded by our local media.

    It may come as a shock to some, but the candidate of "change" offered precious little of that miraculous substance during his appearance, instead relying on standard liberal doctrine that is far older than the candidate himself.

    "We're at a defining moment in our history," Obama told a packed house at the Greensboro Memorial Coliseum. "We can't wait to fix our schools. We can't wait to fix our health-care system. We can't wait to bring good jobs and wages back to the United States of America. We can't wait to bring the war in Iraq to an end."

    But how fresh are Obama's ideas, really? Does he represent change, or just recycling? Let's dissect the excerpts of his speech above.

    Fix Our Schools
    Hardly a revolutionary idea. As Obama was speaking in NC, perhaps we should look to Charles B. Aycock, North Carolina's first "progressive" governor, who became North Carolina's "Education Governor" during his term from 1901 to 1905. Aycock's role in some other historical moments are probably better left undiscussed, but the fact remains that Obama is recycling an argument almost 110 years old.

    Fix Our Health Care
    Refresh my memory... didn't the other Democratic presidential candidate work on this a decade ago? Such rhetoric has been standard fare from "progressive" reformers for more than 90 years, and even President Harry Truman had his national health care plan shot down in the 1940s. Obama is recycling ideas between 60-100 years old.

    Good Jobs and Wages
    Obama is sometimes credited for being a powerful speaker like William Jennings Bryan, and he doesn't mind borrowing rhetoric that echoes down through history from Bryan's 1896 and 1900 presidential runs, either. Change? He's offering rhetoric more than 100 years old.

    End the War
    Historian Henry Littlefield suggests that Bryan's anti-imperialism phase, which in some ways mirrors Obama's desire for a headlong retreat from Iraq, inspired L. Frank Baum's character of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. Going back a bit further, Obama's rhetoric sounds even more like that of the "copperhead" Democrats of the U.S. Civil War, a faction of "peace" Democrats who were strongly opposed to the war from the beginning, demanded immediate peace regardless of the consequences, and railed about how that the conflict cost too many lives and too much treasure. Obama's recycling the ideas of abandoning a people struggling for democracy because things are just too hard, an argument more than 140 years old, and just as bad then as it is now.

    * * *

    Barack Obama's campaign is perhaps a campaign for "change," but it is change rooted in revolutionary politics from the 1860s to the 1940s. He echoes "progressive" promises of "change" heard by our great-great-grandparents, great-grandparents, and our grandparents (in their youth). He is a new salesman, offering old merchandise.

    If he's lucky, Barack Obama can still convince folks that he's "retro," but the fact remains that most of his political ideas are older than the Model T Ford, as relevant in this modern world, and as just as costly to repair.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:05 PM | Comments (12)

    March 25, 2008

    It Never Stops: Obama's Church Published Letter Alleging Israeli "Ethnic Bomb."

    Middle America, I'm sure this sort of stuff appears in your church bulletins all the time.

    Israel and South Africa worked on "ethnic bombs" to kill blacks and Arabs, and Libya was designated as a terrorist state by the U.S. for supporting African liberation movements?

    There is more nuttiness here than in a Payday bar, but rest assured that Barack Obama never saw this bulletin, and certainly doesn't agree with it, just as he's never seen or agreed with any of the other insanities that have been uttered in his church of choice over the past 20 years.

    You'll note that this was published on Trinity's "Youth Day," as part of "Family Month" according to the note at the bottom left of the page.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:27 AM | Comments (38)

    March 21, 2008

    State Dept Workers Fired for Accessing Obama's Passport Info

    Via MSNBC.

    The State Department says it is trying to determine whether three contract workers had a political motive for looking at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's passport file.

    Two of the employees were fired for the security breach and the third was disciplined but is still working, the department said Thursday night. It would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined or the names of the two companies for which they worked. The department's inspector general is investigating.

    The Obama campaign, sensing a possible escape route from Barack's current string of self-inflicted wounds, quickly moved into victim-mode.

    Milk it, baby.

    Bill Burton, spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign, called the incidents "an outrageous breach of security and privacy." He said this is "a serious matter that merits a complete investigation," adding that the campaign will "demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach."

    As noted by the well-traveled Jim Geraghty, the only personal data that would be in Obama's passport that is not already publicly-accessible information would be the Illinois Senator's Social Security Number and his travel history. Geraghty then goes on to speculate about a certain rival campaign that might be interested in accessing that travel information.

    Left-of-center blogger Will Bunch at Attytood follows that line of speculation and digs up an interesting nugget in his update:

    1. The office that handles passports, consular affairs, is indeed run by a woman named Maura Harty, who's a....wait for it -- Clinton administration holdover. Remember, no one has implicated her or any State Department employees -- the two people who were fired were contract workers.
    2. The greatest interest in Obama's overseas travel has been expressed by Clinton supporters. One area of interest -- and I really don't understand what exactly they were getting at -- is Obama's European travels, or non-travels.

    There are links attached to that speculation, but I think it only fair you go over to Bunch's site, read what he has to say, and click on the links there.

    So, are the Clinton's behind this?

    Could be, but other bloggers on the left have immediately focused—sigh—on BushCheneyHalliburtonRove, the real source of all the world's ills.

    John Amato's post on the subject is typical in this vein, as is Skippy's capitalization-challenged entry (Note to Skippy: the whole "e.e. cummings" orthography was cute in eighth-grade, but unless you wanted to regarded on the same intellectual plane as the other noted current practitioner of that form, it is well past time to "move on").

    So which political camp is behind this?

    While my speculation is hinged on nothing more substantial than anyone else's, I suspect that it is just what it appears; a couple of contractors that had their curiosity get the better of them.

    I worked for a financial services company years ago, and trainers that would use the dummied copies of the accounts of certain internationally-known celebrity clients in orientation to keep the class awake. There was never any ill-will involved in using the client's accounts, just a certain sort of stupid Stuart-ish "look what I can do!" voyeuristic element premised more on curiosity than malice.

    That in mind, I rather doubt that any particular political motivation was behind this, even though a Clinton campaign tie seems like intriguing blog-fodder if it can be proven that the employees were Clinton supporters.

    If, on the other hand, the turn out to be over-enthusiastic Obamaniacs trying to get a little closer to their hero,expect the news cycle on this to be shortened as a result.

    Of course, for now, the Obama campaign is relishing in the breach, as it takes—if only for fleeting moments—the focus away from Obama's "pastor problem" and the fallout from the vacuous speech he gave where he refused to cut ties to Rev. Wright or his church's radical, racially-focused, Marxist-driven Black Liberation theology.

    Obama will milk this story for all it's worth, for a long as he can.

    I think, however, that the damage is already done.

    Update: Sorry Obama. Clinton and McCain had their files breached as well. So much for this ginned-up outrage being able to long obscure his real problems.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:47 AM | Comments (9)

    March 20, 2008

    ANOTHER Pastor Problem for Obama? PLUS: A Reporter in the Tank

    When it rains, it pours:

    Without permission from CBS 2, the Fox News Channel ran Wednesday evening parts of a 2-year-old story by CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery on language used by State Sen. James Meeks, who is now a delegate pledged to Obama.

    "We don't have slave masters, we got mayors," Meeks said then while preaching. "But they are still the same white people who are presiding over systems where black people are not able to be educated. You got some preachers that are house n------. You got some elected officials that are house n------. Rather than them try and break this up, they're gonna fight you to protect that white man."

    Here's what I believe is a copy of the original CBS News story, which contains Meeks' language.

    What is striking about this story, apart from the Wright-like, racially-divisive language of Obama-pledged superdelegate, Democratic member of the Illinois Senate, and Chicago Baptist minister Meeks, is the remarkable tone of of the CBS reporter on this story, Mike Flannery.

    Flannery's story is extremely defensive in nature, and seeks to make apologies for Meeks' choice of language, which originally appears two years ago.

    An important part of the truth that Fox News did not report Wednesday night is this: Shortly after Flannery's story aired two years ago, Rev. Jesse Jackson said it was time to stop using the N-word. And Rev. Meeks announced from his South Side pulpit that he was "retiring" the N-word from his vocabulary.

    Although Meeks was never very close to Obama, last month he was elected as a delegate pledged to Obama.

    Look for Obama's critics to repeat this tactic in the weeks and months to come. Sen. Hillary Clinton demanded he denounce Louis Farrakhan. Obama did. Tuesday, it was his longtime pastor.

    Could Flannery's defensiveness and pro-Obama bias be any more apparent?

    Flannery's CBS News bio says that he "has been the political editor for CBS 2 since 1980."

    How long he has tossed his objectivity out the window and began voicing such obvious support for one candidate is less apparent.

    Update: A correction above. Meeks is a delegate pledged to Obama, not a superdelegate pledge to Obama.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:39 AM | Comments (19)

    March 19, 2008

    Obama's Speech: The Morning After

    Presidential candidate Barack Obama's speech yesterday was written by the candidate himself, and attempted to transcend race while justifying his continuing twenty-year commitment to the church led by Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

    Many reviews of the speech were predictably glowing in their admiration for the Democratic Senator from Illinois, but that reaction was far from universal among op-ed writers, even in a media that is generally accepted to be left-of-center ideologically.

    While giving credit to Obama's speech as a "fine political performance," Michael Gerson, writing in the Washington Post, noted:

    Obama's excellent and important speech on race in America did little to address his strange tolerance for the anti-Americanism of his spiritual mentor... ...In Philadelphia, Obama attempted to explain Wright's anger as typical of the civil rights generation, with its "memories of humiliation and doubt and fear." But Wright has the opposite problem: He ignored the message of Martin Luther King Jr and introduced a new generation to the politics of hatred.

    King drew a different lesson from the oppression he experienced: "I've seen too much hate to want to hate myself; hate is too great a burden to bear. I've seen it on the faces of too many sheriffs of the South. . . . Hate distorts the personality. . . . The man who hates can't think straight; the man who hates can't reason right; the man who hates can't see right; the man who hates can't walk right."

    Barack Obama is not a man who hates -- but he chose to walk with a man who does.

    Writing in a similar vein in the Boston Herald, Michael Graham opined:

    Obama is right when he reminds us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But where he is cynically and shamefully wrong is insisting that we all have fallen as far as he has.

    The reason many of us are horrified by the senator's connection to the Rev. Wright is that most Americans can't imagine spending 20 minutes listening to his ignorant rantings, much less 20 years. Most of us would never even consider joining a church that preaches racial theology of any kind, much less the overt racism of the "black values system" at Obama's church.

    And now we're supposed to believe that this man is going to heal our souls?

    Likewise, Thomas Sowell likened Obama to a con man:

    Someone once said that a con man's job is not to convince skeptics but to enable people to continue to believe what they already want to believe.

    Accordingly, Obama's Philadelphia speech — a theatrical masterpiece — will probably reassure most Democrats and some other Obama supporters. They will undoubtedly say that we should now "move on," even though many Democrats have still not yet moved on from George W. Bush's 2000 election victory.

    Like the Soviet show trials during their 1930s purges, Obama's speech was not supposed to convince critics but to reassure supporters and fellow-travelers, in order to keep the "useful idiots" useful.

    Stated Mark Davis in the Dallas Morning News:

    Mr. Wright has spent years infecting congregations with sick obsessions about an evil, racist America. That congregation has largely responded with cheers of agreement. Yet Mr. Obama insists he has absorbed only the "loving" portions of Rev. Wright's Christianity, not the portions that have heaped condemnation on our country, on white people, on Israel and on specific political figures he reviles.

    How conveniently selective. Can you imagine a conservative politician able to skate away from decades of association with a pastor who spent frequent occasions spewing fiery condemnations based on race and politics?

    In the Jerusalem Post, Armstrong Williams points out the obvious:

    This past week was not an exemplary moment for the man who has prided himself on integrity and honesty throughout this campaign. The fact is that the senator has no plausible excuse for why he remained a member of Rev. Wright's church. He and his family should have immediately left that congregation for the embrace of a church that teaches the Bible rather than the alienation, lunacy and outright mockery of Christian teachings.

    Even reliably left-of-center Maureen Dowd was forced to concede in an otherwise glowing review in the New York Times:

    The candidate may have staunched the bleeding, but he did not heal the wounds. His naive and willful refusal to come to terms earlier with the Rev. Wright's anti-American, anti-white and pro-Farrakhan sentiments — echoing his naive and willful refusal to come to terms earlier with the ramifications of his friendship with sleazy fund-raiser Tony Rezko — will not be forgotten because of one unforgettable speech.

    When the story of Wright's damning of America broke last week, it became obvious that to stay a viable political candidate in the general election, Barack Obama would have to substantially distance himself from a pastor and congregation that practices a form of radical theology firmly rooted in a toxic mix of racial identity politics, conspiracy-theorizing, and Marxism.

    Obama's speech attempted a transcendent rise out of a hole of his own digging by excusing his intimate relationship with a controversial church and pastor, without actually distancing himself from either Rev. Wright or his underlying theology. Instead, Obama claimed falsely, "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community."

    Obama was not asked to disown the black community. He was asked to sever ties with a purveyor of a poisonous mindset, and he has failed to do so.

    Lacking that concrete act of denial, Obama's grand eloquence was revealed as all too typical political pandering.

    "Just words," indeed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:36 AM | Comments (37)

    March 18, 2008

    Barack's Broad Brush

    Re-examining Barack Obama's Jeremiah Wright damage control speech today, I am drawn back again and again to this paragraph.

    Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

    Any church embodies the community from which it is drawn, but Obama attempts sleight of hand when he asserts that "other predominantly black churches across the country" adopt and share views "that may seem jarring to the untrained ear" as a way of excusing his pastor.

    Obama implies that because Trinity United Church of Christ has continually employed a senior pastor unable to control his anger, anti-Americanism, and conspiracy-theorizing during Barack's 20 years at that church, that other predominantly African-American churches are afflicted with the same disease.

    I belong to a deliberately diverse church with a substantial African-American congregation and an African-American senior pastor that spends a considerable portion of her time in the pulpit. We are without a doubt a church with a lot of "dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear," and we even occasionally have folks overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit fall out in the pews...

    ...And yet, somehow, we've kept from attacking other races or our country in the process.

    Is it true that other predominately African-American congregations applaud when their pastor exhorts them to sing out "God damn America," or is it more likely that most African-American churches focus on honoring the words of Jesus Christ as written in the Bible, and leave the responsibility of damnation to God?

    Do other predominately African America churches profess a values system seemingly based more upon the color of their skin than the content of Jesus' character?

    Is it a commonly held belief in predominately African-American congregations nationwide that the CIA created the AIDS virus to target minority communities, and that we deserved the terror attacks of September 11, 2001?

    Or is it more likely that such illness is isolated to congregations that are pustules of anger, ignorance and intolerance?

    I choose to believe that regardless of race, all Christian congregations focus primarily on the Word of God and helping their communities, not blaming others for their misfortunes, real or imagined. Likewise, I choose to believe that congregations of every color focus on thanking God for the blessings he has bestowed upon us, not damning this imperfect nation for the sin of being less than divine here on earth.

    Barack Obama would excuse his pastor and his congregation and his own failure to stand up to their bile and bigotry with a defense of "everybody else does it, too."

    But that defense—at least I hope—isn't true.

    Barack Obama seems content to tar all African-American churches with a wide brush in order to defend the failings of his own church, his pastor, and his own character.

    As an individual Christian and a member of the body of Christ, I can forgive him.

    As a voter, I don't see why anyone should.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:22 PM | Comments (59)

    Barack's "Race" Speech

    Drudge has an advance copy of Barack Obama's "race" speech online here.

    I'll follow this live, as it happens.

    10:15: He hasn't arrived.

    10:25: Ditto.

    10:30: While we wait, let's get to the "meat" of the advance copy posted on Drudge.

    I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

    And yet, if I ever attended a church where the pastor said that we should "God Damn America" and resided in the "US of KKK-A" or the "United States of White America" that giant thundering sound you would hear is the congregation leaving en masse. As we know from the multiple videos, Barack's church cheered Wright when he uttered such hateful, distorted speech.

    There is speech with which we disagree and then there is hate speech. Can Barack Obama tell the difference? Apparently not.

    But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

    As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

    Interesting, how Obama seems to use language to isolate Wright's bombastic pronouncements as a more recent, near-term thing, when we know for a fact that his radical behavior goes back years, well prior to both U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Deceptive?

    You betcha.

    10:40: Barack has still not begun. There may be some sort of a problem at the podium instead of cold feet; technicians seem to be examining things now.

    Back to the advance copy.

    Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

    But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

    Most minsters I've known in my life participate in the same sort of community outreach and ministry as Obama's speech describes here. He does still not explain adequately why he chose this pastor, and this congregation to call home for 20 years, which preaches an out-of-the-mainstream brand of Christianity.

    10:45: Still waiting. More from the advance copy, after skipping down a bit:

    That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

    And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

    No minster is perfect... they are human like the rest of us, a fact with which we can all agree, and all have their faults and human failings.

    Wright's career, however, has provided us with speeches far more radical, self-isolating, divisive, and at least occasionally bigoted and paranoid than most of us are used to hearing from a senior pastor. Having not attended a dedicated African-American church (though my present church includes a senior black pastor and a very diverse congregation) I cannot help but wonder if Obama is accidentally tarring all African American churches as radicals by portraying Trinity as a mainstream African-American congregation.

    10:53: Some guy is talking now, quite weakly. Hot Air is liveblogging, and notes that it is Sen. Harris Wofford.

    10:54: Obama arrives. I'm going to watch it through the conclusion, and then post a reaction afterward.

    10:57: Okay, nix that... does he seem flat and uninspired in his delivery, or is it just my perception?

    10:59: "...seared into my genetic makeup." Seared? Seared into his memory? He just Kerried himself.

    11:05: Obama's pacing, I think, is meant to be deliberate, but comes across as plodding. I haven't yet heard any crowd reaction. Were they instructed not to cheer, are they listening in rapt attention, or did they fall asleep?

    11:07: FWIW, he isn't deviating from the advance copy.

    11:08: Got the the part about his grandmother:

    I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

    These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

    Seems to be warming up a little now.

    11:10: Finally some applause after this line:

    The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

    11:11: Did he just wait for applause, and not get it? AP says he got a "smattering of applause" I'll take his word for it.

    11:13: He says:

    This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

    That was four to five decades ago... are we to believe that Wright's inability to evolve from 1960s-era positions is an admirable trait? As this speech comes from a man who counts still-proud terrorist leader William Ayers as a friend, perhaps.

    11:15:

    In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community.

    Yes. and the SPLC tracks such groups.

    11:20: Let the class warfare begin!

    For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

    11:21: Starting to warm up the this theme.


    11:27: Time to honor one of our most color-blind institutions by bringing them home in dishonorable defeat:

    This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

    Stripping them of the victory they've fought, bled and died for, while leaving Iraq to whatever genocide befalls it... it's patriotic!

    11:29: Now he's going John Edwards on us—hardcore class warfare rhetoric, with a personal twist:

    There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

    And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

    She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

    She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

    Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

    Where's the puppy? Didn't she have a starving puppy?

    11:32: Mercifully, it's over. Once I finally regain control over my gag reflect, I'll check around the blogosphere for other reaction to his speech.

    Update: Michelle Malkin also live-blogged Obama's speech, as has Mary Katharine Ham. Very interesting and mixed reactions at The Corner, a few of which note that the speech wasn't aimed at you or me, but Democratic superdelegates that might be getting cold feet... an interesting conjecture. At PW, Dan Collins' labels the speech "movingly schmaltzy."

    It will be interesting to see which portions of the speech most move the media, and I'll try to provide some of those reactions later today.

    Update: Perhaps instead of the media's reaction, we should instead focus on what people are saying in response in the comment threads allowed by some news organizations.

    The first page of this comment thread is running strongly against Obama, with 18 of 25 responses firmly against him. I can only imagine how he did among the other 700+ commenters so far here, but what I found most unsettling is several instances where Obama supporters lambasted those who did not like the speech as being racist. That is not going to help him.

    On the CBS News thread, reaction is more mixed, and at times incoherent. Typical, I suppose, of the CBS News audience.

    At The Politico, the comments are overwhelmingly in favor of Obama, with most commenters thinking he did an excellent job. Some comments, however, appear to be astroturfed.

    General reaction upon reading these comment threads?

    It doesn't seem that Obama could lose his hardcore supporters if he was caught with "a live boy or a dead girl" as the saying goes, and some of his supporters—though thankfully a distinct minority—are echoing Wright by labeling those who did not like the speech as racists. There does not seem to be an great number of on the fence moderates joining the Obamanation as a result of this speech, and there are signs, particularly on the ABC News thread, that the has lost some moderate Democrats for not disassociating himself from Wright.

    It was a speech that was effective for those predisposed to be affected, but one that did not seem to sway many who thought Obama simply didn't do enough to address concerns that the 20-year association with Wright have brought forward.

    Barack might have recaptured Democratic superdelegates with his performance today, but he probably lost the general election as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 AM | Comments (103)

    March 17, 2008

    Did Obama Attend Wright's Most Provocative Sermons? It Doesn't Matter.

    There is a lot of heat flying around the blogosphere (and even the mainstream media) this morning over whether or not Illinois Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama attended Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) on days that the church's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., uttered inflammatory rhetoric that most Americans seem to feel is at least occasionally anti-American and borderline racist in nature.

    Obama claimed late Friday that he was not in attendance for any of Wright's most explosive sermons over the past 20 years he has been attending TUCC, including sermons where Wright lambasted this nation as "United States of KKK A" and stated "No, no, no, not 'God bless America,' God damn America" amid other provocative statements uttered during other sermons published on Youtube and in news outlets Friday and over the weekend.

    Writing in Newsmax—a news outlet with a less than sterling reputation for accuracy—over the weekend, Ronald Kessler cites fellow NewsMax reporter, Jim Davis, who claims that Obama was indeed present for a Wright sermon he attended at TUCC on July 22, 2007, where:

    ...the minister blamed the "white arrogance" of America's Caucasian majority for the world's suffering, especially the oppression of blacks.

    [snip]

    If Obama's claims are true that he was completely unaware that Wright's trademark preaching style at the Trinity United Church of Christ has targeted "white" America and Israel, he would have been one of the few people in Chicago to be so uninformed. Wright's reputation for spewing hate is well known.

    In fact, Obama was present in the South Side Chicago church on July 22 last year when Jim Davis, a freelance correspondent for Newsmax, attended services along with Obama. [See: "Obama's Church: Cauldron of Division."]

    In his sermon that day, Wright tore into America, referring to the "United States of White America" and lacing his sermon with expletives as Obama listened. Hearing Wright's attacks on his own country, Obama had the opportunity to walk out, but Davis said the senator sat in his pew and nodded in agreement.

    The claim has quickly been disputed by those who have cited video evidence of Obama speaking at La Raza's annual conference in Miami, Florida that same day. Newsmax is still sticking to the claim, stating that Obama was at the church on the day of Wright's "white arrogance" tirade, along with a Secret Service protective detail, and that with early morning and an evening service, Obama had time to attend two of the three sermons and the La Raza conference that day.

    I've contacted the Secret Service Public Affairs Office to see if they will be able to confirm or deny a protective detail guarding Obama at TUCC in Chicago on July 22, 2007 as they seem to be in the most credible position to resolve these claims, but I do not know if they are able to address such concerns, and even if they are about to confirm of deny Obama's attendance, I'm not sure that playing a game of "gotcha" pinning down Obama as an attendee at one of Wright's more explosive sermons is even of major relevance.

    Certainly, confirming Obama's attendance would be a huge blow to his credibility as he stated categorically that he never attended church on days where Wright delivered one of his more inflammatory sermons, but that almost seems beside the point.

    Whether or not he was there for one of "those" sermons, Barack Obama attended Wright's church for 20 years, and it is implausible that he was completely unaware of his rhetoric and radicalism during that entire time period.

    Barack Obama is forcing us to chose between one of two narratives. Either he:

    1. attended a church for two decades that featured a radical minister preaching a seemingly separatist and occasionally anti-American "Black Value System" (which curiously, was scrubbed from the church's web site over the weekend), considered Wright a mentor, was married by him, has his children baptized by him, and added him in an official capacity to his Presidential campaign (though in a largely ceremonial role), without ever really knowing anything about him or his beliefs, or;
    2. Barack was aware of Wright's pronouncements and beliefs and agreed with him enough that he was a member of Wright's congregation for 20 years, only to then see Obama threw Wright "under the bus" when those beliefs became a threat to Obama's presidential campaign.

    Which is it?

    The latter seems far more plausible than the former, with or without the media being able to pin down Obama as having attended Wright's more bombastic recorded sermons.

    Obama either displays a Gumpish cluelessness and a lack of self-awareness as a human being (not exactly sought-after traits in a President), or he agrees with the teaching of Wright to the extent that he became a member of his church and spent the last two decades as part of a congregation that was captured loudly applauding during extremist and conspiracy theory-laced sermons.

    Voters polled by Rasmussen seem to have made up their minds:

    Seventy-three percent (73%) of voters say that Wright’s comments are racially divisive. That opinion is held by 77% of White voters and 58% of African-American voters.

    [snip]

    Last Thursday, 52% of voters nationwide had a favorable opinion of Obama. That figure has fallen to 47% on Monday...

    Despite recent claims that he shared none of Wright's extremist statements, Obama's chickens seem to be coming home to roost.

    Update: As noted by "JustADude" in the comments, Obama was in Chicago July 22, 2007, which was noted at HuffPo, though Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor "stressed that the senator did not make a stop at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:36 PM | Comments (24)

    March 14, 2008

    Wright and Obama: It Only Gets Worse

    The Wall Street Journal has published yet another damning sermon from Barack Obama's retiring minister of two decades, Jeremiah Wright.

    The displaced anger, bigotry, and hatred displayed is chilling:

    "We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he began. "Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."

    Mr. Wright thundered on: "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."

    His voice rising, Mr. Wright said, "We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . ."

    Concluding, Mr. Wright said: "We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . ."

    As the story of Wright's forceful bigotry finally forced it's way into the mainstream media yesterday at ABC News with the story Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11, the people Barack Obama has chosen to surround himself with has come under sharp focus.

    From a self-isolated, self-pitying wife, to a bombastic, bigoted minister, to an unreformed terrorist, Barack Obama has surrounded himself with very questionable ideological company, associations from which he has no defense. He wasn't forced to chose to spend time with this cadre of believers on the radical fringe, he embraced them willingly.

    Predictably, as the media has come to focus on Obama's two-decade relationship with Wright, Obama supporters have been quick to attempt to minimize the damage. Unable to do it with a forceful denunciation of Wright's bigotry by Obama (Obama has only uttered the lamest of excuses), they have instead attempted to tar Republican candidate John McCain as being equally bad, for the support he has garnered from controversial evangelists Rod Parsley and John Hagee.

    For those of you unfamiliar with these men, Parsley's most famous controversial statements include calling Islam a "false religion" that must be destroyed, opposition same-sex marriage, partial-birth abortion, hate-crimes legislation, and the separation of church and state. Hagee has been ripped an an anti-Catholic bigot, stated that Hurricane Katrina was an act of God against New Orleans for the city's "level of sin," and for claiming that the Qur'an has "a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews."

    There, of course, is a difference between John McCain's political endorsements by Parsley and Hagee, and Barack Obama's 20 years of willfully absorbing Wright's hatred, a toxicity to which he has willfully exposed family.

    I addressed this attempt to equivilate Obama and McCain in a comment to the ABC News blog story Obama camp: 'Deplores divisive statements', which featured yet another inflammatory speech by Wright.

    My comment read:

    I see that some are already attempting to trot out a comparative argument, that Wright's offensive, bigoted, and paranoid rants are somehow lessened by invoking John McCain's support from John Hagee and Rod Parsley, two prominent evangelists who have also made provocative statements.

    But here is the huge gaping difference between these attempts: Barack Obama has spent the better part of the past 20 years of his life listening to, absorbing, and yes, agreeing with Wright's sermons. If he did not agree with the bulk of those sermons, he would have of course left Trinity for another church--finding a church in Chicago that closely fits your own personal beliefs is not at all difficult, and Obama obviously agrees with Wright far more than he disagrees.

    That Obama has spent 20 years listening to Wright, thought enough of him to use one of those sermons as the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope," that he was married by Wright, had both of his children baptized by Wright and brought up in this church, listening to these paranoid and racist rants that differ little in substance from the words of a much more famous racist, Louis Farakkan, means that Obama AGREES with Wright far more often than he disagrees with him.

    From that, what are we to make of Obama? Actions, indeed, do speak louder than flaccid conciliatory words that have only just now been uttered.

    I say again the obvious: no American would spend 20 years listening to a minister with which he vehemently disagreed.

    McCain, by comparison, is guilty of pandering to Haggee and Parsley because of the (unfortunate) influence they have over a powerful voting demographic.

    I can find scant evidence that McCain has sat though one sermon from Hagee or Parsley, much less 20 years of them.

    Which is worse?

    The politician that panders for votes, or the man who has listened to and internalized anti-American, anti-Jewish, and anti-white messages for 20 years before ever once publicly disagreeing with them, and who is raising his children in this same toxic environment?

    Not only am I certain Barack Obama is unfit to run this nation, I now question his ability to raise his own children, for the hatred he has willingly exposed them to since their births.

    Yes, I went there. Read again Wright's rant in the WSJ article featured above, or some of his other hate speech (for that is what it is), and try to explain to me that a good parent exposes his children to an environment that exudes such naked anger, resentment, defeatism, and conspiratorial paranoia.

    Perhaps some of you are comfortable having your children raised in such an environment, but I am not, and I do not think that someone who willingly exposes himself and his family to internalizing such vitriol for 20 years is the kind of person we need or want to lead this nation.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:41 AM | Comments (93)

    March 13, 2008

    Guilt by Association

    The inflammatory rhetoric of Barack Obama's pastor of twenty-odd years has finally hit the mainstream media, as ABC News is reporting the story Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11.

    The lede:

    Sen. Barack Obama's pastor says blacks should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America."

    The lede doesn't do justice to the actual language used by Rev. Jeremiah Wright or the repeated denunciations of the United States in his sermons, and I'll send you to the story itself to read his actual words.

    Wright has had a great deal of influence over Obama as his pastor and spiritual mentor of two decades, in fact lending Obama the title of his book "The Audacity of Hope" from one of his sermons.

    One cannot single out Wright as an isolated Obama associate.

    To get a fuller sense of the kind of man Barack Obama truly is beyond soundbites and speeches, we are required to revisit the kind and caliber of people he surrounded himself with during his adult years.

    In addition to accepting Wright's rhetoric for two decades, Obama has been married to Michelle Obama (formerly Robinson) since October of 1992, and she is known for having more influence over her husband than his closest political advisors, a fact hardly uncommon or surprising for a spouse. In her senior thesis at Princeton, Michelle Robinson focused on her feelings of racial isolation.

    "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second."

    It reads at the sad commentary of a person who has had the incredible advantages of an Ivy League education, but who can can only see herself through the prism of being apart and alone. These feelings perhaps indicate why she would feel drawn to the Trinity United Church of Christ where Wright preached his inflammatory style of racially-separatist doctrine, as he reinforced her long-held fears.

    Having already spent much of her lifetime feeling like an outsider, and with a key spiritual influence attacking the United States, it is perhaps unsurprising that she finds connecting with her country—much less feeling "really proud" of it—an unnatural act.

    In addition to such profound influences as his pastor of 20 years and his wife of more than 15 years, Barack Obama has had relationships with far more radical denizens of society, including unrepentant terrorist leader William Ayers of the Weather Underground.

    The Weather Underground bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and the State Department, and Ayer's girlfriend Diana Oughton and several other members of the group died while assembling bombs destined for a non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

    How did the Obamas interact with a man who said "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough"?

    Barack served with Ayers on the board of directors of the Wood Fund from 1999-2002, and they are at least casual friends according to Dr. Quentin Young.

    In addition to these individuals, add Obama's already infamous relationship with political fixer Tony Rezko, currently in the middle of a corruption trial that sees him accused of placing bribes and accepting kickbacks, including kickbacks funneled to Obama's 2004 Senate run. Obama has since given $150,000 raised by Rezko to charity. Rezko was also involved in the purchase of a Obama's home by buying an adjacent lot, then selling part of that lot to the Obama's at one-sixth the price Rezko originally paid.

    My boss at Pajamas Media, Roger L. Simon notes on his personal blog that he is "not much for guilt-by-association," a sentiment I generally share if the associate is only a fringe player in a person's life. For that reason support of Louis Farrakhan by Obama's church should not be held directly against Obama himself, especially as Obama finally distanced himself from Farrakhan.

    But even without him, we are left with a disturbing picture of the people who have great, long-standing, and future influence in Barack Obama's life that cannot be easily dismissed.

    Do Americans want as a president a man who sits in on board meetings with proud terrorists, followed a separatist and anti-American pastor for two decades, and who counts as his closest advisor a wife who has made obvious the disconnect she has with her country?

    It is unfair to judge a man by casual associations, but no doubt fair to judge him on the company he keeps for years at a time.

    Update: Rick Moran has strikingly similar thoughts, posted at almost the same time.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:27 PM | Comments (21)

    March 12, 2008

    Spitzer...

    ...resigns.

    I have no pity for Spitzer, as he brought this upon himself. I do, however, hope that his family finds a way to cope in this most difficult and public disgrace.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:02 AM | Comments (17)

    March 11, 2008

    How Long?

    As you probably well know by now, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught in an investigation linking him to a high-priced prostitution ring as a client.

    ABC News is reporting the interesting detail that it wasn't an investigation of the prostitution ring that led to Spitzer's downfall, but his shifting of funds that led to his bank calling in authorities for what they thought was the possible hiding of bribes:

    The federal investigation of a New York prostitution ring was triggered by Gov. Eliot Spitzer's suspicious money transfers, initially leading agents to believe Spitzer was hiding bribes, according to federal officials.

    It was only months later that the IRS and the FBI determined that Spitzer wasn't hiding bribes but payments to a company called QAT, what prosecutors say is a prostitution operation operating under the name of the Emperors Club.

    So it appears that Spitzer's bank called in the IRS over what it thought was money laundering (if I understand the account correctly, and I may not), and the IRS contacted the Justice Department, which tagged the FBI's Public Corruption Squad to run with the case.

    This seems a pretty straightforward and logical sequence from my layman's perspective on how Justice might end up involved in the case. Bagging a governor for corruption—which apparently is what they thought they had at the beginning—seems to be a logical application of the FBI's Public Corruption Squad.

    That the case turned out to be about prostitution instead of bribery seems to be a bit of a letdown, as noted by David Kurtz at TPM, who called it "anti-climactic."

    Refer back to the ABC News story and you'll note that, "It was only months" into the investigation that the investigators were able to determine that Spitzer's money shifting was about covering up payments to the prostitution ring, and not hiding bribes. This brings up a logical series of questions that I've not seen many people asking yet.

    • How long had Eliot Spitzer been procuring high-end prostitutes from the Emperors Club before his financial activity was deemed suspicious?
    • Is his interest in the client side of prostitution a recent development, or is it part of an on-going pattern of behavior? If part of a on-going pattern of behavior, how long has Spitzer been using prostitution services, and has he patronized other services in addition to the Emperors Club?
    • How was Spitzer introduced to the Emperors Club? Did he find the service on his own, or was he referred? If referred by others, is there the possibility that more politicians or business associates may be exposed in his wake?

    These are some of the questions that come to my mind about this developing story, and it will be interesting to see if any information along these lines comes out as the scandal continues.

    Update: Six years? Allah's got the roundup.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:56 AM | Comments (16)

    March 10, 2008

    Spitzer Swallows

    This going to be a huge blow his political career.

    Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.

    Mr. Spitzer, who was huddled with his top aides inside his Fifth Avenue apartment early this afternoon, had hours earlier abruptly canceled his scheduled public events for the day. He scheduled an announcement for 2:15 after inquiries from the Times.

    Mr. Spitzer, a first term Democrat who pledged to bring ethics reform an end the often seamy ways of Albany, is married with three children.

    All snark aside, my thoughts and prayers go out to his daughters—I think they are teenagers—and his wife. The girls going to be humiliated at a particularly sensitive age, and my heart goes out to them for all the snide comments and snickers from their peers in their future. They did nothing wrong, and will have to pay the price of their father's apparent indiscretions, as will their mother.

    One would hope Spitzer himself will try to find a way to lessen this impact on their lives, even if that means resigning from office to avoid the prolonged media circus that is sure to envelope the family as this story evolves.

    Update: Fox News reports that Spitzer is is expected to resign, and faces indictment.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:57 PM | Comments (25)

    Antichrist Superstar

    Nicholas D. Kristof published an op-ed in yesterday's New York Times that insinuates that preferring another candidate to Barack Obama is a sign of bigotry.

    Subtle.

    ...the most monstrous bigotry in this election isn't about either race or sex. It's about religion.

    The whispering campaigns allege that Mr. Obama is a secret Muslim planning to impose Islamic law on the country. Incredibly, he is even accused — in earnest! — of being the Antichrist.

    Proponents of this theory offer detailed theological explanations for why he is the Antichrist, and the proof is that he claims to be Christian — after all, the Antichrist would say that, wouldn't he? The rumors circulate enough that Glenn Beck of CNN asked the Rev. John Hagee, a conservative evangelical, what the odds are that Mr. Obama is the Antichrist.

    I'm quite certain that there are some earnest, deluded souls out there that think Obama is indeed the Antichrist, but of course, there are people of questionable intelligence out there that feel the same way about George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and even John McCain.

    I must have missed Kristof's editorials excoriating these fringe theologists, but he certainly wouldn't single out those that would vote against his preferred candidate to the exclusion of others, would he?

    But the "Antichrist" charge isn't at the heart of Kristof's argument, of course. This is:

    These charges are fanatical, America's own equivalent of the vicious accusations about Jews that circulate in some Muslim countries. They are less a swipe at one candidate than a calumny against an entire religion. They underscore that for many bigoted Americans in the 21st century, calling someone a Muslim is still a slur.

    Fascinating.

    Let's set aside for a moment the fact that Barack Obama is not now a Muslim—and never has been—to examine Kristof's basic grasp of reality.

    He states, "These charges are fanatical, America's own equivalent of the vicious accusations about Jews that circulate in some Muslim countries."

    "Equivalent?" Really?

    Perhaps being at the New York Times he gets a different perspective than most Americans do, but I've somehow missed the Sesame Street demonization of Muslims in American children's television, where an Amerrican Martyr-Me Elmo tells U.S. toddlers their duty is to kill those of the Islamic faith. Such programming exists in the Middle East, targeting Jews in general and Israeli Jews in particular, along with America. Should I being paying more attention to what my daughter is watching, or are Bob the Bomber ("Can we kill them? Yes we can!") and Dora the Exploder only constructs of his fevered imagination?

    We have not seen calls from mainstream American Christian or political leaders to bomb Muslims communities within our nation, nor have we seen mass celebrations in the streets resulting from the murder of innocent Islamic school children when terrorists target them. Or perhaps when an al Qaeda terrorist blows up a market in Baghdad there are parades in Times Square, and the Times simply doesn't see such demonstrations as newsworthy. Somehow I find that unlikely, even for the naked, one-sided advocacy journalism now so common at the Times.

    It is a fact that in many Muslim cultures Jews are the target of a blind and irrational hatred, and their popular culture is primed, from birth to death, for xenocide. Somehow, we simply don't see "America's own equivalent," hatred against Muslims outside the editorial bullpen.

    Kristof's argument is disingenuous and dishonest, but that doesn't keep him from then equating this false construct to the very real racial bigotry that all of us hope remains confined to America's past. As Kristof's own research shows, "A 2007 Gallup poll found that 94 percent of Americans said they would vote for a black candidate." Hopefully we are beyond a candidate's race being a significant factor in American politics.

    It is baffling that Kristof seems to need to stoke fears of another kind of bigotry in order to support his choice of presidential candidates, but that appears to be precisely his motivation.

    Perhaps by keeping this demonstrably false claim alive he hopes to distract Americans from focusing on Obama's many real shortcomings, including his record as being the most liberal Senator in the United States, that he does not recognize the right of self-defense and advocates banning entire classes of common firearms, that he would raise federal government spending by $287 billion a year (more than any other candidate), and that even his own campaign acknowledges he is not ready to lead.

    Nicholas D. Kristof would rather accuses Americans of being bigots and put them on the defensive than have them examine the radical doctrinaire liberalism of his preferred candidate.

    Kristof hasn't told us anything about ourselves, but he has exposed a lot about how he would shape the views of his fellow Americans.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:15 AM | Comments (10)

    March 07, 2008

    Obama's Plouffe: Retreat, At Any Cost

    On the ABC News blog, Political Radar:

    Obama campaign manager David Plouffe disagreed Friday with the suggestion that it would be responsible to leave "a little wiggle room" when establishing the date by which all U.S. combat troops should be out of Iraq.

    "He has been and will continue to be crystal clear with the American people that if and when he is elected president, we will be out of Iraq in - as he said, the time frame would be about 16 months at the most where you withdraw troops. There should be no confusion about that with absolute clarity," said Plouffe.

    In effect, Plouffe is confirming that no matter what the facts on the ground are in Iraq in January of 2009, Barack Obama, if President, would pull all American combat troops out of Iraq.

    He is stating that Obama would continue to pull American combat troops out of Iraq, even if by doing so it would destabilize that nation's security situation and lead to much higher civilian casualties.

    He is stating that for Obama, ideological purity and dogmatic conviction will be unswayed by changing circumstances, and states convincingly that these things are more important to him than morality or humanity.

    I'm glad he cleared that up.

    I'd hate to be led into thinking he was capable of change.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:27 PM | Comments (33)

    March 06, 2008

    Selective Memory

    James Gibney of The Atlantic writes that "U.S. military personnel have been raping Okinawans for the last 60-plus years," though graciously allowing that "the overwhelming majority of U.S. military personnel aren't sociopaths."

    Gibney does not provide evidence of six-decades of continual sexual assault, but then, he wasn't shooting for accuracy, just overwrought hyperbole to justify his premise.

    Writing in Asia Times Online, Chalmers Johnson notes that since the most infamous case in 1995, there have been precisely four similar incidents:

    On June 29, 2001, a 24-year-old air force staff sergeant, Timothy Woodland, was arrested for publicly raping a 20-year-old Okinawan woman on the hood of a car.

    On November 2, 2002, Okinawan authorities took into custody Marine Major Michael J Brown, 41 years old, for sexually assaulting a Filipina barmaid outside the Camp Courtney officer's club.

    On May 25, 2003, Marine Military Police turned over to Japanese police a 21-year-old lance corporal, Jose Torres, for breaking a 19-year-old woman's nose and raping her, once again in Kin village.

    In early July 2005, a drunken air force staff sergeant molested a 10-year-old Okinawan girl on her way to Sunday school. He at first claimed to be innocent, but then police found a photo of the girl's nude torso on his cell phone.

    Not including the case dismissed this past week, that brings us a total of five recorded cases in the past 13 years.

    By way of comparison, if Mr. Gibney really did have an interest in "The Price of Empire" in Okinawa, he could perhaps spend some time researching the number of Okinawan citizens either directly killed by the Japanese, used as human shields, or were ordered to commit suicide by the Japanese military during the Battle of Okinawa during the Second World War.

    Estimates range into the high thousands.

    I somewhat doubt, however, that this particular reality suits Mr. Gibney's preferred narrative, where American soldiers are the preferred oppressors.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:04 PM | Comments (6)

    March 04, 2008

    Was Obama's Iraq War Opposition Based upon a Relationship to Saddam's Arms Dealer?

    That is the theory being floated by conservative blog Illinois Review, and frankly one I've heard speculated about before... but does that speculation hold water?

    The theory goes like this:

    Barack Obama has had questionable dealings (including the purchase of his home) with Tony Rezko, who is on trial on corruption charges, and who may have directed kickbacks to Obama.

    Resko has had numerous business deals with Nahdmi Auchi, who once sold arms to Saddam Hussein and had other dealings with the Hussein regime.

    Resko and Auchi also had business dealings with Aiham Alsammarae, a fugitive from Iraqi justice who allegedly stole $650 million from the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, who is now apparently living in Chicago, despite having been convicted and sentence to 14 years in prison in Iraq.

    All these questionable relationships. however, have not produced a "smoking gun," and there is no direct evidence of anything illegal transpiring between Obama and these three men (or any others) at this time.

    His mere association with these men, however—men who have continually operated on the edge of the law, and sometimes over that edge into clearly illegal activity—is troubling, and peels off some of the veneer of a candidate who promises "change" but instead seems to be far less pure than the image he'd like to project.

    I must wonder, however... will the same left-leaning blogs and news sites that so throughly flogged every questionable Bush/Cheney associate, association, and decision be as willing to investigate every nuance of Obama's questionable ties as they develop?

    Frankly, I'm not holding my breath.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:42 AM | Comments (11)

    March 03, 2008

    Texans: Obama Wants Your Guns

    I didn't think it was too much to ask the Barack Obama campaign to explain the candidate's position on firearms ownership prior to the Democratic primary in Texas.

    Obama, after all, has a documented record of wanting to ban handguns, ban all semiautomatic firearms (rifles, pistols, or shotguns), and while he has been silent on the specific issue, would seem to be squarely against the right of law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns (CCH) as well,a right that has been granted in roughly 40 states.

    I sent the Obama campaign a short list of questions this past Friday, asking the campaign to clarify his current position on citizens owning firearms for self defense, a right he has never specifically recognized.

    I asked the Obama campaign to explain his views on concealed carry. This is a very relevant issue in Texas, where almost 91,000 permits were issued in the 09/2006-08/2007 period alone.

    I asked if Obama still favored an outright ban on handguns, which was his position in the past. I asked if he would still like to see all semi-automatic firearms including rifles and shotguns, a position he has also held in the past.

    The Obama campaign has thus far refused to respond to these questions, even though they had plenty of time to send me multiple emails asking me to campaign for him.

    At this point, we can only assume, lacking any direct response to these sensible questions, that Barack Obama would still favor banning all handguns and semi-automatic firearms currently used by Texans (and of course, all other Americans) for self-defense, hunting, target shooting, and other legal uses.

    I suppose this silence shouldn't come as a surprise.

    Suddenly recognizing the rights of Americans where he hasn't seen them before is obviously a change he can't believe in.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:10 AM | Comments (3)

    February 29, 2008

    Questions on Obama's Views of Gun Rights


    Barack on Guns: Yippie Ki Neigh?

    I sent the following to the Barack Obama campaign's media contact page earlier today. I'll be very interested in their response, providing of course that they do respond.

    There seems to be so ambiguity on Senator Obama's stance on various aspects of the ownership of firearms that I would like to get cleared up.

    According to the campaign web site, his view on firearms ownership is as follows:

    "Millions of hunters own and use guns each year. Millions more participate in a variety of shooting sports such as sporting clays, skeet, target and trap shooting that may not necessarily involve hunting. As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama understands and believes in the constitutional right of Americans to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting."

    This statement does not address a key reason that literally millions of Americans say they own firearms, which is for self defense.

    What is Senator Obama's position on Americans owning firearms for legal self defense?

    Related to that question, what is Senator Obama's position on the licensing of Americans to carry concealed handguns, which is now a legal option in 40 states?

    The campaign statement does not address literally tens of millions of firearms legally owned by Americans at this present time for reasons other than hunting and sport shooting, including handguns, which at one point in the Illinois legislature Mr. Obama said he would like to see banned.

    Does Senator Obama still feel that handguns should be banned in America? If he does not still support a ban on handguns, why has his position changed?

    Also on his Illinois legislative record are statements that he would like to see all semi-automatic weapons banned.

    Does Senator Obama still feel that all semi-automatic firearms should be banned in America? If not, what semi-automatic weapons does he view as being acceptable for civilian use, and why has his position changed? Please explain his views in as much detail as possible.

    Thank you very much for your time.

    I'll be very interested to see if Obama maintains his previously held and rather absolutist positions on the subject, or if he has, as was speculated this morning, flip-flopped on the subject to pander for votes.

    I suspect that if Texans knew of his previous record, they may want their hat back.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:51 PM | Comments (9)

    February 27, 2008

    The O-Bambi Surrender Video

    I first saw this damning Barack Obama video last night at Powerline, which also provides a rough transcript of Obama's radical plan to disarm America's military.

    It's bizarrely, almost suicidally pacifist in nature. Watch for yourself.

    This was obvious not a polished video prepared by the Obama campaign for release. Teh video quality stinks, and the message can only hurt him among moderates of both parties, leaving us to ask the obvious questions of, why was this filmed, when was this filmed, and where did it come from?

    The person who posted the video to YouTube is jcjcd, an apparent Hillary Clinton supporter and Celine Dion fan, but that is all we know at this time.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:29 PM | Comments (8)

    February 26, 2008

    Saint Cindy of al Jazeera

    "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan, who plans to campaign for Nancy Pelosi's House seat, is presently in Egypt protesting military trials in Egypt of members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

    In an interview with al Jazeera, Sheehan proclaims that the Muslims Brotherhood are "the moderate voice here and they are the ones who are actually working for democracy."

    The Brotherhood qualifies as "moderate" as any group that espouses:

    • forming a global caliphate based upon fundamentalist sharia law
    • the forced segregation of men and women
    • second-class citizenship for all non-Muslims
    • supports suicide bombings against civilians
    • actively preaches Holocaust denial

    Sheehan is now back doing relatively newsworthy things after a short self-imposed exile, but it now seems that the same mainstream media that once seemed to hang on her every word and tear would rather now treat her as an invisible woman.

    I can only surmise that she represents a change they no longer believe in.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:43 PM | Comments (6)

    Dishonoring JFK

    In his inaugural address in 1961, facing possibility of a war that could end life on earth, John F. Kennedy refused to back down and concede the liberty of free peoples to communists behind the Iron Curtain, stating memorably:

    Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, reverend clergy, fellow citizens, we observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom—symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning—signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.

    The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

    We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

    Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

    This much we pledge—and more.

    The Center for American Progress, USAction, MoveOn.org, VoteVets.org, Service Employees International Union, Americans United for Change, and MoveOn.Org, led by John Edwards, have decided that they will not honor the pledge of John F. Kennedy, and that they will spend $20 million in order to prove JFK's words hollow.

    These chocolate bunny Democrats—sugary and smooth on the surface, melting under the slightest heat and pressure to expose a void inside—will spend this money trying convince Americans that we are not noble, that we are selfish, shallow, weak and untrustworthy, and that we should turn our backs on Kennedy's famous pledge:

    ...that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

    They want you to be like them: without honor, without substance, and without hope.

    John Edwards and Barack Obama want you to know that they will not pay any price, bear any burden, meet the slightest hardship, support new democracies, or oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

    Perhaps Barack Obama can explain how the generation-defining call-to-action of John F. Kennedy was "just words."

    And that he can put a price on liberty.

    Update: Did Senator Joe Lieberman drop by today before speaking in the Senate?

    "I have thought a lot about this war, and I cannot help but wonder at a moment like this what some of the political heroes of my youth who are Democrats would think if they were here and could see and listen to this debate and read this resolution.

    "I think of President Kennedy who declared: 'We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.'

    "In my opinion, that is exactly what we are doing in Iraq today.

    "I ask my colleagues: Do these words have meaning, have significance? Or are these just words?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:29 AM | Comments (7)

    February 25, 2008

    The Audacity of Hope

    Despite no publicly-reported plots or arrests related to threats against the life of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, the media keeps hoping to make his possible assassination an issue:

    There is a hushed worry on the minds of many supporters of Senator Barack Obama, echoing in conversations from state to state, rally to rally: Will he be safe?

    In Colorado, two sisters say they pray daily for his safety. In New Mexico, a daughter says she persuaded her mother to still vote for Mr. Obama, even though the mother feared that winning would put him in danger. And at a rally here, a woman expressed worries that a message of hope and change, in addition to his race, made him more vulnerable to violence.

    "I've got the best protection in the world," Mr. Obama, of Illinois, said in an interview, reprising a line he tells supporters who raise the issue with him. "So stop worrying."

    Yet worry they do, with the spring of 1968 seared into their memories, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated in a span of two months.

    We've covered this ground before. An Obama assassination fantasy seems to primarily be a media construct.

    Spreading paranoid assassination fantasies has become something of a cottage industry among certain segments of the media and far left blogosphere, where at least one unhinged blogger has already determined that Halliburton and Blackwater are guilty of the crime.

    The people who write these assassination fantasies are not worried that Obama will be targeted. There are far more worried that he will not be assassinated, and thus live to not meet to the impossibly high expectations he and his supporters have built for his campaign and his candidacy.

    Obama the candidate is far more a myth than a man, and as he takes a commanding lead in the Democratic nominating process, his actual positions, record, and experience show him to be a strawman of good intentions and precious little substance. Even his cult-like followers know deep-down that no one person can live up to the fantasy they have constructed around his name, and so in dark places they do not publicly want to address, they want want an escape from the inevitable and all-too-human let-down that he, as a real flesh-and-blood man, will be.

    For some, an assassination fantasy is that escape mechanism.

    It is far easier for people to live with a memory of what might have been, than face the bitter truth of a candidate that has remarkable communicative abilities, but a radical political philosophy that will wilt under the scrutiny of the moderate middle in a general election.

    A martyred ideal is far more useful to some than a flawed candidate, and so be prepared to see more such "trigger" stories as we get closer the the election, but don't expect to see him fall or to even be targeted for his ideas. Obama is an unlikely target for a political assassination precisely because he promises so little in substance. He can be beaten by ballot far more easily than by bullet, a political calculus even radical fringe groups easily recognize.

    If he is targeted, it will be by another John Hinckley, Jr, someone unhinged, and perhaps driven to the crime by delusions of fame and the media's own dark "audacity of hope."

    If such a tragic happening should come to pass, the media will only need to look in the mirror to find the culprit.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:10 AM | Comments (6)

    February 22, 2008

    Obama Lies

    A few points:

    • Lieutenants command platoons. Captains command companies.
    • The U.S. Army would not, under any circumstance, split up a rifle platoon and ship half of them to Iraq and the other half to Afghanistan. They train to work as a team. This simply would not occur, ever.
    • There has never been a shortage of weapons or ammunition for U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. On occasion, American forces (especially Special Forces) have used Soviet weapon designs, but they have done so by choice, not necessity.

    In the clip above, everything Barack Obama said was a lie... probably including the part where he said he spoke with an Army Captain (has anyone checked to seek if Deval Patrick spoke with Jesse McBeth?).

    This leaves us with two possibilities.

    Barack Obama is a liar. He (or someone he plagiarized) simply made the tale up out of the whole cloth.

    Barack Obama is a rube. Anyone with any sense of how the military works at all would immediately sniff this out as a series of false stories. Perhaps Barack Obama, the man who would be Commander in Cheif, is so ignorant of all matters military that he could be easily fooled by a fraud.

    Neither possibility says anything good about Obama.

    Update: Over at ABC News Blog , Political Punch, Jake Tapper gets in touch with the officer in question and states that Obama's claim was therefore true.

    Uh, no.

    Obama claimed:

    "You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon -- supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon," he said. "Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq. And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief."

    The captain confirmed that he was then a lieutenant when he took command of a rifle platoon of 39 men, and that 15 men that platoon were assigned to other units. While many of them ended up being deployed to Iraq as part of other units, that does not equate Obama's assertion that the unit was divided.

    We then find out that when this officer "didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough humvees," he was referring to practice ammunition for two kinds of heavy weapons while in Fort Drum, New York.

    As for having to capture Taliban weapons he stated, "The purpose of going after the Taliban was not to get their weapons," he said, but on occasion they used Taliban weapons. Sometimes AK-47s, and they also mounted a Soviet-model DShK (or "Dishka") on one of their humvees instead of their 50 cal."

    Obama's most crucial, explosive claim, that ": They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief" remains utterly and completely false.

    And that part, it seems, he made up by himself.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:05 AM | Comments (53)

    February 19, 2008

    Stepping In It

    Oy vey.

    So what did Michelle Obama think of the United States before her husband decided he wanted to run the place?

    "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country," she told a Milwaukee crowd today, "and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change."

    I saw this quote yesterday, but with more pressing concerns at hand, I let it pass. In the blogosphere, others weighed in.

    As it turns out, the Boston.com quote wasn't entirely fair, leaving out the context of the quote.

    Here is the more accurate quote:

    "What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it's made me proud."

    James Joyner has a nice round-up of reaction to the story.

    The differences between the boston.com quote and the Breitbart quote are that the Breitbart quote provides fuller context, quoting the sentences immediately preceding and following the inflammatory statement that "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country."

    At ABC News blog Political Punch Jake Tapper gets a "clarification" from Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton:

    "Of course Michelle is proud of her country, which is why she and Barack talk constantly about how their story wouldn't be possible in any other nation on Earth. What she meant is that she's really proud at this moment because for the first time in a long time, thousands of Americans who've never participated in politics before are coming out in record numbers to build a grassroots movement for change."

    I certainly hope that is the idea that Mrs. Obama meant to convey, as it would be unseemly to have a potential First Lady say that she has never been proud of her country until her husband ran for it's highest office, not to mention more than a little arrogant and self-centered.

    This is not Mrs. Obama's first controversial statement, and almost certainly will not be her last as the race for the Democratic nomination continues.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:48 AM | Comments (9)

    February 18, 2008

    Barack Oborrow

    I've held recently, both here on CY and on Pajamas Media, that Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama is remarkably light on substance, if extremely gifted as a public speaker.

    We are now hearing that the soaring oratory he gives may not entirely be of his own:

    "Don't tell me words don't matter," Mr. Obama said, to applause. " 'I have a dream' — just words? 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' — just words? 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' — just words? Just speeches?"

    Mr. Patrick employed similar language during his 2006 governor's race when his Republican rival, Kerry Healey, criticized him as offering lofty rhetoric over specifics. Mr. Patrick has endorsed Mr. Obama, and the two men are close friends.

    " 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' — just words? Just words?" Mr. Patrick said one month before his election. " 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' — just words? 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.' Just words? 'I have a dream' — just words?"

    Barack Obama obviously used Deval Patrick's language and apparently even inflections in delivery in a speech he delivered over the weekend. Hillary Clinton's campaign has been attempting to capitalize on the borrowing, and insists upon calling it plagiarism.

    Is it?

    According to plagiarism.org (citing Merriam Webster), plagiarism is:

    1. to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
    2. to use (another's production) without crediting the source
    3. to commit literary theft
    4. to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

    Did Barrack Obama meet any of these definitions when he used elements of Deval Patrick's 2006 speech?

    It is unclear whether or not that Obama was attempting to pass off Patrick's language as his own, but once could certainly make an argument that he did. It is certain he did not give Patrick credit for that language he borrowed during the course of the speech. Is that plagiarism? As a textbook definition, yes.

    It remains to be seen how seriously others will view the offense, but it is obvious that the candidate of "change" is not as full of fresh ideas as he would like to portray.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:23 PM | Comments (6)

    February 12, 2008

    The Preggo Menace

    Fox News is just one of several news outlets running a warning by the Department of Homeland Security that fake pregnant women could be used as suicide bombers in America:

    The growing use by terrorist groups of women — some disguised as expectant moms — to deliver deadly homicide bombs has prompted the Department of Homeland Security and FBI to issue a rare warning that such attacks could take place on American soil.

    The joint security assessment cited recent female homicide bomber attacks in Baghdad — in which two women who appeared to have Down syndrome delivered a deadly explosion that killed 99 — as well as in Sri Lanka, Chechnya, India, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories as reason for the warning.

    "Female suicide bombers may have an advantage over their male counterparts in accessing targets," the analysis cautioned. "The means to conduct a suicide attack vary widely, but a key element in maximizing the lethality of a suicide bombing is the bomber's ability to get close to the target."

    The assessment also strongly warned that potential female homicide bombers could use "prosthetic devices that mimic the look of a pregnant woman."

    Reality check.

    There are far more obese Americans that pregnant ones, and unlike pregnant people, the obese, both real and fake, are often "invisible," pitied and looked way from by members of the general public. Little old ladies like to talk to and touch pregnant ladies they don't even know. The obese? We're taught from a young age not to stare.

    Few would want to get close enough to an obese person to see if it is fat or TATP that is causing the sweating in their second stomach fold.

    The fake obese can hide far more explosives distributed around their bodies far more convincingly than "pregnant" bomber, especially when they get to a size where they can justify using a scooter, walker or wheelchair to carry even more explosives or shrapnel.

    Is either scenario very likely here in the United States? Probably not, which makes this entire DHS-driven story one based more of sensationalism than in any real, actionable threat.

    Frankly, I'm far more worried about more realistic threats, like exploding trash.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:12 PM | Comments (3)

    The Obama Flag Flap

    The blogosphere began buzzing yesterday afternoon because of a Cuban flag superimposed with a picture of Che Guevara that was flown in an volunteer, unofficial office for Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama in Houston, Texas, captured by a local Fox News affiliate.

    Allahpundit likened it yesterday to be the equivalent of flying a Timothy McVeigh flag in a John McCain office, and noted that if that had occurred, media outlets would have more than likely made more of an issue of it than they have in this instance.

    I don't however, share the condemnation heard yesterday of the Obama campaign itself over this particular story from some of my friends on the right. I think James Joyner's take on the issue is even-handed, in that:

    ...Che is a terrorist who shouldn't be honored by decent people. Che worship (or, alternatively, the wearing of Che t-shirts as a statement without the slightest clue of who he was) seems to be a phase that certain left-leaning activists go through in their youth; it generally passes. Driscoll's characterization of it as "juvenilia" is spot on.

    For reasons I'll certainly never understand, a contingent on the fringe left does and has long had a special affinity for this particular terrorist, but that in and of itself should not reflect upon Obama, unless he also shares those views or had advance knowledge of such a flag being placed in this volunteer-established office (which I strongly doubt).

    What the flag may come far closer to representing is the historical cluelessness of some potential voters, and the sad flocking to cults of personality by those who feel politically marginalized, as noted by the U.K.based satire site Anorak News which said dryly:

    "...The stakes could not be higher in the battle between Ron Paul and Barack Obama for the hearts and minds of America's young people, as this picture shows."

    But it isn't just the young and uninformed who flock to such cults of personality, as we've all seen our fair share of Paulites and Obama supporters of every age and education level.

    There are many people who feel politically lost who will flock to those voices that offer seemingly easy "change," whether that voice offers workable solutions or empty platitudes.

    Considering that this story is largely confined to the blogosphere at this moment, there is probably very little desire in the official Barack Obama campaign to issue a statement against the displaying of this terrorist-hyping flag in a volunteer office. Though it would be a nice gesture, such a refutation may make this into a larger story than it would otherwise be.

    Cuban-Americans, however, may find this political calculation to be less than satisfactory.

    It is rather sad that the Obama campaign is in a position where it had to decide whether denouncing a terrorist is a smart move, but when a candidate runs on a platform offering so little substance or experience, being quiet and vague is perhaps precisely what they are counting on.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:46 AM | Comments (48)

    "Ready, Fire, Aim"

    "Act, then think" Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner stopped a planned urban combat training exercise by Company A 1st Battalion 24th Marine Regiment last week, and has been under considerable fire from the public since his decision. He still defends the decision today:

    "I spoke with Major Brooks of the United States Marine," Finkbeiner said in a news release Monday. ""I conveyed my sincere regret for the failure to communicate within the administration and any inconvenience that caused the U.S. Marines Corps. Finkbeiner had offered to allow the Marines to use abandoned buildings on the outskirts of Toledo.

    The mayor said he made the decision not to allow the Marines, Company A 1st Battalion 24th Marine Regiment from Grand Rapids, to perform their training maneuvers downtown beginning Friday in downtown Toledo because the presence of armed soldiers in the central business district would have alarmed residents.

    "The CBD (Central Business District), particularly on a weekday afternoon, was not available for military staging operations. (Ten thousand to 14,000) men and women would have been departing their offices in downtown Toledo on Friday afternoon with a major military training unfolding, including the use of weapons being discharged with blanks," said Feinkbeiner said.

    The mayor's office has been flooded with calls from people from across the nation, asking him to apologize, according to the Toledo Blade.

    Among those voicing frustration with the Mayor are members of the Toledo Chamber Commerce, one who wrote in an email that, "all of the community suffers unnecessarily because of the unfortunate action of the Mayor."

    The Toledo City Council, in conjunction with county officials, are attempting to make amends with a resolution that will be introduced later this morning that will provide an abandoned mall as a training location for the Marines.

    In addition, the resolution will offer to pay the Marines for the lost training costs, and offers to pick up a free night's stay for each of the 200 Marines anywhere in the city, and will provide passes to area restaurants and events. They will also apologize on behalf of Toledo to the Marine Corps.

    Finkbeiner, described as an "arrogant bully," but one person close to the story, will face a City Council resolution expected to pass 12-0.

    02/13 Update: The resolution passes.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:00 AM | Comments (6)

    February 11, 2008

    The Unbearable Lightness of Obama

    Eight Years of "Billary" was enough for most of us. Are we ready for "Barichelle?"

    On a conference call to prepare for a recent debate, Barack Obama brainstormed with his top advisers on the fine points of his positions. Michelle Obama had dialed in to listen, but finally couldn't stay silent any longer.

    "Barack," she interjected, "Feel -- don't think!" Telling her husband his "over-thinking" during past debates had tripped him up with rival Hillary Clinton, she said: "Don't get caught in the weeds. Be visceral. Use your heart -- and your head."

    The campaign veterans shut up. They knew that Mrs. Obama's opinion and advice mattered more to their candidate than anything they could say.

    Considering his lightweight resume featuring no executive experience on any level and only fleeting legislative experience of less than one term in the U.S. Senate, do we really want a presidential candidate to run his campaign on feelings?

    But when a candidate has nothing more substantial to fall back on, perhaps the feelings in Barack Obama's heart is all he has left... that, and the advice of Michelle Obama, who unlike her husband, does have some executive experience (though in healthcare, not government).

    As Hillary Clinton fades and Barack Obama's sweep of Democratic primary and caucus races over the weekend give him the momentum going into Tuesday's votes in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., both Obamas will come under increasing scrutiny as they seem poised to take the nomination from once-favored frontrunner Hillary Clinton in a tight Democratic race.

    So what do we have in the Obamas? Barack Obama has, in less than one term, established himself as the Democrat with the most liberal voting record in the Senate. More liberal than Harry Reid. More liberal than Barbara Boxer. More liberal than Dick Durbin. He has, in his short career, established himself as the most extremist Democratic Senator. He speaks mightily and often of "change," but is America ready for the radical progressive, socialist agenda his record suggests, and that his campaign avoids mentioning? Based purely on his track record, he seems too liberal to lead France, much less represent the greater population of the United States.

    Michelle Obama has been mostly out of the limelight compared to the other spouse of the candidate in contention, but her advice to her husband to run with his heart—"Feel -- don't think!"—is terrifying advice to give a man who would have nuclear weapons under his control when the next terror attack takes place on American soil, and eventuality which one day will occur, and one that could quite possibly occur during the next presidency.

    As Bill Whittle noted in Tribes, feeling, caring people such as Obama are great to be around when things are going swimmingly, but as we saw when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and Kathleen Blanco melted in her role as chief executive of Louisiana, you do not want them in charge when the crap hits the fan.

    Barack Obama has never faced a true crisis. He has never faced calamity. His character, judgment under pressure, and strength in a crisis have never been tested. He is woefully inexperienced in a leadership role. All Barack Obama has is his emotions... or at least, that is all he has shown us, and what his wife advises him to show.

    Perhaps he is, down deep, made of sterner stuff. But he has not shown it. He instead issues threats against nuclear-armed states, while promising to lose the war in Iraq as recently as just days ago.

    He promises the " audacity of hope" because the paucity of his substance is so revealing. Without his brilliant gifts as a motivating speaker, he has little. As the Bard might say, Obama is "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

    We can do better than a candidate that excels only at oratory, and who would be shell-shocked as one of the most unqualified presidents this nation has ever known.

    We deserve better.

    We can do better.

    Yes, we can.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:08 AM | Comments (3)

    February 08, 2008

    With Romney Gone, It's Thompson Time in the Veepstakes

    Mitt Romney's gracious withdrawal yesterday at CPAC effectively cemented the Republican nomination for Arizona Senator John McCain, a candidate that I don't particularly like, but one is that is still far superior to either the empty promises of "change" from Barack Obama (presumably from partial presidential incompetence, to total), or the similar economy-killing socialist politics of a character-free Mrs. Clenis.

    That support for McCain, however, is very fragile, and could easily be crushed or increased by the presumptive nominee's choice of running mate.

    As both Scott Ott and Stephen Green have noted, Fred Thompson would make an excellent Vice Presidential running mate for McCain, balancing McCain's fiery temper and RINO leanings with sound conservatism based upon Federalist principles. That Thompson brings some regional balance to the Arizona Senator's ticket is also something others might note, but I find less important that his principles (full disclosure: Thompson became my favorite for office after Roger L. Simon and I interviewed him for Pajamas Media in November.)

    Other conservatives, of course, could be an acceptable choice, but if McCain wants the support of the conservative wing of the party he has so often fought with, he needs a sounds conservative choice as his Veep, not a fellow RINO.

    If McCain chooses a fellow liberal Republican—say, for example, social conservative theocrat, but economically liberal and internationally buffoonish Mike Huckabee, or South Carolina's amnesty-loving fellow RINO Senator Lindsey Graham—then any hopes McCain has of the tentative truce between his campaign and the conservative wing of the Republican Party are dashed.

    We have nothing but flawed characters remaining in this election, but McCain, for the moment, is the less offensive choice for many. He could go a long way towards building a winning coalition if he recognizes the hopes and fears of his own party by asking a conservative such as Thompson to join him on the ticket, without compromising the "Maverick" reputation that moderates and independents seem to value in his candidacy.

    The ball is is McCain's court. We can only hope he plays it wisely.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:16 AM | Comments (28)

    February 07, 2008

    Biting the Bullet

    I don't like John McCain. He is no better than my third-place choice for President, and I cannot drum up any enthusiasm to vote for him in November.

    But I will.

    I frankly don't care if he plans on trying to make nice at CPAC today. Whatever olive branch he extends will be quickly forgotten once he finally clinches the nomination from Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, two candidates that so far refused to concede, but have very little chance of turning the tide of McCain's improbable run for the nomination. Once nominated, McCain will tack even further towards the center as his leftward lurch continues.

    I don't like John McCain, but I will vote for him. I won't stay home in protest. I won't write in another candidate, either. This election is too important for that.

    The eventual Democratic nominee, whether it is inexperienced committed socialist Barack Obama, the most liberal voter in the Senate, or the woman of a thousand scandals, Hillary Clinton, who preemptively declared that any report of good news coming out of Iraq would be a lie, is unacceptable as President. Both promise higher taxes, a far more intrusive and meddling federal government, and defeat in the war against Islamic extremism. This is the actuality of the "change" they refuse to clarify in their vacuous campaign speeches.

    Love him or hate him, McCain has something both Democratic candidates lack: meaningful experience. Obama has served less than one full term as a U.S. Senator, following just two full and one half-completed term as a state Senator. Clinton has completed one term in the U.S. Senate, and only a third of her second term. She has no prior national experience as an elected politician... unless you think being an acquiescent First Lady to the Philanderer-in-Chief counts. Frankly, that she lacks the self-respect to ditch a serial sex abuser such as William Jefferson Clinton says all about her character (or lack of it) that I need to know.

    By comparison, McCain served two terms in the House of Representatives, and has been a U.S. Senator since 1986, and while I've often disagreed with his positions, he cannot be accused of being a weathervane politician.

    So while I do not like John McCain, he is what we have left among the candidates that will attempt to work with both parties, who hasn't adopted a fringe ideology (or tried to hide it), and who has meaningful experience on the federal level, who did not take his seat in the Senate merely as a stepping stone to higher office. As purely a pragmatic calculation, he's the only candidate still running in either party that won't screw this country up too bad during his term.

    During some elections, that may have to be enough.

    This is hardly a ringing endorsement. It isn't supposed to be.

    McCain for President. Or we're really screwed.

    Update: Romney steps aside.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:02 AM | Comments (153)

    February 05, 2008

    "A Vote For Huckabee is a Vote for McCain"

    That charge has been leveled against Mike Huckabee since it became obvious he could not hope to win the Republican nomination after the South Carolina and Florida primaries, and it has been a charge that Huckabee has vehemently denied.

    We'll just add that to the long list of his lies
    .

    Mike Huckabee won the first of 21 states being contested by the Republican presidential candidates on Super Tuesday, pulling out a victory in the West Virginia Republican convention.

    Huckabee won in the second round of voting, even though Mitt Romney led after the first round. The former Arkansas governor won with 51.5 percent to Romney’s 47.4 percent, pulling ahead after John McCain’s delegates apparently defected to his side.

    The convention had to go into a second round of voting after no candidate took a clear majority the first time. Texas Rep. Ron Paul was knocked out, and Huckabee, Romney and McCain moved forward.

    Paul finished fourth with 10 percent among the 1,133 participating delegates in the first round, while Romney took 41 percent and Huckabee took 33 percent. McCain, who started the day in New York City before heading to California, reached the second round with 15 percent.

    But before Huckabee’s surprising turnaround in the second round, McCain delegates told FOX News they had been instructed by the campaign to throw their support to Huckabee.

    McCain delegate John Vuolo said former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer approached him and other McCain supporters at the convention and told them he had spoken to McCain, and that the best thing to do was to support Huckabee in the hope that Huckabee could beat Romney in this winner-take-all state.

    Don't get me wrong—for McCain, denying Romney a state he should have won, especially a winner-take-all state, is smart politics.

    But I don't want to hear any more that the Huckster from Hope is campaigning because he still has delusions becoming the nominee. That ship sailed long ago. He's still in this race for one reason, and one reason only: to trip up Mitt Romney, and ensure a McCain victory.

    I only wonder what promises Huckabee extracted from John McCain in return for his role as spoiler.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:29 PM | Comments (18)

    Obligatory Super Tuesday Predictions

    Allahpundit has his up as does Scott Elliott of Election Projection, as no doubt does every other political blogger under the sun.

    On the Democratic side, it doesn't seem like either Obama or Hillary will grab enough delegates to land a knockout punch. Advantage: Obama. This final blow to Hillary's seeming inevitability from earlier in the campaign means that it may be a true free-for-all after all of tonight's delegates are awarded. My prediction? No clear winner.

    John McCain, despite being only slightly more conservative than Hillary, looks to pull decisively ahead in the race for the Republican nomination unless Mitt Romney stages some surprising comebacks... and frankly, I don't see that happening. McCain won't win enough delegates tonight to clinch the nomination, but he might pull enough that Romney (sorry, Hugh) and Huckabee concede the nomination in coming days. Advantage: Obama.

    We're a long way from November, but if current trends continue this is going to get ugly for Republicans. For conservatives, with no candidates in the hunt at all, we've already lost.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:37 AM | Comments (8)

    January 31, 2008

    NY Times Sets Up Hillary For A Fall

    In 2005, Bill Clinton accompanied mining financier Frank Giustra to Kazakhstan, provided dictator Nursultan A. Nazarbayev with a propaganda coup that undermined American foreign policy and glossed over Kazakhstan's dismal human rights record. For Clinton's trouble, Giustra walked away with shared mining rights to 1/5 of the world's known uranium reserves.

    Clinton subsequently picked up $131 million dollars in donations and pledges from Giustra for the William J. Clinton Foundation as a result, including a donation of $31.3 million within months of the mining deal being finalized.

    On the surface, this sounds like peddling influence for cash—and truth be told, I can't easily come up with any other rational explanation.

    This is rather a bizarre time to be publishing an accusation of an incident that occurred several years ago, with only days left before Hillary Clinton engages Barack Obama in the Super Tuesday Democratic presidential primaries, and occurring just days after the New York Times publicly endorsed Clinton as their candidate of choice.

    Are we to believe that the Times editors were unaware of the pending article on Bill Clinton's apparent influence peddling when they gave Hillary their endorsement less than one full week ago?

    In a large news organization it is indeed possible that the editorial staff who wrote Clinton's endorsement was unaware of the pending Bill Clinton/Giustra article... but I doubt it. And it is the Times editors that chose when to publish an article that was not locked into a specific time-sensitive news cycle, but was, as they say, "evergreen." This could have waited until after Super Tuesday, without a loss of importance... but then it would lack the colossal political influence that this story now may have.

    Publishing the Clinton/Giustra article on this day, so close to Super Tuesday, seems indicative of ill intent on behalf of the Times.

    Perhaps Hillary isn't their real choice for President after all.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:09 AM | Comments (6)

    January 30, 2008

    Thanks, Florida

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:14 AM | Comments (12)

    January 28, 2008

    Grits Between His Ears

    Would Mike Huckabee please do us all a favor and simply drop out?

    Mitt Romney's failure to eat fried chicken with the skin on is nothing short of blasphemy here in the South, according to GOP rival Mike Huckabee.

    [snip]

    "I can tell you this," he said, "any Southerner knows if you don’t eat the skin don’t bother calling it fried chicken."

    "So that's good. I'm glad that he did that, because that means I'm going to win Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma … all these great Southern states that understand the best part of fried chicken is the skin, if you're going to eat it that way."

    Huckabee continues to be a disgracefully shallow candidate, who seems to feel that voters are equally as vacuous as he has shown himself to be.

    Does Huckabee honestly think that his own preference for fried squirrel and Romney's desire to eat a more healthy meal are the foremost issues on voter's minds?

    Implying—even in jest—that a region's primaries will be decided because of cuisine preferences is just the latest example of his inherent obnoxiousness.

    The sooner we send him packing, the better.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:34 PM | Comments (11)

    Ted

    For reasons I'll never know, author Toni Morrison's endorsement of Barack Obama for President is the top article on Memeorandum right now. I typically put very little weight behind the endorsements of authors or actors or sports figures, but obviously, people think this is important enough to talk about.

    The version of the story linked at Memeorandum is from the ABC News blog Political Radar, and includes this quote explaining Morrison's endorsement:

    "In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom.

    "Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.

    "There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time," she concludes.

    When I read the effusive "That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom," I gagged reflexively at the sugary nothingness of what Morrison said.

    "That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom."

    I can hardly think of a more hollow, nonsensical statement, which a simple comparison destroys.

    I can think of someone far more creative, and quantitatively far more brilliant than Barack Obama.

    Would you vote for this guy?

    Brilliant, with an eye for the future, and certainly creative, why isn't Ted Kaczynski Morrison's choice for president? Was it the sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole that ruled him out?

    Brilliance and imagination are great things to have, but they do not in any way add up to equal wisdom. Taken with other factors, these God-given gifts can contribute to someone growing up to be a talented surgeon, a gifted teacher, or a national leader.

    These gifts can also lead to abject madness... or horridly purple prose.

    The do not, in and of themselves, equal wisdom.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:12 PM | Comments (6)

    January 25, 2008

    Can You Hear Me Now?

    Certain progressive bloggers in their natural state of paranoia are amusing to behold, and the conspiracy du jour is no different, as one of the more excitable ones interprets an event during last night's Republican debate as evidence that candidate Mitt Romney was cheating.

    Allahpundit has the video over at Hot Air of NBC's Tim Russert asking Mitt Romney a vaguely-worded question, and then someone whispering "raise taxes," to which Romney replied, "I'm not going to raise taxes."

    Romney obviously heard the whisper and responded to it, but the origin of the whisper seems to be found at the network, as an MSNBC blog posted on the subject, and then mysteriously pulled down the blog entry without explanation.

    As Allah notes, Dan Riehl is probably correct that the whisper was from an NBC staffer attempting to coach Russert into explaining his poorly worded question, and that Romney, hearing the question as well, responded to it. It is also quite possible that feed simply could have been picked up from another candidate's mike. Other than being a minor gaffe for NBC's technical crew, this should be a non-story.

    Things, of course, are never quite that simple for those who see a conspiracy behind every, err, bush.

    At democrats.com, Bob Fertik wails "Romney cheats with an Earpiece!" despite, of course, having no such evidence of said claim, and the slightly troubling fact that if there was an earpiece, nobody else would have heard it.

    Of course, Fertik and fellow conspiracy theorists still insist that President Bush was wearing an earpiece during a 2004 debate because of a bulge in the back of his jacket. They can't quite seem to grasp that the most logical explanation is that the bulge would been caused by body armor, not an obsolete transmitter the size of a deck of playing cards paired with an earpiece equipped with a futuristic Predator-type cloaking device that leaves the ear canal exposed.

    Fun guy, Bob Fertik. You'll know him when you see him, franticly searching the sky for black helicopters and Denny Kucinich's UFO.

    Update: Rolling Stone seems to be watching the skies as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:33 PM | Comments (26)

    January 24, 2008

    Fred's Not Dead?

    Despite dropping out of the race for the Republican Presidential nomination, Fred Thompson could still presumably become the eventual nominee, according to Steven Stark in his article on Real clear Politics, Who Said Freddy's Dead?

    The Republican race is coming into focus. Well, sort of. If John McCain can win the Florida primary on January 29, he'll be the clear front-runner heading into Super Tuesday a week later.

    But Florida is hardly a sure thing for McCain. Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney are contesting the state heartily. Plus, Florida is a closed primary, meaning Independents can't participate -- and McCain polls far worse in contests where only Republicans can vote.

    If McCain loses in Florida, the Republicans may well be headed to a deadlocked race and convention. And history teaches us that the likeliest candidate to emerge in that scenario is someone like Warren G. Harding: the prototypical, less-than-stellar candidate to which conventions turn when the going gets rough.

    This year's Harding? Believe it or not (are you sitting down?), despite the fact that he's withdrawn from the race, is Fred Thompson.

    Stark does make an interesting point about the Florida race—McCain and Romney are presently in a virtual dead heat at 22-percent of the vote— and if Florida tips for Romney, it would seem to blunt McCain's momentum running into Super Tuesday and just about anything could be possible. If Super Tuesday does not result in a clear winner, Republicans could indeed end up with a brokered convention where Thompson's lack of negatives may very well turn into a positive.

    Is the brokered convention scenario likely to happen?

    I wouldn't plan on it, but for Fredheads, it is nice to dream.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:30 AM | Comments (7)

    January 22, 2008

    Thompson Withdraws

    Via email:


    Statement from Sen. Fred Thompson

    McLean, VA - Senator Fred Thompson today issued the following statement about his campaign for President:

    "Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."


    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:37 PM | Comments (10)

    January 18, 2008

    An Ayatollah from Arkansas

    A day before the South Carolina Republican Primary, David Limbaugh has cast his support behind Fred Thompson:

    Commentators are citing the unpredictability of the Republican primary contests as proof that Reagan conservatism is dead when precisely the opposite conclusion is warranted.

    The main reason the conventional wisdom is being shattered in the primaries is that conservative voters, so far, have not been persuaded there is an electable, reliable conservative in the race.

    But as I've stated before, I believe Fred Thompson is a reliable, consistent conservative. There are others in the field I could support, but not without some reservations. The more I learn about Fred and observe him in action, the more convinced I become that he's the right choice...

    ...Supporters have asked Fred to step up, and he has -- he has shone brilliantly in the last month, setting himself head and shoulders above the pack in many cases. Now it's time for conservative voters to step up and quit placing artificial limitations on Fred, and on themselves.

    Fred has answered the conservatives' call. Shouldn't we answer his?

    For those of you who don't know, David Limbaugh is the brother of talk radio powerhouse Rush Limbaugh, who refuses to endorse any Republican candidate during the primaries as a matter of policy—a policy, I may add, that has not kept Rush from slamming many (if not all) of the other Republican candidates—while singing Thompson's praises on more than one occasion.

    The "conventional wisdom" (which I think is batting "O-fer" this primary season, so take it FWIW) is that South Carolina will knock either Thompson or Mike Huckabee out of the race with a poor showing.

    I've made no secret that as an evangelical Christian myself, Mike Huckabee makes me cringe, and that of the candidates we have, I think Thompson is certainly the best choice.

    If South Carolina is a "race for survival" between Thompson and Huckabee, I hope that South Carolina Republicans who generally support the other candidates—Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Giuliani, and Paul— would instead consider casting their vote for Thompson tomorrow.

    Why?

    I have to tell my fellow conservative Christians that Mike Huckabee is the worst possible representative of our faith and our conservative principles in the race.

    His stated intentions to change the Constitution to follow his interpretation of the Bible will only earn us distrust among the vast majority of Americans who aren't Southern Baptists, and his unsolicited support for the Confederate flag is politically tone-deaf and will alienate many voters not already turned off by his desire to ban political free speech—except when his supporters use it to tar other candidates, that is.

    We deserve better than an ayatollah from Arkansas.

    I'd like for you to consider casting your vote for Fred Thompson if you want a Southerner to continue in the race, but I'd ask that whatever you do, you vote against Mike Huckabee.

    Our religion, our region, our party, and our country deserves better.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:18 AM | Comments (8)

    January 17, 2008

    Family Politics

    Should the exploits of relatives harm the chances of a Presidential candidate? (h/t Gateway Pundit)

    Jimmy Carter wasn't responsible for the actions of his brother Billy, and it could hardly be said that Roger Clinton's problems are in any way the fault of brother Bill. Likewise, Hillary isn't to blame for Hugh Rodham's cash-for-pardons scandal.

    So would it be fair to hold Barack Obama's feet to the fire for the Kenyan government's claim that his cousin Raila Odinga is behind ethnic cleansing in Kenya that has so far taken 600 lives?

    Odinga is having to defend himself and his supporters from charges brought by the Kenyan government of ethnic cleansing following disputed Presidential elections in that African nation. He has condemned one of the most shocking incidents, where his supporters—reputedly Odinga's fellow Luo tribesmen—blocked the doors of a Christian church and burned dozens of Kikuyu men, women, and children alive inside.

    Odinga's father led the communist opposition party during the Cold War and he was educated in East Germany. His brother is named after Fidel Castro. Far more troubling than his past, however, is Mr. Odinga's current pact with the National Muslim Leader's Forum, an hardline Islamist organization. Odinga has promised to institute harsh Sharia courts throughout the country if he was elected, and to ban Christian preaching.

    But what does this have to do with Obama?

    Daniel Johnson had this to say in a recent article in the NY Sun:

    In August 2006, Mr. Obama visited Kenya and spoke in support of Mr. Odinga's candidacy at rallies in Nairobi. The Web site Atlas Shrugs has even posted a photograph of the two men side by side. More recently, Mr. Odinga says that Mr. Obama interrupted his campaigning in New Hampshire to have a telephone conversation with his African cousin about the constitutional crisis in Kenya.

    What should Americans make of Mr. Obama's Kenyan connection? If he has been putting tribal or family considerations above America's national interest by supporting Mr. Odinga's anti-Western candidacy, it raises serious questions about his judgement.

    At the time of his visit in 2006, President Kibaki's spokesman complained that Mr. Obama was behaving like a "stooge" of Mr. Odinga—which was at best undignified for a visiting American senator, and at worst unwarranted interference in the internal politics of another country.

    Even more serious are the doubts raised by Mr. Obama's attitude toward Islam, which has so far received much less scrutiny than might be expected in a post-September 11 presidential election.

    If Mr. Obama did not know about Mr. Odinga's electoral deal with the Kenyan Islamists when he offered his support, then he should have known. If he did know, then he is guilty of lending the prestige of his office to America's enemies in the global war on terror. We need to know exactly what Mr. Obama knew about Mr. Odinga, and precisely when he knew it.

    To be fair to Barack Obama, he has no direct control over Mr. Odinga or the actions of his party or their fellow Luo tribesmen in a country on another continent.

    Nor do I think he is putting distant tribal ties ahead of those of his own country, and I find the insinuation about his "attitude toward Islam" a bit much, considering Obama's well-known membership in a Chicago congregation of the Church of Christ (yes, even though Obama's pastor is a fan of racist Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan).

    It simply isn't fair to judge Obama on any merits but his own.

    But his judgement is part his own merits, and associating with an anti-western political leader, even when that leader is a relative—and perhaps precisely because that leader is a relative—brings up issues that Obama would do well to tamp down now, before another candidate seizes upon the issue.

    Bill and Hillary Clinton can only distance themselves from their brothers but so much. They are, after all, brothers.

    Obama, however, is not even on the same continent as Odinga, and would do well to let people know that their views are thousands of miles apart, as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 PM | Comments (7)

    January 16, 2008

    Huckabee Supporters Caught Push-Polling Fred Thompson

    Supporters of the budding theocrat who would like to change the U.S. Constitution to bend to his idea of God's will, are the obvious suspects.

    The more I see of Mike Huckabee, his temper, ever-changing positions, and his sweet-as-sugar deceptiveness, the more I think he damages the image of Christians in the eyes of other Americans.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:11 PM | Comments (8)

    January 15, 2008

    Birds of a Feather

    Glenn Reynolds notes this from the Detroit Free Press:

    The Michigan Democratic ballot is a sham that was rigged by Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband and her supporters to give the nation the impression that she's the leading candidate in Michigan, an angry former Sen. Don Riegle said Monday.

    Riegle appeared at a rally in Detroit today to encourage would-be supporters of Barack Obama and John Edwards to vote uncommitted in Tuesday's primary. Riegle said he supports one of the two, but wouldn't say which.

    "What happened in Michigan is not very different from what used to happen in the old Soviet Union," Riegle said. "The Clinton machine manipulated the ballot. They don’t care how they win, only that they do. It's wrong and people need to know that."

    I wonder... where would Hillary have learned such a vile trick?

    Perhaps from one of Barack Obama's previous campaigns:

    The day after New Year's 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

    There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city's South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama's four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.

    I presume former Sen. Don Riegle would support Edwards, then?

    (Note: I vaguely recall another blogger brought up Obama's prior history earlier today, but I can't recall who it was to give them credit).

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:19 PM | Comments (2)

    SockPuppet Super Lawyer

    For a reputed legal scholar, Glenn Greenwald has an awfully poor understanding of the law that even this layman can poke gaping holes in.

    In his typical long-winded, tedious style, he bloviates in support of Dennis Kucinich's attempt to sue his way into the Nevada Democratic debate:

    The complaint (.pdf) filed by Kucinich is simple and straightforward. He alleges that he had a binding contract with MSNBC once they offered and he accepted the terms of his participation in the debate, and that MSNBC's refusal to allow him to participate constitutes a breach of that contract. He also alleges that his exclusion violates the mandates of Section 315 of the Communications Act, which requires broadcasters -- who operate the public airways, i.e., airways which are public, not private, property -- "to operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of public importance."

    Nobody can opine meaningfully on the propriety of the court decision here without first knowing about, and then analyzing and resolving, those legal claims.

    So according to Greenwald, Kucinich's claim rests upon two points:

    • that he has a binding contract with MSNBC.
    • That his exclusion violates Section 315 of the Communications Act.

    Is either claim valid?

    As The Liberal Journal points out, MSNBC's lawyers argue (.pdf) that the Federal Communications Act does not apply to a debate being broadcast on cable television, as the Act applies only to broadcast television (Section 315 [47 U.S.C. §315] (c)(1): "the term "broadcasting station" includes a community antenna television system").

    The MSNBC lawyer's also claim that Kucinich failed to exhaust his adminstrative remedies by not filing his claim first with the Federal Communications Commission. Kucinich, essentially, attempted to short-circuit the process.

    Second, MSNBC claims that an invitation does not constitute a contract.

    And then there is the question brought up by Political Machine of whether or not a state judge even has the jurisdiction in a national cable broadcast.

    There is no Constitutional right to free airtime on cable television, nor a Constitutional right to participate in a debate, nor even anything like a valid contract here.

    Kuncinich has no case, and as is often the case, Greenwald has no credibility.

    But then, Glenn Greenwald's credibility was never very high to begin with.


    Update: Kucinich gets tossed by the Nevada Supreme Court. The lower court "manifestly abused its discretion in determining tha a contract existed between the parties," and they tossed the Section 315 claim as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:01 AM | Comments (50)

    January 14, 2008

    "Most of the these people are not rational"

    Oh, you've just got to love the fruits, nuts, and flakes attracted to one Ronald Ernest Paul:

    The voices came from everywhere. California. Ohio. Florida. Michigan. Very few were from New Hampshire.

    A man from Texas e-mailed that he was "contacting, by certified mail, the Attorney General of New Hampshire . . . and requesting a complete investigation and prosecution of any and all parties involved."

    A police dispatcher in New London said yesterday she'd received inquiries about the clerk's office phone.

    Call got a handful of calls that night at home, refusing to pick up whenever an out-of-state number appeared on her screen.

    She got about five more the next day in her office. She tried to get work done. She called the Massachusetts company that makes the licenses for dog owners in her area. The guy had heard of her.

    "Wow," the man said. "This is the second time this week I've seen your name."

    "Where?" Call asked.

    "I've gotten a dozen e-mails about how you've destroyed the New Hampshire primary."

    "Why?"

    "We make voting machines."

    "The problem is," Call said yesterday, "we don't use voting machines."

    She went home and locked her doors. She called her mother in North Carolina. She cried. The calls kept coming. She unhooked her answering machine and requested an unlisted number.

    "I was drained emotionally and physically," Call said. "That's when I really started to freak out. Thursday it hit me, that most of these people are not rational. That's when I became scared."



    Jennifer Call is Sutton New Hampshire's town clerk. Her "crime" was to initially post that Ron Paul garnered zero votes out of 920 cast in her town.

    He actually got 31.

    Out of 920.

    For this, irate and unhinged Paul supporters from around the nation have bombarded her office and home phone with cries of fraud and treason, and even a death threat.

    Over a human error in transcribing results, an error that was corrected the next morning.

    Let it be known far and wide that Ron Paul got a whopping 3.37% of the primary vote in Sutton, New Hampshire.

    And leave this poor woman alone.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:44 AM | Comments (6)

    January 11, 2008

    Is Mike Huckabee Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

    As an evangelical Christian, I've long been bothered by Mike Huckabee's attempts to use his Christianity as a "holier than thou" political weapon against other candidates for President, even as he has lied about everything from his support of scholarships for illegal aliens (he wanted them), to his desire to raise taxes(he asked for them), to claims he has a theology degree (he didn't complete it).

    This lack of honesty we generally associate with a previous Man From Hope has also been compounded by Huckabee's legendary problems with his temper, which have occasionally led to juvenile personal attacks (PDF) against his critics.

    Huckabee exposed his childish side again this morning in a scatalogical reference directed at Fred Thompson. Thompson had ripped Huckabee's big government liberal tendencies during last night's Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

    This morning in an interview with Joe Scarborough, Huckabee snapped:

    Well, I think Fred needs some Metamucil. I think it would help a lot if he gets some.

    Mike Huckabee, who almost has a theology degree, may be smarter than a fifth grader, but betrays yet again that he could only hope to be that mature.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:40 PM | Comments (20)

    Kos Revises History

    Over at the Daily Kos, himself posts Let's have some fun in Michigan, an appeal for Democrats to vote from Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Michigan on Tuesday, January 15th, hoping to keep him in the race because:

    ...the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us.

    Kos justifies this tactic by pointing out that Michigan Republicans pulled a similar dirty trick in 1972 to vote for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, noting that Republicans' made up a third of Wallace's vote total.

    In 1972, Republican voters in Michigan decided to make a little mischief, crossing over to vote in the open Democratic primary and voting for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, seriously embarrassing the state's Democrats. In fact, a third of the voters (PDF) in the Democratic primary were Republican crossover votes.

    But that isn't the whole story, and Kos purposefully leaves out the nasty truth: even without a single Republican vote, segregationist Wallace would have still won handily in 1972 Michigan, by more than 111,000 votes.

    Michigan's apparently segregationist Democratic mainstream gave him at least 538,953 votes (I subtracted 1/3 of Wallace' total, as if all Republicans added to Wallace's vote total to arrive at that figure, even though 1/3 of the Republican cross-overs actually voted for McGovern. This figure is heavily biased in favor of his flawed argument, and he still loses), 111,259 more than also-ran George McGovern's 425,694 according to Kos' own source.

    Kos can rightly claim that Republicans crossed over in 1972. He just can't credibly claim they affected the outcome.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:32 AM | Comments (9)

    January 10, 2008

    Thompson Takes South Carolina

    The Republican debate in Myrtle Beach was a clear win for Fred Thompson, and that seems to be the building prevailing sentiment. Everyone else seemed content to play defense and just attempt to hold ground. They failed.

    As for Ron Paul... it was hard for both the moderating team and the candidates to hide their mix of pity and disgust. I almost expected to see a note with his home address pinned to his jacket.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:34 PM | Comments (23)

    January 09, 2008

    Ron Paul: Just Go Away

    Ron Paul needs to simply go away.

    Long-simmering rumors about his ties to bigots of many stripes have lurked in the background for years, only explode yesterday with well-documented examples of racism, hatred towards gays, and murky associations with conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazis, and secessionists.

    Some seem satisfied with Paul's weak claim that myriad examples of this inflammatory rhetoric went out under his name for over a decade without his knowledge or blessing. This requires a willing suspension of disbelief and an avoidance of reality only too typical of the paranoid fringe that have flocked to his campaign.

    If he has any sense of decency, Paul should withdraw from the 2008 Presidential race, and should also consider vacating his Congressional seat. The voters of Texas' 22nd 14th District deserves better representation than this.

    We all do.

    Update: CNN gets in the action with a feature story called Ron Paul '90s newsletters rant against blacks, gays.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:15 AM | Comments (22)

    January 08, 2008

    Dear Network and Cable News Outlets

    Not to point out the obvious to the oblivious, but at a time when newsrooms are loss-leaders at best, you might be financially better off in getting your wildly inaccurate pre-primary punditry from bloggers.

    I'm pretty sure I could be every bit as wrong as Zogby, Rasmussen, etc for $50K-$100K less per state.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)

    Uh-oh

    curtains
    Curtains for Ron Paul?
    ...whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

    I doubt this is the last we'll see of this kind of article targeting the company Paul keeps, either.

    Update: More on this via Daniel Koffler at Pajamas Media, starting with this (dis)taste of pull-quotes from "Ron Paul's Political Report" newsletter from the 1980s and early 1990s.

    "[O]ur country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists—and they can be identified by the color of their skin."

    "I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city [Washington, D.C.] are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

    "We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational."

    "The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics."

    "The criminals who terrorize our cities—in riots and on every non-riot day—are not exclusively young black males, but they largely are. As children, they are trained to hate whites, to believe that white oppression is responsible for all black ills, to "fight the power," and to steal and loot as much money from the white enemy as possible. Anything is justified against 'The Man.' And 'The Woman.'"

    This looks bad for Paul...very bad. That hasn't kept his true believers from bombarding PJM's comment thread.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:28 PM | Comments (12)

    Huckabee's Radical Immigration Shift

    Break out the shovel:

    Mike Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution to prevent children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens from automatically becoming American citizens, according to his top immigration surrogate — a radical step no other major presidential candidate has embraced.

    Mr. Huckabee, who won last week's Republican Iowa caucuses, promised Minuteman Project founder James Gilchrist that he would force a test case to the Supreme Court to challenge birthright citizenship, and would push Congress to pass a 28th Amendment to the Constitution to remove any doubt.

    This is a radical shift from an immigration position of just a little over a month ago as reported in the same newspaper, where his position as governor of Arkansas was labeled "an absolute disaster."

    "Every time there was any enforcement in his state, he took the side of the illegal aliens."

    As Mark Levin notes, this is a massive flip-flop from Huckabee, who supported making the children of illegal aliens eligible for college scholarships and called legislation to crack down on illegal immigration in Arkansas "inflammatory and race-baiting" while governor just two years ago, a fact he did not dispute in the GOP debate in New Hampshire on September 5, 2007.

    Issues2000.org has much, much more on Huckabee's shifting positions.

    Update: Hmmm... backing down on a previous pander? Perhaps his moral compass needs to be re-magnitized.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:19 AM | Comments (12)

    Obama's Damaged Foreign Policy

    Over at Hot Air, Bryan notes that Barack Obama's foreign policy plan doesn't exist.

    I wish I could agree with him, but as I read the page now and click the "Read the Plan" link, that isn't true.

    obamas_unreadable_foreign_policy

    It isn't non-existent. Its just damaged and unreadable.

    But then, we knew that, didn't we?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:01 AM | Comments (2)

    The New Hampshire Primary Begins...

    ...with a route in the tiny hamlet of Dixville Notch, where Hillary Clinton didn't pick up a single vote among the 17 voters. Barack Obama got seven votes, John Edwards picked up two, and Bill Richardson picked up one. On the Republican side, John McCain picked up four vtoes, ?Mitt Romney two, and Rudy Giuliani picked up one.

    As noted in the Fox News article, the small towns that opened door to voters at midnight are far too small to be seen as reflective of the state's trends.

    Scott Elliott of Election Projection is predicting a very narrow 34% to 33% win for Republican candidate John McCain over Mitt Romney, and a significant 41% to 34% victory for Obama over Clinton, the once-favored Democratic candidate once seen by many as the inevitable Democratic winner.

    Independent voters are the key to this primary, with the ability to vote in Democratic or Republicans. Mitt Romney's campaign is said to be hoping for enough independent voters to cast votes for Barack Obama and possibly siphon votes from John McCain to give him a victory. I think that is exactly what will happen.

    My guesses are just that (guesses), but here they go.

    • Democrat
    • Obama: 42%
    • Clinton: 32%
    • Edwards: 18%
    • Richardson: 6%
    • Others: 2%
    • Republican
    • Romney: 33.5%
    • McCain: 33%
    • Huckabee: 11.5%
    • Giuliani: 10%
    • Paul: 8%
    • Thompson: 4%

    I didn't include Duncan Hunter on the Republican side because I don't think he'll make even 1% after his hissy fit yesterday.

    Update: So, how do we read the latest at Drudge that the New Hampshire Secretary of State is rushing to bring ballots to "Seacoast – Hampton, Portsmouth – and Southern Hillsborough – Pelham, Nashua" and other cities running low on Democratic ballots?

    If you run with the theory that independents are choosing between Obama and McCain, we could be looking at the seeds of a mild McCain upset by Mitt Romney due to the independents crowding onto Democrat ballots.

    This would seem to all but end John McCain's presidential aspirations.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:43 AM | Comments (16)

    January 07, 2008

    Iran Pushes Its Luck

    Iranian Revolutionary Guard fast-attack boats came with 200 yards of American Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz Saturday, almost provoking American forces to open fire:

    Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats harassed and provoked three U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route off the Iranian coast, over the weekend, CNN reported on Monday.

    Citing unidentified U.S. officials, CNN said the Iranian vessels came within 200 yards (metres) of the U.S. ships in international waters in the strait on Saturday, and U.S. sailors came close to opening fire.

    Oil prices rose about 30 cents to over $98 a barrel after the CNN report, with traders citing increased risk of disruptions to oil shipments along the key shipping route.

    U.S. military officials told CNN the boats were "attack craft" that they believed were operated by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard.

    The Iranian boats made threatening maneuvers against the U.S. warships and threatening radio transmissions, the officials told CNN.

    The captain of one U.S. vessel was in the process of giving the order to shoot when the Iranian ships began turning away, CNN said.

    A radio transmission from one of the Iranian ships said, "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes," CNN reported, citing a U.S. official.

    After the threatening radio communication, U.S. sailors manned their ships' guns and were very close to opening fire, it said.

    There was no immediate U.S. comment.

    If this account is accurate, these Iranian craft were literally within seconds of being destroyed. The order to fire was on the lips of the U.S. Navy captain as the Iranian boats threatened a suicide attack as they came in, only to turn away at the last second.

    Occurring on the eve of President Bush's trip to the region which hoped to spur on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, the apparent attempt was to force American forces to defend themselves and trigger a new crisis between the United States and Iran.

    As we look to tomorrow's primary in New Hampshire, I'm forced to consider how the various presidential candidate's would have responded if such a provocation had occurred on their watch.

    I think it goes without saying that on the Democratic side the candidates are less than inspiring in this kind of crisis, with only Hillary giving me the slightest hope of anything less than a Carteresque response. I think the same holds true for Huckabee and Paul on the Republican side of the equation, and with his foreign policy "experience," I imagine Huckabee's first response would be to wonder why the Irish were mad at us in the first place, and reflexively issuing an executive order raising import taxes on Guinness in retaliation.

    Romney may do okay in such a situation, but I know I'd rather have McCain or Thompson in office if it ever "hit the fan" with Iran, as indeed it may on the next President's watch.

    We were apparently just seconds away from a shooting war this past Saturday.

    Who would you want in office if when they try this again?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:19 AM | Comments (15)

    Pajamas Media War on Terror Conversations

    Claudia Rosett and Roger L. Simon braved the freezing New Hampshire temperatures last week to talk to Republican Presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and John McCain about the War on Terror, in the latest of Pajamas Media's War on Terror Conversation series.

    The Rudy Giuliani conversation is here.

    The John McCain conversation is here.

    An earlier conversation with Fred Thompson is here.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:10 AM | Comments (2)

    January 03, 2008

    Stunning Iowa Prediction from Election Projection: Huckabee by 11%, Thompson within 1% of Romney

    Specifically, Scott Elliott is predicting the Republican race in Iowa at Huckabee 30%, Romney 19%, Thompson 18%, Paul at 14%, and McCain at 13%.

    On the Democratic side, he has Obama blowing away the rest of the field with 38%, Edwards picking up 29%, and Clinton finishing third with just 25%.

    Coming from anyone else I'd not give these numbers a second look, but Elliott's track record speaks for itself when using his formulas.

    He is however, using his intuition instead of a formula for this particular prediction, so keep that in consideration.

    Update: Hmm...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)

    January 02, 2008

    Late Thompson Surge in Iowa

    According to Zogby. Adds Peter Robinson at NRO's The Corner:

    Iowa Republicans, in other words, have wanted Thompson to do them the courtesy of actually campaigning—and now they’re beginning to realize that he has. First Thompson conducted a two-week bus tour of Iowa at which he campaigned in more than 50 towns and cities. Then he taped a 17-minute video in which he makes his case more calmly, deliberately, and and with incomparably greater respect for the issues than has any of his opponents. And? For a lot of Iowa Republicans, that’s all they needed.

    Over at Hot Air, Allah is soliciting predictions of what percentage of the vote Thompson takes in Iowa.

    I'm keeping my prediction to myself, but you're welcome to drop yours in the comments.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:10 PM | Comments (0)

    December 31, 2007

    Fred Thompson's Message to Iowa Voters

    It's the best I've seen of him since Roger L. Simon and I interviewed him back in November for Pajamas Media.

    Thompson offers something different for conservative voters both Democrat and Republican, and than any other contender running this election cycle from either party, in a commitment to the principles that made this nation great.

    Are sound, calmly-stated and time-tested principles of leadership enough in a sound-bite focused, poll-driven world? For the sake of our nation's future, I certainly hope so.

    Blogger endorsements aren't worth much, but for whatever it is worth, Fred Thompson has earned mine.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:21 AM | Comments (1)

    December 28, 2007

    What Killed Bhutto?

    In a nation where conspiracy theories run a freely as water, a new statement by the Pakistani government that PPP leader Benazir Bhutto was felled by sharpnel from a suicide bomber and not from the assassin's bullets is sure to be greeted with skepticism.

    It was initially reported that Bhutto, 54, was killed on Thursday after a public rally in Rawalpindi by the bullets of an assassin who blew himself up after firing the shots.

    But the surgeon who operated on her, Dr Mussadiq Khan, told the Associated Press on Friday that Bhutto was killed by shrapnel from the blast -- from which at least 28 more people died and at least 100 were wounded. Khan said "no bullet was found in her body."

    An account by IBNlive.com provides a murkier accounting:

    Mystery shrouds the death of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto. In an explosive revelation, Pakistan's Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz on Friday said that Bhutto did not die of bullet wounds.

    Nawaz said that Bhutto died from a head injury. At least seven doctors from the Rawalpindi General Hospital – where the leader was rushed immediately after the attack – say there were no bullet marks on Bhutto's body.

    The doctors have submitted a report to the Pakistan government in which they say that no post-mortem was performed on Bhutto's body and they had not received any instructions to perform one.

    "The report says she had head injuries – an irregular patch – and the X-ray doesn't show any bullet in the head. So it was probably the shrapnel or any other thing has struck her in her said. That damaged her brain, causing it to ooze and her death. The report categorically ssyas [sic] there's no wound other than that," Nawaz told a Pakistani news channel.

    Government sources say there will be an investigation to determine why no autopsy was conducted.

    These accounts from doctors seem to directly conflict with that of John Moore, a Getty Images photographer at the scene that stated clearly (audio & slideshow) that Bhutto was shot and went down into the armored vehicle before the assassin detonated his suicide bomb.

    Transcript:

    ...suddenly—well, I turned around and heard three shots go off, and saw her go down, um, fall down through the sunroof, down into the car, and just at that moment, I raised my camera and started photographing with the high-speed motor drive and that's how I was able to capture some of the explosion, and the aftermath...

    Other witnesses at the scene concur with Moore:

    Three to five shots were fired at her, witnesses said. She was hit in the neck and slumped back in the vehicle. Blood poured from her head, and she never regained consciousness. Moments after the shooting, there was a huge explosion to the left of the vehicle.

    A pistol was recovered from the site of the assassination by Pakistani police and is assumed to be the assassination weapon, but the likelihood of a person firing with a pistol rapid-fire from an estimated 50 yards while in a crowd, and hitting his target seems remote.

    This would seem to bring us back to the irregular patch on Bhutto's head once again:

    "The report says she had head injuries – an irregular patch – and the X-ray doesn't show any bullet in the head. So it was probably the shrapnel or any other thing has struck her in her said. That damaged her brain, causing it to ooze and her death. The report categorically ssyas [sic] there's no wound other than that," Nawaz told a Pakistani news channel.

    If the multiple eyewitnesses were correct and Bhutto was back down inside the armored vehicle before the suicide bomber detonated his explosives, then there is little possibility that she was killed by shrapnel. There is also little reason to suspect that the seven doctors who examined her in the IBNlive.com article would lie about there being no signs of a bullet wound.

    So what killed Benizer Bhutto? What could cause blunt-force trauma severe enough to kill the former Prime Minister, and occur before the bomb detonated, at which point multiple witnesses state she was already back inside the armored vehicle?

    While merely speculating, I think that when shots were fired (they missed), her security detail pulled her back inside the vehicle quickly, and she probably hit the back of her head on the sunroof edge as she was pulled in.

    That would seem to account for the lack of wounds other than blunt force trauma, though it would be very hard to prove without an autopsy that was never performed.

    Update: The U.K. Sun seems to have come to an identical conclusion. CNN has the story as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:37 AM | Comments (7)

    December 27, 2007

    The Best of Liberal Minds

    Dave Lindorff has a nearly perfect pedigree as a liberal journalist.

    He's a 1975 graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, a two-time Fulbright Scholar, and a contributor to the New York Times, The Nation, Salon.com, and the co-author of The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office.

    He's also the author of a Dec. 22 op-ed in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel entitled, "Global Warming Will Save America from the Right...Eventually."

    This gem of a post was dug up by Allahpundit at Hot Air, and is a masterstroke of what someone might call liberal fascism... if such a thing ever existed.

    It begins:

    Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.

    I'm all for good news... aren't you?

    Look at a map of the US.

    Here you go (will open new window).

    Centered on Great Britain, you can drag it over to the U.S., and then use the drop-down in the top left to see what would be submerged under X meters of sea level rise. I'm using 14+ meters, as it is the greatest rise the program is set to calculate, and it has the added bonus of giving Mom and Dad near-riverfront property. Put the rise at 14+ meters, and then read the following, which has been helpfully annotated with links to this map not found in the original post, which will show the flooding for each area mentioned.

    The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. While the northeast will also see some coastal flooding, its geography is such that that aside from a few projecting sandbars like Long Island and Cape Cod, the land rises fairly quickly to well above sea level. Sure, Boston, New York and Philadelphia will be threatened, but these are geographically confined areas that could lend themselves to protection by Dutch-style dikes. The West Coast too tends to rise rapidly to well above sea level in most places. Only down in Southern California towards the San Diego area is the ground closer to sea level.

    Please, take your time and follow the links. Worthy of the kind of writing we associate with the New York Times, The Nation, and Salon.com, Lindorff gets almost everything wrong.

    Contrary to his statements, the area traditionally considered the southeast takes relative few hits to population centers. Take in the order they were presented, Texas loses Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Galveston and Port Author, but the rise in sea level would leave Houston a beachfront resort, and Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and indeed, probably 95% of the state untouched. Florida would take big hits as almost every major coastal city slips under the waves, but Orlando and Mickey are safe, as it the majority of the center of the state from Arcadia, north. Louisiana loses about a third to half (not most) of its territory, and despite his bold pronouncements of "half" of Alabama and Mississippi being under water, the 14 meter sea level rise would hardly make a dent outside of coastal areas, except for a finger darting up from a recently-expanded Mobile Bay to just south of Jackson, Alabama.

    As for the Carolinas and Georgia, we'd lose Savannah and Charleston and Wilmington, but other than that, we’d lose mostly rural areas already predisposed towards being swamps.

    In short, everything he said about the inundation of those hated "red states" he so reviles ranges from horribly inaccurate to outright wrong.

    But perhaps more interesting is that his beloved bi-coastal libospheres fare just as poorly.

    Lindorff is perhaps correct that Boston, New York and Philadelphia may well be saved by costly "Dutch-style dikes", but I'll keep in mind that they are far more likely to go under themselves... both literally and financially. You must remember that these are the same folks that brought us the "Big Dig" which, by the way, will also flood.

    But what about the areas Lindorff didn't mention?

    He forgets to mention the huge inland lake that will turn Sacramento into California's Dead Sea. He also forgets to mention what happens to those along the Chesapeake peninsula, or all the coastal cities in Delaware (buh-bye, Wilmington) and the Jersey shore, and... oh well, Newark isn't that great of a loss, is it? At least no greater of a loss than the southern third of Long Island, Bridgeport and New Haven, Connecticut, and all those other annoying little picturesque villages from there up through Maine.

    In plain English, we'd all take significant hits, and despite his poorly-researched conclusions, damage to "red" states in his dark fantasy are greatly inflated, and damage to low-lying areas of "blue" states would also be severe.

    In true Columbia Journalism School-educated fashion, however, Lindorff is only beginning to show his stupidity.

    He continues:

    So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.

    Then there's the matter of the Midwest, which climate experts say is likely to face a permanent condition of unprecedented drought, making the place largely unlivable, and certainly unfarmable. The agribusinesses and conservative farmers that have been growing corn and wheat may be able to stretch out this doomsday scenario by deep well drilling, but west of the Mississippi, the vast Ogallala Aquifer that has allowed for such irrigation is already being tapped out. It will not be replaced.

    So again, we will see the decline and depopulation of the nation's vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics.

    Finally, in the Southwest, already parched and stiflingly hot, the rise in energy costs and the soaring temperatures will put an end to right-wing retirement communities like Phoenix, Tucson and Palm Springs. Already the Salton Sea is fading away and putting Palm Springs on notice that the good times are coming to an end. Another right-wing haven soon to be gone.

    So the future political map of America is likely to look as different as the much shrunken geographical map, with much of the so-called "red" state region either gone or depopulated.

    Oh, he can dream, can't he?

    All those annoying "red" states unlivable, unfarmable, and depopulated, with America's breadbasket a vast desert. He seems absolutely giddy at the thought of liberal elitists being left alone and presumably in charge of what remains. Let's let him cherish his malformed conclusions as he savors the vengeance of the earth mother on those nasty rubes who have caused him so much electoral heartache.

    There is a poetic justice to this of course. It is conservatives who are giving us the candidates who steadfastly refuse to have the nation take steps that could slow the pace of climate change, so it is appropriate that they should bear the brunt of its impact.

    The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.

    There will be much work to be done to help the earth and its residents—human and non-human—survive this man-made catastrophe, and we can't have these future refugee troglodytes, should their personal disasters still fail to make them recognize reality, mucking things up again.

    It should be considered acceptable, in this stifling new world, to say, "Shut up. We told you this would happen."

    Why, you almost need a Sawzall to cut through moral superiority this thick.

    Unfortunately, reality will intrude on poor Mr. Lindorff's eliminationist fantasy yet again.

    He seems to forget that farming in arid regions is indeed quite possible if the need arises, and so those nasty Midwesterners that keep ruining national elections for him will not, in fact, die of starvation.

    Nor are they likely to come crawling eastward to become the neo-slave-class he envisions.

    Nor does Lindorff seem to be able to grasp the even more obvious fact that if times do become hard, those farmers and ranchers in the Midwest and Southeast that he so clearly reviles are going to feed themselves and those around them first. Those in the overpopulated elite bastions of liberal metropolitan thought, hidden behind leaky dikes with little farmland of their own, will be those least likely to be fed.

    Perhaps as starving natives of south Philadelphia begin stoking a caldron to a boil in hopes of rendering his frail body into a passable gruel, one of them will remember his article, and snarl at him, "Shut up. We told you this would happen."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:01 PM | Comments (33)

    December 21, 2007

    Thompson Responds to Roger Simon's Hit-Piece in The Politico

    With humor: "Just remember...we don't raise our hands when we're told to, and we don't wear any hats, unless they're our own."

    Thompson's dig is funny; the response from The Politico thus far is not.

    Despite attempts to reach them via both the media and editorial email addresses on their site, The Politico seems to be going the route of The New Republic, and seems intent on trying a strategy of stonewalling. Perhaps they are hoping that the story of Simon's doctored quote will simply go away.

    I was hoping that as an ostensibly "new media" organization they would address controversy with transparency, but that does not seem to be the case.

    Old habits apparently die hard.

    Update: Now on Youtube.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:03 PM | Comments (16)

    Mr. Rogers Runs For President

    I'm glad to see Mike Huckabee is focusing on the pressing issues.

    "It's a tragedy when a sixteen year old who is not really prepared for all the responsibilities of adult life is gonna now be faced with responsibilities of honest to goodness adult life," said Iowa GOP frontrunner, former Arkansas Governor and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee.

    He was talking about Britney Spears' younger pregnant sister Jamie Lynn.

    "I respect that apparently she's going have the child," Huckabee continued, per ABC News' Kevin Chupka. "I think that's the right decision, a good decision and I respect that and appreciate that. I hope its not an encouragement to other 16 year olds to think that that's the best course of action."

    I only wish he were as interested in foreign policy...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:24 PM | Comments (4)

    December 18, 2007

    Dude, It's Gotta Be A Shelf

    Get a grip, people.

    A large white "cross" hovers like a subliminal message behind Mike Huckabee in his latest TV ad, in which the Republican hopeful celebrates Christmas and mentions Jesus.

    The unmistakable cross, possibly intersecting shelf lines or a window pane, appears alongside Huckabee as he comes into focus in the 30-second commercial, which was unveiled yesterday.

    The cross, which looks as if it may have been superimposed by the ad-maker, slowly moves to the right on the screen until it's behind Huckabee's head.

    "What really matters is the celebration and birth of Christ and being with family and friends," says Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister who has been riding a wave of evangelical support with his open religious appeals.

    "I hope you and your family have a magnificent Christmas season. God bless you and Merry Christmas."

    The Huckabee campaign had no immediate comment last night on the issue of the cross.

    I am decidedly not on the Mike Huckabee bandwagon, but the ad "What really matters" is nothing to write home about, and hardly controversial.

    The "cross" is obviously intersecting lines of a shelf—you can see the next row of shelves above Huckabee's head at the end of the ad—and it is just as obviously lit to look precisely what you think it looks like.

    What of it? For Christians, Christ—which he mentions in the ad with apparently no backlash whatsoever—is the "reason for the season." Are we supposed to be offended at overt symbolism, but not a direct mention of what that symbol is universally understood to represent?

    The ad opens with a stone fireplace behinds Huckabee's head. Perhaps Carl Campanile will now tell us that this simply must indicate Huckabee's association with the Freemasons.

    Update: The Patron Saint of Lighter-Than-Air Campaigning checks in.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:17 AM | Comments (11)

    December 17, 2007

    Shorter Hitchens

    Matthew 22:21 (NIV): "...Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

    Perhaps it didn't quite have the pedigree (or the venom) Hitchens was looking for, but it does make the general point more succinctly.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:57 PM | Comments (2)

    December 14, 2007

    The Momentous Passing of the Ron Paul Blimp over Northern Raleigh, North Carolina, as Viewed from Research Triangle Park, NC on Friday, December 14, 2007, at 1:00 PM.

    1214071304

    Money well spent.

    Update: Even better.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:23 PM | Comments (17)

    December 12, 2007

    Thank You for Your Prompt Press Release

    Now that the more than two-years-old alleged gang-rape of Jamie Leigh Jones by Kellog Brown and Root contractors has made national headlines, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has stepped forward to offer a statement:

    Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is calling for a formal government investigation into allegations that a young female American contractor was gang-raped in Iraq and then held incommunicado in a large shipping container by her American employer, KBR, then a subsidiary of Halliburton.

    "These claims must be taken seriously and the U.S. government must act immediately to investigate Ms. Jones' claims," Sen. Clinton wrote in a letter today to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

    Where was Hillary's concern for these claims seven months ago?

    On May 16, 2007, Jones stated that:

    I wrote every senator in the United States to bring awareness to the fact that after approximately two years, I hadn't had one day in court or any movement with my criminal case.

    The sad thing about Clinton’s statement?

    She may be one of the first Senators, if not the first, to respond to these claims.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:27 PM | Comments (4)

    December 01, 2007

    Rudy's Accountability Problem

    I'm really not liking the way this sounds:

    In the fall of 2001, city cops chauffeured Rudy Giuliani's then-mistress, Judith Nathan, to her parents' Pennsylvania home 130 miles away on the taxpayers' dime.

    Records show that city cops refueled at an ExxonMobil station down the road from Nathan's childhood home in Hazleton on Oct. 20, 2001, while Giuliani stayed behind in New York attending 9/11 funerals.

    A similar receipt pops up at a different Hazleton gas station two months later, when Nathan apparently went home for a pre-Christmas visit with her parents.

    The records show that - in addition to using City Hall funds to take Giuliani and Nathan to 11 secret trysts in the Hamptons, as has been previously reported - taxpayers were paying to ferry Nathan on long-distance trips without Giuliani, now a Republican contender for President.

    Rudy's flexible interpretation of his marital vows has always been a source of irritation to many conservatives, but if he has indeed used taxpayer funds inappropriately, then he may have trouble on the horizon.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:25 PM | Comments (23)

    November 30, 2007

    Hillary's Campaign Is Under Hostage, and I Don't Care

    A man with a device strapped to his chest that he claims is a bomb has released two hostages he took at a Hillary Clinton campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire. Details from local television station WMUR:

    An armed man took hostages at the office on 28 North Main St. Friday afternoon, and officials with the campaign said that there were two workers taken hostage in the office, but police have not confirmed that those were the only two hostages in the building.

    The two hostages were released at about 3 p.m.

    Clinton, who is not in New Hampshire, canceled a National Democratic Committee meeting in Virginia.

    A woman and her baby told workers at a neighboring business that she was released by the hostage-taker.

    "A young woman with a 6-month or 8-month-old infant came rushing into the store just in tears, and she said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,'" witness Lettie Tzizik said.

    Witnesses described the man as in his 40s with salt-and-pepper hair. There are several police officers in the area with guns drawn.

    Actually, I do care about the people held hostage (since released) and hope that the person with the alleged bomb surrenders peaceably, but what I don't care to do is start speculating about motives or allegiances when so little is known.

    Others have rushed to judgment and made some quite stupid comments, such as calling the hostage taker a "suicide bomber" (and yes, those on the right did it too).

    Just to point out the obvious, suicide bombers don't generally take hostages. Their goal is not to talk, or negotiate, or make a point, but to turn their bodies into a weapons delivery platform, killing as many people as possible without advance warning.

    This also goes from those bloggers and commenters who immediately determined that the hostage taker must belong to political ideology "X" because... well, just because.

    We don't always happen to rush to publish just to get something out there, folks. Sometimes just shutting up and waiting is the best thing to do.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:27 PM | Comments (8)

    November 29, 2007

    Debate Plant?

    plant
    It's Democratic!
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:27 AM | Comments (6)

    November 26, 2007

    Wearing a Gimmick to Tatters: Huckabee to Bring Norris to Debate

    I think that if I see much more of Republican Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee using actor Chuck Norris as a prop, I think I'll upchu- er, vomit:

    Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee appears to be milking cult hero Chuck Norris' endorsement for all it's worth.

    The former Arkansas governor told reporters on a conference call Monday morning that the "Walker Texas Ranger" star will be joining him at the CNN/YouTube debate this Wednesday night.

    "[He] will be part of that experience," Huckabee said. "So it will be fun and hopefully very substantive."

    Norris officially endorsed Huckabee last October, hailing him as a "respected and fearless leader" and one who's "not afraid to stand up for a Creator and against secularist beliefs."

    Since then Norris has penned a fundraising e-mail on Huckabee's behalf, and even appears alongside the candidate in a television ad running in Iowa.

    It's amusing to watch celebrities lend their endorsements to political campaigns, but when a candidate's campaign campaign is starting to look like it exists solely because of celebrity endorsements with little underlying substance, then as a voter, I have to start questioning the suitability of the candidate for even the vice presidential slot on the ticket that he is so obviously running for.

    Huckbee, despite the endorsements of cult hero Norris and professional wrestler Ric Flair, has issues of integrity that the folks back home find troubling.

    The "pro-life liberal" label seems to be sticking, and apparently, for good reason.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:38 PM | Comments (7)

    Thanks a Lott

    Pork provider Trent Lott is said to be contemplating a retirement announcement as early as today.

    I can guess why:

    While the exactly reason Lott is stepping down before he finishes his term is unknown, the general speculation is that a quick departure immunizes Lott against tougher restrictions in a new lobbying law that takes effect at the end of the year. That law would require Senators to wait two-years before entering the lucrative world of lobbying Congress.

    Like AP and Glenn, I won't miss him.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:10 AM | Comments (1)

    November 23, 2007

    One of Those Two Americas

    "Limousine liberalism" may be more accurate than we thought:

    Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional districts.

    In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats.

    He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats.

    "If you take the wealthiest one-third of the 435 congressional districts, we found that the Democrats represent about 58 percent of those jurisdictions," Mr. Franc said.

    It isn't by any means bad or wrong that Democrats aspire to wealth and success, but is is a bit hypocritical for them to label themselves the party of the poor as they carefully sip overpriced bistro coffee to keep from spilling it on the leather interior of their late-model European sedans.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:19 AM | Comments (13)

    November 21, 2007

    Impeach Bush!

    ...right after you buy the book:

    Scott McClellan's admission that he unintentionally made false statements denying the involvement of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in the Bush-Cheney administration's plot to discredit former Ambassador Joe Wilson, along with his revelation that Vice President Cheney and President Bush were among those who provided him with the misinformation, sets the former White House press secretary as John Dean to George Bush's Richard Nixon.

    It was Dean willingness to reveal the details of what described as "a cancer" on the Nixon presidency that served as a critical turning point in the struggle by a previous Congress to hold the 37th president to account.

    Now, McClellan has offered what any honest observer must recognize as the stuff of a similarly significant breakthrough.

    The only question is whether the current Congress is up to the task of holding the 43rd president to account.

    Call my cynical, but I somehow doubt that three selectively-quoted paragraphs ripped from context for the PR campaign of a book launch will signal the beginning of the end of the George W. Bush presidency.

    Perhaps the author of this article, John Nichols, should wonder if McClellan might be enjoying a chance to tease the press that so long tormented him.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:10 AM | Comments (8)

    November 18, 2007

    Fred Thompson Interview Preview

    A preview of the interview Roger Simon and I did with Fred Thompson last week at The Citadel in Charleston, SC, that will air tomorrow morning.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:45 PM | Comments (1)

    November 15, 2007

    No Leading Questions Here

    From the 07/11/07 NBC-WSJ Poll:

    Recently the United States Senate passed a resolution that declared that the Iranian government's most elite military unit is a terrorist organization. Which of the following statements comes closer to your point of view about this?

    Statement A: Passing this resolution was a GOOD thing, because it sends a strong message to the Iranian government that the U.S. has put it on notice and will see that it pays an economic and diplomatic price for its actions.
    Statement B: Passing this resolution was a BAD thing, because it moves the United States closer to a potential conflict with Iran, which the United States is not prepared to carry out militarily.

    Notice that? ...which the United States is not prepared to carry out militarily.

    This is their opinion, stated as fact, to guide those polled to a prescribed response.

    I'd consider such poll tampering unethical.

    What do you think?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:43 AM | Comments (12)

    November 13, 2007

    On Will

    The media had some rather interesting takes on Fred Thompson's speech at The Citadel this morning in Charleston, SC, or at least takes different than my own.

    Jim Davenport of AP keyed in on the size of the military that a President Thompson would champion. Jeremy Pelofsky of Reuters parroted the same sentiments.

    I saw the first half of the speech, and then Roger L. Simon and I were fortunate enough to have Senator Thompson alone for an interview that will run on Pajamas Media Thursday.

    I was impressed with the military numbers that Thompson favors, but found his call to engage the will of the American people in winning the "long war" to be a far more compelling story.

    Twice in Thompson's speech, he referred to the synergy needed between civilian will and military might needed to win wars.

    I spent some time recently with a book called A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, by the historian Andrew Roberts. He describes the strengths that have seen America and England through danger and adversity. But there's one quality in particular that no nation can do without in such a time. As Roberts observes, "The will of a people is at least as important as their military might in overcoming an enemy."

    And later:

    This radical threat we face today is committed to a hundred year war, and has been waging one against us for decades ... in Beirut, Somalia, embassies in Africa, Saudi Arabia, on the USS Cole. Each time Americans were killed. Yet each time our response sent the wrong signals. This is an enemy that understands only the language of power. Today, the focus of this war is Afghanistan and Iraq, but it is clear that this struggle and our enemies extend far beyond those borders. To defend ourselves, we in the democratic world must assert our intentions in the clearest possible terms.

    Diplomacy, economic influence, and other means of persuasion are always to be preferred in our dealings with dangerous regimes and rival states. But the words of our leaders command much closer attention from adversaries when it is understood that we are prepared to use force when force is necessary. And for that deterrent to exist, the will of our people and the strength of our military must be unquestionable.

    We had a chance to establish that synergy as lower Manhattan, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field still smoldered. Our leadership failed to unite us then, and has since.

    Senator Thompson seems to have some ideas about what it takes to unite our country to win "the long war."

    It's too bad that such ideas are so easily overlooked by the fourth estate.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 PM | Comments (19)

    November 06, 2007

    A "Who's Who" of Ignorance in the Intelligence Community

    Larry Johnson has done us a wonderful favor by compiling a list of intelligence operatives that don't understand how the legislative and judicial systems in this country work:

    Brent Cavan
    Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

    Ray Close
    Directorate of Operations, CIA for 26 years—22 of them overseas; former Chief of Station, Saudi Arabia

    Ed Costello
    Counter-espionage, FBI

    Michael Dennehy
    Supervisory Special Agent for 32 years, FBI; U.S. Marine Corps for three years

    Rosemary Dew
    Supervisory Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI

    Philip Giraldi
    Operations officer and counter-terrorist specialist, Directorate of Operations, CIA

    Michael Grimaldi
    Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; Federal law enforcement officer

    Mel Goodman
    Division Chief, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; Professor, National Defense University; Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy

    Larry Johnson
    Intelligence analysis and operations officer, CIA; Deputy Director, Office of Counter Terrorism, Department of State

    Richard Kovar
    Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director for Intelligence, CIA: Editor, Studies In Intelligence

    Charlotte Lang
    Supervisory Special Agent, FBI

    W. Patrick Lang
    U.S. Army Colonel, Special Forces, Vietnam; Professor, U.S. Military Academy, West Point; Defense Intelligence Officer for Middle East, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); founding director, Defense HUMINT Service

    Lynne Larkin
    Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA; counterintelligence; coordination among intelligence and crime prevention agencies; CIA policy coordination staff ensuring adherence to law in operations

    Steve Lee
    Intelligence Analyst for terrorism, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

    Jon S. Lipsky
    Supervisory Special Agent, FBI

    David MacMichael
    Senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA; History professor; Veteran, U.S. Marines (Korea)

    Tom Maertens
    Foreign Service Officer and Intelligence Analyst, Department of State; Deputy Coordinator for Counter-terrorism, Department of State; National Security Council (NSC) Director for Non-Proliferation

    James Marcinkowski
    Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA by way of U.S. Navy

    Mary McCarthy
    National Intelligence Officer for Warning; Senior Director for Intelligence Programs, National Security Council

    Ray McGovern
    Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; morning briefer, The President’s Daily Brief; chair of National Intelligence Estimates; Co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

    Sam Provance
    U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst, Germany and Iraq (Abu Ghraib); Whistleblower

    Coleen Rowley
    Special Agent and attorney, FBI; Whistleblower on the negligence that facilitated the attacks of 9/11.

    Joseph Wilson
    Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Ambassador and Director of Africa, National Security Council.

    Valerie Plame Wilson
    Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations

    Some of the names you know well, such as Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. Some are minor luminaries such as Johnson and Rowley, a famed FBI whistleblower who later sat ditchside with Cindy Sheehan and ran for Congress as a Democrat. The rest my be outstanding in their field, but are not household names.

    They signed on to a letter confronting Senators Specter and Leahy over the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey to be the next Attorney General, because these intelligence operatives did not like Mukasey's refusal to comment on the legality of waterboarding.

    They do not seem to grasp the basic fact that the Attorney General has no dictatorial powers, and does not make laws.

    I have a further newsflash for Mr. Johnson and the rest of his ill-informed posse: waterboarding is not illegal.

    The United States Congress (both houses Democrat-led) has not passed a law outlawing the waterboarding of terror suspects. Despite any personal feelings Mukasey may have that waterboarding is torture (and indeed, I think most of us agree it is), it would be irresponsible for a candidate for Attorney General to declare this or any other action illegal that Congress has not made illegal.

    If Johnson, et al do not think the practice of waterboarding is justifiable even in extreme circumstances to save thousands of American lives, then that is their issue to take to their fellow Democrats in Congress, but it is not an issue on which Mukasey should comment, at least not until he has clear legal authority to act upon it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:11 AM | Comments (49)

    October 23, 2007

    Pole-Vaulting Sharks

    Not content with just jumping sharks, Think Progress is now going for big air:

    Limbaugh calls female MSNBC anchor 'wifey' and 'whiney.'
    MSNBC's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough had on right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh to "talk about the Republican field." But Limbaugh quickly interjected and said he first had a comment about CNBC business analyst Erin Burnett: "I just heard Erin Burnett sounding a little wifey." Scarborough laughed and asked Burnett, "What do you think about Rush saying you're a little wifey today?" "Wifey today he said?" Burnett asked, confused. "Well you were whining," Rush explained.

    Perhaps not surprisingly, others had a far different opinion of the comments made by Limbaugh, with TVNewser noting that "Rush Limbaugh Gushes Over Erin Burnett," and presents a slightly different and more expansive quote:

    Scarborough: Let's talk about the Republican field… Limbaugh: Wait a minute, Joe. Before you go there, I have to say something. I heard Erin Burnett sounding a little wifey, Erin, you said you're gonna be listening. I love listening to myself, but it's great to know you're listening to me too. Nobody can big foot you, Erin... Burnett: I got bigfooted out, that's what happened Rush. Limbaugh: The truth is that anybody that follows you, Erin, can't match what you've done. Burnett: Thank you, Rush. Scarborough: That is big. Getting that from Mr. Excellence in Broadcasting right there. Burnett: You made my day. I'm done now, I'm going home.

    Obviously, the TVNewser account tells quite a different story than that of Think Progress.

    Which account is more accurate?

    Ian Shwartz has the video that provides the answer.

    Few people were ever under the impression that Think Progress was anything other than a left-leaning political muckraker's site, but their continuing assault this fall on conservatives, using comments ripped out of context to the point of dishonesty, has now become so bad that even fans of the site will be tempted to go elsewhere to get to the factual roots of the story that TP is spinning for political consumption.

    There comes a point where a politically-motivated site can move so far beyond the bounds of rational criticism, and even beyond the much more lenient bands of spin, that it becomes essentially untrustworthy. Think Progress is perilously close to that point, and runs the distinct risk of becoming the next Truthout.org if they don't clean their act up soon.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:49 PM | Comments (13)

    October 19, 2007

    Rhodes' Trip

    Air America host Randi Rhodes is back on the air, sort of explaining the circumstances that cause her dental work to intersect with the local infrastructure.

    Listen for yourself.

    You'll note very clearly and distinctly that one of the first things Rhodes said was that her hands did not break her fall. That's odd.

    There is a quirk is the physiology and the psychology of conscious human beings that compels most of us to put out our hands to break a fall.Most of us know people who've suffered abrasions, lacerations, sprains, or even fractured bones in their hands as a result of a fall.

    That Rhodes states so clearly that her hands didn't even begin to break her fall suggests that she fell while losing consciousness, or after she had already lost consciousness. That Rhodes will not reveal whether or not she had been drinking in the pub prior to her fall (at Gawker, a commenter alleges she had, and how), and that she readily admits to not have eaten that day, certainly seems to make a loss of consciousness both the most logical reason for her fall, and the most logical explanation of why she did not follow the quite normal human tendency of sticking out her hands to protect herself from impacting the ground.

    Frankly, I could care less over the cause of Rhodes slipping into unconsciousness, providing of course it wasn't the source of a serious underlying medical condition (regardless of political differences, she is a fellow human being and I bear her no ill will). Whether she had been drinking or not on an empty stomach really matters very little.

    What is of greater concern is her apparent need to immediately spin this cause-undetermined blackout into an assault with a two-line email in which she says she had been mugged.

    That she almost immediately fabricated a dramatic excuse instead of merely stating what she actually knew about the incident should raise character issues about Ms. Rhodes. If she would lie so easily about this matter, it should cause Air America listeners to wonder just how cavalierly she is willing to dismiss the truth or manipulate facts on the air to deliver to a more entertaining story for her listeners.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:27 PM | Comments (13)

    October 18, 2007

    He Taxes Me (And You)

    According to The Politico, Deomcratic Congressman Charles Rangel wants to engage in a two-front tax war.

    Is it because he's trying to expand his beachhead?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:52 AM | Comments (1)

    October 16, 2007

    Newton Was a Fascist

    Air America's Jon Elliott quickly succumbed to paranoia last night, claiming that his fellow Air America host Randi Rhodes would be out of work because of an attack that he claims was more than a mugging:

    Elliott was extremely agitated when he reported on the incident. He opened his show by saying "it is with sadness that tonight I inform you that my Air America colleague Randi Rhodes was assaulted last night while walking her dog near her New York City home."

    Pointing out that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and displayed no purse or jewelry, Elliott speculated that "this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging."

    "Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own," he asked. "Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we're winning. Are they trying to silence intimidate us."


    The problem with this theory, other than Elliott's delusion of relevance, was the fact that Rhodes wasn't mugged, and wasn't assaulted. She fell.

    Meet gravity, ladies and gentlemen: the newest member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:59 PM | Comments (49)

    October 10, 2007

    Down In the Swamp

    It was amusing to read Ezra Klein's What Has Happened to the Right? this morning, the sites he linked to, and then read Klien's comments section. Clearly, Klein views conservatives--and conservative bloggers and blog readers in particular--as having no moral fiber at all, while implying his own side's moral supremacy.

    Klein laments:

    Something has gone wrong on the Right. Become sick and twisted and tumorous and ugly. To visit Michelle Malkin's cave is to see politics at its most savage, its most ferocious, its most rageful. They say they've spent the past week smearing a child and his family because that child was fair game -- he and his family spoke of their experience receiving health care through the State Children's Health Insurance Program. For this, right wingers travel to their home, insinuate that the family is engaged in large-scale fraud, make threatening phone calls to the family, interrogate the neighbors as to the family's character and financial state.

    This is the politics of hate. Screaming, sobbing, inchoate, hate. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to drive to the home of a Republican small business owner to see if he "really" needed that tax cut. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to call his family and demand their personal information. It would never occur to me to interrogate his neighbors. It would never occur to me to his smear his children.

    The shrieking, atavistic ritual of personal destruction the right roars into every few weeks is something different than politics. It is beyond politics. It was done to Scott Beauchamp, a soldier serving in Iraq. It was done to college students from the University of California, at Santa Cruz. Currently, it is being done to a child and his family. And think of those targets: College students, soldiers, children. It can be done to absolutely anyone.

    This is not politics. This is, in symbolism and emotion, a violent group ritual. It is savages tearing at the body of a captured enemy. It is the group reminding itself that the Other is always disingenuous, always evil, always lying, always pitiful and pathetic and grotesque. It is a bonding experience -- the collaborative nature of these hateful orgies proves that much -- in which the enemy is exposed as base and vile and then ripped apart by the community. In that way, it sustains itself, each attack preemptively justifying the next vicious assault, justifying the whole hateful edifice on which their politics rest.

    There is an inherent and flagrant dishonesty in Klein's wailing and gnashing of teeth, for it is not only the right that has those souls who are "sick and twisted and tumorous and ugly."

    How quickly he forgets that Daily Kos posters planned to do opposition research to hopefully "out" the son of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts... until it was discovered he was four-years old.

    It is an obscure left-wing blogger that has become the poster-child for cyberstalking.

    And while Klein intones that it is only a mater of time before a conservative does something horrible, the fact remains that to date, only a left-wing Indymedia journalist has been driven to murder purely to make a political statement.

    We can go back and forth for hours, arguing cites over which side is "better" than the other, each side certain in their conviction that the other is the embodiment of evil, but that would accomplish nothing. The fact of the matter is that both sides have extremists capable of great barbarity and cruelty, we should all do more to denounce them, and therein lies the rub.

    Klein is willing to attack "the right," but is mute and blind to those on the left that have equal amount of vitriol as those he criticizes, or worse.

    Before he claims the moral high ground, perhaps he should make sure that he and his allies aren't also neck-deep in the swamp.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:07 PM | Comments (26)

    October 05, 2007

    Commercially Insane

    Feminist author and progressive political activist Naomi Wolf has had some rather interesting statements published in the Huffington Post recently, from her April insistence that the Bush Administration is on a ten-step program to launch a military coup, to her more recent outburst/description of "Don't tase me, Bro" boy's experience as the "iconic turning point and it will be remembered as the moment at which America either fought back or yielded."

    Or remixed.

    Her Sept. 24 Huffington Post blog entry insists that the Senate's toothless resolution condemning MoveOn.Org's "General Betray Us?" ad is evidence of the current Presidential administration's ever-starting transformation to a dictator reminiscent of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, or perhaps even Genghis Khan.

    All of Wolf's cries on The Huffington Post over the past year have been erratic, and to all but the most dedicated partisan, are immediately dismissed as increasingly bizarre tropes of someone who seems to be afflicted with a regrettable degree of paranoia.

    Or is Wolf just "cashing in" on crazy?

    She continues down the path of perpetual paranoia today with Blackwater: "Newly Created Thug Caste," where she appeals to the readers of firedoglake (home of manbearpig?), a group that once indulged in a community-based fantasy that believed putting a Jew in blackface would win an election for a WASP.

    In this latest post--which, imagine that, links to her new book--Wolf whips up the Folsomesque masses further.

    But how much of what Wolf says is true, and how much of it is the most dishonest sort of stem-winding (and cash-flow generating) propaganda?

    In her latest dark fantasy in the Huffington Post, Wolf penned such an insulting falsehood that it warrants a direct response instead of the usual head-shaking dismissal.

    Wolf stated:

    Joseph Goebbels pioneered the 'embedding' of reporters with military troops as a way to support favorable coverage; William Shirer was embedded with German troops in the invasion of France and Nazi filmmaker Leni von Riefenstahl was embedded with German troops in Poland.

    This claim is made by a blinded partisan who is only capable of seeing history as it can be molded to suit her desire to link infamous totalitarians of the past with our present (and lest she forget, popularly elected) president.

    Reality, of course, is something quite different.

    Whether she is talking about the term "embedded reporter," or the practical application of them, Wolf is hopelessly and laughably wrong when stating Goebbels or the Nazis had anything to do with them.

    The modern term "embedded reporter" came about not in Hilter's Germany in the 1930s, but in a direct and new partnership between literally dozens of news organizations and the U.S. Department of Defense in 2003.

    It isn't a perfect arrangement; the unprecedented media access to war comes at the risk of a lack of objective distance between the reporter and the reporting of the war. That said, the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the most well-documented invasion in human history, with no less than 257 journalists from a multitude of news organizations embedded directly with coalition military forces.

    Further, Wolf was wrong and perhaps purposefully duplicitous, in attempting to link CBS' William Shirer with Leni von Riefenstahl's blatant propaganda efforts.

    Shirer did travel with German troops to Paris, and he broke the story of the 1940 armistice between Germany and France, but Wolf refused to mention that Shirer wrote to CBS and complained about German attempts at censorship, and that he fled a building Gestapo case against him in December of 1940 as a result of failing to play by their rules.

    Shirer's impression of Goebbels' pronouncements, "invariably banal, the product of a mind that though nimble was fundamentally mediocre," are not those of a fan.

    Unlike Shirer, Leni von Riefenstahl wasn’t anything remotely like a journalist, another important distinction a duplicitous Wolf tries to smear over. A dancer, actress, and eventually a director, this personal friend of Joseph Goebbels and acquaintance of Adolph Hitler created a film, Triumph of the Will, that became known as one of the most effective propaganda films in history.

    It is a slap in the face of today's embedded journalists that Wolf would compare them to a blatant propagandist like von Riefenstahl. ABC News co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt, who are still recovering from wounds suffered in an IED blast in January of 2006, are journalists. Likewise, Wolf smears experienced Russian photojournalist Dmitry Chebotayev a veteran of conflicts in Chechnya, Lebanon, the Golan Heights, and Iraq. killed with American soldiers by another IED just this year.

    Perhaps Wolf does not like the mixed reviews of some embedded journalists in Iraq and certainly loathes stories filed by others, but that does not make them propagandists. It makes them human, reporting what they find, when they find it.

    There is no legitimate way to compare today's embedded journalists to Goebbels' propagandist, no way to compare Shire to Hitler’s filmmaker von Riefenstahl, no honest way of linking von Riefenstahl to Bob Woodruff.

    There are indeed propagandists at work. Wolf herself has become one, not to peddle her philosophy, but to pad her coffers.

    Returning once again to her post today at FiredogLake, Wolf once again traffics in her own "big lies," as she attacks North Carolina security company Blackwater USA. In this post, she calls these military contractors a "thug caste" and compares with the Blackshirts:

    Congress doesn’t get who Blackwater contractors are. Prince likes to wrap his people in the flag and say they are facing `bad guys.’ Prince actually systematically recruits the baddest of the `bad guys’: Jeremy Scahill reports that Blackwater intentionally recruits former military and paramilitary personnel from regimes that specialize in neofascist repression of their own populations and who train their paramilitary and military in the torture and subjugation of their own critics, journalists, political leaders and other civil society figures: Ecuadorans, Nigerians, Chileans, Syrians. That is who we can find ourselves facing in the streets of New York — or Kansas City — tomorrow unless Congress rolls back the horrific laws that gave the President and Prince these dark-side powers.

    My God! Blackwater is infiltrated with neofascist foreigners looking to take over and torture Kansas City! Only, this isn't the truth... in fact, it isn't remotely close to being true.

    Blackwater does hire foreign contractors in a subsidiary called Greystone Limited, but these contractors are hired for general duties (such as convoy escort) in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are not deployed within the United States.

    There are no armed Nigerian mercenaries plotting to take over Los Angeles, or contract death squads of Syrians to repress citizens in Sacremento, unless they wandered up from San Diego on their own over a virtually undefended border .

    As a matter of real facts, a condition of general contract requirements at Blackwater is that an applicant must be a U.S. Citizen and proof of citizenship is required. Further, potential contracting employees must be honorably discharged from the military, and have no felony, violent crimes, spouse or child abuse convictions.

    But this is reality, and reality doesn't excite those who the author would convince into buying her book. Wolf is trying to make a living by pandering to the paranoids, the black helicopter sect of the fringe left, in order to profit from their distrust of President Bush.

    I wish her the best in profiting from her peddling of snake oil over the next 473 days. Her readers however, are likely to feel very betrayed on January 20, 2009.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:12 PM | Comments (16)

    October 04, 2007

    Liberal Values

    Just under 1 in 5 Democrats favors defeat in Iraq. And if that isn't bad enough, another 20-percent of Democrats "don't know" if the world would be better off with a defeat.

    I never thought I'd see the day that 39-percent of Democrats were either in favor of, or "don't know" if the world would be better off if we lost a war that would essentially destroy a fledgling democracy.

    They call themselves "Democrats," but they seem to think we'd be better off with one less democracy. Perhaps it is time they consider a party name change to something more in line with their beliefs.

    Whatever these defeatists re-brand themselves, they should keep their mascot.

    It fits.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:18 PM | Comments (21)

    October 03, 2007

    Somewhere in Time

    It becomes more apparent every day that the reactionary progressive Democrats that pinned their hopes of a future ascendancy upon a defeat in Iraq are psychologically unable to come to grips with the reality on the ground in that nation.

    This was demonstrated again today by Senator Russ Feingold in the Huffington Post:

    Over in Iraq, our troops get up every day and risk their lives in the middle of an Iraqi civil war. They have to do their job, no matter what the risk, and no matter what the cost. They do what they are asked to do...and so should Congress. Congress's job right now should be to bring our troops home safely, and we can't turn away from this issue just because it's tough going. The only way we will ever get our troops out is by putting constant pressure on supporters of this disastrous war. Let's make them vote again and again, so that they have to go back home and explain why they keep voting to keep our troops in Iraq. When they feel the heat for their vote, that's when they will change their vote, and that's how we will bring our troops home.

    I have news that will no doubt come as an absolute surprise to Senator Feingold: the Iraqi civil war never materialized.

    As a matter of fact, Iraqi Prime Minster Nouri al-Maliki formally stated that even the threat of a civil war in Iraq has been averted. Like many Democrats, Feingold seems mired in a past that could have been, instead of the reality of what Iraq is today.

    al Qaeda bombers intended to trigger a civil war with the bombing of the revered al-Askari "Golden Dome" Mosque in Samarra in February of 2006, but though nearly 200 hundred people were killed in retaliatory strikes in the days that followed, Shia leaders refused to be pulled into a full-scale civil war. The civil war was trumpeted as about to happen or happening by Democrats and in the press, but despite these constant calls and hype here in America, it simply never occurred (as opposed to the Palestinian Civil War in Gaza, which the media stubbornly refused to admit there was a civil war until it was all but over).

    Nor does Feingold seem to have a grasp of what American voters signified in the 2006 elections:

    The message from the voters last November was clear -- safely redeploy our troops out of Iraq.

    Actually, what voters indicated they wanted in exit polls and interviews after the election was a change in our Iraqi policy. They got that, and the change they got was immediate.

    One day after the 2006 midterm elections, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down and was replaced by Robert Gates.

    In January, just two months later, President Bush nominated General David Petraeus to become the commanding general of all American forces in Iraq, and was unanimously confirmed to that postion by the Senate after testifying about the revised counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine he supported implementing, including how he would use a "surge" of troops already planned for Iraq before his nomination. The American people got precisely what they wanted--a change in strategy--even if it wasn't the defeatist strategy of withdrawal favored by Feingold and others.

    But Feingold, safe in his own community-based reality, continues:

    Telling ourselves "we don't have the votes now, so what's the point" doesn't cut it. I understand that we may not get to 67 or 60 or even 50 votes on Feingold-Reid right now. But remember, when I first proposed that Congress use its constitutional power of the purse to end the war, support was scarce at best. Now, the majority of Senate Democrats, including our leadership and presidential candidates, are firm supporters. If we give in to the defeatist "we don't have the votes" attitude, we're playing right into the hands of the president and supporters of his war who cannot wait for the day they don't have to talk about Iraq. If supporters of this war are going to vote to keep our troops in a situation that is hurting our military as well as our national security, they should be prepared to defend it every day.

    The calendar tells us it is October 3, 2007.

    Even after the assassination of Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the "Awakening" movement continues to spread from al Anbar across Iraq. In police patrols in Fallujah and in food drops in Ramadi, we see American Marines patrolling with police and militiamen that were once former insurgents, but who now see their hope for the future in political reconciliation instead of war.

    The same has occurred in Diyala, where 1920 Revolutionary Brigades fighters--former insurgents--now go out on patrol with the U.S. Army.

    Photo-67
    Diyalal Province, Iraq: U.S. Army M-1 tank behind 1920s fighters heading back to their neighborhood.
    (Photo courtesy of Michael Yon)

    Just yesterday, Bartle Bull published an essay in the U.K. Prospect Magazine, offering the clear picture of the actual state of the war in Iraq, a reality that Feingold and his fellow defeatists would rather ignore. He follows up today in the Wall Street Journal with a variation of the same theme, The Realignment of Iraq.

    Feingold goes on to mutter though the rest of his "Vote on Iraq Again and Again," sounding very much like a threadbare street-corner shouter as he insists that we look at his shaded remembrance of November of 2006, instead of the reality of October, 2007.

    He, like Harry "the war is lost" Reid in the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha in the House and their allies, are desperate to salvage at least the appearance of a defeat from a war that the Iraqi people and embedded journalists all seem to understand is still on-going, but quite possibly already decided.

    The national media, with fewer car bombs to exploit or pending possible nightmare scenarios to trumpet, are quiet slipping Iraq out of the spotlight. "If it bleeds, it leads," has always been the newsroom battle-cry, but the corollary that peace doesn’t sell papers, and so it doesn't fill them.

    The war in Iraq is quietly becoming the peace-keeping and nation-building operation for an ally, and yet Democrats still try to call it a quagmire and ignore the dramatic successes of the past year. One must wonder how much longer Democrats can continue to pretend we are at another place in time, and how much longer they can continue to cheer for defeat in a war all but won.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:17 PM | Comments (66)

    October 02, 2007

    New Democrat Attempts to Lose the War in Iraq

    Too craven to directly vote for the surrender in Iraq that they would like to hang around the neck of President Bush as a defeat, desperate House Democrats are seeking other ways to lose the war in Iraq. One technique they are trying is simply stalling the 2008 war budget.

    Defense Secretary Robert Gates outlined an almost $190 billion request last week for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan over the coming year. But House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D., Wis.) said this morning that he had "absolutely no intention" of reporting out a bill this year to fund "any such request that simply serves to continue the status quo."

    At the same time, the same Democrats behind this plan to cut funding to our soldiers are threatening to cripple us with taxes unless they get a commitment to withdraw.

    Why are Democrats so desperate to change in U.S. policy in Iraq?

    Probably because the "status quo" isn't a status quo and hasn’t been for some time, and their window to salvage a defeat in Iraq appears to be narrowing (h/t Instapundit)

    • On Monday came news that U.S. military deaths in Iraq fell to 64 in September, the fourth straight drop since peaking at 121 in May and driving the toll to a 14-month low.
    • Civilian deaths also have plunged, dropping by more than half from August to 884. Remember just six months ago all the talk of an Iraqi "civil war"? That seems to be fading.
    • The just-ended holy month of Ramadan in Iraq was accompanied by a 40% drop in violence, even though al-Qaida had vowed to step up attacks.
    • Speaking of al-Qaida, the terrorist group appears to be on the run, and possibly on the verge of collapse — despite making Iraq the center of its war for global hegemony and a new world order based on precepts of fundamentalist Islam.
    • Military officials say U.S. troops have killed Abu Usama al-Tunisi, a Tunisian senior leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was responsible for bringing foreign fighters into the country. Not surprisingly, the pace of foreign fighters entering Iraq has been more than halved from the average of 60 to 80 a month.
    • Last month, 1,200 Iraqis waited patiently in line in Iraq's searing heat to sign up to fight al-Qaida. They will join an estimated 30,000 volunteers in the past six months — a clear sign the tide has turned in the battle for average Iraqis' hearts and minds.
    • Finally, and lest you think it's all death and destruction, there's this: Five million Iraqi children returned to school last week, largely without incident, following their summer vacations.

    These developments are occurring just one week after Iraqi PM Nouri al-Malaki claimed that the threat of civil war in Iraq has been averted and that Iranian interference has "ceased to exist," and on the exact same day that al-Malaki announced that Iraqi defense and police forces were ready to take over all security responsibilities from the British in Basra in two months.

    Yesterday, CBS News published an account by National Review's Pete Hegseth that indicates U.S. strategy has crippled al Qaeda.

    Over the past few years, Democrats have shamelessly crafted their political road ahead on the future rhetoric of "we told you so," intending to be able to look back and point out to the American people that they predicted the Iraq War would be a failure well in advance, while never admitting they helped craft the failure. The goal of this plan is to re-establish some of national security credibility that the Democratic Party forfeited decades ago.

    Towards that end, and to further their political goals, they have worked against the best interests of the American military, the American people, and the citizens of Iraq.

    This latest attempt by Obey, Murtha, and other House Democrats shows that they will continue to attempt to craft policy to ensure the failure in Iraq that they think will most benefit their political party.

    But iff the trends towards lower civilian and military deaths continues, as the Awakening spreads across provinces both Sunni and Shia, how much longer will Democrat politicians be able to claim that the war is "lost?" How much longer will out nation's media be able to hide signs of progress?

    At this moment, the two most prominent stories relating in any way to Iraq are an contrived smear campaign against a radio talk show host by a special-interest group linked to a Democratic Presidential candidate, and the Congressional investigation into the apparent brutality of American security contractors working for Blackwater USA, who have fired their weapons in 195 missions out of more than 16,000 since 2005—roughly 1.2%--and recorded 16 Iraqi casualties since 2005, prior to the Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square that left 11 Iraqis dead and 14 wounded.

    And yet while these stories dominating the news media from Iraq are about aspects of the war, they are far from being the whole story about Iraq, or even the most important stories.

    The important stories--those being largely ignored by the progressional media--are being told in food shipments to the poor in quieting towns that "al Qaeda lost," in now routine city council meetings in Fallujah, and by businessmen and mayors in Diyala and elsewhere, and written by American and Iraqi alike.

    The War in Iraq is going badly for the Democratic Party, but it appears they will not go down without a fight.

    Update: A very interesting and mostly concurring British opinion on the matter at Prospect Magazine (h/t PJM):

    Iranian-made rockets will continue to kill British and American soldiers. Saudi Wahhabis will continue to blow up marketplaces, employment queues and Shia mosques when they can. Iraqi criminals will continue to bully their neighbourhoods into homogeneities that will give the strongest more leverage, although even this tide is turning in most places where Petraeus's surge has reached. Bodies will continue to pile up in the ditches of Doura and east Baghdad as the country goes through the final spasm of the reckoning that was always going to attend the end of 35 years of brutal Sunni rule.

    But in terms of national politics, there is nothing left to fight for. The only Iraqis still fighting for more than local factional advantage and criminal dominance are the irrational actors: the Sunni fundamentalists, who number but a thousand or two men-at-arms, most of them not Iraqi. Like other Wahhabi attacks on Iraq in 1805 and 1925, the current one will end soon enough. As the maturing Iraqi state gets control of its borders, and as Iraq's Sunni neighbours recognise that a Shia Iraq must be dealt with, the flow of foreign fighters and suicide bombers into Iraq from Syria will start to dry up. Even today, for all the bloodshed it causes, the violence hardly affects the bigger picture: suicide bombs go off, dozens of innocents die, the Shias mostly hold back and Iraq's tough life goes on.

    In early September, Nouri al-Maliki said, "We may differ with our American friends about tactics… But my message to them is one of appreciation and gratitude. To them I say, you have liberated a people, brought them into the modern world… We used to be decimated and killed like locusts in Saddam's endless wars, and we have now come into the light." Here is an eloquent answer to the question of when American troops will leave Iraq. They will leave Iraq when the Iraqis, through their elected leadership, tell them to. According to a September poll, 47 per cent of Iraqis would prefer the Americans to leave. The surprise is that it's not 100 per cent. Who, after all, would not want his country rid of foreign troops? But if Iraqis had wanted government by opinion poll, they would have written their constitution that way. Instead, they chose, as do most people when given the choice, representative government.

    I highly recommend reading the entire article. If the author is correct, it may be past the time that the Democrats can engineer a defeat in Iraq.

    Have we really "turned the corner?" Frankly, I've heard the pronouncement one time too many to buy it at face value, but if the author is right, then we will be able to start bringing home American troops not in defeat, but in victory.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:49 PM | Comments (30)

    September 25, 2007

    Absolute Moral Authority: Ahmadinejad Edition

    The Hill reports that Cindy Sheehan is counting on celebrity endorsements to shore up her long-shot bid against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

    According to the Hill's Karissa Marcum:

    Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is making celebrity endorsements a key facet of her long-shot bid to defeat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) next year.

    In a recent interview with The Hill, Sheehan said she has been endorsed by actress Roseanne Barr, country crooner Willie Nelson and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello.

    Sheehan added that White House hopeful Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and former Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) are also backing her.

    "Celebrities bring a certain kind of — good or bad, it seems like our lives are centered around TV and movies — I think it does bring credibility," Sheehan said.

    Nelson is a friend of Sheehan's and has offered to help her raise money for her campaign. "[Nelson and his wife] just have the exact correct politics and the exact compassion for the earth and humanity that I think attracts us as friends," she said.

    "I support Cindy Sheehan in everything she does," Nelson wrote in an e-mail, "whether it's running for Congress, or the president of the U.S. She's a great American, not afraid to stand up for what she believes in."

    I wonder if Barr, Nelson, etc. support these comments penned by Sheehan yesterday:

    I heard that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University because Columbia's president wanted to foster a "free exchange of ideas." Even though I am not an Ahmadinejad supporter, I know he was elected in Iran in a knee-jerk and understandable response to the USA's bloody unnecessary invasion of Iraq, as many reactionary governments have been elected in that region and all over the world in response to the spreading U.S. corporate and military empire.

    Citing such human rights' violations in the form of imprisonment and executions, Columbia University's president very boorishly said that Ahmadinejad appeared to be a "petty and cruel dictator." First of all, how does one invite someone to your place for a "free exchange of ideas" and be such a rude American? Did he only invite Ahmadinejad so he could publicly scold him or to become the darling of Fox News?

    [snip]

    Another boorish American, Scott Pelley (of 60 Minutes) hammered Ahmadinejad about sending weapons into Iraq without even once acknowledging the immoral tons of weapons that we rained on the citizens of Iraq during "shocking and awful"; the cluster bombs that look like toys that litter the killing fields of that country and have killed and maimed so many children; the mercenary killers that outnumber our troops and use the people of Iraq for target practice; the thousands of tons of weapons that the U.S. let out of such weapons dumps as al-Qaqaa that were left unguarded while the oil ministry was heavily fortified.

    [snip]

    The fascist, near dictatorship of the Bush regime (a la Nazi Germany) has even intimidated universities to align with their hypocritical murderous rhetoric. Universities should feel free to invite anyone to speak to open much needed dialogue in our country and in the world. And if a person is invited, they should be treated by the person who invited them with a slight modicum of courtesy and then let the rocking and rolling begin with the "Q & A"... which would truly be a free exchange of ideas. I am surprised President Bollinger didn't have President Ahmadinejad tased.

    Peace is going to take all the nations working in cooperation to limit naked aggression and human rights' violations, not just the ones that the U.S. declare as evil. How many nukes do we have? How many does Pakistan have? How many does India, Israel, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union have? Should the rhetoric be about destroying all weapons of mass destruction and not just prohibiting Iran from obtaining one?

    Many countries are committing human rights' violations and sending arms and troops into many parts of the world. America's biggest export is violence and we would do well to call for an end to all occupations and violence by beginning to end our own.

    Let's clean our own filthy house before we criticize someone else for theirs.

    Sheehan is offended that Bollinger was impolite to a man that belongs to a regime that murders it's citizens for the capital offense of being gay.

    Sheehan is outraged that the mouthpiece for a regime that kills young women for defending themselves against rapists, wasn't given the proper respect.

    This, from a woman who lost a son to the same Shia militias that this petty tyrant's regime still arms to kill other American mother's sons.

    Update: Related.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:12 PM | Comments (26)

    September 13, 2007

    Media Runs with MoveOn.org/NY Times Ad Rate Story

    I'm tickled that Charles Hurt of the New York Post picked up and ran with the ball on this story, which now seems to have generated a surprising (to me) degree of interest. In addition to Hurt's article, Brent Bozell got to talk about it on Fox News Live, and I caught the tail-end of it being discussed on Rush Limbaugh's radio show briefly yesterday.

    ABC's Jake Tapper, who first reported what Moveon.org paid for their ad, is on the story again today and reveals that a conservative organization who ran a full page ad the next day paid "significantly more."

    Oops.

    It appears that the NY Times may take a much bigger hit to their the credibilty and the bottom line than they ever anticipated as a result.

    I doubt stockholders will be pleased.

    (h/t Allah at Hot Air, who kindly remembers where this conflagration over the deep discount started.)

    Update: Thanks.

    Update: This is growing far more than I could have ever expected. Fred! and Rudy pile on. and Hot Air has the audio and video. Uncle Jimbo has filed a complaint with the FEC, and though I won't pretend to have the first clue on whether or not this has any "bite," a commenter over at Ace's place discovers something that looks like where they could have potentially run afoul of the law.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:24 AM | Comments (36)

    September 06, 2007

    About That Report

    A Hill reporter relayed to Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRO's The Corner just how desperate the Democratic leadership is becoming:

    The Democratic leaders are laying it on thick. I was at a press conference this afternoon with Reid, Schumer, Durbin and Murray. They referred to the Petraeus Report as the “Bush Report” about a half-dozen times. Reid even went so far as to correct a reporter when she called it the Petraeus Report. “You mean the Bush Report don’t you?” he said.

    They must really want the report to come across in the press as administration hackwork rather than an honest assessment of the situation in Iraq.

    The fact of the matter, however, is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Charles Shumer, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi have a vested interest in deceiving the American public. They have invested far too much time, energy and credibility in a U.S. defeat.

    These so-called leaders are not being honest with you.

    In accordance with Public Law 110-28 (PDF) asked for by this same Democrat-led Congress:

    The President, having consulted with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Commander, Multi-National Forces-Iraq, the United States Ambassador to Iraq, and the Commander of U.S. Central Command, will prepare the report and submit the report to Congress.

    This is the "Bush Report," written by the Administration. There is no other report being delivered by General Petraeus for the White House to influence.

    Quite to the contrary, it is the professional assessment of officers in the United States Army in Iraq that will largely shape the President's report.

    Further, the Congress dictated in Public Law 110-28, that:

    Prior to the submission of the President's second report on September 15, 2007, and at a time to be agreed upon by the leadership of the Congress and the Administration, the United States Ambassador to Iraq and the Commander, Multi-National Forces Iraq will be made available to testify in open and closed sessions before the relevant committees of the Congress.

    There is no "Petraeus Report" for the White House to manipulate.

    What there is is verbal testimony of General Petraeus to Congress as they requested. Where does the General get the raw data and refined intelligence that he is basing his recommendations upon?

    I asked that question of Colonel Steven Boylan, U.S. Army Public Affairs Officer to the Commanding General of Multi-National Force Iraq, David Patraeus.

    Col. Boylan states:

    I can assure you that the words and information that are being used by General Petraeus are from MNF-I...

    As with any organization, the staff assists the head of the organization with the preparation and development of the materials used, by gathering the data, preparing slides, collating information, etc. This is and has been done by MNF-I, not any other organization.

    The words that everyone will hear on Monday, September 10th and Tuesday, September 11th are his words and his assessment as part of the joint assessment between Ambassador Crocker and himself.

    There is no "Petraeus Report," for the Administration to influence.

    The material that General Petraeus will use in his testimony was developed from information provided by American soldiers, and no other organization. As General Petraeus told me via email on Sept 3rd:

    The Ambassador and I are going to give it to them straight and then allow the folks at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue make what clearly is a national decision.

    Democratic leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives are desperate to discredit the straightforward information General Patraeus will provide, and the integrity of the General himself.

    Perhaps you should start wondering what they don't want you to hear.

    Update: Additional thoughts from JeffG at Protein Wisdom.

    ... and here come the confused. How hard is it to read the law or do basic research?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:50 PM | Comments (26)

    August 13, 2007

    Rove to Rove

    Gee, now who is going to transmit orders to our implants now?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:04 AM | Comments (5)

    August 01, 2007

    Poorly-Formed Ideas

    Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Obama seems to have, as my father might put it, "engaged his mouth before putting his mind in gear."

    Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would possibly send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive.

    The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.

    "Let me make this clear," Obama said in a speech prepared for delivery at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

    CNN provides us with this:

    According to excerpts from the speech released by his campaign, Obama, D-Illinois, will say: "When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland."


    Let us presume for the sake of argument that Obama is elected President, and as Commander in Chief, feels he has no choice but to invade Pakistan.

    In his mind, what constitutes an "invasion?"

    Does Mr. Obama mean periodic cross-border air raids by UAVs, attack aircraft, and special forces soldiers when intelligence assets identify specific targets, or does he mean what most of us would take way from these articles, which is a larger, full-spectrum invasion by land, air, and perhaps even naval forces?

    What part of Pakistan would he invade?

    Would he invade only the Taliban-controlled tribal areas of North and South Warizistan where we have seen most of the terrorist-related activities, or would he advocate a wider invasion of the Islamic nuclear state?

    If a President Obama felt that an invasion of Pakistan was warranted, would he take preemptive steps to dismantle or destroy the Pakistani nuclear arsenal to prevent these munitions from possibly being used against American forces? He seems to suggest this when he states "we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons."

    Does he realize that if he take such a step he would be attacking official Pakistani military bases and likely kill Pakistani soldiers, airmen, and other personnel that are not terrorists, forcing Pakistan directly into war with the United States?

    Should efforts to destroy the Pakistani nuclear arsenal fall short of success, what are his contingencies? How would he keep any surviving Pakistani nuclear weapons from being used against invading U.S. soldiers. Does Obama realize that he would be responsible no only for any U.S. military losses, but for thousands of more lives in the region affected by the blast and its residual fallout effects?

    This stance also brings up other issues.

    If he truly believes that risking an assault on a nuclear state to suppress terrorism if diplomacy doesn't work is a viable option, why doesn't he join Senator Leiberman in saying that we must use all of our resources, including military force, against Iran, an aspiring nuclear country with a clear track record of the state sponsorship of terrorism throughout the region? Put bluntly, how could his policies be said to have any consistency if he advocates invading one state (Pakistan) for allowing terrorism, while failing to address another state (Iran) for directly supporting it throughout the region?

    And how does he square his stated approaches to Iran and Pakistan with his advocating a withdrawal from Iraq, where we are already engaged with Islamic extremists who wish to create precisely the same kind of state that he says he would invade?

    For quite some time--and due in no small part to the apparent lack of other strong primary candidates--I'd been rather confident that the 2008 Democrat Presidential ticket would be some combination of Hillary and Obama.

    This frankly daft mash-up of contradictory foreign policy positions seems to indicate that the freshman senator from Illinois simply isn't ready for higher office, and very well may give John Edwards a fighting chance of getting on the ticket... then again, maybe not.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:29 AM | Comments (24)

    July 13, 2007

    Neighbors: Edwards Campaign HQ A Nuisance

    Silky Pony's campaign headquarters is not feeling the love:

    Thursday marked the second postal scare in four months at John Edwards’ campaign headquarters in Chapel Hill.

    Both incidents proved to be harmless, but for businesses in Southern Village, Edwards’ headquarters is becoming more of a nuisance.

    Businesses complain that they're losing money. Some of them shut down for the day. Business owners told WRAL they're tired of the scares and tired of the business day interruptions. One business owner plans to do something about it.

    Dr. Annelise Hardin runs a pediatric dentist office on the same floor as Edwards’ campaign headquarters. She said she has had enough of bomb scares and evacuations.

    Her office plans to draft a letter to the building's management expressing frustration about the loss of business. She is planning to get other companies in Southern Village to sign the letter.

    Keith Getchell runs a restaurant two doors down from Edwards’ campaign headquarters. The bomb scare wiped out his lunch crowd, he said. He, too, is frustrated and plans to sign Hardin's letter.

    This is actually the third time Edwards campaign HQ has been evacuated. While the latest scare involved digital watches, the two previous threatening packages involved an inert white powder.

    Chapel Hill Police have narrowed down the suspects in these three cases to the rest of the North Carolina.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:19 AM | Comments (21)

    June 26, 2007

    James Earl Jones Counts All Non-Senatorial Americans Supporting Amnesty

    Actually, I think he counted one guy twice...

    ...and that was probably (a disguised) Lindsey Graham running from one end of the line to the other.

    Bryan's got the rest, and Glenn suggests a third party is becoming a better option as a result of Senators refusing to listen to their base.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:33 PM | Comments (5)

    June 22, 2007

    No Conflict of Interest Here: Liberal Talk Show Founder Seeks To Profit From Center for American Progress Attack on Conservative Talk Radio

    Back before he was governor of Minnesota and was still prowling the squared-circle as the villainous heel "The Body," Jesse Ventura used to growl, "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!"

    That maxim seems to have been taken to heart (and wallet) by the progressive Center For American Progress (CAP), which released a document called "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio," which advocates the return of the failed "Fairness Doctrine" in talk radio, in an attempt to censor and stifle the dominance of conservative talkers.

    What the Center For American Progress won't tell you is that one of the authors of the liberally-biased "report," Paul Woodhull, is a founding partner of not one, but two liberal talk radio show companies, Big Eddie Radio Productions, LLC (BERP), which produces The Ed Shultz Show, and Bill Press Partners, LLC, producers of The Bill Press Show.

    It was perhaps fitting that this self-serving conflict of interest was discovered by Mark Levin, a conservative talk radio show host in his blog at National Review Online.

    If Congress reintroduces the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," as CAP suggests, broadcasters will be forced to balance their airtime between conservative talk radio shows and liberal talk radio shows. There are only a handful of successful, established liberal talk radio shows from which broadcasters who have to choose from, and Woodhull has a financial stock in two of those.

    This liberal organization is not only attempting to regulate free speech for political gain, but also, in the case of at least Woodhull, they intend to profit from the loss of your First Amendment rights as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:23 PM | Comments (10)

    June 19, 2007

    Tough Choices

    So South Carolina, who will you choose in the next Republican Senate primaries, Lindsay Graham, or an indicted coke dealer?

    I'm guessing that the coke dealer will at least close the border to other cartels, so that's at least a minor improvement

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:04 PM | Comments (1)

    June 18, 2007

    Silky Pony: I'll Win More Than One Southern State

    Or so he boasts in Men's Vogue.

    Men's Vogue?

    I'm sure copies are flying off the shelf at Tractor Supply Company as we speak.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:21 PM | Comments (4)

    Brit Ambassador: We Joined Invasion to Keep Cowboy Bush from Nuking Afghanistan

    Actually his words were "nuke the shit out of the place," but you get the drift:

    Britain joined the United States' invasion to oust the Taliban in 2001 because it feared America would "nuke the shit" out of Afghanistan, the former British ambassador to Washington reportedly told a television documentary to be screened Saturday.

    In comments printed in advance in the Daily Mirror tabloid on Monday, Christopher Meyer said that fear explained why Prime Minister Tony Blair chose to stand with US President George W. Bush in his decision to invade Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks -- to temper his aggressive battle plans.

    "Blair's real concern was that there would be quote unquote 'a knee-jerk reaction' by the Americans ... they would go thundering off and nuke the shit out of the place without thinking straight," Meyer reported told the documentary, according to the Mirror.

    This makes perfect sense, of course, considering our history. We nuked Iraq after Abdul Rahman Yasin detonated a sodium cyanide-laced bomb in the first attack on the World Trade Center complex in 1993 and fled to that country, did we not? It was the first attempted WMD attack on the United States, and we responded accordingly. Didn't we?

    Previously, we'd nuked Lebanon after the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing and Iran during the Hostage Crisis.

    We're just a bunch of nuke-crazy fools!

    Except that we aren't...

    Frankly, this strikes me as the same kind of hyperventilating we heard over the self-debunking collection of seven British documents known as the "Downing Street Memos." Conspiracy theorists live citing the first, but shun mentioning that the David Manning Memo and the Iraqi Options Paper (PDF), two other documents in the series, indicate that a decision to invade was not the foregone conclusion they claimed.

    You'll note that the British Christopher Meyer ambassador makes these claims, but at least in this account, doesn't seem to have any evidence to support his claim. How convenient.

    The fact that Afghanistan's Taliban was not concentrated into an area where deploying a nuclear weapon would be a feasible option, that any fallout would potentially affect China, Pakistan and India, and that such a strike would fail to root out al Qaeda and Taliban elements somehow didn't factor into this article, or into Meyer's thinking.

    I'd love to see what evidence Meyer can produce to show that we seriously considered using nuclear weapons against a largely mountainous, largely rural country in a dramatic over-response that would not likely produce the results of eliminating the Taliban and al Qaeda without also eliminating a much larger non-involved civilian population. I'd like to see documents supporting that we seriously considered what would be nothing less than visiting upon Afghanistan the kind of nuclear genocide Iranian President Mamoud Ahmadinejad keeps promising to deliver to the state of Israel. I suspect we won't get it.

    Like the original Downing Street Memo that is the staple of Iraq War conspiracy theorists, this claim is likely the result of not "even fourth-hand" knowledge.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:45 AM | Comments (14)

    June 15, 2007

    Reid Attacks Petraeus... Again

    Because, of course, he knows better:

    Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) charged that Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who took command in Iraq four months ago, "isn't in touch with what's going on in Baghdad." He also indicated that he thinks Petraeus has not been sufficiently open in his testimony to Congress. Noting that Petraeus, who is now on his third tour of duty in Iraq, oversaw the training of Iraqi troops during his second stint there, Reid said: "He told us it was going great; as we've looked back, it didn't go so well."

    Bill at INDCJournal (who has been to Iraq), had this to say:

    Harry Reid considers himself more "in touch with what's going on in Baghdad" than Petraeus? Beyond the mindblowing, bizarro hubris of such an assertion, this comment is made sinister or incompetent by the fact that Reid misrepresents the meaning of Petraus's comments:

    Go to Ardalino's site for the detailed takedown.

    Harry Reid, is once again willing to question General Petraeus' honesty because what Petraeus says he is seeing on the ground—in Baghdad, where he is—doesn't match up with what Reid wants to assert, namely, that the "war is lost" and that the "surge has failed."

    Reid has staked out his position, and won't back down from it. Some might call that "integrity."

    I'd call it "blatant dishonesty," as the last contingent of soldiers arrive for the surge just today.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:03 AM | Comments (12)

    June 14, 2007

    Silky Pony's New Plan to Tax You to Pay Pharmaceutical Companies and Raise Insurance Costs

    This idea seems ever bit as dim as his plan to rely on a re-branded Peace Corps to fight terrorism.

    Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards wants to reduce the cost of U.S. health care by removing patents for breakthrough drugs and requiring health insurance companies to spend at least 85 percent of their premiums on patient care.

    The former North Carolina senator was expected to discuss details of a universal health care proposal he released in February during an appearance Thursday at the Riverside Health Center.

    Edwards' plan would remove long-term patents for companies that develop breakthrough drugs and then reap large profits because of the monopolies those patents provide, according to a statement by Edwards obtained Wednesday evening.

    Edwards said offering cash incentives instead would allow multiple companies to produce those drugs and drive down prices.

    By reducing pharmaceutical companies ability to make a profit from patented drugs, Edwards would be encouraging them to spend less money on researching and developing new cures. After all, these are drug companies, and companies exist to make a profit. Why would companies spend time and billions of dollars developing new and more effective drugs, when Edwards is going to strip away their ability to recoup development costs and turn a profit by forcing these new drugs to become generic by stripping away patents?

    But he already has a solution.

    Edwards promises to pay companies to keep developing new drugs with "cash incentives." We all know where these incentives would come from. To make good on his promise, Edwards will foist new taxes upon the American taxpayer.

    As a result, the cost of new drugs won't actually go down, you'll just be paying from them whether you need them, or not, through your federal taxes.

    The other part of Edward's "brilliant" health care plan is to force insurers to spend 85% of their premiums on patient care. this sounds great, until once again economics comes into play. Insurers are in business to make money, and if they can't within the framework you're paying for now, you can expect the premium costs to skyrocket until that 15% is large enough to cover their operating costs and keep their shareholders happy.

    I don't know whom the Edwards campaign keeps paying to come up with these hare-brained schemes, but they are obviously paying them far too much.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:37 AM | Comments (3)

    June 13, 2007

    It's Time To Consider Bombing Republican National Headquarters

    On second thought, nevermind. They seem quite intent on imploding it themselves.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:12 PM | Comments (4)

    June 12, 2007

    At It Again

    President Bush is already working the phones for round two of the illegal alien amnesty bill.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:01 AM | Comments (1)

    A Call to Arms

    Citing "an increasingly lunatic society that is armed more than ever," The U.K. Daily Express is taking the radical step of calling for British citizens to take up arms.

    Did I say citizens?

    I meant police:

    Michael Winner, founder of the Police Memorial Trust which commemorates officers killed on duty, said the dangers faced by PCs everyday are greater than ever.

    He said: "We live in an increasingly lunatic society that is armed more than ever. There are knives, there are guns. There are the sorts of weapons out there which were not there when I was a young person.

    "The fact that officers are not armed is shocking. Of our 33 memorials, I think 28 officers would be alive if they had been armed."

    Victor Bates, whose jeweller wife Marian was killed by robbers in Nottingham in 2003, said: "It is long past the time to arm all our officers."

    They're still a very long way from allowing British citizens to defend themselves, but I suppose this could be seen as progress, if you squint.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:17 AM | Comments (4)

    June 08, 2007

    High School Refuses To Let Marine Wear Uniform to Graduation

    In the Raleigh News & Observer:

    Pfc. Eric Hile, 17, graduated from the school in January, but returned from his training to walk across the stage and take his diploma.

    He wanted to wear his dress blues under his gown, but Principal Jerry Smith insisted he follow school rules, which require that all graduating students wear khaki pants, a dark tie and a white shirt.

    "We have a standard policy," Smith said. "Everyone dresses the same for graduation."

    But Elizabeth Hile, Eric's mother, said wearing his uniform is an important show of patriotism.

    "I can understand that some kids want to wear shorts and a T-shirt. I get that," Hile said. "But he is a United States Marine. It's a show that he is so proud to be in the U.S. military."

    I've been to several high school graduations in North Carolina, and I've never seen school officials enforce graduation dress code policies rigorously. Principal Smith could have very easily granted Pfc. Hile an exception, and I think most here would feel that such an exception in this case is well deserved for a proud young Marine.

    Should anyone politely like to tell Principal Smith what they think of his decision, he can presumably be contacted at Clayton High School: (919) 553-4064.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:02 PM | Comments (31)

    Silky Pony's Six-Point Plan Against Terrorism

    Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards has posted a six-point outline of his strategy for combating terrorism on his campaign Web site.

    Let's take a look at what he's offering, point-by-point.

    "Rebalance our force structure for the challenges of the new century"

    • Force Structure: The force structure of our military should match its mission. The Administration's mismanagement of the military has not only breached the faith at the highest levels—it has led to a very dangerous situation for our security. We are sending some troops back to Iraq with less than a year's rest. Edwards believes we need to ensure that our force structure is well equipped for the challenges of the new century. We must have enough troops to rebuild from Iraq; to bolster deterrence; to decrease our heavy reliance on Guard and Reserve members in military operations; and to deploy in Afghanistan and any other trouble spots that could develop. As president, Edwards will also double the budget for recruiting and raise the standards for the recruiting pool so that we can reduce waivers issued for recruits with felonies, which have skyrocketed under President Bush.

    Stripping the politics out of this statement (if that can actually even be done) and looking solely at the policy, Edwards is suggesting that our troops need a full year's rest between deployments, that our troops need to be "well-equipped," that our standing military needs to be larger, that we need to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, and that we need to significantly increase recruiting and standards for those recruits.

    Correct me if I am wrong, but as I recall history, the idea of our soldiers needing a year between deployments seems to be a modern phenomenon. Our soldiers in the Continental Army did not get year-long rest breaks in the Revolutionary War, the World Wars, or any other conflict in this nation's history until the current war in Iraq. I seem to recall that units were sent into battle, fought, and took brief "R&R" breaks of much shorter durations during a major conflict, sometimes lasting just a few days or weeks, and other times lasting months.

    By way of example, World War II's "Band of Brothers," Easy Company, 506th PIR, went through several weeks or months of combat, with several weeks or months of training or R&R between combat deployments.

    Most books I've read on military history (most of which were of this time frame) followed similar patterns. Unless pulled from combat for extensive training for a fresh assault, most units I recall reading about rarely, if ever, received a year off after a tour of combat. Is a full year between deployments truly needed?

    I'm not the person to answer that question, but I can tell you that I cannot easily find a record of any large unit in any military in world history that consistently got a year off between combat tours. It would seem to me (admittedly as a civilian) that a year's rest would leave troops rusty, and in the kind of counter-insurgency operations we are now fighting where relationships with local communities are key, it means that the troops would have to start over and establish new relationships with every deployment. To me, sending home entire units for a year at a time seems very unwise.

    I don't think anyone will argue with Edwards' platitude that our troops need to be "well equipped." How can you argue with that? But the simple fact of the matter is that our soldiers are already by far the best-equipped military in world history. Period. Edwards presumably want to make them bullet-proof, to avoid criticism when soldiers die. But soldiers with enough armor to be impervious to enemy fire are soldiers that lack the mobility to be effective in combat. Well-equipped does not mean making our soldiers over-armored to the point of being ineffective.

    I do agree with Edwards on several points, holding the same opinion that our military should be larger than it currently is, and that we should seek higher quality recruits, and spend the extra money to attract them.

    Now, on to point two.

    "Ensure our intelligence strategy adheres to proven and effective methods"

    • Intelligence Strategy: We must aggressively gather intelligence in accordance with proven methods. Valuable information can be gained through interrogation, both about past and future attacks, and we must do everything we can to gather this information to keep us and our allies secure. At the same time, we must avoid actions that will give terrorists or even other nations an excuse to abandon international law. As president, Edwards will immediately address the issues that have become blemishes on America's image in the world by closing Guantanamo Bay, restoring habeas corpus, and banning torture.

    Against, once we strip out the politics from this statement we are left with something like policy, and that policy is...don't be evil.

    Well, that’s all well and good if you're running to be president of Google, but the reality of the matter for POTUS is a bit more complex that perhaps "Senator Gone" misunderestimates. I don't know of anyone who advocates wholesale, widespread torture, but for Edwards to intone that waterboarding of senior level operational commanders is wrong if a major attack is imminent, is nothing less than moral abandonment, stating that principles are more important than American lives in any and all circumstances. This is simply wrong.

    Further, Edwards betrays a childlike misunderstanding of our enemies if he actually thinks terrorists have ever given any consideration to international law, or that by treating terrorists with kid gloves, we will somehow influence their actions. Frankly, this platitude shows him to be an unserious, lightweight candidate, and perhaps somewhat dangerous.

    His "blemishes" comment simply affirms he is far more interested in symbolism than results.

    "Hold regular meetings with top military leadership"

    • Meetings with Military Leadership: The past few years have brought the biggest crisis in civil-military relations in a generation. The mismanagement of the Pentagon has been so severe that many of our most decorated retired officers are speaking out. As president, Edwards will institute regular, on-on-one meetings with top military leadership. He will also reinstate a basic doctrine of national security management that has been demolished by the Bush Administration: military professionals will have primary responsibility in matters of tactics and operations, while civilian leadership will have authority in all matters of broad strategy and political decisions.

    This is apparently meant as a swipe at George W. Bush and Don Rumsfeld, and perhaps one that they deserve.

    What it does establish is that Edwards seeks to be very "hands on" if elected. As I recall, that didn't work very well with LBJ. Edwards comment here is, of course, also directed at the fact that many generals have disagreed with how the current war has been fought.

    Edwards indicates that he will try to listen to most or all generals. If Edwards sincerely means to listen and attempt to assuage the misgivings and differences of opinions among all generals, he will "lead" us into paralysis, and that the bold stokes of a Patton or a Grant will be ignored over a safe, consensus position... a self-imposed Pentagon quagmire. I do not find that encouraging in the least.

    "Create a "Marshall Corps" to stabilize weak and failing states"

    • "Marshall Corps": Weak and failing states create hotbeds for terrorism and create regional instability that creates security dangers for the U.S. and our allies. As president, Edwards will create a "Marshall Corps" of 10,000 professionals, modeled on the Reserves systems, who will work on stabilization and humanitarian missions. He will also implement new training for future military leadership and create a undersecretary for stabilization and a new senior stabilization position within the Joint Staff.

    We've already seen the opposition for such as unit; Iran calls their version the Qods Force of the Revolutionary Guard. Edwards wants to impose an opposing Girl Scouts-Lite version of this to spread peace, joy, and puppies. Yea! A slightly more charitable interpretation is that he envisions a cross between the Corps of Engineers and the Peace Corps, or the creation of something like the Navy Seabees, but populated with social workers. I'm not sure what he is actually proposing here, and suspect he isn't sure, either.

    "Rebuild equipment"

    • Rebuild Equipment. Over 1,000 vehicles like tanks and helicopters have been lost in Iraq, and our equipment is being used at a rate of five to six times its peacetime use. Our forces are not equipped to meet the challenges presented to them. As president, Edwards will re-invest in the maintenance of our equipment so our strategy against terrorists is as effective as possible.

    Edwards has latched onto the concept that stuff gets blown up in war, and he wants to reinvigorate the motor pool. Such insight.

    His statement "Our forces are not equipped to meet the challenges presented to them" means one thing to me; as threats emerge, Edwards will constantly push our military procurement branches to rush willy-nilly after the Threat of the Day.

    We're being hit with IEDs? Up-armor our Humvees, and buy billions of dollars in new armored trucks (like MRAPS). When the enemy builds larger IEDs, Edwards will rush to upgrade to larger MRAPS or like vehicles, and so on, and so forth, until we are left with battlefield battleships that lack the mobility to go anywhere quickly or stealthily, and by the way, are too expensive to justify sending into combat. And just so you know, EFPs tend to make those inside such heavily armored vehicles more likely to die than vehicles with no armor at all, due to spalling.

    We do try to reduce the threats to our soldiers as much as possible of course, which is why our soldiers are the most heavily armored force in terms of both personal and vehicle armor in human history, but Edwards and many other candidates on both sides don't want to deal with the reality that soldiers die in war, nor do they seem to understand that there are many circumstances where armor can and should be sacrificed for mobility and flexibility for soldiers to be effective. I don't think Edwards grasps that concept in the least.

    "Create a National Security Budget"

    • National Security Budget: The military budget itself also needs substantial reforms to keep us as safe as possible and to deal with 21st century threats. Today, dozens of agencies perform overlapping tasks, and there is no central, overall accounting of all security activities performed by all relevant agencies. We have nuclear proliferation programs in the Defense, State, and the Energy departments, and more than 15 different security assistance programs, running out of both the State Department and the Defense Department. As president, Edwards will implement a new National Security Budget that will include all security activities by the Pentagon and the Department of Energy, and our homeland security, intelligence, and foreign affairs agencies.

    Nowhere in this statement does Edwards pointedly say he will consolidate any of these over-lapping programs, he just insists that we need another layer of bureaucracy inserted on top of it. Were Edwards actually willing to consolidate some of these activities and streamline elements, I could actually get behind him on this. that isn't his intention, however. He simply betrays a belief that more government is a more effective government.

    Hold on to your wallets.

    Update: Captain Ed notes that Edwards' Marshall Corps" is a modern day Children's Crusade, and may face the same results. The NY Sun is similarly harsh.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:13 AM | Comments (16)

    June 07, 2007

    Fred! Grabs Lead in NC Primary Poll

    Via WRAL:

    According to a recent survey, Fred Thompson, who has not yet announced his presidential candidacy, has jumped into the lead in the North Carolina Republican primary.

    The survey, released by Public Policy Polling, shows 37 percent of likely Republican primary voters would vote for the former senator from Tennessee -- a 12 percent increase from May.

    Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped to second place with 25 percent of likely Republican voters. Former Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney both garnered 14 percent.

    Nine percent of Republican voters said they supported a candidate other than Thompson, Giuliani, McCain and Romney and 1 percent said they were undecided.

    Not a bad showing at all, especially from someone who has yet to officially declare.

    I must also confess that I'm a bit surprised at the strength of Fred!'s showing, leaping to a twelve-point lead over second-place Rudy Giuliani at a time that I didn't think he yet had made significant media penetration outside of the political junkies in the blogosphere.

    In the same poll, John Edwards (30-percent) was leading the Democratic herd ahead of Hillary Clinton (26-percent) and Barack Obama (22-percent), suggesting that the recreational use of crystal meth is far more widespread in North Carolina than was previously believed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:10 PM | Comments (11)

    Cheap Shot

    Infuriated at Paris Hilton's early release from jail, Sean Mullen of the Moderate Voice uses the opportunity to take a swing at Fred! as well:

    There are rumors that the nascient Fred Thompson presidential campaign is interested in bringing her [Hilton] on as a spokesmodel.

    I'm not sure where Mullen is intending to go with this.

    Is he saying that a tipsy tart like Paris Hilton is the kind of person Thompson associates himself with, and if so, isn't that yet another Scarborough-esque cheap shot at Jeri Thompson, wife of the undeclared Republican candidate?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 PM | Comments (6)

    June 06, 2007

    Duke Lacrosse Judge Takes Aim at Nifong

    As if having the case thrown out and ethics charges brought against him by the N.C. State Bar weren't enough, now Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong may face action from the judge presiding over the now dismissed Duke lacrosse rape case:

    Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III wrote that significant concerns about evidence arose during a Dec. 15 hearing, months before the state Attorney General's Office dismissed the charges. At the hearing, DNA expert Brian Meehan testified that he and Nifong agreed to withhold test results from the defense, including the fact that DNA from unidentified men was found in and on the accuser's body.

    The N.C. State Bar has charged Nifong with a number of ethical violations, including withholding DNA evidence favorable to the defense.

    Under North Carolina law, the State Bar and trial court judges both have the power to discipline lawyers for misconduct, so Nifong faces the prospect of punishment from both.

    Trial judges such as Smith can take a wide range of actions in disciplining lawyers; Smith could scold Nifong, disbar him or even send him to jail for contempt of court.

    Another judge in Durham is awaiting the results of the N.C. State Bar ethics case against Nifong before considering a request by a Durham native to have Nifong stripped of his office.

    It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

    6,301,084,228 undocumented Americans want their piece too

    Uncle Harry's a helluva a guy. Between he and Ma Pelosi they're running the most ethical government ever. Those first couple of months in office got off to a rough start, what with President Bush stonewalling them at every turn. But now, now they've got the power. Harry and Nancy, they're the modern day He-Man and She-Ra and Harry, he's the Master of his Domain.

    On the first day of the 110th Congress, Democrats introduced bills reflecting the ten priorities that America sent us here to address. Last Friday we concluded a seven week work period, and we have taken action on seven of those ten priorities:
    • We passed the toughest ethics and lobbying reform in our nation’s history.
    • We passed a much deserved and long overdue raise in the federal minimum wage for working people, which was signed into law last week.
    • We attempted to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices, but this effort was filibustered by Republicans.
    • We passed the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, after they had been pushed aside for years.
    • For the second year in a row, we voted to give the hope of stem cell research to millions of Americans who suffer, and will soon send that bill to the President.
    • We passed a balanced budget that restores fiscal discipline and puts the middle class first – cutting their taxes while increasing investment in education, veterans’ care and children’s health care.
    • And we began debate on the complex and crucial issue of immigration reform.

    This week, we will vote on cloture and final passage of a comprehensive bill that will strengthen border security, bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows, and keep our economy strong. In the days ahead, we will work to improve the bill to protect and strengthen family ties while improving the structure of the temporary-worker program.

    Harry Reid has a plan for world peace, unfortunately it involves adopting every American adopting at least 20 refugees from impoverished nations, like England, France and Germany. That way we can take care of all the 6,301,084,228 undocumented Americans. Personally I'm cool with that just so long as none of mine are those damned dirty scandis. If I had my preference it'd be an even split of hot Latino and Asian chicks. Of course I might have to change my name to Woody Allen.

    BFirst I guess we have to deal with those 12 million undocumented Americans, you know the one's doing the jobs the Americans with "papers" won't do. Sure a great number of those undocumented Americans entered our country illegally, forged documents to get work and steal the benefits our tax dollars are paying for; but they're mostly our neighbors and what are you a damned racist? Plus Harry and Nancy need pool-boys and cabana-girls.

    No worries about them only focusing on bringing the world under our care though. They've got plans to screw up lots of things.

    Following immigration, we will turn our attention to the three remaining bills from our original ten:

    • An energy bill that will take a crucial first step toward weaning our country’s addiction to foreign oil.
    • A reauthorization of the Higher Education Act that will address the skyrocketing costs of college.
    • And a Defense Authorization bill that will make critical investments to address troop readiness problems in the military caused by the President’s flawed Iraq policy.

    We will also reconfigure our national security strategy to better meet the threats and challenges we face today and the President is overlooking.

    Yay, he's gonna reduce our dependence on oil. Which means prices are going to drop so I can keep pouring oil into my four-wheel-drive F-150. I sure hope they start their focus on education tommorrow, 'cause a great number of today's kids are morons that can barely operate the intertubes.

    I wonder if by Defense Authorization bill he means a draft? Or maybe he's going with robots, flesh-eating, fire-breathing robots.

    h/t: Michelle Malkin

    Posted by phin at 08:54 AM | Comments (7)

    June 05, 2007

    The Republican Willie Horton

    de latorre

    This is Michael Caldera De Latorre, or as fingerprints taken from when he was twice captured trying to sneak into the United States from Mexico in 2004 indicate, Ricardo De Latorre.

    He is one of the millions of undocumented illegal aliens George W. Bush and many Congressmen and Senators would like to grant amnesty.

    Yesterday morning, while driving a Chevy Tahoe reported stolen in Charlotte, Latorre careened across the median of I-40 in Raleigh, and stuck a Kia driven by George Alwyin Smith, a 54-year-old computer programmer at Duke University, before slamming into a car driven by Carolyn Hageman.

    Smith died in the wreck, and Hageman was injured. Pulled from the wreckage reeking of alcohol, De Latorre has been charged with DWI, felony death by motor vehicle, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, no operator’s license and careless and reckless driving.

    Perhaps if our federal government had done a better job securing our southern border, Latorre would still be in Mexico, and George Smith would still be alive. But our President, our Congress and our Senate seem primed to allow De Latorre and millions more illegals like him to slip across a border they refuse to defend.

    As the Smith family suffers, the Senate is pushing an immigration bill that the Congressional Budget Office says will barely make a dent in the number of illegal aliens flowing into our country.

    When you look at Ricardo De Latorre's face, I want you to see John McCain. I want you to see George Bush. I want you to see the congressmen and Senators from both parties who want to bankrupt our nation with a continued flow of illegal aliens that fill our prisons and emergency rooms, that sap social programs and educational opportunities designs for native-borne Americans and legal immigrants while driving wages for low-skilled workers ever lower.

    This is Ricardo de Latorre, a twice-caught illegal, apparent car thief, and drunken killer.

    Until yesterday, President Bush and many RINOS wanted to grant him amnesty.

    I wonder how they feel about that now.

    Update: Dan Collins says via email that serial killer Angel Resendez would probably be a better example of what our country's pathetic border security allows, and with nine alledged murders and at least five deportations, and an unknown number of illegal borders crossings that likely numbered in the dozens, he makes a strong case.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:33 PM | Comments (5)

    Osama Obama Goes Race-Baiting

    QuietRiotMetalHealth

    Via Breitbart:

    Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse a "quiet riot" among blacks that threatens to erupt just as riots in Los Angeles did 15 years ago. The first-term Illinois senator said that with black people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still displaced 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, frustration and resentments are building explosively as they did before the 1992 riots.

    "This administration was colorblind in its incompetence," Obama said at a conference of black clergy, "but the poverty and the hopelessness was there long before the hurricane.

    "All the hurricane did was to pull the curtain back for all the world to see," he said.

    Apparently, though, the hurricane didn't pull the curtain back far enough for Obama to see the root of the problem.

    If Obama wanted to really expose the core of Louisiana's problems, he'd have to travel back in time no further than yesterday, when William "Cold Cash" Jefferson was finally indicted. Jefferson's family runs political machines that funnel power and corruption through two Louisiana parishes.

    Or if Obama wanted to go back a bit further, he could travel back to 1985, when three-time Louisiana governor Edwin W. Edwards was indicted and later convicted for racketeering and fraud after being investigated by nine previous grand juries.

    From Huey Long to Leander Perez to the modern day political machines controlled by "Cold Cash" Jefferson and the Landrieu family, most of the problems of New Orleans can be traced back over a century of corrupt political machines in Louisiana.

    The fact of the matter is that all Louisiana voters should be on the verge of rioting for the way they have been treated by decades of corrupt politicians. The problem for Obama is that those politicians most to blame, black or white, are overwhelmingly Louisiana Democrats.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:51 PM | Comments (9)

    Hillary tries to convince us she isn't the devil...

    ...but we all know she'd burst into flames the minute a priest sprinkled her with holy water.

    Faith saved her marriage says Mrs. Clinton.

    In a rare public discussion of her husband's infidelity, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she probably could not have gotten through her marital troubles without relying on her faith in God.

    Clinton stood by her actions in the aftermath of former President admission that he had an affair, including presumably her decision to stay in the marriage.

    "I am very grateful that I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought," Clinton said during a forum where the three leading Democratic presidential talked about faith and values.

    "I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith," she said in response to a question about how she dealt with the infidelity.

    Knowing that she'll get to roast Billy Jeff over an open fire for all eternity probably helps to calm her nerves.

    For some reason this story reminds me of a scene in The Devil's Advocate where Al Pacino sticks his finger in a bowl of Holy Water and it starts boiling. Not sure why though. At least I think that's the movie.

    Posted by phin at 08:56 AM | Comments (6)

    A Step Too Far?

    I disagree with Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against the War, but I think I disagree with the Marine Corps decision to punish him even more:

    A military panel recommended that an Iraq war veteran who wore his uniform during an anti-war protest should lose his honorable discharge status, brushing away his claims that he was exercising his right to free speech.

    Marine Cpl. Adam Kokesh, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, argued that since he removed his name tag and military emblems from his uniform, he did nothing wrong by participating in the March protest in Washington, D.C.

    After a daylong hearing Monday, a three-person Marine board recommended he receive a general discharge under honorable conditions, one step below an honorable discharge. It would let Kokesh keep all of his benefits.

    Kokesh had already been discharged from active duty and is a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, completing his eight-year military obligations on June 18.

    I'm sure that the Marine board knows far better whether or not Kokesh's decision to wear his MARPAT fatigues was technical violation, but as Kokesh did not wear his name tape or other identifying military insignia, I think they're pushing it when they decided to recommend removing the honorable discharge status he'd previously received.

    I suspect if he was on active duty and reported without wearing his name tape and identifying rank and unit insignia, that he would be likely be judged "out of uniform." It therefore seems that a double standard may be in place here.

    I'd be very interested in the opinions of any active-duty or veteran Marines on this. I don't agree with his politics, but that does not mean he should be held to a different standard, if indeed he is.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:32 AM | Comments (11)

    June 04, 2007

    Ironclad Senate Immigration Bill Will Slow Illegal Immigration by 75-Percent, Provide Hogs With Pilot Licenses

    Or maybe I read that wrong.

    The Senate's immigration bill will only reduce illegal immigration by about 25 percent a year, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report, Stephen Dinan will report Tuesday in The Washington Times. The bill's new guest-worker program could lead to at least 500,000 more illegal immigrants within a decade, said the report from the CBO, which said in its official cost estimate that it assumes some future temporary workers will overstay their time in the plan, adding up to a half-million by 2017 and 1 million by 2027. "We anticipate that many of those would remain in the United States illegally after their visas expire," CBO said of the guest-worker program, which would allow 200,000 new workers a year to rotate into the country.

    Oh, so what the CBO is actually saying is that 75% of illegal alien traffic will continue under the Senate's bill.

    I'm glad to see they're on the job.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:16 PM | Comments (6)

    2008 Race for the Whitehouse becomes an enzyte commercial...

    Goose meet Gander, Gander this is Goose.

    We know Fred! likes the ladies, and the ladies like him. But I had no idea, none what-so-ever, that Denny Kucinich pull in the ladies like Fred!.


    Meet Smiling Bob. His game?
    Spreading the gospel of male enhancement.

    Aren't you guys impressed, I mean, I could have gone the Joe Scarborough route and inferred that she used to be a "lady of the evening". But no I choose the high road. Plus, nobody would believe I saw her turning tricks in exchange for carbon offsets behind the waffle house a couple of weeks back, nobody.

    What his means? Since I'm kind of partial to redheads, Denny is now my sworn enemy.

    h/t: Dave @ A Dark Planet.

    Posted by phin at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)

    William Jefferson may get an extended vacation.

    Maybe Paris can give him a couple of prison fashion and survival tips.

    Via Faux Nooz.

    WASHINGTON — Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on 16 counts related to a long-running bribery investigation on counts including racketeering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy...

    The 94-page indictment is more than an inch thick, and Jefferson could face a maximum prison term of more than 230 years.

    I've heard of people doing anything to get a bit of a vacation, but this is ridiculous. Of course Not-So-Slick-Willie claims he's innocent.

    Banks, they're for suckers, what with their interest bearing accounts and the easy access to cash with an ATM card. Me, I always keep my cash reserves in the Freezer right next to the toenail clippings. If Howard Hughes taught us anything its that the feds are going to clone us all one day and I'm not about to make it easy for them.

    In grave times though, we have to fall back on the knowledge passed down from previous generations. Those who have paved the way before us. And so Mr. Jefferson, you'll need to build up your "street cred". "How to make a prison shank from toilet paper for dummies", it's easy reading with easy to follow diagrams. You could listen to 50 Cent (pronounced Fiddy-Cent yo), to pick up on the lingo. But most of all Mr. Jefferson, I'm imploring you'll need a mentor. I'd suggest you pick somebody with some notoriety. Like Tookie Williams. Sure he's taking a bit of a nap, but you should follow his lead, 'cause Tookie never "took it lying down", if you know what I mean.


    So Mr. Jefferson, when you find yourself in one of those "sticky situations" don't be all uppity like Joe Francis was. Ask yourself, What Would Tookie Williams Do?

    Really Mr. Jefferson, it's sound advice and don't be afraid to stick a shank in somebody's kidney on the first day of your visit to Club Fed. Otherwise, well, you'll find yourself singing this little ditty.

    Posted by phin at 01:53 PM | Comments (1)

    Cold Cash Jefferson Formally Indicted

    You remember William Jefferson, don't you? He's the Louisiana Congressional Democrat that hijacked a National Guard unit in New Orleans searching for Hurricane Katrina survivors so that he could check on his personal property... presumably including the $90,000 cash bribe hidden in his freezer.

    His frozen chickens have finally come home to roost:

    Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on 16 counts related to a long-running bribery investigation on charges including bribery, racketeering, obstruction of justice and money laundering.

    The indictment was handed up in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. A press conference is scheduled for later Monday in Washington to discuss the case.

    The 94-page indictment is more than an inch thick, and Jefferson could face a prison term of 235 years if he was convicted on all charges, and given the maximum sentence — although that is unlikely.

    Jefferson was re-elected to office in 2006 despite widespread public knowledge of the investigation, proving once again the mental acuity of people who think it's a bright idea to live below sea level on sinking land surrounded by massive bodies of water.

    Nancy Pelosi, chairwoman of the Most Ethical Congress evah, could not be immediately be reached for comment.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:38 PM | Comments (1)

    Thanks Again, Jorge

    Traffic was tied up for hours this morning thanks to a fatal wreck that the local media is attributing to another suspected drunk-driving illegal alien.

    Read between the lines:

    Authorities believe alcohol was a factor in a fatal accident on Interstate 40 in Raleigh.

    According to the Highway Patrol, a 54-year-old man in a Chevrolet Tahoe crossed the median onto westbound I-40 near the Wade Avenue exit, striking another vehicle. Troopers said the driver of the second vehicle died in the accident.

    Investigators said the Tahoe then struck a Ford Mustang. The driver of the Mustang was injured.

    According to the Highway Patrol reconstruction team, tire tracks left by the Tahoe suggest the vehicle was going so fast through the median that it was turned sideways.

    The driver of the Chevrolet Tahoe was taken to WakeMed. His extent of his injuries is not yet known. There is no word yet on his blood-alcohol content. The Highway Patrol is also looking into the driver's immigration status.

    For those of you not familiar with North Carolina's immigrant problem, 65% of all Hispanics in the state--more than 300,000--are illegal.

    That population has contributed heavily to drunk driving accidents in our state, including some high-profile local accidents.

    Three were killed in November in Sanford by a drunk illegal who had already been arrested once for driving without a license, and another illegal with two previous DWI convictions killed a father and son in early March. These are just three local examples of American families shattered by drunken illegals that got behind the wheel. I could provide more from other parts of the state and other states without Google breaking a sweat.

    Our federal legislators, and President Bush fail to stop these criminals at the border. Our state legislators and governors make policy decisions that turn some states (including my own) into magnets for illegal immigration, essentially inviting illegals into our cities and towns, and for what, cheap labor?

    Well, I hope that lower payroll for the casket makers and grave diggers is passed along to the victim families.

    I'm sure that saving money on burying their loved ones will make everything okay.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:16 PM | Comments (4)

    May 31, 2007

    Ex-FBI director endorses Giuliani ...

    ... they used to enjoy long fireside chats while dressed as Thelma and Louise.

    Wait, wrong FBI Director.

    Freeh endorses Giuliani and will serve Saint Andie's cabana boy as his campaign's senior homeland security adviser.

    Freeh's endorsement is viewed by supporters as a boost to Giuliani's image as a strong leader against terrorism and crime in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On the campaign trail, Giuliani has asserted that he and his fellow Republicans have the best approach to deterring terrorism.

    "Rudy Giuliani's optimistic leadership is responsible for making the city of New York what it is today, one of the safest largest cities in the country and a place where the world feels safe to visit," Freeh said in a statement prior to a news conference.

    "No one knows better than Louie Freeh what it takes to fight crime," said Giuliani.

    Freeh, whose eight year-tenure as FBI director was marked by a long-running feud with
    President Clinton, also will serve as senior homeland security adviser for Giuliani's campaign and will head the candidate's Delaware campaign. Freeh lives in Wilmington, Del.

    Posted by phin at 02:08 PM | Comments (3)

    Edwards wants probe of high gas prices...

    ...and that's not the only probe he's hoping for.

    In a word pandering.

    Apparently teh Silk Pony doesn't realize he's become, or doesn't have a problem with being, a whore.

    Many of Edwards' proposals — from cutting greenhouse gas emissions to investigating oil industry consolidation — have been the subject of numerous hearings in Congress this years*, as has* calls by Democrats to make automobiles more fuel efficient.

    I'm guessing this is news because Silky is spewing it. Which is why I'm voting for Fred!. After he annexes Mexico we can go ahead and pick up Venezuela. See, I've just laid out a plan for petroleum independence, I could be a contender!

    * The AP are has do be English majors.

    Posted by phin at 12:37 PM | Comments (2)

    May 30, 2007

    Double D to make a go of it...

    ...and Fred!'s making a run for the White House.


    If your political adviser looked like that you'd listen too.

    The Politico is reporting that Fred! is going to announce his bid for the Presidency over the Fourth of July Holiday, and that his wife, Jeri, will wear a star spangled bikini throughout the race.

    Fred Dalton Thompson is planning to enter the presidential race over the Fourth of July holiday, announcing that week that he has already raised several million dollars and is being backed by insiders from the past three Republican administrations, Thompson advisers told The Politico.

    Thompson, the "Law and Order" star and former U.S. senator from Tennessee, has been publicly coy, even as people close to him have been furiously preparing for a late entry into the wide-open contest. But the advisers said Thompson dropped all pretenses on Tuesday afternoon during a conference call with more than 100 potential donors, each of whom was urged to raise about $50,000.

    Thompson's formal announcement is planned for Nashville. Organizers say the red pickup truck that was a hallmark of Thompson's first Senate race will begin showing up in Iowa and New Hampshire as an emblem of what they consider his folksy, populist appeal.

    Okay, Jeri might not be in the bikini, but it'd be a whole lot cooler if she was. Plus, they'd have the 18 - 32 year old male and LUG (lesbian until graduation) vote nailed down.

    Think about it: Double D or Shillary: Who's significant other would you prefer to check out during the State of the Union addresses? If they could even get Billy Jeff to show up.

    When asked about his platform Fred! said instead of amnesty he'll annex Mexico and send the ingrates who booed Rachel Smith packing for Venezuela. Okay, he's not admitting to the annexation part, but he know he's got a way with the pretty ladies, so we could count on him to at least send in a couple of special ops teams to deal with the unruly mobs when they taunt our wimminfolk.

    Really why the hell would you boo a young lady who looks like this in a bikini:


    Wondertwin powers activate!

    The only logical explanation for the booing. They're pissed a majority of American women still have most of their teeth and weigh less than 200 pounds after the age of 40. Side question and yes I realize its stereotypical and probably bigoted, but here goes anyway. What is it about the Mexican diet that keeps the men relatively fit as they age while the women, um, expand exponentially?

    Go ahead, call me a bigot and remember to insult my southern heritage while you're at it, but don't forget to answer the question.

    Posted by phin at 10:17 AM | Comments (4)

    May 25, 2007

    McCain Aide Blasts Obama

    "Obama wouldn't know the difference between an RPG and a bong."

    That's going to leave a mark.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:22 PM | Comments (33)

    Murtha: I Feel a Direction Change in the Air

    And here it is.

    whiteflag
    whiteflag2

    Murtha is just one of many Democrats attempting to regain the support of a Democratic base that feels betrayed by the Congressional Democrats surrender on their, uh, bid to surrender.

    I suppose I should be amused by the sectarian infighting between the Democrats who want us the surrender soon and the Democrats who want us to surrender sooner, but instead I find myself feeling sorry for them, the Iraqi people, and our soldiers, who are telling Democrats that they don't want their kind of "help."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)

    May 24, 2007

    Support Amnesty Through Ignorance

    I was listening to local talk radio North Carolina's Morning News with Jack Boston this morning when I got in the car, and they were talking to Larry Wooten from the North Carolina Farm Bureau and another supporter of the Kennedy-Kyl pro-amnesty immigration "reform" bill, and I have never heard so much blatant, purposeful deception on the public airwaves since our former President delved into the deeper meaning of the word "is."

    These two men attempted to say that the illegal aliens working on North Carolina farms contributed enormous amounts of money into social welfare programs when they used fake Social Security numbers, since they could not collect on the money they put in. They purposefully skated around the fact that illegals take far more out of social welfare programs than they put into them in taxes, and the dirty little fact that many farmers pay at least part of their illegal workforce "under the table" so that they do not contribute any taxes at all.

    They claimed that North Carolina's agriculture industry would collapse without the amnesty bill... a blatant lie. What a tough immigration law would do is raise wages for the 75% of natives and legal immigrants, by decreasing the number of illegal immigrants that are willing to take "under the table," tax-dodging rates of pay below minimum wage.

    After listening to their purposeful deceptions for several minutes, I called into the radio show, and afer several busy signals, asked the screener if it was even worth trying to hang around long enough to ask these men a couple of questions. He said it depended on my my comment; they were slammed with calls, most of them on one side of the issue.

    I told him I wanted to ask a simple "yes/no" question on whether or not either of the men had actually read the entire bill they were supporting.

    The screener laughed a little and stated that the calls coming in were overwhelmingly for the amnesty bill, which surprised both of us, as the general population of North Carolina, like the general population of the rest of the country, is against the amnesty bill. He said he thought that the guests may have "loaded the deck" by having their constituents lined up to call in, a supposition supported by the fact that the overwhelming of the callers were in the agriculture industry. He moved me to the front of the call line.

    And so I asked my question: "Have either of you read the entire bill you are asking us to support?"

    I don't recall which one answered, but it didn't matter: the guy who did hemmed and hawed about how he read the North Carolina-related provisions. In other words, "no." The other guy didn't attempt answer the question at all.

    They haven't read the amnesty bill, but they want you to support it.

    That should tell you something.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:39 AM | Comments (6)

    May 23, 2007

    The Most Ethical Congress Ever

    Meet the new boss, yadda, yadda, yadda:

    A bitter legislative quarrel in the House, played out in the parliamentary vocabulary of reprimands and motions to table, raged on yesterday as the Democrats pushed back a Republican attempt to officially chastise Rep. John Murtha, the combative Pennsylvanian whom Speaker Nancy Pelosi unsuccessfully backed for majority leader after the Democrats won control of the House in November.

    Murtha had threatened Mike Rogers of Michigan for attempting to kill one of Murtha's pork barrel projects for a failing government agency in his district in front of a group of Republican representatives. Even thought Murtha was caught dead to rights in front of multiple witnesses, Democrats voted along party lines to table to motion, effectively killing the reprimand.

    Nancy Pelosi supported Murtha, a fact too hard to swallow even for reliably left wing sites such as Capitol Hill Blue, who described Murtha in its headline as a "bully" while attacking his "unethical" past.

    For his part, Murtha sat in a darkened corner of the House floor with cronies, laughing as the reprimand was defeated along party lines.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:22 PM | Comments (5)

    May 21, 2007

    McLiar

    The Iraq War claims another veteran who was against it... sorta:

    Jesse Adam Macbeth, 23, formerly of Phoenix, garnered attention on blogs and in some alternative media after he began claiming in 2005 to have been awarded a Purple Heart for his service, which he said included slaughtering innocents in a Fallujah mosque. His story was contradicted by his discharge form, showing that he was kicked out of the Army after six weeks at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2003 because of his "entry level performance and conduct."

    A complaint unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle charged him with one count of using or possessing a forged or altered military discharge certificate, and one count of making false statements in seeking benefits from the Veterans Administration.

    Macbeth's public defender, Jay Stansell, declined to comment.

    Organizations that opposed the war, including Iraq Veterans Against the War, posted videos or statements containing Macbeth's claims on their Web sites. In one videotaped interview, a skinny, stuttering Macbeth, dressed in a camouflage jacket, described slaughtering hundreds of people in a mosque: "We would burn their bodies ... hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque," he said.

    On the upside, we've finally found MacBeth a uniform that fits him.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:46 PM | Comments (3)

    May 18, 2007

    Politico: Murtha Accused of Rules Violation

    Don't mess with John Murtha's pork:

    According to the draft resolution, Murtha shouted at Rogers on the House floor Thursday for offering a motion last week to expose $23 million Murtha requested in an intelligence bill.

    Murtha had requested the money to prevent the administration from shuttering the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, Pa.. in Murtha's district.

    "I hope you don't have any earmarks in the defense appropriations bills because they are gone, and you will not get any earmarks now and forever," Murtha told Rogers on the House floor, according to the draft transcript given Politico.

    "This is not the way we do things here -- and is that supposed to make me afraid of you?" Rogers replied.

    "That's the way I do it," Murtha said.

    According to the article, the National Drug Intelligence Center, "has received repeated low marks from several federal review boards."

    If true, it seems that Murtha was trying to support a failed government outpost in his district to shore up his political support at home, at the expense of federal taxpayers... classic "business as usual" politics.

    I'd suspect nothing will come of the reprimand attempt. The accusation will likely be entered into the Congressional Record, the reprimand voted upon, and probably fail along party lines. I think the purpose of Roger's filing the accusation was to document the stupidity of Murtha making such a thread in front of multiple Republican congressional witnesses, and to ensure that if Murtha does attempt to make good on his threat, that more serious ethics charges could be on the table.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:12 AM | Comments (9)

    Goodbye, GOP

    Ace's suggestion sounds about right to me:

    Write, call, and fax your Congressmen and Senators -- especially Republican ones -- and let them know you will never vote for them or their party again should the immigration bill actually pass.

    And let them know that you don't particularly trust them on national security, spending, or taxes either, so they won't wrongly believe those trump cards will still win the hand for them. Let them know if this isn't scuttled -- if the border isn't secured first, verifiably, before any amnesty legislation passes -- you will no longer vote for, volunteer for, or donate to any Republican candidate for any office ever again.

    Not a dime, not a vote.

    It's time to let them know they're walking into the abyss. Inform them in no uncertain terms that they are attempting to purchase the votes of new "Americans" who split 5:1 Democratic by losing your reliably conservative vote forever.

    I've never felt I owed anything to the Republican party.

    I told my Senators Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr last night:

    Senator, my name is Bob Owens. I run a conservative political blog called Confederate Yankee (http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/) that 90,000-100,000 opinionmakers visit each month.

    Tonight, I will tell my readers, conservative Republicans, fence-sitting conservative Democrats and moderates, that if the Senate passes the pending illegal alien amnesty bill, that I will formally abandon the Republican party, as it has abandoned me. I will then ask them to do the same. I will ask that they refuse to contribute to Republican campaigns. I will ask them to stay at home and refuse to vote for Republican candidates, or even consider voting for Democrats in protest in 2008.

    I am not alone.

    Kill this amnesty bill

    But you know what? I lied.

    There is no "if, then" here. There are no longer any conditionals left. I'm simple done with today's iteration of the "Grand Old Party." This amnesty bill was merely the straw that broke the camel's back.

    I've just downloaded and printed my North Carolina Voter Registration Application/Update form.

    I'm re-registering as "unaffiliated."

    Goodbye, GOP.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:21 AM | Comments (17)

    May 17, 2007

    AG Gone?

    If the Paper Chase is correct, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez may soon be on his way out:

    Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, predicted Thursday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will resign from his post at the conclusion of current investigations into the allegedly-political firings of federal prosecutors. Specter's comments followed others made by Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) Wednesday, who suggested that by remaining in his position, Gonzales was harming the Justice Department. Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) concurred, telling the Associated Press that it was noteworthy that Gonzales is spending more time on Capitol Hill defending himself than working as the Attorney General.

    I'll be depressed when this happens.

    Really.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:33 PM | Comments (3)

    May 16, 2007

    American Legion to John Edwards: Don't Politicize Memorial Day

    I think this one stands on its own.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:30 PM | Comments (6)

    May 15, 2007

    Little Love For the Departed: A Roundup of Liberal Reaction to Jerry Falwell's Passing

    I'm not a fan of Jerry Falwell, who died today shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University at the age of 73. That said, I am quite disgusted with the pathological hatred displayed by liberal bloggers in their reactions to his death.

    Wonkette:

    Jerry Falwell collapsed in his office this morning, and he’s in the hospital, and he’s “gravely unresponsive.”

    At a time like this, people deserve sympathy and good wishes ... except for Falwell, who is an evil sonofabitch.

    John Edward's former campaign blogger Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon:

    The gates of hell swing open and Satan welcomes his beloved son

    No word yet on whether or not that position is shared by John and Elizabeth Edwards campaign, or how Edward's staff will spin this into a fundraising opportunity.

    Tapped goes for a "twofer" slam:

    I'm waiting for Pat Robertson to find a way to blame his rival's death on either feminists or witchcraft.


    Daily Kos:

    The hagiography to cover up a history of hate and bigotry has officially begun.

    A litany of hate at the Democratic Underground.

    The "Blog of the Moderate Left" is surprisingly immoderate:

    I wish I believed in Hell, so I could imagine Falwell enduring the eternal torment he wished on so many.

    Technorati is tracking far more venom than I even want to contemplate, and as always, Allahpundit and Newsbuckit have running updates to capture the full flavor of the Democratic hatefest.

    Perhaps I'm just blind by my own biases, but I don't recall similar widespread, triumphant glee and gloating from conservatives the last time a prominent liberal activist or politician died.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:27 PM | Comments (52)

    Pour Another Glass

    Your unhinged Democratic leadership in action.

    I don't know if McDermott actually believes that 500 American soldiers were killed or wounded in a single attack and that those mass casualties were covered up by the government, but the fact remains that he is obviously quite willing to float such a bizarre, unfounded allegation and actually push for an investigation.

    Clearly, trutherism hysteria of various sorts has taken over a substantial portion of the Democratic/progressive political movement, from young activists all the way up to senior legislators.

    Perhaps we can add McDermott to the Kool Aid campaign.


    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:39 AM | Comments (2)

    May 14, 2007

    John Edwards: Support the Troops By Undermining Their Mission

    On a day set aside to honor those who have fallen defending liberty, Democrat John Edwards is determined to undermine the mission of those currently at war:

    Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is calling on his supporters to turn this year's Memorial Day into a day of antiwar activism, saying that the best way to honor the troops is to demand an end to the Iraq war.

    "Each of us has a responsibility as Americans, a duty to our troops and to each other, to do all we can to support the troops and end this war," the former senator from North Carolina said yesterday during a commencement address at New England College in Henniker, N.H.

    "This Memorial Day weekend, that means more than just getting in your car, driving to the beach, or a parade, or a picnic and saying the words, 'We support our troops,' " Edwards said.

    "We must take responsibility and take action together -- as citizens, as Americans, as patriots. To support the troops. To end the war."

    The new token patriotism extends to Edward's new web site Support the Troops. End the War, when they issue this advice:

    Gather in public. On Memorial Day, get your friends, kids, co-workers, neighbors, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers, and anyone and everyone you know together to publicly support the troops and end the war. Be sure to check with your local authority for any permits you need for public gatherings. Contact local media to publicize your event. Before you get started, please take a moment of silence to honor the fallen. And during your event, make sure you conduct yourself respectfully—both for those serving in Iraq and the memory of the brave servicemen and women that Memorial Day honors.

    It says a lot about his base that Edwards feels compelled to remind his supporters to honor the fallen and conduct themselves respectfully, something most Americans have known since childhood.

    Edwards also reminds visitors that contributions to his campaign aren't tax deductible.

    Even heroic Edwards supporters must be willing to make sacrifices, it seems.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:48 PM | Comments (25)

    May 10, 2007

    Governor Blanco Slammed for Tornado Response

    Did I say Blanco? I meant Sebelius.

    Different Kathleen, same self-serving incompetence.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:44 PM | Comments (5)

    Will the Democrats Fold on War Funding?

    The always excitable liberal John Aravosis thinks they might:

    It's time to replace some conservative Democrats in Washington, DC. I just heard from an impeccable source that there is serious concern on the Hill that conservative Democrats in the House will vote with the Republicans to strip any and all restrictions from the Iraq supplemental tomorrow, effectively giving Bush all the money he wants with no restrictions and no effort to hold either him or the Iraq government accountable for anything. I.e., they will vote to continue this war along the same disastrous course because they're too afraid to challenge George Bush and his failed leadership.

    Let me reiterate: This isn't some idle rumor. The concerns are coming from Hill sources themselves.

    I'd point out that Aravosis is hardly a reliable source, so take his hysterics for what they are worth until you see an actual bill passed.

    (H/T Instapundit, who notes that without the very conservative Democrats that Aravosis wants deposed, Democrats would still be the minority party.)

    Update: Washington Post reporters seem to think Aravosis' hysterics may be off the mark, at least in the House:

    ouse Democrats declared yesterday that they will vote on an Iraq spending bill that could cut funding for the war as early as July, defying a threat from President Bush that he would veto the proposal.

    Even Senate Democrats called the House proposal, scheduled for a vote today, unrealistic. Senate leaders met with White House officials yesterday to try to find a bipartisan option to fund the war through the summer. But there appeared to be little progress in those negotiations, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned lawmakers that the debate is beginning to delay Pentagon operations.

    The one area of agreement seemed to be that U.S. officials want the Iraqi government to better contain violence there. Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced trip to Baghdad yesterday to meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other officials. He urged them to help end fighting between rival Sunni and Shiite factions, to make progress on revising their constitution and to better manage their oil revenue.

    The House proposal would extend war spending through July, rather than September as Bush has requested. White House spokesman Tony Snow said the president would veto the bill because of its spending restrictions.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, said: "Our bill will fully fund the troops, honor our commitment to our veterans, hold the Iraqi government accountable and end the war."

    Pelosi's pronouncement is of course delusional, as Gates states in the same article that the Democratic refusal to issue a viable bill is already beginning to delay military operations, possibly including the purchase of Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles:

    The armored carrier has a grim black slash across its side, burn marks on the door and a web of cracks along the window.

    Like most of the Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles in Anbar province, this one has been hit as many as three times by enemy fire and bomb blasts. Yet, to date, no American troops have died while riding in one.

    But efforts to buy thousands more carriers — each costing about $1 million — could be delayed if the White House and Congress do not resolve their deadlock over a $124.2 billion war spending bill.

    About $3 billion for the vehicles is tied up in the legislation. The spending plan has stalled because of a dispute over provisions that would set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

    At a hearing last month, lawmakers urged the Army to get more of the carriers to the battlefront as quickly as possible. The vehicles, with their unique V-shaped hull that deflects blasts outward and away from passengers, are considered lifesavers against the No. 1 killer in Iraq — roadside bombs.

    Military leaders say the carriers have reduced roadside bomb casualties in Iraq by as much as two-thirds.

    Milblogger "Teflon Don," who drives an MRAP, says of the vehicles in a recent frontline post:

    The operations officer for the cavalry's parent unit came by and mentioned that troops pushing south towards us had hit multiple IEDs, and lost men, but "there wasn't much to be done, because they don't have route clearance". I wished for the hundredth time that there were more of us.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims she wants to, "honor our commitment to our veterans," but as past and former doomed House bill show, all she is actually accomplishing is making sure that our soldiers and Marines don't have the equipment they need, and as a result, more American soldiers are dying.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:17 AM | Comments (1)

    May 09, 2007

    John Edwards: Working the Nutroots

    John Edwards: Personal friend of the paint-chip-eating stepchild of that "other America" known as Truthers.

    As Ace notes:

    The Democrats' position on physical reality, it seems, is increasingly nuanced.

    In Edwards defense, he didn't seem to have a clue what the Truther was referring to, and perhaps we can all rest easy knowing that a Democratic Presidential candidate and former U.S. senator is ignorant about the largest terrorist attack in U.S. history.

    Somehow, that isn't making me feel any better.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:39 PM | Comments (7)

    Insurgent Rocket Misses Cheney in Iraq; Democratic Forum Irate

    A rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad depressed one of the largest online Democratic communities today, when members of the Democratic Underground discovered that Vice President Dick Cheney survived the attack:

    du1
    du2
    du3
    du4
    du5

    According to Wikipedia, the Democratic Underground claims more than 101,000 registered users, and the online community has been investigated by the Secret Service for past threats.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:19 PM | Comments (8)

    Obama Wasn't Wrong

    He was just using a Lancet estimate.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:47 AM | Comments (5)

    May 08, 2007

    Straightjacket Sales Set to Skyrocket

    Needless to say, I find this collective lunacy extremely depressing:

    So, according to the Rasmussen poll, 61% of self-described Democratic respondents believed that George Bush either knew about 9/11 in advance or are not sure if he knew. Only 39% said he didn't know.

    In other words, a supermajority of self-identified Democrats think that it is possible that the President knew about the 9/11 terror plot, and that he might have let it happen. I knew Bush Derangement Syndrome was running rampant on the far left wing, but this indicates that a massive majority of rank-and-file Democrats are either Truthers, or are open to the idea of being Truthers, and consider it possible that the President of the United States was a co-conspirator in terror attacks on his own country.

    I'd love to see Rasmussen poll Democrats to see if they think Karl Rove was actively involved in hatching the plot with KSM and al Qaeda. Then again, I probably wouldn't want to know the results.

    Ace sums it up:

    The media considers it crazy to believe that Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, had something to do with 9/11, and fights this insanity with every tool at its disposal, including outright deception.

    On the other hand, the media does not apparently consider it particularly hard to believe that George Bush, President of the United States, had something to do with 9/11. If they did consider such a notion beyond the pale, one would imagine they'd publicize (and implicity mock) those crazed liberals believing that our own President aided and abetted Osama bin Ladin.

    But of course they don't. Because it's simply not possible for a reasonble person to believe a sworn enemy of the US, known to have at least some ties with Al Qaeda, could have had a hand in the attacks, but a reasonable person could, according to the MSM, believe that a US President with no ties to Al Qaeda helped facillitate and perhaps even carry out the attacks.

    A "reality-based" community? Decidedly and perhaps dangerously not.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:34 AM | Comments (8)

    May 05, 2007

    Hack L.A. Times Reporter Smears Thompson

    It's rather pathetic how Tina Duant of the Los Angeles Times attempted to label Fred Thompson a racist for playing the role of a white supremacist in a handful of episodes of a crappy television series 19 years ago. The concept of "acting" seems to slip her mind.

    The Times has been losing readership and credibility for years for junk articles like this. I'm glad their doing their best to help that trend continue.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:48 AM | Comments (12)

    May 04, 2007

    Murtha's Mangled Memory

    Is anti-war Democrat Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) beginning to show signs of memory loss?

    As reported yesterday on the liberal Think Progress, Murtha said the following in an exchange with Chris Matthews in an exchange with Chris Matthews on MCNBC's Hardball (my bold):

    MATTHEWS: Do you think he'd actually sign that bill, or he would consider that hobbling him?

    MURTHA: Well, I am not sure. He made up his mind so early, I'm not sure he even read the bill. I mean, this is the problem with this spinning that goes on. They bring Petraeus back, purely a political move. Petraeus comes back here, doesn't talk to any of us. He only talks to the news media, and so forth, trying to sell this program. Bush was 64 percent when his mission — mission possible, and today he's 34 percent, so he's just turned the opposite. And this bill's not going to make any difference, just like what we say here makes little difference. What's going to count is what happens on the ground. The Iraqis are going to have to decide it themselves.

    MATTHEWS: You know, when you read Petraeus statements to the press corps — and I know you said he didn't talk to Congress, but they put out this statement. I read it in "The Weekly Standard" this week, which does have Petraeus's remarks in there. He does say that we're fighting the central front against al Qaeda in Iraq. Is that true?

    MURTHA: That's absolutely not true. That's an exaggeration...

    MATTHEWS: That's Petraeus saying that.

    MURTHA: That's Petraeus saying it. I just gave those comments to General Pace. I said, General — just 5, 10 minutes ago I gave them to General Pace. I said, General, these comments that General Petraeus made are absolutely inaccurate, according to the intelligence we have. Now, that's the kind of stuff he's saying, and that's why I say it was purely political.

    Now, when I say he didn't talk to Congress, he talked to a group of members. He didn't talk to the committees that have jurisdiction over this legislation.

    MATTHEWS: Well, why wouldn't he tell the truth? If his troops are over there getting killed — as you point out, we lost 100 guys this month, one of the worst months — worst month of the year — getting killed by Sunni insurgents and by militia people on the Shia side — why is he blaming it on al Qaeda?

    MURTHA: Chris...

    MATTHEWS: The people who blew up the World Trade Center. Why's he doing that?

    MURTHA: This whole — whole war, ever since it diverted the attention away from where al Qaeda started, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the war in Afghanistan, where we should have stayed, ever since that time, they've been trying to tie this into terrorism. All of us know there's terrorism all over the world...

    MATTHEWS: But he's not — but Congressman, he's not a PR man. He's not a flack for the White House. He's a general in the field. Why would he be...

    MURTHA: Hey, wait a minute.

    MATTHEWS: You're saying he's singing the song of the ideologues.

    MURTHA: I'm saying — I'm saying he came back here at the White House's request to purely make political statements. That's what I'm saying. There's no question in my mind about it.

    Perhaps there should be a few questions in John Murtha's mind, starting with why he would tell easily checked fabrications to Chris Matthews, Pennsylvania voters, and the American people at large.

    Yesterday, I sent an email to Baghdad asking about Murtha's pronouncement that Commanding General David Petraeus "doesn't talk to any of us," and his hastily re-calibrated statement, "Now, when I say he didn't talk to Congress, he talked to a group of members. He didn't talk to the committees that have jurisdiction over this legislation."

    I also sent along a link to this CNS News article, that cited a "A senior Defense Department official" as saying that not only did General Petraeus conduct conducted two 90-minute, top-secret level operations intelligence briefings for representatives and senators, but that the meetings were among the most heavily attended in recent memory, and that Petraeus personally provided briefings to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Murtha in conference calls.

    Col. Steve Boylan, Public Affairs Officer of Multinational Forces-Iraq Commanding General David Petraeus, sent me back the following in response (my bold):

    GEN Petraeus briefed the entire House of Representatives in closed session (so it could be classified) and had a good session with them. I was there to see it. The session was chaired by Cong Ike Skelton, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the committee that oversees the Dept of Defense (in place of Speaker Pelosi). Because Speaker Pelosi was unavailable, GEN Petraeus spoke to her (with Cong Murtha on the phone as well) for 30 minutes the day prior. He also briefed the entire Senate in closed session. The turnouts for both sessions were reportedly among the biggest ever seen. In the House it was over 260 members, many of them standing room only as well as many members sitting on the floor. Cong Murtha was present for the House session.

    Not only did John Murtha speak with General Petraeus for half an hour the day prior to the closed session, he also attended the closed session as well.

    By this account, consistent with the CNS News account, General Petraeus perhaps spent more time discussing the Iraq War with Congressman John Murtha than any other member of the House of Representatives.

    We should also take issue with other comments uttered by Murtha, in this exchange with Matthews from the transcript above:

    MATTHEWS: You know, when you read Petraeus statements to the press corps — and I know you said he didn't talk to Congress, but they put out this statement. I read it in "The Weekly Standard" this week, which does have Petraeus's remarks in there. He does say that we're fighting the central front against al Qaeda in Iraq. Is that true?

    MURTHA: That's absolutely not true. That's an exaggeration...

    MATTHEWS: That's Petraeus saying that.

    MURTHA: That's Petraeus saying it. I just gave those comments to General Pace. I said, General — just 5, 10 minutes ago I gave them to General Pace. I said, General, these comments that General Petraeus made are absolutely inaccurate, according to the intelligence we have. Now, that's the kind of stuff he's saying, and that's why I say it was purely political.

    To that and other comments made by Murtha denying that Iraq is al Qaeda's central front, Col Boylan issued the following:

    The assessment that Al Qaeda's central front is Iraq is not just GEN Petraeus'. It is shared by LTG Stan McCrystal, the Commanding General of the Joint Special Operations Command, the organization that most directly fights Al Qaeda; and, LTG McCrystal spend the vast majority of his time with us in Iraq overseeing that effort. The Director of the CIA shares this assessment too.
    Murtha

    Murtha can't remember the meetings he's attended, and somehow has a view of the war that doesn't match up with that of the reality faced by the military commanders most directly involved in fighting the, or that of our nation's intelligence agencies.

    Congressman Murtha, it's time to call your physician. Treatment options are available.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:16 AM | Comments (4)

    May 03, 2007

    The Republican Debate in Ten Words

    Romney looks it.
    McCain's blinky.
    Rudy flounders.
    Where is Fred?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:09 PM | Comments (10)

    Insurgency Declares Intent to Disarm

    And to think it only took 41 years.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

    Murtha Lies, Think Progress Falls For It Hook, Line, and Sinker

    From the braintrust at Think Progress:

    During an appearance on Hardball, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) slammed the White House for using Petraeus as a political prop. He said the decision to bring Petraeus back to the U.S. for a rare visit last week, days before Congress voted on its Iraq timeline legislation, was "purely a political move," pointing out that Petraeus made numerous media appearances but did not testify before Congress' armed services committees.


    And now an injection of reality from CNS News:

    Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) this week criticized Gen. David Petraeus for not meeting with members of Congress during a recent visit to Washington, D.C., to report on the status of operations in Iraq, but not only did the commander of Multinational Force - Iraq meet with hundreds of lawmakers, he personally briefed Murtha himself.

    Murtha told MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Tuesday, "They bring Petraeus back - purely political move. Petraeus comes back here. He doesn't talk to any of us. He only talks to the news media and so forth trying to sell this program."

    But a senior Defense Department official told Cybercast News Service that Petraeus personally briefed Murtha and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in an April 24 phone conference that lasted 20-30 minutes.

    The following day, Petraeus conducted two 90-minute, top-secret level operations intelligence briefings for representatives and senators.

    The first, to which all members of the House of Representatives had been invited, was attended by 250 congressmen, and the second was attended by 86 senators. After brief opening statements at the two briefings, Petraeus spent the remaining time answering questions from the congressmen in attendance.

    "These were two of the most widely attended operations intelligence briefings in recent memory," the Pentagon official said.

    Now, how likely do you think it is that "Nico," Think Progress, or the Congressman himself will admit that he boldly lied to Chris Matthews? Do you think that Think Progress will issue a correction? Do you think Mathews will criticize Murtha for lying to him?

    It would be nice, but I wouldn't suggest holding your breath for any of the above to occur.

    Update: An attempt to publish the link and an excerpt of the CNS article above to the Think Progress comments thread has apparently failed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:42 AM | Comments (4)

    April 27, 2007

    Another Police State Liberal Attempts to Subvert the Constitution

    The Second and Fourth Amendments?

    Toss them out the window.

    Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

    Second Amendment? Just ignore that.

    But Bill Clinton's former Ambassador to the Congo isn't done yet: now comes the police state. If this liberal has his way, kiss your Fourth Amendment search and seizure rights goodbye as well:

    The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

    Mr. Simpson's staggering suggestion to subvert the Bill of Rights is not the first we've heard in the past weeks, but coming from a former American diplomat who was presumably charged with acting within Constitutional bounds, it is among the most disturbing.

    Perhaps Simpson doesn't see the obvious irony that the Founders created the Second Amendment not to ensure hunting, but to protect American citizens from men precisely like himself.

    To dismantle the Second, as John Adams noted in "A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States":

    ...is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government.

    Patrick Henry warned:

    Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.

    And not a Founder, but still important, are the words of Supreme Court Associate Justice Joseph Story:


    The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

    Story is not to subtly noting that would-be tyrants (like Simpson) that attempt to run roughshod over America's Constitution, and attempt to overwhelm the people with the power of the State (in the guise of his noted "special police"), are inviting an armed, violent, and morally just reprisal to restore and retain those hard-won liberties.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:44 AM | Comments (52)

    Nintendo Border Patrol

    I guess this goes along with the "virtual arrests" and "virtual deportments."

    Notice that while they promise they "will be able to identify, detect and classify more than 95 percent of illegal entries with the virtual wall," they say absolutely nothing about actually arresting anyone.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:47 AM | Comments (2)

    April 26, 2007

    Race-Baiting Twits

    I don't know whether Chris Matthews or Elizabeth Edwards is the bigger idiot here per se, be as Edwards is trying to escort Silky Pony into the White House stable, I'd say it is probably her.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:17 PM | Comments (2)

    Harry Reid: No Clement Vallandingham

    Via the ever vigilant, all-knowing Allahpundit, calls for Democrat Harry Reid to resign for saying that the Iraq war is "lost".

    Says Rep. Duncan Hunter, a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee:

    "In my opinion Sen. Reid, having made that statement, which can only have a demoralizing effect on our troops and an effect of encouragement of the adversary, I think it would be appropriate for Sen. Reid to resign his position as the leader of the United States Senate," he said.

    It will never happen, of course, even as Reid stakes his claim as the modern-day Clement Vallandingham.

    Actually, that comparison isn't fair to Vallandingham.

    Vallandingham was always against the Civil War and was consistent in his position, even though that eventually led to him being tried in a military tribunal for "uttering disloyal sentiments," prison, and his eventual expulsion from the United States.

    Reid, on the other hand, was an advocate for going to war against Iraq, before he was against it.

    We stopped the fighting [in 1991] on an agreement that Iraq would take steps to assure the world that it would not engage in further aggression and that it would destroy its weapons of mass destruction. It has refused to take those steps. That refusal constitutes a breach of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the armed conflict.

    Addressing the US Senate
    October 9, 2002
    Congressional Record, p. S10145

    I find it interesting to note that Reid's 2002 justification for war against Iraq mirrors my own, and is entirely accurate, even to this day. As Reid noted, whether or not Iraq actually had WMDs was irrelevant; Saddam repeatedly violated the terms of the 1991 cease-fire.

    Reid voted to go to war, and most recently, was part of the unanimous Senate vote to confirm Lt. General David Petraeus to run the Iraq War exactly three months ago today.

    Since then, Reid has declared that he would not believe Petraeus if the General reported any progress in the Iraq War:

    BASH: You talked several times about General Petraeus. You know that he is here in town. He was at the White House today, sitting with the president in the Oval Office and the president said that he wants to make it clear that Washington should not be telling him, General Petraeus, a commander on the ground in Iraq, what to do, particularly, the president was talking about Democrats in Congress. He also said that General Petraeus is going to come to the Hill and make it clear to you that there is progress going on in Iraq, that the so-called surge is working. Will you believe him when he says that?

    REID: No, I don't believe him, because it's not happening. All you have to do is look at the facts.

    [Note: the above was pulled from a CNN "The Situation Room" transcript at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0704/23/sitroom.02.html, which has since gone missing]

    Harry Reid pushed for war against Iraq when that was the popular position. Now that the war is unpopular, he declares the war "lost" and pushes for defeat.

    On January 26, Harry Reid voted to confirm General David Petraeus to run the Iraq war, presumably basing his decision on Petraeus' capability and competence. Less than three months later, he publicly states that he will refuse to believe anything General Petraeus says that does not match his own weathervane opinion.

    Vallandingham was perhaps treasonous, but he was at the very least honest and consistent about his positions, even as he sought to wreck the future of the United States.

    We cannot say the same about Harry Reid.

    Update: Captain's Quarters notes The Five Myths of Harry Reid.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:55 AM | Comments (5)

    April 25, 2007

    Sometimes, He Makes Me Laugh

    Dana Milbank, that is, not his target, Dennis Kucinich:

    "I do not stand alone," Dennis Kucinich said as he stood, alone, in front of a cluster of microphones yesterday evening.

    The Ohio congressman, a Democratic presidential candidate, was holding a news conference outside the Capitol to announce that he had just filed articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney. But subsequent questioning quickly revealed that Kucinich had not yet persuaded any of his 434 colleagues to be a cosponsor, that he had not even discussed the matter with House Democratic leaders, and that he had not raised the subject with the Judiciary Committee.

    Kucinich did have one thing: a copy of the Declaration of Independence. And he was not afraid to read it. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," the aspiring impeachment manager read at the start of his news conference. He continued all the way through the bit about the right of the people to abolish the government.

    "These words from the Declaration of Independence are instructive at this moment," he said.

    A reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer encouraged USS Kucinich to contact planet Earth. "But Nancy Pelosi says this is not going anywhere," she pointed out.

    "Have you talked to her today?" Kucinich shot back.

    "Yes, I did," she replied.

    Kucinich had not expected that answer. "Then I would say I have not talked to her," he acknowledged.

    It was not an auspicious beginning for the impeachment of Richard B. Cheney.

    Notes Raleigh AP history and government teacher Betsy Newmark:

    It's rather surprising that he couldn't get even one other Democrat to go along - there must be quite a few who want to charge Cheney with all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors. Perhaps they just don't like being in the same news cycle with Kucinich.

    I also don't understand why he's reading the Declaration of Independence. It is the Constitution which is relevant for an impeachment. Is Kucinich preaching the necessity of revolution after Cheney's supposed "Long train of abuses and usurpations?" If so, wouldn't waiting a couple of years be a better plan than to begin a revolution? Or does Kucinich just not understand what he's reading?

    Enter a comically serious HuffPuffer:

    On Tuesday, Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Vice-President Cheney. There are three articles: manipulation of intelligence to deceive Congress and the American people, fabricating a threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction prior to the invasion of Iraq; manipulation of intelligence to deceive Congress and the American people about an alleged relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda prior to the invasion of Iraq; and threatening aggression against Iran, in violation of the U.N. Charter and the U.S. Constitution.

    (Kucinich seems to be one of the few Members of Congress aware that threatening to attack other countries is a violation of the U.N. Charter, a treaty to which the U.S. is signatory.)

    The author chided Milbank for his amusing dismissal of Kucinich, and even attempted to twist Milbank's article into an attack on women:

    From Mr. Milbank's aggressive journalism, we learn that Kucinich is "perhaps 5 feet 6 inches tall in shoes" and that "he approached the microphones, which nearly reached his eye level." We also learn that Kucinich was undeterred by "wind that ruffled his text and the few strands of his hair that were insufficiently weighted by Brylcreem."

    Feminists take note. It is not only women politicians who can expect to face irrelevant and inappropriate media commentary about their appearance. Apparently, as a male politician, if you oppose the imperial ambitions of the Washington pundit class too vigorously, you can be an honorary woman.

    Robert Naiman, the writer of this HuffPuff fluff, is quite serious, even if it reads more like the content of The Onion than a "serious" political blog. It makes you wonder just how much reality is left in the "reality-based" community.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:27 PM | Comments (2)

    April 23, 2007

    RIP: Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald

    Our thoughts and prayers go out this morning to the family, friends, and collegues of California Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald, who lost her battle with cancer yesterday.

    WaPo has the story.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:01 AM | Comments (1)

    April 20, 2007

    Temporary Safety

    It never ceases to amaze me how little self-avowed liberals are so purposefully ignorant about their own Constitution:

    Our famous Constitution, about which many of us are generally so proud, enshrines -- along with the right to freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly -- the right to own guns. That's an apples and oranges list if there ever was one.

    Not all of us are so proud and triumphant about the gun-guarantee clause. The right to free speech, press, religion and assembly and so on seem to be working well, but the gun part, not so much.

    The dolt who wrote this, Tom Plate, is not surprisingly the former editor of the Los Angeles Times.

    He is hardly alone.

    Another journalist, Walter Shapiro of Salon stated the following earlier this week:

    Fifteen unambiguous words are all that would be required to quell the American-as-apple-pie cycle of gun violence that has now tearfully enshrined Virginia Tech in the record book of mass murder. Here are the 15 words that would deliver a mortal wound to our bang-bang culture of death: "The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed."

    [snip]

    Looking at the Bill of Rights with more than two centuries' hindsight, it is simply irrational that firearms have a protected position on par with freedom of speech and religion. Were Americans -- liberal or conservative -- writing a Constitution completely from scratch today, they probably would agree that something akin to "freedom to drive" was more far important than the "right to bear arms." The rights of state militias (which many liberal legal theorists argue is the essence of the Second Amendment) are as much a throwback to an 18th century mind-set as restrictions on quartering soldiers in private homes during peacetime (the little-remembered Third Amendment).

    Alexander Hamilton, were he still alive today, may have chosen to respond to these craven abdications of responsibility by reiterating the following:

    To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.

    What Hamilton means, and both to Plate and Shaprio are too dim, too pampered, and yes, too cowardly to let cross their minds, is the fact that no system of government is perfect, including our own Republic. It is the very nature of government to attempt to consolidate power, usurping for itself the rights and powers afforded to other branches and levels of governments on some occasions, and always, always from the people themselves.

    It is because of the creeping pervasiveness and the promised tyranny of government (the same tyranny liberals constantly accuse the Executive of trying to implement on every other issue facing this nation, but noticeably fall silent on here) that arms must always be held by the people, for the people, as Noah Webster observed in "An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution."

    Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.

    The Second Amendment was never about hunting, or sportsmanship. The Second Amendment was, and still is, the singular Amendment guaranteeing all others. To dismantle the Second, as John Adams noted in "A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States,":

    ...is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government.

    As goes the Second Amendment, so does the United States of America itself. Without a "well regulated militia"--"regulated" meaning practiced and competent with arms, the "militia" recognized as all people of military age and capability--the United States falls.

    Noted Patrick Henry:

    Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.

    The Second Amendment of the Constitution was never about self defense from criminals. To the Founders, that right was inherent, provided by the Creator above. The purpose of the Second Amendment was to enshrine in this nation the capability to take this nation back by force from a corrupt government, overthrowing it if necessary.

    So wrote Supreme Court Associate Justice Joseph Story in "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States":

    The next amendment is: 'A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'

    "The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers...

    The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.(1) And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens, to be rid.

    It is no accident that Justice Story chose to use the word "palladium" to describe the critical importance of the Second Amendment, which is defined as:

    1. A safeguard, especially one viewed as a guarantee of the integrity of social institutions: the Bill of Rights, palladium of American civil liberties.
    2. A sacred object that was believed to have the power to preserve a city or state possessing it.

    The Second Amendment is our palladium, that sacred object that preserves our Republic as a nation of men instead of a nation of laws slaved to tyrants.

    Story accurately pegs Plate, Shapiro, and others that do not wish to be yoked with the responsibility of protecting themselves, or their nation. It is a burden too heavy for them to carry, a responsibility they wish to be rid of. To a man, their ilk ignores the lessons history would teach, and call for the power and responsibility to be handed to the very state that would ensnare them.

    They are sheep: fearful, bleating, unwilling to deal with the weighted cost of freedom. They would trade all their freedoms for the temporary illusion of safety.

    I think we know how the Founder might have responded to that sentiment.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:49 PM | Comments (12)

    Joe Biden: The Virginia Tech Massacre is the GOP's Fault

    I kid you not:

    Speaking at Al Sharpton's National Action Network event in New York, Biden said President Bush, Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove are responsible for what he called "the politics of polarization."

    Biden said Republicans have created an environment that brings bad things to the United States.

    "I would argue, since 1994 with the Gingrich revolution, just take a look at Iraq, Venezuela, Katrina, what's gone down at Virginia Tech, Darfur, Imus. Take a look. This didn't happen accidentally, all these things," he said.

    I'm surprised Biden didn't find time to work in bird flu, the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami, some 9/11 "truth," and John Edward's $400 haircut in there as well. Perhaps he's saving those for a rainy day.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:36 AM | Comments (3)

    April 19, 2007

    The Lyrical McCain

    Ah, how interesting...

    Another man — wondering if an attack on Iran is in the works — wanted to know when America is going to "send an air mail message to Tehran." McCain began his answer by changing the words to a popular Beach Boys song. "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran," he sang to the tune of Barbara Ann. "Iran is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. That alone should concern us but now they are trying for nuclear capabilities. I totally support the President when he says we will not allow Iran to destroy Israel."

    He stopped short of answering the actual question and did not say if he supports an invasion of Iran.

    I haven't been this amused by a sung answer to a political question since I spoofed Phil Collins in 2005 in a story about a famous Cuban boy with the headline, It's No Fun, Being an Illegal Elian.

    Now if would just launch into a redition of "Another one bites the dust" in reference to McCain-Feingold, I might just forgive him.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:38 AM | Comments (4)

    April 11, 2007

    Pelosi Diplomacy: Legitimizing Terrorism

    When Democrat Presidential candidates Clinton, Obama and Edwards dropped out of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate that was going to be co-sponsored by Fox News, many liberals crowed over the decision. It is their contention that Fox News is an "illegitimate" news source (or a "propaganda machine," or not even a news outlet at all. Someone should tell Nielsen), and that if these candidates had answered the questions provided by the CBCI in a televised debate on Fox News, it would "legitimize" the network.

    Their central argument seems to be that if these Democrat candidates appeared on Fox, that their very presence would legitimize the news network.

    Using that same logic, what then, should they make of this?

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, just back from a trip to Syria that sparked sharp criticism from Republicans and the Bush administration, suggested Tuesday that they may be interested in taking another diplomatic trip - to open a dialogue with Iran.

    The Democratic speaker from San Francisco and Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were asked at a press conference in San Francisco Tuesday whether on the heels of their recent trip to the Middle East they would be interested in extending their diplomacy in the troubled region with a visit to Iran.

    "Speaking just for myself, I would be ready to get on a plane tomorrow morning, because however objectionable, unfair and inaccurate many of (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's) statements are, it is important that we have a dialogue with him,'' Lantos said. "Speaking for myself, I'm ready to go -- and knowing the speaker, I think that she might be.''

    Pelosi did not dispute that statement, and noted that Lantos -- a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust -- brought "great experience, knowledge and judgment" to the recent bipartisan congressional delegation trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia in addition to Syria.

    Pelosi has already been hammered for undermining U.S. foreign policy and possibly committing a felony when she visited Syrian President Bashir Assad, leader of a Baathist dictatorship that serves as a conduit for weapons bound for terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and is a regime that is implicated in the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister.

    Not content with botching her last and possibly illegal attempt to create her own foreign policy separate from that of the official position of the United States, Pelosi seems open to the idea of visiting Iran, a brutal mullacracy that provides munitions and training to terrorist groups, whose officials will be indicted for murder, a regime that has conclusively shipped a significant quantity of weapons into Iraq that have killed American soldiers.

    Apparently, the double standard is this:

    Liberals are solidly behind the idea of boycotting a news network to avoid giving them legitimacy, but they are in favor of defying their own government's foreign policy to lend legitimacy to yet another terrorist state that has sponsored attacks on our allies and are actively engaged in trying to kill U.S. soldiers.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:03 AM | Comments (37)

    April 10, 2007

    Our Would-Be Fearless Democratic Leaders Run Away From... A Television Network?

    It seems that two more Democrats have fled the unspeakable horrors of a debate on Fox News.

    I'm not sure that re-establishing that they will "bravely run away" at the first sign of a differing thought is the message they will want to keep reinforcing, is it?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:11 AM | Comments (19)

    April 09, 2007

    The Agony of Queen Elizabeth

    Poor Elizabeth Edwards.

    I'm quite certain that I, like Mrs. Edwards, wouldn't feel comfortable living with a neighbor who is quick to pull a firearm on trespassers. That is just one of many reasons why I wouldn't live anywhere near a contemporary of hers, Paul Hackett.

    But the questionable (and perhaps illegal) use of a firearm by Edward's neighbor seems to be only part of her gripe against him.

    Edwards seems far more concerned that Monty Johnson, a "rabid, rabid Republican," refuses to clean up his "slummy" property just to spite her lavish 28,000 square-foot mansion.

    How terribly gauche of him.

    It seems that it is Queen Elizabeth's opinion that nearby property owners have a duty to suitably improve the aesthetic appeal of the neighborhood now that she has graced them with her presence. That Johnson claims to be a working man with a limited income to spend on property improvements doesn’t seem a worthwhile excuse.

    Perhaps the lack of proper deference by their neighbors is the reason that the other home for the Edwards family is a million-dollar beach house on private island, a gated community that won't allow blue collar riff raff like Monty Johnson to spoil the ocean views.

    John and Elizabeth Edwards talk about two Americas. It's too bad they don't have enough room for working class people in either one of them.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:05 PM | Comments (6)

    April 07, 2007

    Edwards Turns Tail and Runs... Again

    How exceedingly brave:

    Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday pulled out of a second debate co-hosted by Fox News Channel, saying the cable network has a conservative slant.

    The Edwards campaign said it will not attend the September 23 debate in Detroit hosted by Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, but officials added that Edwards is "looking forward" to a different debate hosted by the institute and CNN in South Carolina in January 2008.

    "We believe there's just no reason for Democrats to give Fox a platform to advance the right-wing agenda while pretending they're objective," said Jonathan Prince, Edwards' deputy campaign manager.

    Thank you, "Senator Gone," for once again showing us your true colors.

    It's quite telling when a man who seeks to hold the most powerful political job on this planet is afraid to show up at a debate because the "political slant" of the television network hosting the event is too intimidating.

    Not surprisingly, many nations on this planet are even more intimidating than television networks. A candidate that cannot handle a few hours in a television studio is obviously incapable of guiding us through any crisis more dire than a shortage of hair care products.

    I thank Edwards for showing this nation his inabilty to handle even such minor issues so early in his candidacy.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:34 PM | Comments (21)

    April 04, 2007

    Return to Sender

    Okay, I'll admit it... Nancy "International Woman of Diplomacy" Pelosi is much more entertaining than Denny whats-his-name ever was. Hastert was relatively quiet, and didn't give anyone much of a reason to talk about him as he did his job.

    Nancy? A veritable comedy of errors:

    Pelosi, who met in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad over the objections of US President George W. Bush, said she brought a message to Assad from Olmert saying that Israel was ready for peace talks.

    "We were very pleased with the reassurances we received from the president [Assad] that he was ready to resume the peace process. He was ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel," Pelosi said after meeting Assad.

    She said the meeting with the Syrian leader "enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as well."

    According to officials in the Prime Minister's Office, however, this was not what transpired during her meeting with Olmert.

    The officials said Olmert had told Pelosi that he thought her trip to Damascus was a mistake, and that when she asked - nevertheless - whether he had a message for Assad, Olmert said Syria should first stop supporting terrorism and "act like a normal country," and only then would Israel be willing to hold discussions.

    The first part of that message, the officials said, was lost in what was reported from Damascus on Wednesday.

    Madame Speaker ignored the advice of two heads of state in order to meet with a terrorist-supporting dictator, and once she met with said dictator, she delivered a message so inaccurate to was necessary to publicly correct her.

    Pelosi has botched her unwanted and unwelcome attempt at international diplomacy, but she did manage to at least get Israel and Syria to agree on one thing... her incompetence.

    Update: In an editorial this morning, the Washington Post blasts Nancy Pelosi's foolish shuttle diplomacy:

    ...Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda.

    ... Mr. Bush said that thanks to the speaker's freelancing Mr. Assad was getting mixed messages from the United States. Ms. Pelosi responded by pointing out that Republican congressmen had visited Syria without drawing presidential censure. That's true enough -- but those other congressmen didn't try to introduce a new U.S. diplomatic initiative in the Middle East. "We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," Ms. Pelosi grandly declared.

    Never mind that that statement is ludicrous: As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president. Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush's military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi's attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish.

    Ed Morrissey also steps away from his normally measured tones at Captains Quarters and fires a broadside at Pelosi and the Democrats:

    The Democrats, led by Pelosi, have tried to undermine Bush for years. Now that they have the majority in Congress, they can give full vent to their schemes. The efforts of the past couple of months show that the Democrats want to turn the Constitution upside down, strip the executive branch of its power, and make Congress the supreme power in the American system.

    Well, sorry, but that's the British system. Perhaps Pelosi would be more comfortable there or in Canada, but here in the US, the elected President has all of the Constitutional authority to conduct foreign policy and command the military. That remains true even when Congress dislikes the policies in both areas.

    For those doubting whether or not the Post editorial and Morrissey's blog entry are accurate in criticising Pelosi and her fellow Democrats for attempting to usurp powers not rightfully theirs, I have a little document I'd like to direct you to, called the Constitution of the United States, specificially, Article II, Section 2, which enumerate the powers of the Presidency:

    Section 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.


    He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.


    The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.

    The two selections I placed in bold above show that the President, and only the President, has the authority to command the armed forces and appoint ambassadors to conduct U.S. foreign policy.

    Article I, Section 8 defines the scope of the powers of the Congress. The current Democratic Congress, as both Morrissey and the Post note, are attempting to stretch to (and perhaps past) the breaking point the powers afforded them by the Constitution of the United States.

    Where this will lead is anyone's guess.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:16 PM | Comments (17)

    More Democrat Maturity

    As if the lynching threats issued against Karl Rove this morning weren't enough proof of liberal immaturity, Democrats running the House Armed Services Committee have determined how they can easily end the Global War on Terror... by simply excising the phrase:

    The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from the 2008 defense budget.

    This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because the committee’s Democratic leadership doesn’t like the phrase.

    A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says the 2008 bill and its accompanying explanatory report that will set defense policy should be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.”

    The political reasoning behind this Democrat initiative is clear: by limiting the description to reference specific operations, Democrats can attempt to ignore the essential nature of the wider war against terrorism sponsored by both Sunni and Shia Islamists.

    This is simply another example of Democrats attempting to "wish away" the reality that this conflict is not confined to specific fronts or to a specific enemy, but rather, an entrenched set of ideologies that will take far longer to dismantle.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:14 AM | Comments (4)

    Childish

    Protesting political figures is acceptable behavior.

    Pelting them is not:

    White House Advisor Karl Rove was the target of a protest on the American University campus Tuesday night, NBC 4 reported.

    Rove was on the campus to talk to the College Republicans, but when he got outside more than a dozen students began throwing things at him and at his car, an American University spokesperson said.

    I'm rather disappointed by the antics of these children, who followed up this part of their tantrum by lying down in front of Rove's car until security bodily removed them. No one was arrested in the incident. It is uncertain if any might have been given a "time-out" by campus police.

    Update: I'm closing the comments on this thread, as liberals coming in from Salon's Blog Report have made several comments wishing far worse treatment to the body of Karl Rove (roasting on a spit in one example; prayers that he would be lynched in two others. And yes, I have screen caps and IP addresses).

    I've got better things to do with my morning than watch liberals issue empty frothing threats that justify the contempt so many people have for them.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:18 AM | Comments (2)

    April 02, 2007

    Vermont Plots Succession From Union

    I say we let them.

    war_protester

    No War for ice cream!

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:45 AM | Comments (1)

    March 29, 2007

    Former Cheif Of Staff Says Gonzales Was Involved in DOJ Firings

    I can't claim that I've been following the story of Attorney General Gonzales and the U.S. District Attorney firings case much, as I've had other things I find personally more interesting to discuss. That said, I've scanned the headlines, and today's testimony by the AG's former Cheif of Staff is casting fresh doubts on Gonzales' memory at best, and his honesty at worst:

    The former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified today that contrary to Mr. Gonzales’s earlier assertions, the attorney general was involved in discussions to fire United States attorneys.

    "I don't think the attorney general's statement that he was not involved in any discussions about U.S. attorney removals is accurate," the former Gonzales aide, D. Kyle Sampson, said under questioning at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

    "I don't think it's accurate," Mr. Sampson repeated under questioning by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel’s ranking Republican. "I think he's recently clarified it. But I remember discussing with him this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign, and I believe that he was present at the meeting on Nov. 27."

    It was disclosed last week that Justice Department documents showed Mr. Gonzales to be present at the Nov. 27, 2006, session in which the firing of federal prosecutors was discussed. That disclosure seemed to contradict Mr. Gonzales’s assertions at a March 13 news conference that he was not involved in talks about letting the prosecutors go.

    I said a few weeks ago that I don't know if the issue of the dismissals is important or not, but if he's lying or has severe memory problems, either would seem to mean he is unfit to continue in his role as Attorney General.

    At this point, whether the firings were legitimate or not seems inconsequential. If the United States Attorney General cannot adequately and competently defend himself over an issue that doesn't seem to be remotely criminal, he hardly seems fit to defend the laws of this nation.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:15 PM | Comments (3)

    March 28, 2007

    Feinstein: As Corrupt as They Come

    If a story breaking tonight by Metroactive is correct, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California should consider calling Martha Stewart for advice on how to decorate her prison cell:

    Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.

    As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design. She regularly took junkets to military bases around the world to inspect construction projects, some of which were contracted to her husband's companies, Perini Corp. and URS Corp.

    It will be interesting to see how this story develops.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:44 PM | Comments (13)

    Stalking the Dying

    It seems to be a new trend for some with particularly low moral fiber.

    From liberals celebrating that White House Spokesman Tony Snow has cancer (see here from Tom Elia, and comments captured here from the Washington Post), to a particuarly insane former Los Angeles teacher (also a liberal) by the name of Eliot Stein tormenting the fans and daughter of Cathy Seipp as she lay dying by pretending to be her on a similar web site with her name in the URL, and renoucing her life's work.

    For once, I simply lack the words to describe how deplorably monsterous some of those on the political left have become.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:38 PM | Comments (5)

    March 26, 2007

    A Different Second Amendment

    Coming across on Drudge:

    SENATE STAFFER BUSTED FOR CARRYING WEBB'S LOADED GUN... Phillip Thompson, executive assistant to Senator James Webb (D-VA ), has been arrested by Capitol Hill Police on Monday for 'inadvertently' holding the senator's loaded gun, according to a person close to the investigation. A Senate staffer reports that Thompson was arrested for carrying the gun in a bag through security into a Senate office building while the Senator was parking his car. Thompson was booked for carrying a pistol without a license (CPWL) and for possessing unregistered ammunition. According to congressional rules, congressmen and senators, not staff, are allowed to have a gun on federal property. Developing...

    Let me see if I understand this:

    Congressmen and Senators can bring firearms into heavily-protected federal buildings guarded by permanent on-duty police officers, but residents of Washington, DC are not allowed to have weapons to defend themselves or their families in their homes.

    Nope, no double standard here.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:44 PM | Comments (8)

    Ted Rall: Kill the All

    In a cartoon ostensibly about the options for Iraq available to General David Petraeus, cartoonist Ted Rall states in one panel:

    Hate to admit it, but Saddam knew what he was doing after all. Too bad we had to hang the bastard!

    What did Rall's Saddam suggest?

    Troublemakers, eh? Kill them. Kill their families. Kill everyone who's ever met them.

    Rall must not have had room in the panel for "...and let God sort them out," though it certainly seems implied.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:10 PM | Comments (2)

    The Army's Worst Recruiter

    Look past the overwrought editorializing of Pam Spaulding to focus on the anti-gay and probably racist tirade ascribed to U.S. Army recruiter, Sgt. Marcia Ramode, from an official army.mil email address.

    Ramode is required to display professional courtesy, even if she fervently disagrees with someone else's opinions or lifestyle. If these emails are legitimate, then Ramode should face a disciplinary hearing, and I suspect, a court martial.

    The irony of this, of course, is that the person Ramode was attacking in these emails could hardly be a less professional soldier than Ramode herself.

    Update: A certain liberal buffoonist apparently has reading comprehension problems, and cites the closing paragraph of this post to say saying I'm attacking the gay man who was the target of Sgt. Ramode's tirades.

    Perhaps being "reality-based" means, in his mind, that he can simply make up whatever meaning he wants out of what someone else writes (it sure seems to work for Glenn Ryan Ellers Wilson Thomas Ellensberg Greenwald), but he has his facts completely turned around.

    Those of us with a reasonable grasp of conversational English language might note that the comment closing the post above criticizes Sgt. Ramode for being very unprofessional, and that the gay civilian she was arguing with would make a better soldier than she.

    Somehow, this is an "attack." I guess liberals consider the insinuation that someone might be a decent soldier to be offensive.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:41 AM | Comments (9)

    March 22, 2007

    Edwards to Suspend Campaign... or Not

    So says The Politico, which seems to have been overwhelmed by a pair of links from Drudge.

    John Edwards is suspending his campaign for President, and may drop out completely, because his wife has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that sickened her in 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, an Edwards friend told The Politico.

    "At a minimum he's going to suspend" the campaign, the source said. "Nobody knows precisely how serious her recurrence is. It'll be another couple of days before there's complete clarity."

    Other news outlets, including Fox News and CNN, are running screamers that report otherwise. It looks like The Politico jumped the gun.

    CNN gets their story posted first:

    Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Thursday his wife's cancer had returned but his bid for the White House will go on.

    John Edwards said tests this week had shown his wife, Elizabeth, had cancer in a rib on her right side. He said the cancer is treatable but not curable.

    Elizabeth Edwards said she was "incredibly optimistic" and said her expectations about the future were unchanged.

    John Edwards will apparently continue his doomed (okay, perhaps not the best word) Presidential campaign, even though his wife Elizabeth appears to have had a resurgence of cancer.

    Frankly, I don't know whether to commend them for their courage as a family in trying to push on with their lives throught the cancer's return, or whether the candidate should be condemned for continuing an unlikely run despite Elizabeth's incurable cancer coming out of remission.

    In any event, I'll be praying for Elizabeth Edwards tonight, hoping that God spares her from this cancer, and what appears to be her husband's naked ambition.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:47 AM | Comments (9)

    March 20, 2007

    DOJ Document Dump

    The House Judiciary Committee has posted more than 3,000 emails released by the Justice Department in regards to the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys by the Justice Department.

    I don't have the time (nor the inclination) to dig through the documents, but maybe you do.

    The documents are posted, and more will be posted, on the House Judiciary Committee web site in the right hand column in PDF format, 50 emails per PDF. If you find anything interesting, please post your findings in the comments. Please provide the text you cite, what you think it means, and which PDF document it came from.

    This story has certainly evolved into a scandal, but for all the embarrassment and grandstanding, I still don't see where anything illegal has occurred. Have I just not been following this closely enough?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:46 AM | Comments (7)

    Choosing Victims

    Kristin Collins of the Raleigh, NC News & Observer is all about feelings today, in a near-hysterical lament about the impact of immigration enforcement on local illegal alien families. Pardon me while I grab a tissue:

    Maricruz and her husband had lived illegally in the United States so long she had almost forgotten it was a crime.

    Then, on Jan. 24, her husband disappeared.

    U.S. immigration officials arrested him and 20 other workers at Smithfield Foods' gigantic Bladen County slaughterhouse. They drove him to Georgia and locked him up as an illegal immigrant.

    You know Kristin, you just aren't making a strong enough case for their victimhood. Could you try a little harder?

    Yeah, now this is what I'm talking about:

    Maricruz said it was well-known in her village near Acapulco, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, that there were well-paying jobs at the Bladen County plant. Two of her brothers had already made their way to Tar Heel and were working for Smithfield.

    In Mexico, they lived with her parents -- a dozen people in a two-room house. Her husband earned money picking crops. The pay at Smithfield started at about $8 an hour. To them, it was an incredible sum.

    They rented an apartment in the Robeson County town of Lumberton, about 100 miles south of Raleigh. Eight years ago they had a son, Andy, a U.S. citizen who has never seen Mexico.

    Maricruz got a part-time job cleaning rooms at a hotel. Juan enrolled in English classes. They joined a Catholic church. They spent weekends with their extended family, all of whom lived within a 20-mile radius.

    They regularly sent money to their families in Mexico, paying for their daughter to enroll in a university there. They started paying on a piece of land in Mexico, so they could one day return.

    Maricruz said she never worried about their immigration status. She seemed only vaguely aware that their residency in North Carolina was illegal and said she didn't realize, until her husband's arrest, that they could be deported.

    And then, on that Wednesday in January, Juan didn't arrive to pick her up from work. Smithfield officials told her only that her husband no longer worked there, she said.

    Eight days after his disappearance, Juan called from Georgia's Stewart Detention Center.

    "He told me not to cry," Maricruz said, "that he was OK."

    But they do cry

    A few weeks after the arrests, a group of families gathered in a Catholic church in Red Springs to tell their stories. Children played in the corners. Teenagers talked of their fears that their mothers would also be taken. Wives cried at the thought of returning to Mexico. Parents pleaded for the return of their grown children.

    All said they had no idea why their family members had been chosen for arrest from the plant's more than 5,000 workers, about half of whom are Hispanic. All, including Maricruz, said their relatives were longtime Smithfield employees who had never been convicted of a crime.

    Now, that's how you establish a good victimhood piece. Establish the "American Dream" aspects of their lives, while overlooking as much as possible the fact that they are criminally in this country. Collins refuse to ask the obvious question: How can these "victims" pay a coyote to smuggle them across the border (mentioned elsewhere in the article), buy false birth certificates and social security cards, and then claim of the woman she profiles:

    She seemed only vaguely aware that their residency in North Carolina was illegal and said she didn't realize, until her husband's arrest, that they could be deported.

    Kristin Collins isn't a reporter looking to find answers to obvious questions. She is an advocate transparently interested in promoting a cause.

    To advocate for her cause, Collins overlooks stories that have been of far more importance to her English-speaking readers. That or perhaps Collins doesn’t know two other writers at the N&O, Thomas McDonald and Marti McGuire, who wrote recently. about an illegal alien that killed a father and son in a hit-and-run accident that saw a father and his nine-year-old son burned beyond recognition. The killer, Luciano Tellez, had twice been convicted of drunk driving in North Carolina, but had not been deported. Leeanna Newman was killed by another drunk illegal behind the wheel on Feb 6. Illegals account for 5-percent of NC's population, and yet they account for 18-percent of our DWI arrests and a string of recent deaths. It is an epidemic Collins ignores to promote her chosen cause.

    This isn’t professional journalism. This is naked advocacy supporting criminal behavior.

    Collins goes all out to get one side of the story.

    The illegal alien families she profiles are allowed to be victims. Those that have been killed by illegals driving drunk apparently are not.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:58 AM | Comments (11)

    March 17, 2007

    Wilson Outed Plame?

    Sweetness & Light has a fascinating chronology posted this morning that suggests that it was Joe Wilson himself that "outed" the identity of his non-covert wife, CIA analyst Plame, in an attempt to lend credibility to the Niger story he was trying to pitch to various national media outlets, who at the time, apparently didn't see his story as being credible enough to publish.

    I haven't followed the story very much even though I know others are completely enthalled with it, so tell me: is there anything wrong with this chronology?

    Or did a publicity-hungry Joe Wilson "out" his own wife?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:59 AM | Comments (15)

    March 16, 2007

    Sockpuppet Censorship

    Oh, the joys of being Greenwald!

    In an entry to his blog on Salon.com yesterday, noted sock-puppeteer Glenn Ryan Ellers Wilson Thomas Ellensberg Greenwald attacked Charles Johnson, the face of the "pony-tailed jazz guitarist/web designer 9/11 liberal" stereotype so commonly associated with modern conservatism.

    After briefly mention other denizens of the riech-wing establishment, Ellers Thomas chastised Johnson for comments left by frequent visitors in a post to Johnson's rather obscure blog about nauseated footballs.

    Wrote Ryan Ellensberg:

    But commenters at Little Green Footballs have not only expressed surprise, but outright support, for Mohammed's assassination plot against a former U.S. President. They are out in droves expressing sorrow that Al Qaeda did not have the opportunity to carry out its plot.

    Let us first recall that LGF's Charles Johnson was one of the leaders of the Outrage Brigade driving the big "story" -- that made it into virtually every national media outlet -- of how anonymous HuffPost commenters expressed sorrow that the bombing in Afghanistan did not result in Dick Cheney's death. In her post that spawned the media coverage, Michelle Malkin touted Johnson's righteous condemnation that "this kind of sick, twisted thinking is everywhere in the 'progressive' blogosphere...And it's even sicker than it appears at first glance, because many of these freaks want to see Cheney dead so that he can't become president if someone assassinates President Bush."

    Yet here are multiple comments from Johnson's standard, regular followers -- all of whom have to register as LGF users, a device Johnson uses to ban commenters of whom he disapproves -- expressing explicit support for Al Qaeda's plot against President Carter:

    GREWTEG, the author of the best-selling How Would a Patriot Act? (who answered his own question by moving to another country) then provided screenshots of seven comments from six commenters, pulled from a comment thread presently 474 comments long. In the part-time Brazilian's defense, he probably completed his Salon.com entry several hours before his 10:14 AM posting time, meaning he was cherry-picking through a smaller, more representative number of comments, which at the time he completed his article was only made up of about 461 comments.

    The comments, other than the 454 or so he ignored, are devastating.

    The first two commenters, "buzzsawmonkey" (clearly a relative of manbearpig) and "blame canada" are in favor, at least rhetorically, of allowing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to finish alleged assassination plots against former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

    The next three commenters--well, two news ones, and manbearpig buzzsawmonkey again--repeat the theme.

    Glenn Wilsonberg then states:

    And more commenters than one can chronicle offered the "justification" for murdering Carter; it's the same "rationale" previously provided by John Hinderaker: namely, Carter is on the side of Islamic Terrorists:

    He then posts the two he/they could chronicle.

    Not content to cherry-pick these seven comments from roughly 461 as being representative of the commenters, GREWTEG then decides that since Johnson hasn't deleted these comments, that he must therefore, ipso facto, QED, E Pluribus Unum, and carte blache, agree with each and every one of them! (my bold below)

    Can we crank up the outraged media stories? How long do you think it will be before we hear from Howard Kurtz with a front-page Washington Post story, Wolf Blitzer and Sean Hannity with dramatic television coverage? Having blog commenters cheer on the assassination plots of U.S. officials is big, big, big news, we recently learned.

    Here, one of the largest right-wing blog communities which pretends to be opposed to Al Qaeda is expressing support for Al Qaeda murder plots against former U.S. Presidents. The significance is overwhelming and self-evident, and many American journalists have shown how commendably eager they are to transcend partisan differences and rise up in righteous condemnation against this sort of "sick" bile.

    And, several important factors distinguish this story from the HuffPost story, making it more meaningful. Unlike Huffington Post, which deleted the comments in question, Johnson has left them on his blog. Even more significantly, Johnson actively and regularly deletes comments he does not like, which lends some credibility to the notion that he approves of these comments, or at least does not find them sufficiently offensive to delete them, the way he does with scores of other comments.

    Ah-Hah!

    Take that reich-wingers!

    Because Johnson does not censor each and every comment on his blog, he is therefore guilty of copious amounts of non-censorship, clearly a hanging crime under the Brazilian-American Sockpuppet Speech Act of 1798.

    As we well know, responsible citizenship requires copious amounts of censorship, from censoring the networks allowed to carry debates, to stipulating acceptable public appearances by public servants.

    By allowing comments on his blog that may not match his own views, Johnson clearly goes beyond the boundaries of acceptable discourse.

    What does he think this is, a free country?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:35 AM | Comments (3)

    BDS-CV

    Charles Krauthammer has a brutal column up in today's Washington Post called Diagnosis Cheney, focusing on a hit piece by Michelle Cottle in the liberal New Republic. The thrust of Cottle's article, apparently, is an attempt to diagnose the Vice President as being mentally ill because of his history of cardiac disease.

    Krauthammer, a real psychiatrist in addition to being a political columnist, guts the "evidence" provided by Cottle, evidence that is so flimsy that any coherent layman would readily recognize as political, and not psychiatric in nature.

    Well, that isn't exactly true. Krauthammer does amusingly suggest that the 1,900 word New Republic article may reveal an underlying syndrome from which Cottle may be suffering.

    I was at first inclined to pass off Cottle's piece as a weird put-on -- when people become particularly deranged about this administration, it's hard to tell -- but her earnest and lengthy piling on of medical research about dementia and cardiovascular disease suggests that she is quite serious.

    And supremely silly. Such silliness has a pedigree, mind you. It is in the great tradition of the 1964 poll of psychiatrists that found Barry Goldwater clinically paranoid. Goldwater having become over the years the liberals' favorite conservative (because of his libertarianism), nary a word is heard today about him being mentally ill or about that shameful election-year misuse of medical authority by the psychiatrists who responded to the poll. The disease they saw in Goldwater was, in fact, deviation from liberalism, which remains today so incomprehensible to some that it must be explained by resort to arterial plaques and cardiac ejection fractions.

    If there's a diagnosis to be made here, it is this: yet another case of the one other syndrome I have been credited with identifying, a condition that addles the brain of otherwise normal journalists and can strike without warning -- Bush Derangement Syndrome, Cheney Variant.

    If memeorandum.com is correct, there has thus far been three blog entries posted on the Krauthammer column, with conservative responses provided by Betsy Newmark and Sister Toldjah to date, with an post by liberal Don Q at TPM Cafe be the only attempt at a liberal response thus far.

    And an amusing post it is, with Don trotting out another long-running platitude in rebuttal to Krauthammer, one that can best be summarized as, "because of the hypocrisy!" (copyright Jeff Goldstein):

    From Don Q:

    But you know, psycho- I mean psychiatrist-columnist Krauthammer himself likes to conduct remote diagnoses. Back in May 2004, Al Gore called on Rumsfeld and Tenet to resign, and criticized the conduct of the war in Iraq.

    And our buddy Krauthammer, on Fox News with Brit Hume, said that Al Gore was "off his lithium." Lithium, of course, is used to treat heavy mental conditions like bipolar disorder.

    Don't you see the obvious brilliance of Don Q? Krauthammer is a hypocrite because, he, too, made a long-distance diagnosis!

    But Don Q's analysis really isn't that intelligent, is it?

    Whether you look at this example, or others that he cites, Don purposefully conflates Krauthammer's flippant metaphorical comments as a political columnist into being serious psychiatric evaluations, which they clearly and decidedly are not meant to be.

    Far from showing Krauthammer to be a hypocrite, his post merely goes to show that Don Q lacks the basic mental agility to note that Krauthammer's political commentary and his psychiatric practice are two distinct facets of an accomplished multi-dimensional life. To accomplish his political goals, Don Q purposefully ignores reality to promote his agenda, which amusingly enough, is precisely what Krauthammer catches Cottle doing.

    Perhaps this suggests that Don Q should quit tilting at columnists, and see a professional to diagnose his own condition, which seems to be Bush Derangement Syndrome—Krauthammer Variant.

    I jest, of course.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:37 AM | Comments (2)

    March 15, 2007

    Lawbreaker?

    It matters little to me who is in power at the time, but we need to have a unified national voice, and that means the offical federal government representatives, whoever they are at the time, should be the only ones negotiating with foreign powers on behalf of the United States. Period.

    I'm not sure that what Howard Dean admits to is illegal, but to my layman's eye, his actions seem dangerously close (h/t phin).

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:48 PM | Comments (6)

    Emails Suggest Attorney Firings Were Legit

    So says Patterico:

    These e-mails confirm my conclusion from yesterday: the media is manufacturing a phony scandal out of these firings, and piggybacking it onto the genuine scandal of the Justice Department’s misleading testimony to Congress about the responsibility for the firings. If these e-mails are given a fair reading, they support the idea that U.S. Attorneys were pushed out largely for legitimate reasons relating to the performance of the USAs in question.

    It is starting to sound like this furor here is probably more hype than substance. Not that this will placate or convince the more rabid denizens on the far left, mind you, who hold the Bush Adminstration personally responsible for 9/11, global warming, and cooties.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:56 AM | Comments (10)

    Edwards Campaign Not Poisoned; World Indifferent

    I can't for the life of me figure out why someone thought John Edwards was worthy of even a fake anthrax attack, but all the same, it happened yesterday at his campaign headquarters in Chapel Hill:

    The white powder in an envelope discovered Wednesday at the national headquarters of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards did not contain anthrax. The campaign office was reopening today, Deputy Campaign Manager Jonathan Prince said.

    “The test results of the white powdery substance received yesterday have come back negative, and the authorities have informed us that it is safe to return to the office," Prince said in a statement this morning.

    [snip]

    A woman working in Edwards' campaign office in Southern Village found the powder at 4 p.m. as she opened mail for the former senator. She immediately threw the white legal-size envelope into a nearby mail bin and rushed to wash her hands, said Jane Cousins, a spokeswoman for the Chapel Hill police.

    Police were called to the office at 410 Market St. in the mix of offices, shops and homes in the southern Chapel Hill community. Federal, county and regional investigators were called to assist.

    By late Wednesday, the envelope had been taken to the parking lot of the Chapel Hill Police Department several miles away on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

    White powder in letters has been associated with anthrax since an attack in 2001 killed five people and sickened 17. The substance was mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

    The Edwards campaign worker did not know to whom the envelope was addressed or where it was from, investigators said. Chapel Hill police said they didn't know whether there was any written message in the envelope.

    To date, I’ve seen no mention of this story outside of the local media or in the larger blogs. I guess a fake anthrax attack on Edwards just isn’t worth commenting on.

    I've written the several of the law enforcement agencies investigating this incident to see if they could provide further information about the attack. Specifically, I've asked if there was a note or letter in the envelope communicating a possible motive for the attack, and I've also asked whether the letter came through the U.S. Mail or a courier service, such as FedEx or UPS. I also asked if the letter bore a postmark or originating address that might indicate where the letter was mailed from.

    I'll update this post if they respond.

    Update: The FBI has responded:

    The FBI is conducting a federal investigation regarding the suspicious letter sent to the office of John Edwards. We are investigating for any potential WMD issues/violations, and due to its ongoing status, no further comments are being provided at this time.

    This is a joint, cooperative investigation between the FBI, Chapel Hill Police Department, Chapel Hill Fire Department, and the Orange County Public Health Department.

    I imagine that the other agencies involved will also refuse comment while the investigation is on-going.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:19 AM | Comments (2)

    March 14, 2007

    On the Gonzalez Mess

    While I've tried to keep up with my reading on the subject, you might note that I haven't posted yet on the U.S. Attorney's story. Quite frankly, it has me confused over whether it is really important or not, but I feel somewhat better this morning when I discovered (via Ann Althouse blogging at Instapundit), that the far more capable legal mind of Orin Kerr is also unsure:

    On a more serious note, I haven't written about the U.S. Attorney's story because I'm having a hard time figuring out just how big a deal it is. Parts of it are obviously very troubling: I was very disturbed to learn of the Domenici calls, for example. More broadly, I have longrunning objections to the extent to which DOJ is under White House control, objections that this story helps bring to the fore (although my objections are based on my views of sound policy, not on law).

    At the same time, several parts of the story seem overblown. U.S. Attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the President, and the press seems to overlook that in a lot of its reporting. Also, I know one or two of the Administration figures named in some of the stories, and based on my knowledge of them and their character (although no secret details of the story — I have not spoken with anyone about it) I have a feeling that they're getting a bad rap.

    So in the end I don't quite know where I come out based on what we know. Without knowing where I come out, I don't feel I have much helpful to add. I realize that this may mean I am missing a big story. Perhaps this will prove to be a simply huge scandal, and in time it will seem odd that we weren't all blogging about it. But I don't know what I'm supposed to do when I read a story and I'm not sure what to make of it.

    Quite frankly, I don't think we know what we don't know in regards to this issue, and I think that some of the political posturing we're seeing, such as Senator Chuck Shumer's statement, "This has become as serious as it gets" is merely that--posturing.

    It is worth noting that Shumer is cited in this same Dana Milbank column as being "the Democrats' point man in the Valerie Plame investigation," an investigation which found no illegal activity is the release of Plame's name, and only convicted Lewis Libby for lying about his involvement. Hot air is one of Shumer's specialties.

    Another person with legal experience, prosecutor Patrick Frey, notes that the White House released emails related to the case that apparently show that the White House had good reason for firing many of the prosecutors, including failures to prosecute drug cases, failure to prosecute illegal immigrants, failure to investigate charges of voter fraud, and failures to carry out Administration policies. Many Presidential Administrations have fired all U.S. Attorneys when they came to power, including the Clinton Administration, for no reason other than pure politics. That the Bush Administration fired these Attorneys for cause seems, well, refreshing, if that is indeed what occurred.

    The scandal, such as it is, seems to revolve around Attorney General Gonzales' inept handling of what should have been a minor issue at best.

    Is there any fire to go with this smoke?

    Again, we may not know what we do not know, but of what we have seen presented thus far, the Democratic cry of scandal seems based on very thin evidence.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 AM | Comments (7)

    March 13, 2007

    Unacceptable Opinions

    Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, infuriated many yesterday when he said in an interview that he thought homosexual behavior was immoral, and likened it to adultery:

    Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday that he supports the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" ban on gays serving in the military because homosexual acts "are immoral," akin to a member of the armed forces conducting an adulterous affair with the spouse of another service member.

    Responding to a question about a Clinton-era policy that is coming under renewed scrutiny amid fears of future U.S. troop shortages, Pace said the Pentagon should not "condone" immoral behavior by allowing gay soldiers to serve openly. He said his views were based on his personal "upbringing," in which he was taught that certain types of conduct are immoral.

    As you may imagine, all the usual suspects were there to quickly condemn Pace's comments, including one liberal blogger that hoped to organized a petition drive to have him fired. To date, Pace refuses to apologize.

    I've got very mixed feelings about this particular story.

    I personally dislike "don't ask, don't tell."

    The official military position, as I understand it, is that they don't want openly gay soldiers serving in the military because it could cause dissention in the ranks. As openly gay soldiers have served in armies worldwide for thousands of years--including our Greek friends portrayed in the now-playing "300"--I find that argument especially weak, if not insulting to our soldiers. Are proponents of "don't ask, don't tell" trying to convince us that our military men and women are so fickle, mentally weak and easily rattled that the mere presence of openly gay soldiers in the ranks is enough to topple our military, or at the very least, reduce its combat effectiveness? If so, our top generals must be far more afraid of Cirque du Soleil than al Qaeda.

    No, I think that "don't ask, don't tell" comes down to anti-gay bigotry in our military, which is notoriously conservative (and I mean socially, not politically, though that probably applies as well). The policy implemented during the Clinton Administration was a mistake then, and continues to be a mistake now, causing the military to lose potential applicants that are intelligent, skilled, and otherwise exemplary material, solely on the basis of sexual preference. We have lost good soldiers because of this, as well as intelligence assets, including Arab linguists that are already in short supply. "Don't ask, don't tell" is hurting the War against Islamic terrorism in very measurable ways.

    But for all that is wrong with the policy, I'm even more appalled by the hysterical responses of some of those who have taken issue with Pace's comments. Apparently, Pace's opinion is too much to handle for some oppressively self-righteous gay advocates, including one that is calling for Pace to resign, and another, John Aravosis, that shrieks so shrilly that it only reinforces the stereotype that some in the military have against allowing gays to serve. Apparently, these blogger-advocates are quite content to exercise their freedom of speech, while attempting to punish Pace for exercising his. What they advocate is nothing less than censorship, pure and simple, and in a hysterically cartoonish way at that.

    If John Aravosis, Pam Spaulding, etc want to help convince our military that allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly is in our nation's best interests, then by all means, they should help develop a compelling case to prove to Congress and the military that is policy is outdated and counterproductive. If advocates truly want gay and lesbian Americans to have the opportunity to serve their country, then they should fight for that right with logic, reason, and intelligence.

    Instead, they attempt to claim victim status once again, and hope to shame Pace into retracting his comments, or force his resignation. Quite simply, they hurt their cause with a call for censorship instead of reasoned debate.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:14 PM | Comments (15)

    March 08, 2007

    U.S. Halts Imaginary Cubans in Security Drill

    This goes along with the Bush Adminstration's simulated immigration enforcement of the U.S./Mexican border quite well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)

    Breaking: Suspicious Package Found on White House Grounds

    At least that is the screamer running across the top of this ABC News article at the moment. Curiously, this screamer is absent on the front page.

    whitehouse

    Nothing yet from CNN or Fox News. Will update as info comes in, but note that in the past, very little has come from similiar scares, and chucking a box over the fence isn't quite a credible threat in most instances.

    Update: Bad Info? The screamer (above) was pulled within seconds of this post going up. Apparently nothing to see here, move along...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:39 AM | Comments (2)

    March 07, 2007

    Patriotic American Suggests Spray-Painting Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall during Anti-War Protest

    An IndyMedia poster has suggested bringing spraypaint to deface the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, D.C. during an anti-war rally on March 17.

    It is not known if Ramsey Clark, Maxine Waters, Cynthia McKinney, Medea Benjamin or the leaders of the eight Islamic organizations sponsoring the event have any knowledge of these or similar plans by the activists they've attracted, though they are aware of a counter-demonstration by a conglomeration of veterans' groups and concerned citizens called A Gathering of Eagles, which will be at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial to protect it from just the kind of attack promoted on IndyMedia.

    Cindy Sheehan, who plans on attending the anti-war protest, derided the veterans as "abused and misused in your war of choice" (referring to Vietnam) and stated that these veterans were "poor misguided, brainwashed and propagandized."

    (h/t antimedia)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:10 PM | Comments (9)

    March 06, 2007

    Libby Verdict to be Delivered at Noon

    Breaking.

    Details to follow.

    Update: Guilty on four of five counts:

    Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty on four of five counts in his perjury and obstruction of justice trial.

    Libby, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of $1 million.

    Libby was convicted of:

    • obstruction of justice when he intentionally deceived a grand jury investigating the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame;
    • making a false statement by intentionally lying to FBI agents about a conversation with NBC newsman Tim Russert;
    • perjury when he lied in court about his conversation with Russert;
    • a second count of perjury when he lied in court about conversations with other reporters.

    Jurors cleared him of a second count of making a false statement relating to a conversation he had with Matt Cooper of Time magazine.

    I fully expect Tom Maguire to have an analysis posted at Just One Minute.

    The netroots will assuredly go nuts over this for days.

    Hot Air is already all over it.

    Update: How long do you think it will be before Bush pardons Libby? Will he wait for the appeals process to exhaust itself, will he sign off as he leaves office in 2009?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:04 PM | Comments (3)

    March 02, 2007

    Long Ago and Far Away (From Mattering)

    Other than the faintly Clintonesque stink surrounding it, Jules Crittenden captures everything I wanted to say about the latest presidential candidate scandal (right down to the Monty Python reference) in Sins of the Great-Great-Great Grandfather.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:32 PM | Comments (4)

    February 20, 2007

    Nuts

    After Tom Elia tipped me to the story of a liberal stalker attacking a couple of Republican roommates after tracking them down from a Republican web site, I decided to take a commenter's advice and attempt to see if there was any sort of commentary about the arrest on the Democratic Underground.

    Nice folks.

    I didn't run across any reference to stalker boy, but I did run across a lovely comment related to Prince Harry, the British heir and Army officer intent on deploying to Iraq with the rest of his unit.

    What does the DUer smell?

    CONSPIRACY!

    This has probably been suggested before But it occurs to me that this would give bush* a very good way of getting the british public more on-side in the 'war on terrorism'.

    "PRINCE HARRY KILLED BY AL-QAEDA TERRORISTS" would be a lovely headline for bush*.

    What surprises me the most about this comment? They made it all the way down to the sixth comment before implicating the President in a conspiracy to murder the Prince.

    They must finally be starting to warm up to him.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:06 PM | Comments (5)

    Because One Jimmy Carter Isn't Enough

    It appears that Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan were right for the Edwards campaign after all:

    There are other emerging fissures, as well. The aggressively photogenic John Edwards was cruising along, detailing his litany of liberal causes last week until, during question time, he invoked the "I" word — Israel. Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace, Edwards remarked, was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. As a chill descended on the gathering, the Edwards event was brought to a polite close.

    Catholics offended? check.
    Christians offended? check.
    Jews offended? check.

    Johnny Haircut's had a pretty busy month.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:58 PM | Comments (7)

    Fire the Puppy-Blending Murdering Fascists!

    Fresh off of his masterful exercise in self-deception declaring that Iranian nuclear scientists and apocalyptic Hojjatieh sect members cannot be targeted for precision killings, and by default, therefore must be killed by a conventional heavy bombing campaign that will kill dozensof real civilians, University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos has determined that it is also unethical to hunt dear with precision firearms, and suggested a more appropriate response.

    AH64
    Run Bambi, run!

    Far more serious debunkings of Campos' legally illiterate screed are available here, here, and less directly, here.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:27 PM | Comments (2)

    February 09, 2007

    Dear John

    As a fellow North Carolinian (well, you're close enough), I'll be perfectly up front about this: you never had a chance at getting my vote. I still remember you channeling a five-year-old cerebral palsy patient as a personal injury attorney using junk science, long before North Carolina newspapers nicknamed you "Senator Gone" for missing 43-percent of Senate votes after suspending your first Presidential run.

    And yes, I still remember how you took advantage of a tax loophole to avoid paying more than a half million dollars in Medicare taxes by forming a subchapter S corporation. Did you know there are books out there about that now? Impressive legal work, to be sure... but I'm not sure those folks in that other America--those without a 28,200 square feet mansion and a million-dollar home on a private Island--feel about that. That $591,000 you cleverly steered away from Medicare and back into your own pocket, seems, well, deceptive for someone claiming to run as a populist.

    That said, there are quite few folks living in your adopted home state that voted for you in your Senatorial bid in 1998, and voted for you again when you teamed up to run for President with John Kerry in 2004. Quite a few of those folks--I'd guestimate roughly 400-500 or so--go to my church in Cary. Something tells me they might not be so enthusiastic about your candidacy this time around.

    Fair of foul, people--and particularly those people under the intense spotlight of a foundering Presidential campaign--are judged by the company they keep. Now, it has been well known for quite a while that Elizabeth Edwards is well known in the left wing blogosphere, but let's face facts: most Americans simply don't read blogs. Still the potential for danger was always there:

    There are two ways to view Mrs. Edwards' posting on blogs. Some will wonder how wise it is for Edwards to enter this swamp. Every blogger has a sane/insane ratio for political posts ... we come to accept it from our peers. But when an aspiring First Lady says something pointed, it's not just typical Internet chatter, it's potentially big news. Elizabeth Edwards is extremely smart and a terrific writer ... but it's an incredible high-wire act for someone so prominent to attempt.

    To date, your lovely wife has avoided "stepping in it" as the saying goes, but you haven't done too well with your newest forays into the blogosphere, managing to hire for yourself a couple of bloggers whose "sane/insane ratio" has now become national news.

    Part of me admires you for sticking to your guns and keeping Amanda Marcotte and Melissia McEwan on staff despite their obvious and long-standing hatred of Christians--Marcotte alone has referred to Christians derisively at least 114 times, as "godbags"--but I don't think too many of my fellow North Carolina Christians are going to recognize your political courage, in which you bravely responded to radical left-wing astrology site's IMPORTANT ACTION ALERTS by doing exactly as they wanted.

    Most of these folks could care less about Marcotte's thoughts about what would have happened if the Virgin Mary had aborted Jesus as an independent blogger, but they are concerned, because you don't seem to much care about the image that gives your campaign. Some might just get the sneaking suspicion that you might feel the same way.

    Now, I know you're simply pandering to the left wing base to give yourself some fleeting hope of being able to parley your campaign into the Number Two slot behind Hillary! or Barack Obama, but that's because I'm a political blogger myself. But I'm not everybody, and you never had a chance at my vote.

    That said, the family usually sitting several rows ahead of me Sunday mornings has a cracked and peeling Kerry/Edwards sticker on their minivan, which should put you in contention for their vote, but what do you think they felt when they opened the print edition of the Charlotte Observer, the Raleigh News & Observer, or my hometown Greenville Daily Reflector this morning, to find stories like this? It doesn't bode well, John.

    In Greenville, where someone with similar degrees of tolerance for "godbags" and the "Christofascist base" decided to burn two churches and vandalize a third only weeks ago, I don't think you'll win any new fans, either.

    I wish you the best of luck with your choices and your campaign.

    Lord knows, you're going to need it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:22 PM | Comments (20)

    A Gathering of Eagles

    Via Bill Faith of Small Town Veteran, A Veterans group calling themselves "A Gathering of Eagles" will be on hand to protect the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington, D.C. on March 17, against anti-war protesters they feel might intend to deface the monument dedicated to the more than 58,000 Americans who lost their lives fighting the Vietnam War. Anti-war protestors recently defaced the steps of the U.S Capitol with anti-war slogans.

    From the "Gathering of Eagles" Web page:

    "We'll be there to act as a countervailing force against the Cindy Sheehan-Jane Fonda march from the Vietnam Memorial to the Pentagon," retired Navy Capt. Larry Bailey said. "We will protect the Vietnam Memorial. If they try to deface it, there will be some violence, I guarantee you."

    Bailey and thousands of his fellow Vietnam vets are worried that the anti-war protesters will damage the wall, just as they spray-painted the steps of the Capitol at their last march.

    The wall is sacred to the men and women who fought in that war.

    "It is our contact with our dead brothers -- those who lost their lives in the cause of their country," Bailey said.

    And so it is that Washington will see a Gathering of Eagles - Americans determined to stand up against leftist propagandists who denigrate U.S. troops and the mission for which they sometimes sacrifice their lives.

    Retired Col. Harry Riley organized the Gathering of Eagles. Organizers hope thousands will show up in Washington from as far away as Hawaii, and they won't only be Vietnam veterans. Families, friends and veterans of other wars, including Iraq, and soldiers still on active duty, will be there to defend the Wall.

    It is shameful that this overwatch even needs to occur, but as the recent incident at the Capitol indicates, some anti-war protesters—and please note that we're only talking about a small minority of those protestors, I hope—feel there is something to gain by such seething displays of unbridled contempt for this country.

    That said, looking at the participants in this march, I think that the "Gathering of Eagles" has every reason to feel concerned.

    The leftist Web site MarchonPentagon.org describes the anti-war demonstrators this way: "The March on the Pentagon has already attracted more than 1,500 endorsers, including prominent individuals and national and grassroots organizations. Students on college campuses and in high schools will be attending in large numbers. There will be a large turnout from the Muslim and Arab American community, which is organizing throughout the country."

    The movement is well-financed. Its sponsor list is lengthy and contains highly recognizable names, as well as those of Fonda and Sheehan:

    • Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark (who offered his services to defend Saddam Hussein)
    • Ultra-liberal Congresswoman Maxine Waters
    • Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
    • Ron Kovic, Vietnam veteran and author of "Born on the 4th of July"
    • Mahdi Bray, executive director, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
    • Waleed Bader, vice chair of the National Council of Arab Americans and former president of Arab Muslim American Federation
    • Medea Benjamin, co-founder, CODEPINK and Global Exchange
    • Free Palestine Alliance
    • Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
    • Islamic Political Party of America
    • FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front)
    • Islamic-National Congress
    • Gay Liberation Network
    • Muslim Student Association
    • Jibril Hough, chairman, Islamic Political Party of America

    It may be worth noting that for a march apparently organized by leftists, the overwhelming majority of sponsoring groups have a radical Islamic focus.

    The Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation is one of the groups that threatened a "Sheikdown" of U.S Airways after the removal of six imams from a Minneapolis- to-Phoenix flight in which the imams performed what one airline pilot stated was "a terrorist probe in the airline industry."

    A 2004 Chicago Tribune article states that the MSA is the American face of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that seeks to impose radical Islamist sharia law as the government of the United States. The terrorist group Hamas is also a wing of the Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood was financially supported by none other than Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini's movement is also responsible for kidnapping American embassy personnel for 444 days from 1979-81.

    Osama Bin Laden was influence by professors closely alligned with the Brotherhood, and his current cavemate, Ayman al-Zawahiri joined the group at age 14 before "graduating" to found al Qaeda with bin Laden.

    Mahdi Bray, current leader of that group and a supporter of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups according to JihadWatch, protested on behalf of both Ahmad Abu-Ali (charged with plotting to kill President Bush), and Abdurrahman Alamoudi, a man convicted in a plot to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

    Waleed Bader, vice chair of the National Council of Arab Americans and former president of Arab Muslim American Federation, previous protested against the "occupation of Iraq and Palestine." The National Council of Arab Americans called the creation of the state of Israel as the "Palestinian Catastrophe (Nakba) of 1948" just this past July.

    The Free Palestine Alliance has attempted to stifle the business of Caterpillar Corporation (the bulldozer folks), saying that they want "to expose Caterpillar’s complicity in Israel’s war crimes." This "complicity" is apparently the IDF practice of using Caterpillar bulldozers to destroy tunnels used to smuggle firearms and explosives to terrorist groups in Gaza, which are then used to target Israeli civilians.

    The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, better known as FMLN, is a communist organization from El Salvador formed in 1970 which fought a civil war against that country's government in the 1980s, and was once identified as a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization before putting down their arms to become a purely political party.

    The Muslim Student Association, with multiple chapters at universities around the country, has been investigated for funding terrorism multiple times. A Speaker from the group was once quoted by Robert Spenser as saying, "The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it." The MSA has invited neo-Nazis to speak at forums sponsored by the group.

    These primarily Islamist groups are among the vanguard of those sponsoring the anti-war march scheduled in the nation's capitol for March 17. Based upon this roll call of Islamists, terror supporters, and neo-Nazi admirers playing a leading roll in the anti-war march, I'd say that the Gathering of Eagles has every reason to be concerned for the sanctity of the powerful monument known simply as The Wall.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:20 AM | Comments (15)

    February 07, 2007

    Hatergate

    The blogger dust-up over John Edwards choice of campaign bloggers has hit the mainstream media, as at least one radio station in Raleigh has pounced upon the foul language and anti-Catholic rants of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, of liberal blogs Pandagon and Shakespeare's Sister, respectively.

    John M. Broder of the NY Times is on the case as well:

    Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do — expressing their opinions in provocative and often crude language.

    The Catholic League, a conservative religious group, is demanding that Mr. Edwards dismiss the two, Amanda Marcotte of the Pandagon blog site and Melissa McEwan, who writes on her blog, Shakespeare’s Sister, for expressing anti-Catholic opinions.

    Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, is among the leading Democratic presidential candidates.

    That last sentence is sure to elicit a giggle here in North Carolina, where Edwards is widely reviled by many. But I digress.

    Why are these two bloggers under fire? In Marcotte's case specifically, it is for her stupifyingly ignorant and inflammatory remarks about the lacrosse rape case in particular, along with a general predisposition towards profanity-laced, intolerant rants on various subjects. For McEwan, it seems directed at her profanity-laced intolerant rants in general.

    The Times article again, talking about Marcotte:

    The two women brought to the Edwards campaign long cyber trails in the incendiary language of the blogosphere. Other campaigns are likely to face similar controversies as they try to court voters using the latest techniques of online communication.

    Ms. Marcotte wrote in December that the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to the use of contraception forced women "to bear more tithing Catholics." In another posting last year, she used vulgar language to describe the church doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

    She has also written sarcastically about the news media coverage of the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexual assault, saying: "Can't a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair."

    Of course, the Times has chosen to present only her cleanest language: much of what Marcotte typically writes cannot be aired among civil and polite people. Her actual comment about the Immaculate Conception was this (h/t Patterico):

    Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?

    A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.

    Nice. McEwan, as I noted earlier, is cut from much the same cloth:

    Ms. McEwan referred in her blog to President Bush's "wingnut Christofascist base" and repeatedly used profanity in demanding that religious conservatives stop meddling with women's reproductive and sexual rights. Multiple postings use explicit and inflammatory language on a variety of issues.

    I don't think you need to see any direct quotes from her blog to get the point.

    Depending on their differing perspectives, bloggers on the right and left are approaching the story quite differently.

    Michelle Malkin has thus far "vented" on Marcotte not once, but twice. Hanging Marcotte with her own words is not only sport, it's easy sport, and Michelle is by no means the only blogger on the right taking issue with Edward's blogger; libertarians and conservatives alike have pounded her in a decidedly non-procreative way.

    Liberal bloggers seem to be approaching this story as a tempest in a teapot. In general, they seem to be taking the position that a compliant media is doing the will of the conservative and libertarian blogosphere ("swiftboating", a term the left uses to disparage those who dare look at someone's track record of past performance), that the profanity issued forth on Pandagon, Shakespeare's Sister, and other liberal blogs is the main issue and really, no big deal; it isn't like those christofascist fringe right fundamentalists that consider women brood animals would vote for Edwards anyway.

    In my completely humble opinion, they just don't get it.

    Boiled down to its purest form, national politics is a popularity contest where something less than have of the population is going to dislike a candidate for simply belonging to particular party, while something less than the other half is going to accept the candidate for the same reason. Whether that candidate goes to Washington or end up in the Old Politician's Home depends largely on attracting the significant minority in the middle who have either not made up their minds, have an open mind, or can be persuaded to change their minds to support a certain candidate.

    William Donahue and the Catholic League are bomb-throwers in their own right, as several of the liberal bloggers commenting on this story rightly observe, but that is also completely irrelevant. Bill Donahue is not trying to win anyone's nomination to be a candidate for President. John Edwards is, and he hired a pair of bloggers that are "easy pickings."

    Is it fair to judge Marcotte and McEwan for their past comments? Shouldn't people instead just focus on their current work for the Edwards campaign? Oh, it would be nice in an ideal world if our track records weren't used to judge our future performances, but out here in the real world, where people hire you based upon the premise that past performance indicates your future successes (or failures), that simply isn't the case.

    The Edwards campaign should have been cognizant of the liabilities of hiring these two particular bloggers, as they are indeed perfect examples of a very popular subset of liberal bloggers that have produced a body of work that will offend many of those potential voters who have not made up their minds, have an open mind, or can be persuaded to change their minds to vote for Edwards in the Democratic primaries. That the "wingnut Christofascist base"—liberal code for Republican conservatives—are not going to be voting in the Democratic primaries is completely irrelevant.

    Democrats, many of whom are conservatives, and a majority of which are Christians and "breeders", are going to be choosing the Democratic Presidential candidates. Most of them don't read blogs, but many do read the newspapers, and they are likely to be offended that Edwards hired a pair of bloggers that mock their core values with the strongest possible language.

    The kind of derisive language Marcotte, McEwan and her fellow travelers is widely accepted in their reality-based online community, but it is shocking enough to the supermajority of Americans that have never read a liberal blog, that even an ABC News blog questioned whether or not Marcotte's comments qualify as hate speech, and whether or not hiring Marcotte and McEwan means Edwards condones such speech. Fair or not, many people formerly in that potential pool of Edwards voters are going to make the judgement that Marcotte's and McEwan's comments are condoned by Edwards because he hired them. At least some of those people are now probably lost to the Edwards campaign, as judged by comments like these at the ABC blog:

    Hate speech is hate speech, whether from a democrat or a republican. You learn a lot about a person by watching the people they associate with. Marcotte's comments say something about her, and a lot about Edwards.

    Posted by: Leonard | Feb 6, 2007 7:34:32 PM

    * * *

    Of course she has a right to say this juvenile stuff, but the question is, does it show good judgement on the part of the Edwards campaign to hire someone like this?
    Believe me, I'm hoping he keeps these bloggers on the payroll. This can and be used against him now and further into the campaign.

    Posted by: Brian | Feb 7, 2007 10:50:28 AM

    * * *
    ...Look, I am not easily offended. I love South Park, don't have any problem with their irreverent Jesus parody (and I am a Christian). But this person's description of the immaculate conception is just WAY over the line. There is irreverent and then there is crude disrespect.
    Does she have the right to write it? Of course, this is the internet. Will I be contributing to Edwards' campaign, as I did in '04? No way. Not if this is the type of person he chooses to surround himself with.

    Posted by: Ron C | Feb 7, 2007 11:36:40 AM

    At best, a campaign blog can moderately help a candidate. At worst, it can be a debilitating side issue detracting from overall message discipline, and making people focus on rhetorical garbage and hatred that the candidate (rightly or wrongly) seems to condone.

    Edwards made a bad choice in hiring McEwan and Marcotte, and is now reaping a media firestorm for not properly vetting his potential blogging staff. There are certainly articulate, thoughtful bloggers bloggers on the left far better qualified to hold these positions. Dave Johnson, I think, at Seeing the Forest may fit the bill for this kind of position, and I'm sure there is at least one other liberal blogger out there capable of holding a position without harboring such hate in their hearts.

    Let me know when they find 'em.

    Update: Godbags successful in crushing those speaking truth to power.

    Truth be told, I'm kind of sad to see this happen. The Edwards campaign obviously didn't vet these two before offering them jobs. Firing them because of the the campaign's sloppiness in vetting their employees seems somewhat unfair. I'm not sure if McEwan has much lost over this, but Marcotte apparently moved across the country for this, and this will end up costing her real money.

    Anyone know where she can find a good lawyer?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:28 PM | Comments (10)

    February 05, 2007

    Rudi's In

    So it seems like "America's Mayor," Rudy Giuliani, is one step closer to running for President:

    In a sign that he's serious about running for the White House, the two-term mayor was filing a so-called "statement of candidacy" with the Federal Election Commission. In the process, he was eliminating the phrase "testing the waters" from earlier paperwork establishing his exploratory committee, said an official close to Giuliani's campaign.

    AP is all over it at Hot Air.

    A lot of folks seem thrilled that Guiliani's throwing his hat in the ring, but I'm not one of them. His 9/11 leadership was extraordinary (compare his inspired performance to Ray Nagin's quivering collapse after Hurricane Katrina for juxtaposition), but his personal failures and his overtly liberal positions on a whole raft of issues leave me cold.

    The only thing that Rudy brings to the table over our current President is his ability to articulately explain why he won't enforce or borders while increasing the bloat of the federal government.

    Factor in his pro-gun control views, and Guiliani's a Republican candidate not worth having... one of many.

    Drafting Fred is starting to look like a better idea all the time.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:02 PM | Comments (7)

    February 01, 2007

    That Second America Comes with Gated Access

    Recently Democratic Presidential candidate and North Carolina's non-favorite son drew quite a bit of grumbling for his $6 million, 29,000 sq/ft estate outside of Chapel Hill.

    As noted at National Review Online: "There Are Two Americas; John Edwards' New House Takes Up Almost All of One Of Them" (h/t Instapundit).

    But where is Edward's Other America?

    According to the N&0 article cited above, it's here:

    figure8

    Welcome to Figure Eight Island.

    According to Figure8Island.com:

    Cross the private bridge to Figure Eight Island and you'll find a peaceful, seaside haven with sparkling blue waters and miles of sandy white beach. Nature lovers will delight in the endless occasions for bird watching, shell seeking and quiet strolls along the shore. And sports enthusiasts will discover ideal conditions for everything from kayaking and windsurfing to biking and tennis.

    But the real beauty of this tranquil island lies in what you won't find...like hotels, shopping centers, traffic and tourists! With only 441 homes (and no condos!), this five-mile, 1,300-acre island offers the best of both worlds...a serene private oceanfront community just minutes from all the exceptional amenities of Wilmington, NC and Wrightsville Beach, NC.

    You've got to love that private bridge. It helps keep those "Two Americas" separate... but equal, I'm sure.

    We don't have picture identifying Edwards private island luxury beach estate, but we do know that it is quite cramped at only 2,778 sq/ft, and very economical, with a tax value of just $1.03 million.

    Here's picture of the neighborhood.

    figure8island

    Nice Ferrari.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:38 AM | Comments (4)

    January 31, 2007

    My Irony Meter Just Pegged

    Barak Obama, Democratic Senator from Illinois: "The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact."

    Mary Landrieu, Democratic Senator from Louisiana: "we 'would have been better off if the terrorists had blown up our levees.'"

    Comedy gold.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:29 PM | Comments (8)

    Oh No, Joe!

    It seems the Delaware Senator that Mark Levin long-ago named "the dumbest man in the U.S. Senate" has proven that point, with his own "macaca" moment. Via Drudge:

    Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," he said.

    I wonder how long long it will be before the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, a group Biden apparently considers marginalized, inarticulate, unintelligent, dirty, and ugly, issues a response.

    Allah, as he often does, sums it up best:

    Biden announces, immediately destroys presidential hopes.

    Update: Even Kos agrees.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:58 PM | Comments (1)

    January 25, 2007

    Sign the NRSC Pledge

    Hugh Hewitt started the idea, N.Z. Bear whipped it into shape, Dean Barnett provided the FAQ and here it is, with over 12,000 signatories so far in the first full day.

    What's it all about? It's simple, really:

    If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

    What did I think of it? Of more than 12,000 signatories, I'm #7. What are you waiting for; McCain to grow a spine?

    The NRSC Pledge
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:36 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    January 23, 2007

    Live-blogging the State of the Union

    You're kidding... right? Pardon me if I have better things to do than to listen to President Bush disappoint me once again on a whole raft of issues where he holds positions far from conservative (my first choice) or libertarian (my second).

    The only thing tonight I'm anticipating less? Jim Webb's rebuttal.

    Perhaps it shouldn't surprise me that the Democrats would turn to another war veteran to do their dirty work, though perhaps Webb should wonder why liberals only turn to veterans when they endevour to find a beard to help them lose wars.

    Update: Using MKH's live-blogging as a guide, it looks like I didn't miss much, though it might have been mildly entertaining to watch Speaker of the House "Blinky."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Dangerous? I'll Show You Dangerous

    Glenn Reynolds links today to an Ed Morrissey article in the Washington Examiner stating that: "Richardson could be '08's most dangerous candidate."

    Pshaw.

    You want a "dangerous" candidate?

    We've got you covered. In more ways than one...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Crittenden for White House Speech Writer

    At Pajamas Media, Jules Crittenden delivers the State of the Union Address that President Bush should make tonight.

    A taste:

    I will engage evil directly where I find it, in Iraq and in Iran. With an aggressive and ruthless new strategy and a plan to build our army as we should have a long time ago, I will show the American people that we can fight and we can win. I expect that the American people, though misled by their press and many of their elected representatives, will see results and will get it. Because the American people are a people who in the end don't give up, don't stop fighting, refuse to lose, and will choose to win. I have faith in them.

    Oh, there's another one of those words you don't like.

    Granted, Bush won't make this speech, but he should have, and long ago...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:58 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    January 18, 2007

    Who Bent? Who Cares?

    It certainly seems tough to tell exactly what transpired as the NSA terrorist communication intercept program is once again back in the headlines:

    Bush Retreats on Use of Executive Power (Washington Post)

    Court to Oversee U.S. Wiretapping in Terror Cases (NY Times)

    Administration to let court monitor domestic spying (CNN)

    Attorney General Gonzales to Brief Senate Panel on Oversight of Domestic Spying Program (Fox News)

    So what really took place? As legal expert Orin Kerr notes at The Volokh Conspiracy:

    What's going on? As with everything about this program, we can't be sure; we don't know the facts, so we're stuck with making barely-educated guesses. But it sounds to me like the FISA Court judges have agreed to issue anticipatory warrants. The traditional warrant process requires the government to write up the facts in an application and let the judge decide whether those facts amount to probable cause. If you were looking for a way to speed up that process — and both sides were in a mood to be "innovative" — one fairly straightforward alternative would be to use anticipatory warrants.

    An anticipatory warrant lets the government conduct surveillance when a specific set of triggering facts occurs. The judge agrees ahead of time that if those facts occur, probable cause will exist and the monitoring can occur under the warrant. The idea is that there isn't enough time to get a warrant right at that second, so the warrant can be "pre-approved" by the Judge and used by the government when the triggering event happens.

    While some pundits seem content to label this as a defeat of sorts for the Bush Administration (see the WaPo headline above) and some conservative legal experts are inclined to agree, I'm not sure. I'm not disagreeing necessarily, but this seems to be a case of We Don't Know What We Don't Know, and I'm not sure that is such a bad thing.

    Perhaps Mark Levin is right, and Bush ceded the Constitutional authority of the Executive Branch when he should not have. If so, it would not be the first time President Bush made a mistake.

    On the other hand, what little we can discern from all the posturing and spin is that the NSA program not only lives, but the FISA court appears to have possibility modified itself in such a way as to be more compatible with the goals of the program... or vice versa, or maybe a little bit of both.

    The end result is that the program will continue, and that terrorists attempting to communicate with their allies within the United States will continue to be watched, tracked, and eventually, captured or killed.

    Isn't that what really matters?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:04 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    January 09, 2007

    Senator's Condition Upgraded

    Glad to hear it:

    Sen. Tim Johnson's condition has been upgraded from critical to fair, four weeks after he was hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage, his office said Tuesday.

    The South Dakota Democrat, who was rushed to the hospital December 13 and underwent emergency surgery, remains in intensive care, said his spokeswoman, Julianne Fisher.

    "The senator continues to make progress," Fisher said. "The next step would be rehabilitation and we hope that would happen within the week."

    Johnson's office has said that his recovery is expected to take several months.

    He underwent surgery to correct a condition called arteriovenous malformation, involving tangled arteries in his brain.

    The senator's doctors said last week that Johnson was improving but still needed a ventilator at night to help him breathe. The ventilator has required a tube to be placed down Johnson's throat, making it impossible for him to talk.

    His long-term prognosis is unclear. He has been responsive to his family and physicians, following commands, squeezing his wife's hand and understanding speech.

    Senator Johnson's ordeal is not just one he experiences, but one his entire family must endure. If you're of a mind to, prayers certainly wouldn't hurt.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    January 04, 2007

    Iranian Dies Natural Death

    Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has apparently succumbed to cancer. It is the first natural death reported in Iran this year.

    Typically, Iranians are very unlucky people, with many public figures dying as a result of accidents.

    Update: Oops. Not Dead. this means no Iranians have died of natural causes this year, right?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:41 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    Squawk Like an Egyptian

    If the United States would like to keep Islamic terrorism from despoiling the "final frontier," it needs to start considering the best way to pull the plug on Egypt's powerful NileSat, an Egyptian government-run satellite broadcasting "al Qaeda TV," 24 hours a day.

    As noted in the Weekly Standard:

    Al Qaeda and its allies now have their own 24-hour television station. Based at a secret studio in Syria, its signal is broadcast to the entire Arab world from a satellite owned by the Egyptian government. This development highlights al Qaeda's increasingly sophisticated propaganda efforts.

    Al Qaeda placed great emphasis on communicating its message effectively throughout 2006. Osama bin Laden and deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri issued more tapes in 2006 than in any year since the 9/11 attacks. In the past, al Qaeda tapes were generally released to Al Jazeera, but 2006 saw more Internet releases: the terrorist group's message was thus more quickly disseminated. Al-Zawraa TV, the 24-hour insurgent station, is an extension of this trend.

    Al-Zawraa hit the airwaves on November 14. According to Middle East-based media monitor Marwan Soliman and military analyst Bill Roggio, it was set up by the Islamic Army of Iraq, an insurgent group comprised of former Baathists who were loyal to Saddam Hussein and now profess their conversion to a bin Laden-like ideology.

    The Islamic Army of Iraq is subordinate to the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni insurgent groups, including al Qaeda in Iraq. The Al-Zawraa channel is not only viewed as credible by users of established jihadist Internet forums, but as a strategically important information outlet as well. Moreover, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, is delighted by the station. A U.S. military intelligence officer told us that al-Masri "has long-term and big plans for this thing."

    Al Qaeda's previous attempts at setting up propaganda outlets have been limited to satellite radio and the Internet. Al-Zawraa, however, appears to be well financed and may find a much broader audience. The channel is broadcast on Nilesat, a powerful satellite administered by the Egyptian government. Through Nilesat, Al-Zawraa's signal blankets the Middle East and North Africa, thus ensuring that the insurgents' message reaches every corner of the Arab world.

    Al-Zawraa's content is heavy with insurgent propaganda, including audio messages from Islamic Army of Iraq spokesman Dr. Ali al-Na'ami and footage of the group's operations. The station calls for violence against both Shia Iraqis and the Iraqi government. According to Marwan Soliman, the station's anchors appear in military fatigues to rail against the Iraqi government while news crawls urge viewers to support the Islamic Army of Iraq and "help liberate Iraq from the occupying U.S. and Iranian forces."

    I don't much care how the government chooses to end Al-Zawraa's broadcasting. They should certainly start by withholding or canceling the substantial financial aid given to Egypt by the United States. If political pressure fails, we certainly have the technical means to disrupt or block NileSat’s communications and navigation capabilities, meaning we can simply switch it off, or adjust it's flight path to turn it into a multi-million dollar shooting star as it burns up on re-entry. Frankly, I think the later would send a far more dramatic, and perhaps more suitable, message to those who would choose to broadcast terrorist TV, but then, perhaps that is why I'm not a diplomat.

    But we do have diplomats, and they are beholden to our elected representatives. I suggest that anyone concerned about this should contact their Congressmen and Senators. Democrat of Republican, they have no excuse to continue subsidizing a government that sells satellite time to the highest terrorist bidder.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:16 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    Lateral or Downward? The Negroponte Shuffle

    John Negroponte is stepping down from his Cabinet-level position as Director of National Intelligence to become the #2 man in the State Department, backing Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. What does it all mean? I think Captain Ed has a better feel for this story than most, and even that seems uncertain:

    The position carries a high profile and arguably has more influence on policy formulation, but it still represents a step down and a move out of the Oval Office inner circle. The change reflects a possible loss of confidence in Negroponte, especially given his proximity to the President and the obvious opportunity to influence his decisions on policy on a whole range of issues.

    Congress appears taken aback by the change. Susan Collins, a Republican who pushed hard for the 9/11 Commission recommendations that created the DNI post, expressed her disappointment at Negroponte's resignation. Jane Harman, who would have been the new House Intel chair had Nancy Pelosi not fumbled the assignment after the election, also objected, making the criticism bipartisan.

    With the available information, it looks like Negroponte got shuffled downward as part of the review finishing up on Iraq and the war on terror. The quality of intelligence coming from Iraq has come under some fire over the last couple of years, and eventually that responsibility rests with Negroponte. Alternatively, it could be that Negroponte's experience in Iraq was necessary for Rice to push through Bush's new strategies for Iraq and the Middle East. Negroponte was the first American emissary to Iraq, and with the resignation of Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush may have wanted the most experienced hands focusing directly on Iraq.

    It's a puzzlement, without a doubt. I don't recall any recent moves where a Cabinet officer resigned to take a deputy post for another Cabinet officer.

    Memorandum.com is all over the NY Times version, and while other bloggers (mostly on the left) seem to be commenting on it, they don't seem to have anything solid to go on either. At this point, it all seems to be mostly blind speculation... so why not add to it?

    Liberal Booman Tribune floats a couple of theories, including the theory that that Negroponte is being primed to take over for an incompetent Rice (hey, this is his theory, not mine), who will resign for health reasons after an appropriate amount of time, at which point Negroponte will be elevated to Secretary of State. This is not outside the realm of possibility; as far as politics goes, crazier things have happened. But if we're going to go for wild speculation, shouldn't we go "whole hog?"

    So here is my completely groundless theory:

    Negroponte is moving in to be in a position to take over for Rice, but not because Rice is going out of office, but up. Vice President Dick Cheney will resign due to much more plausible health problems (the poor guy has worn-out defibrillators, hasn't he?), and Dr. Rice will step in as our first female Vice President sometime during the summer or early fall of 2007. She will then be "pushed" into running as the Republican contender against Hillary, setting up our first guaranteed female president as a result of the 2008 elections. At this point, Pat Robertson will quote some obscure translation of the Book of Revelations and declare this is proof of the End of Days, at which point we all laugh at him.

    Again.

    Of course, that's just my theory. I could be wrong.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:49 AM | Comments (44) | TrackBack

    January 03, 2007

    Hates The Troops

    Who said this today?

    "We didn't put you in power to work with the people that have been murdering hundreds of thousands of people since they have been in power."

    Yeah, you guessed right.

    The outburst caused Bob Fertik to declare Sheehan was "the most influential person in America!"

    Somehow, I doubt Sheehan is even the most influential person in her chatroom, but I guess that is what separates us from the "reality-based" community.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    December 30, 2006

    What Passes For Intellectual

    From--where else?--the Huffington Post (h/t Hot Air):

    WELL HUNG! Saddam Hung To Prove Bush is BETTER Hung... (Than His Dad)

    Brilliant headline, don't you suppose? I bet Martin Lewis used all 36 years of his experince as a "journalist, columnist, writer, humorist, monologist, comedic performer, radio host, TV host, TV correspondent," etc, etc to come up with that one. Such deep, cutting-edge humor.

    1) To George W. Bush. It only cost $354 billion (and counting) and the lives of 3,000 very expendable US military to enable the President to demonstrate to his dad that he has a bigger Dick. Or is one...

    Isn't it ironic - don'tcha think? Saddam hung so that Dubya can prove that he's BETTER hung...

    Such nuance. Such depth. Such class. Arianna trotted out her best for this one.

    2) To George H.W. & Barbara Bush for raising a child with such wonderful values.

    Why not attack the parents? After all, if attacking children is right in line with liberal values, parents are obviously fair game as well.

    3) To Dick Cheney. If it wasn't for his remorse about his part in the "failure" in 1991 to kill off Saddam (one of the most cherished allies of the Reagan-Bush administrations) - he might not have had his "fever" to expend thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of American tax-payers' dollars getting Saddam this time around.

    Quite right. After all, Saddam had only killed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of his own people, triggered a war that left approximately a million dead, attempted at least partial genocides against the Kurds and Marsh Arabs, invaded Kuwait and launched attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia, but they were all brown people. Or Jews.

    4) To Gerald Ford. For pardoning Richard Nixon without securing any confession or even acknowledgement of wrong-doing - and thus laying the path for Presidential unaccountability; for promoting the careers of Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld; and for having the courage to speak out against the Iraq war in June 2004 - and insisting that his criticism be held till AFTER his death. (Why risk hurting a GOP President's re-election prospects when the cost is just a few thousand American lives...) THAT'S why he deserves all the plaudits for his decency and courage.

    How utterly gracious of Mr. Lewis to channel the latest missive from that greatest voice of Absolute Moral Authority. Were there any other comments you'd care to emulate of hers? We'll wait.

    5) To Ronald Reagan. For unilaterally deciding in 1983 to end the 16-year international isolation of Iraq for its barbarity - and sending Donald Rumsfeld as his personal goodwill ambassador to befriend Saddam Hussein - during the exact same time when Hussein was committing the very crimes for which he was hung. Crimes that were publicized worldwide at the time by Amnesty International and others - and thus fully known about by Reagan, George W. Bush and their entire administration.

    But just skip right on past any thought that this same barbarity might have been a decent reason to--you know--get rid of him. 'cause it's all about the dicks.

    6) Spare a thought for Donald Rumsfeld. Tough week for him. He's just lost someone very close to him. And Gerald Ford as well in the same week...

    See? I'm a humorist!

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:06 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    December 29, 2006

    Stuk On Jon Carry In Irak

    Several days ago a soldier in Iraq email a picture back home to the United States, showing John Kerry eating in a mess hall in Iraq. Absolutely riveting content, right?

    Nonetheless, all sorts of people who should know better have gotten completely discombobulated about it, many to the point of calling it a fraud, or purporting that the photo showed some other sort of context.

    If you want to get a good cross-section of what occurred (and apparently, is still occurring in some corners), start with the blog post that apparently got things going, accusations from those offended, a quite practical explanation from the guy who accidentally started the whole thing, and continued angst from lost souls that simply refuse to allow this excruciatingly minor story to die a natural death.

    Jon Carry--uh, John Kerry-- was not shot nor stabbed nor completely shunned by our soldiers in Iraq, but thanks to his on-going contempt for our military he was not mobbed as most celebrities in a combat zone are. Instead, he got a "subdued reception."

    He isn't popular with the troops for obvious reasons, but to our soldier's credit, they didn't act unprofessionally around him. Can we please just end this non-story there?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:24 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    December 28, 2006

    Louisiana Loserpalooza

    John Edwards (the pretty one, not the psychic) declared from New Orleans today that he would be running in the Democratic primaries for President in 2008.

    Funny how Edwards, a former North Carolina Senator, life-long North Carolinian with a job at UNC-Chapel Hill, chose to announce his candidacy in New Orleans, Louisiana, instead of on his "home turf," surrounded by friendly North Carolina Democratic politicians.

    The fact of the matter is, Edwards doesn't have much home state support, and had he chosen to announce in NC, it would have likely been overshadowed by who chose not to attend, both stealing his thunder and saying something about his "down home" reputation he'd rather not the rest of the country find out.

    Edwards spent part of his New Orleans photo-op with a shovel in hand. For those of us who know him the best, that seems quite appropriate.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:48 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    December 27, 2006

    RIP Gerald Ford

    The former President has died at 93:

    Former President Gerald Ford, who became president in 1974 after the resignation of Richard Nixon, died Tuesday at age 93.

    Ford, the oldest surviving former U.S. president, died Tuesday, his wife, Betty Ford said. The former first lady's statement did not say where he died or give a cause of death.

    "My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," she said in a statement from Ford's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."

    The nation's 38th president spent several days in the fall of 2006 at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage for medical tests. At the time of his release, on October 16, his chief of staff, Penny Circle, said he would "resume normal activities."

    In August, he was discharged from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, after undergoing an angioplasty procedure to reduce or eliminate blockages in his coronary arteries. Doctors also implanted a pacemaker to improve his heart performance.

    He is survived by his wife; three sons, Michael, Jack and Steven; and a daughter, Susan.

    President Ford was the only President to ever hold the office never having been elected President or Vice President, being elevated in the wake of resignations in the Nixon administration following the Watergate scandal.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    December 22, 2006

    The Durham DA's Partial Withdrawal

    I could really care less about the whole Duke Lacrosse rape trial, but today, Durham DA Mike Nifong finally dropped the rape changes. It's about damn time. They found plenty of DNA evidence, from five different men—we haven't seen that much sperm in North Carolina in one place since they stopped whaling—but none of it belonged to the lacrosse players.

    And yet, he insists on prosecuting the kidnapping and sexual offense charges, which to my mind, hinged on the rape changes.

    Why?

    Answer provided by Durham native, Mary Katherine Ham:

    It’s Durham. It’s full of a bunch of liberal white people who love to get yelled at by black people, and a bunch of liberal black people who are happy to oblige them. This story scratched that white guilt itch soooo good, they just couldn’t let it go, even though it was pretty clear from the beginning that the story was a little off.

    The national media liked the white, privileged, lax boys rape hard-working, exotic dancer, single mom story, and they ran with it, too. As a result, many lives, seasons, careers, and a successful sports program have been seriously messed with by a D.A. who couldn’t back off on the narrative, either, lest he feel the wrath at the ballot box from those whom he denied their white guilt orgy.

    I lived in Durham for two years.

    That's about right.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Dumb Congressman, Dumber Blogger

    If it is true that a negative and a negative make a positive, does that mean that a stupid comment made by a politician, and responded to ignorantly by a blogger, equate to good blog fodder?

    Let's see.

    BlueNC, a liberal blog apparently from the Concord, NC area outside of Charlotte, attacked Republican Congressman Robin Hayes yesterday for something the local newspaper reported he said in a speech to a local Rotary Club:

    "Stability in Iraq ultimately depends on spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men. Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the Savior."

    If that is an accurate reflection of what Hayes said (Blue NC provides no link, as the local paper, the Concord Standard and Mount Pleasant Times, has a web site, but does not have an online edition), then Hayes made an unwise comment.

    I know the Concord area, and Hayes was certainly playing to his constituency in the heavily Christian audience, with no thought that his comments would get wider distribution around the world thanks to modern technology.

    Were his comments careless? Certainly. Accurate? Only in that Christians don't have much of a track record of suicide bombings, nor do they typically use their electric drills for much other than home repair.

    churchsign

    Typically.

    Hayes, like many of our leaders in the House and Senate, seems far from savvy of how this series of tubes called the Internets, works. He doesn't get it.

    Like too many public figures, he does not yet understand that anything you say, anywhere you say it no matter how small, can and will be used against you now in the court of public opinion. Does this make him evil or a "crusader?" No, just stupid.

    Equally stupid, however, is this comment by the formatting and theologically-challenged blogger, LiberalNC (my bold):

    So if we just turn our soldiers into missionaries everything will be okay, Mr. Hayes? First we sent our men over there to take out the WMD’s, then it was to “spread democracy”, now you want them there to “spread the message of Jesus Christ”? It so happens that people in Iraq already have a savior but unfortunately for Mr. Hayes it’s Muhammed, not Jesus. If we can’t keep Muslims from killing each other over there, I don’t think that trying to make them all Christian is going to be any easier.

    This will undoubtedly come as a shock to "LiberalNC" and perhaps many liberals in general, but "Mo" isn't anyone's savior. Never has been, never will be.

    The very concept of a Savior, someone both God and man who sacrificed his earthly life to take up the burdens of our sins, is uniquely Christian.

    There is nothing even similar to the concept of a savior in Islam. Mohammed did a lot of interesting things, like zipping around Heaven and Hell on guided tours, but he was never a savior, nor did he ever claim to be.

    Maybe that is why I find it so amusing when liberals try to comment on the War on Terror.

    They don't understand even the basic underlying cultural and philosophical differences between western societies based upon Judeo-Christian thought and those societies based upon Islamic philosophies, and ignorantly assume that Islam is some sort of flip-side to Christianity, that Mohammed is a direct analog to Jesus.

    Hayes made a mistake pandering to a local audience, but certainly understands he comments were just hot air, with no hope of being implemented or even seriously discussed. LiberalNC, however, was quite serious, making a comparison based upon a vast ignorance of the gulf between two of the world's major religions.

    The later is assuredly more ignorant than the former.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:08 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    December 21, 2006

    Soylent Bean

    Did you hear about "American concentration camps for brown people?"

    It come from this extended wet fart in an post from Firedoglake's Pachacutec (my bold):

    Latina Lista has been doing fantastic work on the story of the truly evil ICE roundup of immigrant children and families, which has in many cases left American citizen children effectively orphaned. Now, we learn of American concentration camps for brown people, holding hundreds of children, just in time for Christmas, here on mainland American soil. As allied forces liberated Europe after defeating Germany, the undesirables of the Nazi regime were set free. Who will liberate these people?

    It has to be you.

    Nazis? Illegal Aliens? You know what that means... FIRE UP THE OVENS!!!

    Easy-Bake-Mix-Dora

    And be sure to leave some for Santa... con leche.

    Does that illustrate just how stupid you sound, Pachy? Good.

    The Nazis efficiently murdered between 9-11 million people because of no other reason than they were "undesirables"of the wrong religious, cultural, or social minority, or they were gay, crippled, or mentally handicapped, or prisoners of war.

    To compare such a barbaric event to the incarceration of people into undoubtably stressful and uncomfortable but safe and heated facilities for ignoring this nations laws, is beyond the pale. Get a sense of perspective, and perhaps, an education.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    December 13, 2006

    Senator Suffers Possible Stroke

    Via Fox News:

    South Dakota Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson was admitted Wednesday to George Washington University hospital in Washington, D.C., for symptoms aides say indicate a stroke.

    "As this stage, he is undergoing a comprehensive evaluation by the stroke team. Further details will be forthcoming when more is known," said a statement released from his office.

    Johnson was admitted after wrapping up a conference call with reporters, in which he became disoriented and stuttered a response to a question. He appeared to recover, asking for any additional questions and then signed off.

    I've seen a lot of political coverage of this already, and ironically enough, it is a politician that seems to be the only person keeping this in the proper perspective.

    "This is a pretty mean town and lets just keep him in our prayers," said former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "This town is so eat up with power that everybody, you know, that's all they think about. You go to ask somebody for a cup of coffee, they question why you asked, there must be an ulterior motive to you asking.

    "Senator Johnson is a really nice man from strong South Dakota stock so I am sure he'll be all right," DeLay added.

    As "the Hammer" says, keep the Senator and his family in your prayers.

    There will be plenty of time for our base sport of partisan sniping later.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:15 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    December 11, 2006

    Olmert Admits Words Worst-Kept Secret

    Apple is now planning to sue, claiming a copyright infringment on "I-Bomb."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Torture? Who Cares?

    As much as the fringe left seem to be able to manufacture spittle-flecked outrage over the interrogation of suspected al Qaeda terrorists, they seem curiously quiet over the treatment of a captured homicide bomber that said the following of his incarceration:

    "It is a closed-off world designed to isolate inmates from social and environmental stimuli, with the ultimate purpose of causing mental illness and chronic physical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and arthritis."

    Where is the ACLU? Amnesty International? Dick Durbin?

    You would think that sockpuppet (Who answers "How would a Patriot Act?" by moving to Brazil) and his ideological fellow travelers would be all over this story, wouldn't you? And yet they are curiously silent.

    It must have something to do with the fact that the man who said this is Eric Robert Rudolph.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:32 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    December 07, 2006

    Edited for Recreancy

    editor

    Update: An opinion on the Baker Commissions findings from Sgt. T.F. Boggs, in Mosul, Iraq:

    After watching the Iraq Survey Group press conference today I am a firm believer that all politicians are idiots. Okay well not all of them but they all have a problem understanding reality. If any politician is reading this now feel free to email me and we’ll go out for coffee and I’ll further explain. But I digress.

    The Iraq Survey Group’s findings or rather, recommendations are a joke and could have only come from a group of old people who have been stuck in Washington for too long. The brainpower of the ISG has come up with a new direction for our country and that includes negotiating with countries whose people chant “Death to America” and whose leaders deny the Holocaust and call for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth. Baker and Hamilton want us to get terrorists supporting countries involved in fighting terrorism!

    ...What the group desperately needed was at least one their members to have been in the military and had recent experience in Iraq. The problem with having an entire panel with no one under the age of 67 is that none of them could possibly know what the situation is actually like on the ground in Iraq. Now I concede that it is possible to have a good understanding of things as they stand in Iraq but unless you interact with the people of Iraq and spend a year or years of your life on ground you cannot possibly have a complete picture of the situation.

    We cannot appease our enemies and we cannot continue to cut and run when the going gets tough. As it stands in the world right now our enemies view America as a country full of queasy people who are inclined to cut and run when things take a turn for the worse. Just as the Tet Offensive was the victory that led to our failure in Vietnam our victories in Iraq now are leading to our failure in the Middle East. How many more times must we fight to fail? I feel like all of my efforts (30 months of deployment time) and the efforts of all my brothers in arms are all for naught. I thought old people were supposed to be more patient than a 24 year old but apparently I have more patience for our victory to unfold in Iraq than 99.9 percent of Americans.

    Sgt. Boggs understands that there are only two ways to deal with terrorists: you either kill them, or you appease them.

    Jules Crittenden worries that short-sighted Americans, bored with this war (that is rightfully our responsibility to win), will pass down a much more dangerous world to future generations if we refuse to complete our mission now:

    My son, 10 years old, has grown up in a world of war more intense than I grew up in. He was five and watching TV when he saw the Twin Towers on fire. His uncle was a soldier, helping to keep us safe, we told him. Then his dad went away to war. He met people who had been in war, even people who had been horribly wounded in war.

    And he has said things to me like, "When I grow up, if I don't get killed in battle, I want to be a Major League pitcher."

    I'm proud of a boy who talks like that, and heartbroken that he has to. I know the day may come when my boy has to go, and I'll learn things about war that hundreds of thousands of American parents have learned in the past few years.

    Will my son then also have to learn all these gut-wrenching things?

    What about the betrayal? Will he have to learn about that as I fear we might be about to?

    Far too many people have deluded themselves into thinking that if we withdraw our military from Iraq, that Iraqis will somehow have peace. Far too many people have deluded themselves into thinking that if we withdraw from Iraq, that we will have peace.

    We were not in Iraq on September 11, 2001. We were not in Japan on December 7, 1941, and in both instances, fanatics loyal to would-be tyrants attacked us.

    pearl_harbor_oil

    65 years later, BB-39 U.S.S. Arizona still bleeds, but we finished the job. The United States destroyed the enemy and the ideology that sent her to the bottom. We fought a far more capable enemy that was armed with far greater resources and weaponry, and we sustained far more casualties in individual battles than we might loose in ten years in Iraq... Yet we prevailed.

    If we refuse to finish the job of destroying Islamist terrorism where it lives in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Gaza, Sudan, and elsewhere, it will not slink away in the night. Terror will smolder like a peat fire in corners of the world both far and near, until once again one day, we look up to see burning building and burning people falling from the sky.

    Then it will be our children—yours, mine and Jules'—sent off to fight what will then be a more widespread and entrenched enemy. This future war will requiring more men, more resources, and more terrible weaponry, and yet, this future war never needs to be... if we have the fortitude to finish this war that they started, now, in our time.

    Iraq is but one battleground in a wider war that one day must include every nation that harbors, equips, or sustains Islamic terrorism.

    "Cowboy" Bush was right on September 20, 2001.

    You either honor the ideas, ideals and sacrifices required to maintain free and democratic civilization, or you allow barbarism, fanaticism, and oppression to reign.

    The choice is yours.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:04 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

    December 06, 2006

    Fact-Challenged Superficial Jew-Hating Fabulist

    cartergollum
    "Precious!"

    But other than that, I'm sure he's a pretty nice guy.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:57 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    December 05, 2006

    Moderately Uninformed

    Writing at the Moderate Voice, Shaun Mullen gets quite a few things—almost everything—wrong, in just four short paragraphs:

    Robert Gates got it wrong right out of the, er . . . gate on Tuesday in the opening session of his nomination hearing to replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense.

    Gates declared that Iraq is "one of the central battlefronts" in the war on terrorism, but failed to note why. His omission compounded the biggest of President Bush's Big Lies: The U.S. didn't go to war in Iraq because it was awash with terrorists. It is awash with terrorists because Rumsfeld's horribly botched occupation opened the door to Al Qaeda and others.

    Gates did get a couple of big things right: The U.S. is losing the war and the resulting mess may trigger a regional war.

    His candor is a refreshing change, but I fear that Robert Gates is too little too late.

    First, Gates never claimed that we were losing in Iraq. As a matter of fact he expressly said we weren't losing (nor winning, implying a stalemate). I invite Mr. Mullen to go back and re-read what actually happened, instead of printing what he apparently wanted to hear.

    I'd also point out that prior to the 2003 invasion, several terror groups called Iraq home, that Saddam paid bounties to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and that Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, and Abdul Rahman Yasin, the 1993 WTC bomb builder, all lived in Iraq with Saddam's knowledge and perhaps his blessing. In addition, Iraq's intelligence services were complicit in planning, financing, training, and executing terror attacks internally and regionally. Iraq had quite a stable of terrorists and terrorist-enablers prior to the invasion, and I frankly resent Mr. Mullen's patently dishonest mischaracterization that Iraq wasn't waist-deep in terrorism.

    As the Man said, the stated objective of the invasion was "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people."

    Mullen might not like those facts, but he isn't allowed to make up his own history in response.

    I will agree that the post-war occupation (the war itself lasted weeks and was a decisive U.S. victory) has been botched horribly, but it wasn't all Rummy and Bush; State and other government agencies have proven to be every bit as much incompetent as the civilian leadership at the Pentagon, even if they aren't as visible.

    Mullen also seems to imply that everything going wrong in Iraq happens only as a result of U.S. actions and/or inactions, a patently dishonest rhetorical position that flies directly in the face of reality.

    His position—rancid "blame America first" pabulum echoed by far too many "serious" people who should know better—ignores the fact that other regional actors such as Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc all have the capability to influence the situation within Iraq for good, or ill.

    Sadly, most Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and others that could have a positive influence have adopted a mostly "hands off" policy, which had the Iraqi foreign minister today blaming them for not doing more. The two nations that have been making a concerted effort to affect conditions in Iraq have both been negative, with Syria supporting the Baathist insurgency and Iran supporting Shiite militias. It also ignores the free will of Iraqis, some of which (particularly some of the Sunni tribes in al Anbar) is self-defeating.

    Mullen’s next-to-parting shot is ignorant along those same lines, another failure of shortsightedness.

    He states a U.S failure could trigger a larger regional war. I've got a news flash for him and you as well; the war between western and Islamist philosophies—the larger regional war, or if left unfinished soon, a probable world war—has been building in its latest incarnation for nearly 30 years. It is merely the latest iteration in a war over a thousand years old, and renewed conflict is a certainty. It will occur, regardless of the proximate trigger.

    If we are very very lucky we will fight this as a regional war instead of a world war, and sooner rather than later. We should fight it before bare democracies in Iraq and Lebanon fall to the influence of Shia Islamists, and preferably before Iran completes and uses nuclear weapons on Israel, wiping out the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the process, prompting a dying Israel to launch a nuclear counterstrike that will kill tens of millions of Iranians.

    Robert Gates has a terminal weakness common to many realists, the inability to realize that the "other" does not think like us, or even necessarily opposite of the way we think. The term for this sort of failure is called mirroring, an it was such disastrous thinking that convinced the Japanese 65 years ago that a strike on the U.S Naval base at Pearl Harbor would knock us out of the war.

    The Japanese did not understand the psychology of America then, just as Gates, Baker, and other realists make the mistake of misunderstanding how the apocalyptic Hojjatieh sect thinks now. The Hojjatieh sect ruling Iran is a branch of Shia Islam so extreme that Ayatollah Khomeini outlawed it in 1983. These are not rational Cold War Russians, but zealots hoping to expedite the return of their Messiah, and they are sure that they have the Allah-given mandate to bring the Madhi back to earth through nuclear fire.

    We will fight this war. The only question is how high the butcher's bill will be, which is in part determined by howe much longer we procrastinate.

    Mullen fundamentally misunderstands what the nomination of Robert Gates represents. He isn't "too little, too late." The realist school of foreign policy to which Gates subscribes created the problem with which we are now confronted.

    Robert Gates may be a fine man and great public servant, but unless this leopard has changed his spots considerably, he is precisely the wrong man for the job.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:49 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

    November 28, 2006

    American Legion Vs. Charles Rangel

    Via The Corner:

    WASHINGTON Nov. 27 /Standard Newswire/ — The National Commander of The American Legion called on Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) to apologize for suggesting that American troops would not choose to fight in Iraq if they had other employment options.

    "Our military is the most skilled, best-trained all- volunteer force on the planet," said National Commander Paul A. Morin. "Like that recently espoused by Sen. John Kerry, Congressman Rangel's view of our troops couldn't be further from the truth and is possibly skewed by his political opposition to the war in Iraq."

    According to Rangel, "If a young fellow has an option of having a decent career, or joining the Army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq. If there's anyone who believes these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No bright young individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of some educational benefits," Rangel said.

    Rangel was responding to a question during an interview yesterday on Fox News Sunday about a recent study by the Heritage Foundation which found that those enlisting in the military tend to be better educated than the general public and that military recruiting seems to be more successful in middle- class and wealthy neighborhoods than in poor ones.

    According to the study, 97 percent of military enlistees were high school graduates versus 80 percent of Americans in general. The study also concludes that the average reading level of military personnel is a full grade level higher than that of the general population.

    "I'm not sure I understand what is unfair about letting adults make their own career choices," Morin said as he visited troops in Korea this week. "Troops serving today have a higher education level than the overall population. Why another member of Congress is insulting our troops' commitment and education level is beyond me."

    Morin said the American Legion applauds and appreciates the great sacrifices of those who serve - - many of whom have put civilian careers aside, college on hold or given up high paying jobs to enlist.

    More and more troops say it's duty and honor before college fund that motivated them to join. Recruiting numbers have been met this year, but more importantly, servicemembers are reenlisting so retention within the armed forces is great, Morin explained. Not everyone holds the view that we should wait to be attacked again as a nation.

    "These brave men and women lay it on the line every day for each and every one of us, for which I am very grateful," Morin said. "Their selfless commitment for the betterment of our world from radical extremists is beyond commendable. It's time for members of Congress to stop insulting our troops.

    "While the American Legion shares the congressman's appreciation for education, the troops in Iraq represent the most sophisticated, technologically superior military that the world has ever seen," Morin said. "I call on Congressman Rangel to not only apologize to our troops but to also fight for pay increases and make significant improvements to the current GI Bill — reserves and guard included, as he prepares for a party chairmanship in the 110th Congress."

    Odds are that Rangle will either ignore the American Legion (as he has always consistently avoided the facts that those in the military are not overwhelmingly poor inner city minorities, but quite the opposite) or issue a John Kerry-esque "I'm sorry that you aren't smart enough to understand me" non-apology apology.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:50 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    November 27, 2006

    Is Patriotism Dead?

    To listen to John Kerry or Charles Rangel, you would think so. These Democrat veterans—who speak for so many other Democrats, veteran and not—seem to think military service is something that an American citizen engages in only as a last resort measure. Kerry's infamous pre-election "stuck in Iraq" comment (for which he has un-apologized), along with Rangel's new pronouncement that people will only join the military if they don’t have "an option of having a decent career," reflect a liberal mindset that views voluntary military service as something only for those who are nearly destitute, and who have few other options.

    It seems to them and many other liberals that joining the military is a last chance option that is a step or two above going homeless, and little more.

    Of course, this flies in the face of the facts that those who join the military tend to be more suburban, educated and affluent than their contemporaries. But neither Charlie nor John nor the rest of their liberal "truther" movement are dissuaded by anything as inconsequential as facts.

    Duty. Honor. Country.

    Honor. Courage. Commitment.

    Upon these and similar principles the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY and the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD were founded, as were their fellow service academies for the U.S. Air Force and Coast Guard. Men and women seeking to develop these character traits often seek to go to service academies or walk into military local recruiting offices.

    Almost all (98%) voluntary enlistees are high school graduates. 92% of officers have bachelor's degrees, and many have advanced degrees. Do liberals honestly think these people joined the military because they didn’t have "an option of having a decent career" otherwise?

    Joining the military because of a feeling of patriotism—a love of one’s country and willingness to sacrifice for it—seems to be an increasingly remote concept for those on the left. No, they’d rather do what they do best, and attempt to define those who would serve as another stupid, oppressed childish minority that need to be saved from themselves.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:11 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

    November 24, 2006

    Thanksgiving "Humor"

    Allowing this bile to be published on her site tells me a bit about the character of Arianna Huffington.

    To be fair, though, I'm fairly sure she'd allow the same comments to be uttered about Joe Lieberman.

    That's bipartisanship.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:12 AM | Comments (71) | TrackBack

    November 22, 2006

    Regarding the Harriet Miers of Defense...

    Yet another well-stated reason that Robert Gates should not be Secretary of Defense, from Hugh Hewitt's interview with Victor David Hanson (my bold):

    HH: ...Does the President have the ability to wage aggressive war with a pacifist Congress?

    VDH: I think he does, but let's be candid, Hugh. The problem right now isn't...it may be the left wing Congress, but he's got another problem, and that is he's bringing in Robert Gates, and he's bringing in the Baker realism, and that doesn't have a good record. That's the people who said don't talk to Yeltsin. Let's stick with Gorbacev. Let's not go to Baghdad. Let the Shia and Kurds die. Let's arm the Islamisists to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and then leave. It's not a good record. It's short-term expediency at the expense of long-term morality. And it's not in the interest of the United States to do that, to cut a deal with these countries.

    To put it bluntly, "realists" like Robert Gates and James Baker did much to create the situation in the Middle East with which we are now faced.

    There is a place in the world for Robert Gates, and that place is, and should remain, Texas A&M.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:22 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    November 21, 2006

    Leftist Nut Declares Himself President

    Interestingly enough, unemployed Latin American studies professors are a big part of the leftist base in this country, as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    November 20, 2006

    Charlie Rangel's Botched Joke

    The furor and continued non-apology over John Kerry's "stuck in Iraq" comment have just subsided, and now New York Democrat Charles Rangel attempts to leverage an equally insulting draft recommendation in an attempt to raise an anti-war cry, using a call for compulsory service in the U.S. military as a wedge issue:

    Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) has long advocated returning to the draft, but his efforts drew little attention during the 12 years that House Democrats were in the minority. Starting in January, however, he will chair the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. Yesterday he said "you bet your life" he will renew his drive for a draft.

    "I will be introducing that bill as soon as we start the new session," Rangel said on CBS's "Face the Nation." He portrayed the draft, suspended since 1973, as a means of spreading military obligations more equitably and prompting political leaders to think twice before starting wars.

    "There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," said Rangel, a Korean War veteran. "If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft."

    Lets be very, very clear: Charles Rangel doesn't give a damn about the "equitably" of service in our nation's military, which to date, is over-represented by soldiers who are more rural, wealthy, and better educated than their peers. He instead clings to often disproven lies that the military is disproportionately made up of minorities and the poor.

    Rangel willingly lies, but lies with a purpose.

    What doubtlessly disappoints Mr. Rangel is that though Americans do not support the direction of the War in Iraq (as was evidenced in the recent election), they have refused to engage in the massive protests and demonstrations that were key to the anti-war campaign during the Vietnam era. Rangel's primary goal in his call to reinstate the draft is to gin up protests like those of 30 years ago.

    Rangel's tactics are particularly loathsome in that he seeks to use our all-volunteer military as the whipping boy for his anti-war politics. He would attempt to pit draft-age Americans and their family members against those who honorably joined the military of their own volition.

    I have nothing but contempt for Rangel's transparent demagoguery. He does not wish to strengthen America's proud all-volunteer military, but instead seeks to lessen its will, against its wishes, and against its needs.

    Rangel's call to reinstate the draft is cynical, unwanted, and like Kerry's comments before, a back-handed slap at those who serve our nation of their own free will.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:25 PM | Comments (31) | TrackBack

    November 17, 2006

    Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

    outhouse

    SS/DD.

    So much for Darwin's "survivial of the fittest."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    November 16, 2006

    Priceless

    Despite my general dislike of CNN, I've got to hand it to them; they really got this perfect, both photo and headline.

    unhappynancy

    Nancy's steaming, Murtha's pouting, and Hoyer's preening. Oh what a fun Congress this promises to be.

    I somehow doubt that any of us outside the Beltway fully understand what kind of damage Nancy Pelosi has done to her credibility within the Democrat ranks over the past few days. She may find a way to earn that trust back, but I suspect it won't come easy.

    As others have noted (h/t Hot Air), Pelosi's lobbying for Murtha against Hoyer seemed from the outset to be a very petty and personal vendetta that might alienate many of the moderate Democrats that just won power two weeks ago.

    With the final vote for Majority Leader coming out 149-86 in Hoyer's favor, we seem to be witnessing a potential fragmentation of the Democratic Party. The liberal leadership which now firmly holds the Speaker's post and seems primed to take over the majority of the key committee assignments is ideologically at odds with an incoming group of Congressional freshman that on average, are far more moderate in their views.

    Update: Denial:

    And don't shed any tears for Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi. Even though her guy lost, this was still a big win for her. A victory for taking a stand -- and for her leadership. Because that's what real leaders do, they take stands. They listen to their hearts and follow their gut. If you only jump into the fights you're sure you can win -- notches in the W column that will look good on your political resume -- you're a hack, not someone who can move the party and the country forward. It's not about trying to have a spotless record; it's about knowing which battles are worth fighting, whatever the outcome.

    It bodes well for Pelosi that was willing to spend her political capital right off the bat -- especially on the issue that will define her time at the helm. Far too many modern politicians save their political capital until it's lost all its value.

    Arianna? Pelosi's already running a deficit.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:44 PM | Comments (29) | TrackBack

    November 15, 2006

    Ouch

    It's been barely a week since the 2006 midterms, and WaPo Ruth Marcus is wasting no time on judging Nancy Pelosi's leadership thus far.

    Her grade for Pelosi for stating she would "lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," and then backing John "Abscam" Murtha for House majority leader?

    failing%20paper

    Not Good.


    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:20 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    The Potomac's Not River In Egypt

    Harold Meyerson has a particularly odd editorial posted this morning in the Washington Post, insisting conservatives are in denial:

    On their journey through the stages of grief, conservatives don't yet seem to have gotten past denial.

    Republicans may have lost, conservatives argue, but only because they misplaced their ideology. "[T]hey were punished not for pursuing but for forgetting conservatism," George F. Will, conservatism's most trenchant champion, wrote on this page last week.

    Their mortal sin, in this gospel, was their abandonment of fiscal prudence.

    They doffed their green eyeshades and gushed red ink. "The greatest scandal in Washington, D.C., is runaway federal spending," said Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, the true-blue conservative who is challenging Ohio's John Boehner for the post of House Republican leader.

    Holding conservatism blameless for last week's Republican debacle may stiffen conservative spines, but the very idea is the product of mushy conservative brains unwilling to acknowledge the obvious: that conservatism has never been more ascendant than during George Bush's presidency; that the Republican Party over the past six years moved well to the right of the American people on social, economic and foreign policy; and that on Nov. 7 the American people chose a more pragmatic course.

    I bed to differ with Mr. Meyerson, on several points. First, while there are doubtlessly some conservatives in denial about why Republicans lost, it seems most of those reside inside the Beltway. From the Rove-influenced push for an ineffectual Mel Martinez to be RNC Chair, to an all-but-rigged push to install the same failed leadership into power on Capital Hill, it is the Beltway drones that seem to be in denial over why Republicans lost, not the rank and file conservatives in the rest of the country.

    Denial is a stage of grief that most conservatives that I have come in contact with (either online or in person) skipped right past. In fact, most conservatives seem to have been rather pragmatic and have avoided the grief process altogether.

    If you want to see an acute application of political grief for comparison, I suggest you instead look to prominent liberal personalities after the 2000 and 2004 elections.

    Michael Moore was so depressed by Bush's 2004 win that he couldn't get out of bed for three days. Actor Vincent "Private Pyle" D'Onofrio "Lost his ****" and had to be treated by paramedics because of Bush's 2004 win.

    Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, actor Alec Baldwin, former Kennedy Press Secretary Pierre Salinger and film director Robert Altman were just some of the liberal voices who were confirmed to have said they would leave the United States because of electoral results, though Salinger was the only one to follow through on his "threat."

    Some liberal in past elections were so distraught over past elections that new psychological conditions were the result, with the serious Post Election Selection Trauma and satirical Bush Derangement Syndrome as a result.

    No, Mr. Meyerson, most conservatives outside the Beltway were disappointed with the results of the election, but we understood why we lost.

    The nation is unhappy with the way the War in Iraq is being fought. The nation is disgusted with greed in the form of pork-barrel politics symbolized by the Bridge to Nowhere, and runaway federal spending a Republican Congress and President supported. The nation was dismayed with how slowly and ineffectively the federal government reacted in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and by corruption both financial and sexual as personified by Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley. Immigration and stem cell controversies also alienated voters.

    As for Meyerson's asinine statement, "that conservatism has never been more ascendant than during George Bush's presidency" I have but a simple two-word reply: Ronald Reagan.

    But for all that Mr. Meyerson got wrong in his fundamental misunderstanding of the conservative mind, he did get something right when he concluded that Republicans ran a 2006 campaign "devoid of new ideas."

    Hopefully, the conservative base will be able to reverse that course in elections to come.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    November 14, 2006

    Murtha: Fellow Dems "Swift-Boating Me"

    Yeah, not an exact quote, but pretty much on the mark:

    The race to be the No. 2 House Democratic leader turned nasty Tuesday, with challenger Rep. John Murtha accusing opponents of "swift-boat style attacks" that hark back to his days being investigated in the FBI's 1980 Abscam sting.

    Murtha won endorsement Monday from Nancy Pelosi, who is widely expected to be the House speaker. But Murtha is opposed by some liberals who say they are not happy with the Pennsylvania lawmaker's pro-gun and anti-abortion record. Others say Pelosi took a wrong turn in backing Murtha over her current deputy Rep. Steny Hoyer because Murtha's record is marred by ethics questions of the type Pelosi pledged to clean up in Congress.

    "I am disconcerted that some are making headlines by resorting to unfounded allegations that occurred 26 years ago. I thought we were above this type of swift-boating attack. This is not how we restore integrity and civility to the United States Congress," Murtha said of the ample press coverage of his link to Abscam and more recent negotiations he made as ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Committee.

    To date, Murtha hasn't yet accused his fellow Democrats of torpedoing his nomination "in cold blood."

    Yet.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    November 09, 2006

    Bill Maher's Sex Slaves

    It seems that liberal comedian pundit Bill Maher (if you've never heard of him don't feel bad; the comedian label is something of a misnomer) intends to play "the outing game" according to an interview he did with Larry King on CNN. His targets, as you may well expect, will be prominent Republicans he feels might be gay.

    The liberals at the Huffington Post and always acrid John Aravosis of AmericaBlog are absolutely livid that Maher's naming of RNC Chair Ken Mehlman was edited out of later rebroadcasts of the King interview.

    For those on the "tolerant" left, it seems that being gay and Republican--or for that matter, almost any minority and a Republican-- is a sin of the first order. Punishment for this "sin" is the practice of being "outed," whereby liberals that hate prominent Republicans for their policy differences also pronounce them gay in a public forum, whereby other liberals can join in and share in hating them for the compounded sin of being gay and Republican.

    In this worldview practiced by too many liberals, one's views on social security reform, healthcare, taxes, defense matters, foreign policy, trade, the death penalty, abortion, religion, etc, are all superceded by which gender you are attracted to.

    What this means for homosexuals according to liberals, is that even though you might favor small government, low taxes, a strong military, an aggressive foreign policy, closing the borders to illegal aliens, free trade and 90% of the planks on the Republican platform, you are a traitor if you aren't liberal. If you are gay, goes their logic, you must, by their decree, be liberal.

    If not, you'll face such lovely, constructive, adult perspectives such as these culled from the HuffPo comment thread:

    Out the gay bastards who undermine their own lives by working for the GOP....
    Gay Republicans are guilty of self-loathing and by serving a party that's harmful them they feel relieved of their guilt. Maschochists.

    The great sin, in their warped perspective, is that of hypocrisy.

    But what people that hold to a slate of political ideas that are conservative across the board, and happen to be gay? Should they suborn the larger part of their belief system to their libido just to appease someone else's radical politics?

    I'd say making someone a social and political slave to their sexual attractions is the greater hypocrisy, but what do I know.

    I'm one of those intolerant conservatives.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:41 PM | Comments (23) | TrackBack

    The Dominos Fall

    Via Fox News:

    Among those expected to hand in resignation letters is the Pentagon's top intelligence official, Under Secretary of Defense Steve Cambone, a close Rumsfeld associate and a key architect in planning for the Iraq war and the War on Terror.

    Cambone is the first person to hold the post, and in doing so helped the Pentagon step up its own intelligence gathering assets, a role traditionally overseen by the CIA. The new system led to turf battles between the two agencies in recent years.

    This resignation is hardly unexpected, and as the article mentions, more are certainly on the way.

    The article also mentions this, which makes me uneasy:

    In announcing the secretary's resignation, President Bush said he was nominating Robert Gates, a veteran of the CIA under President George H.W. Bush, to lead the Pentagon. Though closely tied to the Bush family, Gates is considered by many to be an agent of change.

    Rep. Jane Harman, the expected next chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Gates would be a good fit to run the Department of Defense because of his intelligence background.

    "He will respect the role of civilian intelligence agencies, including the CIA," Harman, D-Calif., said.

    Harmon is one of many Democrats that backs John Murtha's "over the horizon" movement of soldiers out of Iraq.

    The more I hear about Bob Gates and who is supporting him, the more I come to think he's the "Harriet Miers" nominee for Secretary of Defense.


    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Official Enough: Democrats Take Senate

    Stick a fork in George Allen. He's done, are are the GOP's slim hopes of holding on to the Senate:

    A Democratic takeover of the Senate is appearing likely after an ongoing canvass of votes in Virginia produced no significant changes in the outcome of the hard-fought race led by Democratic challenger Jim Webb, sources told CNN Wednesday.

    Wednesday night, with Webb leading Republican Sen. George Allen by about 7,200 votes and the canvass about half complete, The Associated Press declared Webb the winner.

    CNN does not declare a winner when race results are less than 1 percent and the potential loser may request a recount vote.

    A source close to Allen also told CNN that the senator "has no intention of dragging this out."

    Meanwhile, a Webb aide told CNN that he plans a formal news conference Thursday morning to declare victory.

    A victory by Webb would put the new Senate lineup at 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans and two independents -- Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut -- who have said they would caucus with the Democrats.

    This outcome in Virginia is hardly unexpected at this point, but perhaps the most interesting aspect of this is that Joe Lieberman, the Senator that the liberal netroots derided as "Rape Gurney Joe", has potentially become a powerful swing vote in the Senate should he decide to act as such. All the bile and hatred directed at him may not easily be forgotten.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:07 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    November 08, 2006

    Rumsfeld Resigns

    Catching it on Drudge and Rush, and will expect to hear confirmation in Bush's press conference momentarily.

    Will update...

    Confirmed. Rumfeld was on his way out prior to the election, and our new nominee for Secretary of Defense is Bob Gates, currenty the President of Texas A&M. Bush said that Gates had met with him in Crawford this past Sunday, where I understand he was offered the position. He is the only career officer in the CIA's history to rise from an entry-level employee to the directorship. Gates had previously declined the Director of National Intelligence position now filled by John Negroponte. I'm sure we'll hear more about him in the days ahead, but I simply don't know enoughabout him to know what kind of Secretary he may be at this point.

    Mary Katharine has more.

    Update: Austin Bay reports that an officer he knows thinks that Rumsfeld's resignation sets the stage for more aggressive action against the terrorists.

    That is an interesting hypothesis. If the key issue of the mid-terms for voters was dissatisfaction with the prosecution of the war in Iraq, then a "new direction" could well come in the form of more aggressive, targeted, and tangible offensive operations.

    It will be interesting to see if this is indeed the path taken.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:55 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    What I will Not Be Doing Today

    The following is a short list of things I will not be doing in the wake of the 2006 mid-terms:

    • Blaming Diebold.
    • Staying in bed with massive depression.

    • Creating a new election-based psychological malady.
    • Lamenting that America has down descended into a (fill in the blank) state.
    • Checking out immigration laws to other countries.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:50 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    The Morning After

    Well I just suck at election prognosticating, don't I?

    In a national mid-term election billed as a battle against the way the War in Iraq is being waged and against Republican scandals, Democrats waltzed to an easy reversal of power in the House of Representatives and what many expect to be a slim majority in the Senate.

    The Democratic Party is to be commended for their victories, and their candidates are to be congratulated.

    What remains to be seen, however, is what Democratic electoral success will mean to our domestic and foreign policy.

    Domestically, the farthest reaching effect may be upon those that are not elected to office but appointed, as the Democratic majority will be able to shape who is appointed to federal judgeships, including any Supreme Court vacancies that may occur at least until the 2008 election cycle. There are of course some responsible moderate judges to choose from, but I feel that a strict, historically-grounded interpretation of the Constitution is needed on the federal level, and that is most often found in the kind of judges that Democrats are likely to filibuster.

    Free trade is also going to be dead, and we can expect taxes to go up through a combination of new taxes and a refusal to renew the tax cuts made by the previous Congress.

    We can also expect a "quagmire" as Democrats follow through on their promised "investigations" of the Bush Administration. Some of these are indeed warranted--I know for a concrete fact that the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) is as corrupt as it can be and engaged in illegal activity, as I have personally seen the evidence--and I feel that if the Administration did indeed break any laws they should of course be held accountable.

    I fear, however, that honest investigations of deep-seated agency-level bureaucratic corruption I suspect exists will be ignored in favor of investigations of "brand name" targets. I fully expect Democrats to follow through on multiple investigations targeting the President and Vice President based not upon any actual criminality, but on the appearance of impropriety, with the goal of further weakening the Executive Branch and laying the groundwork for the 2008 campaigns.

    But what concerns me far more than these domestic issues (at least for now) is what the election means internationally, specifically in the War on Terror.

    I can respect the fact that a majority of American voters do not like the way the War on Terror is being conducted. I don't particularly like the way the War on Terror is being fought, particularly in the battleground of Iraq where al Qaeda and allied terrorist groups have joined with state sponsors of terrorism Syria and Iran in an effort to not only destroy any hopes of democracy taking root in the Arab world, but to rally the support of Islamists worldwide.

    Fair or not, terrorist leaders around the world openly cheerleaded for Democratic victory. Leaders of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Islamic Jihad and Hamas were among those that publicly stated that they thought much talked about Democratic plans for withdrawal from Iraq would embolden and spread fundamentalist resistance against the United States. al Qaeda's curiously silent Osama bin Laden had pulled for a Democratic victory for the same reasons in the 2004 elections.

    Will the new Democratic leadership take stock of these comments and attempt to understand why the terrorists cheered them on to victory? Recent history and breaking news alike suggests that they will not. Nancy Pelosi has already this to say about the War on Terror in Iraq:

    "Nowhere did Americans make it more clear that a change is needed in Iraq ... we can't continue down that catastrophic path," she said. "Mr President, we need a new direction in Iraq."

    Pelosi and other Democratic leaders such as Charles Rangel and John Murtha have made clear that their "new direction" is a vision of withdrawal, without apparently registering that such a plan would embolden and spread terrorism, as the terrorists themselves have clearly stated:

    Many Democratic politicians and some from the Republican Party have stated a withdrawal from Iraq would end the insurgency there.

    In a recent interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, stated, "The jihadists (are) in Iraq. But that doesn't mean we stay there. They'll stay there as long as we're there."

    Pelosi would become House speaker if the Democrats win the majority of seats in next week's elections.

    WND read Pelosi's remarks to the terror leaders, who unanimously rejected her contention an American withdrawal would end the insurgency.

    Islamic Jihad's Saadi, laughing, stated, "There is no chance that the resistance will stop."

    He said an American withdrawal from Iraq would "prove the resistance is the most important tool and that this tool works. The victory of the Iraqi revolution will mark an important step in the history of the region and in the attitude regarding the United States."

    Jihad Jaara said an American withdrawal would "mark the beginning of the collapse of this tyrant empire (America)."

    My greatest fear in Iraq is not for the American military, which overwhelmingly wants to stay engaged and finish the mission, but for the 26 million people of Iraq who face a dire future in the hands of a "cut and run" Congress.

    If Democrats are able to force a retreat from Iraq, the existing sectarian violence will likely devolve into a full-fledged civil war that the still-weak Iraqi security forces will be unable to stop or perhaps even slow. The possibility exists for Iraq to fall into full-fledged tribalism, with widespread genocide a distinct possibility. If this comes to pass, the United States will have abandoned the Iraqi people twice in two wars after asking for their support, at the cost of tens of thousands of their lives. Neither they, nor any other nation on earth, will have any reason to trust commitments America for a long time to come.

    Terrorism, instead of being defeated, will have proven to be an effective tactic.

    That may be the ultimate legacy of Nancy Pelosi and Democratic control of the House of Representatives if the liberal leadership has its way. We can only hope that the Democratic moderates who won most of last night elections can steer their leaders from the rear.

    If they cannot, our foreign policy will, quite simply, encourage further acts of terrorism, as the terrorists themselves have made abundantly clear.

    Update: Well, that didn't take long.

    Update: And it gets worse, quickly:

    "America is offering political, financial and logistic cover for the Zionist occupation crimes, and it is responsible for the Beit Hanoun massacre. Therefore, the people and the nation all over the globe are required to teach the American enemy tough lessons," Hamas' military wing said in a statement faxed to news organizations in Gaza.
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:04 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    November 07, 2006

    Election Cut and Run

    While some pollsters are still predicting massive Democratic gains in today's voting, Adam Nagourney of the New York Times is sounding a pre-emptive retreat:

    For a combination of reasons — increasingly bullish prognostications by independent handicappers, galloping optimism by Democratic leaders and bloggers, and polls that promise a Democratic blowout — expectations for the party have soared into the stratosphere. Democrats are widely expected to take the House, and by a significant margin, and perhaps the Senate as well, while capturing a majority of governorships and legislatures.

    These expectations may well be overheated. Polls over the weekend suggested that the contest was tightening, and some prognosticators on Monday were scaling back their predictions, if ever so slightly. (Charlie Cook, the analyst who is one of Washington’s chief setters of expectations, said in an e-mail message on Monday that he was dropping the words "possibly more" from his House prediction of "20-35, possibly more.")

    Some Democrats worry that those forecasts, accurate or not, may be setting the stage for a demoralizing election night, and one with lasting ramifications, sapping the party’s spirit and energy heading into the 2008 presidential election cycle.

    "Two years ago, winning 14 seats in the House would have been a pipe dream," said Matt Bennett, a founder of Third Way, a moderate Democratic organization. Now, Mr. Bennett said, failure to win the House, even by one seat, would send Democrats diving under their beds (not to mention what it might do to all the pundits).

    "It would be crushing," he said. "It would be extremely difficult."

    Mr. Cook put it more succinctly. "I think you’d see a Jim Jones situation — it would be a mass suicide," he said.

    Metaphorically, of course (h/t BCB).

    Scott Elliott of Election Projection made an uncharacteristic disclaimer on his deadly accurate election formula that was so accurate in predicting the outcome in 2004:

    For any election projection formula to be accurate, one of two conditions must be met. Either the data used in the calculations must be reasonably accurate, or the formula must correctly compensate for inaccurate data.

    In Election Projection's case, I firmly believe neither condition was met this year, especially in the House. Polling data was very scarce, and the polls that were available were largely suspect in my view. Moreover, the political pundits on whom I relied heavily in my House projections see a much gloomier outlook than I believe is warranted. Combine those two factors and you have a some heavily skewed projections.

    It seems like it's anybody's race to win, folks. Make sure you vote.

    sheethead

    If you do, you could be rewarded tomorrow morning with thousands of liberal faces looking just like this one... and wouldn't that be worth it?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:00 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    November 06, 2006

    Crazy People: Netroots Plotting Revolution if Dems Lose

    Insanity, right where you would expect it:

    If they steal this again, there MUST be a response.

    Our country is finished for good if Tuesday results in a Republican Majority or the absolute unthinkable, A Super Majority.

    But if this occurs, even if it marks the End Of America, the ONLY response that should happen is the Beginning of the Revolution to take it back.

    This MUST NOT STAND.

    This CANNOT STAND.

    And if we LET IT STAND, like Benjamin Franklin said, we deserve neither Freedom nor Safety.

    At some point we must fight these people.

    It might as well be now.

    Let us hope that Tuesday will not make it necessary for us to take this country back by WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY.

    I think reasonable people would decode "by WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY" as referring to acts of violence, and in this context, perhaps an armed revolt.

    This alone is disturbing, but perhaps not unexpected for an isolated hothead.

    But here is the thing.

    This post was made more than 24 hours ago, and to date, not one of the 27 responses made since this call for revolt "by any means necessary" have disagreed. One person actually agreed. The moderators of this forum, which you would think would be the people to corral such a comment, deleted another comment made later, but let this stand.

    Random accusations of massive voter fraud and calls for violent revoltion if they lose are okay here.

    Around the bend? Welcome home.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:36 PM | Comments (24) | TrackBack

    Whittle Returns

    Bill Whittle has returned.

    For those of you not familiar with his name, Whittle is perhaps on of the best essayists on American politics today, and author of Silent America: Essays from a Democracy at War.

    Grab a cup of coffee, take your time, and digest it all.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    A Completely Unscientific Election Prediction

    All across yonder 'sphere and throughout the mainstream media, pollsters, pundits, and prognosticators as making "informed" predictions of tomorrow's elections back with the best research they can muster.

    Bah. Who needs them?

    With so many polls seemingly at odds with one another, they seem almost worthless at making predictions. I think it is perhaps better to admit that the polls are only really decent at noting trends, and at this point, all of the major polls and many of the minor ones are trending away from a large number of pickups for Democrats in the House and Senate to a much closer barnburner finish.

    Consider the historical fact that such polls tend to oversample Democrats and undersample Republicans, and I think we stand a pretty decent possibility of seeing Republicans being able to declare victory in both the House and Senate, if by narrower margins than what they currently hold.

    Why?

    You can't beat something with nothing.
    While few American's think that the Republican dominated government is doing a great job, tehy are at least doing something. The Democrats have completely failed to come up with anything approaching a cohesive strategy or message.

    Americans dislike losing, and hate surrendering.
    We are not a nation of quitters. While few people agree with the current direction of the war in Iraq, we do not like to quit, and we do not like to abandon our soldiers nor our allies. Our allies in the Iraqi government don't want us to go until their country is stabilized. The overwhelming response form our soldiers is that they don't want to go until Iraq is stabilized. Leading terrorists are openly rooting for a Democratic victory, and the Democrats have built an unsteady "cut and run" coalition that their leadership has unwisely decided to run on. As Americans, we hate losing and hate quitting even more. The liberal Democratic views of Iraq are simply unpalatable to many who consider them defeatists.

    Tax and Spend fears.
    Democrats, this time led by Charles Rangel, have scared the American people with their promise to not extend the current Bush tax cuts and the probability that they will try to raise taxes. I don't personally know anyone who wants to pay more taxes. Do you?

    Impeachment Screeching.
    The can say otherwise all they want, but Thomas already has them on the record, damned with their own words. If Democrats take control of the House, we'll get two years of investigations targeting the President and Vice President for censure and impeachment. If, like Nixon or Clinton, a President clearly did something wrong in office, the American people can tolerate the mess of an impeachment, even if they don't actually like it. The Democrats, have ever, have done just enough prior to the elections so that many voters know it is on their mind, even as Democrats have failed to make a strong enough case that such investigations are anything other than sewer-level political maneuvers.

    Turnover ratio.
    Just like in sports, politicians can look at near-term gaffes to influence the final outcome, and most of the mistakes of the past few weeks have undoubtedly come from Democrats, from Rangel calling Vice President Cheney a "son of a bitch," to John Kerry's continuing swipe at the intelligence of the troops that never seems to end. These mistakes have overshadowed any Republican mistakes, and have stifled the Democratic momentum they seemed to have in past weeks, and may have even reversed it.

    Weather Woes.
    It seems that nobody ever talks about this variable (and so perhaps I'm off base), but weather would seem to have at least some effect on voter turnout, and with many races being very close, weather-suppressed turnouts could hurt some candidates and help others. According to weather.com, the Pacific Northwest is going to be wet and windy, while the South will be rained on all day, with rain hitting the Great Lakes states and parts of the Northeast in the afternoon. The west and Great Plains states appear dry and sunny all day long. My guess is that voters reliant on public transportation may stay home in foul weather, and it seems most of those public transportation voters are likely Democrats. If weather effects are enough to determine outcomes is anyone's guess, but it could be a factor.

    Final Prediction.
    I'll go out on a limb and predict that the Republicans hold the House by six seats and the Senate by three.

    Update: Scott Elliott's much more scientific and time-tested Election Projection will be updating his final projections during the course of the evening.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:34 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

    Soldiers Say Democrat War Plans "An Extreme Betrayal"

    In an article published in today's Washington Post, dozens of soldiers interviewed by Post reporter Josh White revealed that the precipitous withdrawal favored by many top Democratic leaders would have "disastrous consequences" for the nation of Iraq, potentially plunging the nation into a widespread civil war:

    For the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, the war is alternately violent and hopeful, sometimes very hot and sometimes very cold. It is dusty and muddy, calm and chaotic, deafeningly loud and eerily quiet.

    The one thing the war is not, however, is finished, dozens of soldiers across the country said in interviews. And leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences, they said.

    With a potentially historic U.S. midterm election on Tuesday and the war in Iraq a major issue at the polls, many soldiers said the United States should not abandon its effort here. Such a move, enlisted soldiers and officers said, would set Iraq on a path to civil war, give new life to the insurgency and create the possibility of a failed state after nearly four years of fighting to implant democracy.

    "Take us out of that vacuum -- and it's on the edge now -- and boom, it would become a free-for-all," said Lt. Col. Mark Suich, who commands the 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment just south of Baghdad. "It would be a raw contention for power. That would be the bloodiest piece of this war."

    The soldiers declined to discuss the political jousting back home, but they expressed support for the Bush administration's approach to the war, which they described as sticking with a tumultuous situation to give Iraq a chance to stand on its own.

    As I stated previously, a civil war is one possible outcome of the calamitous withdrawal apparently favored by Charles Rangel, Lynn Woolsey and other Democrats that favor forcing the military to retreat by de-funding the war, while other approaches favor by Democrats such as John Murtha's plan to "redeploy" the soldiers to Pacific island bases thousands of miles away would lead to the same bloody disaster, and possible genocide.

    Blackfive has been collecting from soldiers stationed in Iraq--the ones that John Kerry still thinks aren't intelligent according to his own web site--and their opinions, while varied, support the war effort even though it is their lives on the line.

    A sample from a Marine Sergeant on his second tour in Iraq:

    People in the US who want to support the troops, who believe we are engaged in a war, and who recognize the long term consequences of failure need to look past all other issues and vote Republican. Democrats have no policy and can not be trusted. But, even worse, they display no apparent understanding of the dangers to our western civilization presented by the enemy. Their actions since 2001 indicate they are willing to sacrifice the safety and integrity of the USA in the future for short term political gains today.

    It is painfully clear that those soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines that put their lives on the line every day in Iraq overwhelmingly support staying in Iraq to finish the mission. This is borne out from the dozens of interviews collected by White in his Post article, by the more than 100 emails Blackfive has received from those serving in Iraq right now, and in conversation I've personally had with airmen and soldiers I've recently met who've just returned stateside from multiple tours in Iraq.

    As Staff Sergeant Jason Oliver said from Baghdad in one of the interviews that I published this morning:

    If your child takes their first steps while holding on to your hands are you just going to let go and hope they continue on their own? No. Most people would continue to support and encourage them until they can continue on their own without support. I feel the same applies here. The Iraqi government is very young and still needs assistance from outside sources so they can develop and grow. The US government has pledged to help build Iraq into a model for the region, and if we were to pull out to early, the Iraqi Government will stumble from its already young state and possibly fall, which would put US forces back into a situation that could possible be worse. We need to stay, maintain and support the Iraqi Government until it can handle all aspects without US assistance.

    Tomorrow, we will go to vote all across this great nation and elect Congressmen and Senators to lead our nation. It is your right and your privilege to go cast your ballot without any expectations of violence because generations of brave soldiers like these have put on uniforms and picked up rifles to defend freedom for us and others around the world.

    I ask you to consider what these brave men and women in our military are willing to sacrifice for the men, women, and children of Iraq, and what both this nation and 26 million Iraqis stand to lose if Democrats take control of Congress.

    Essayist and blogger Bill Whittle wrote a brilliant essay called Tribes last year, exploring the characteristics of people from two similar but distinct perspectives.

    One perspective is one he borrowed from a theory and seminar by Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman called The Bulletproof Mind. Grossman divides people into three categories: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs, and explains those categories thusly.

    One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me: "Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident."

    This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another.

    Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million total Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

    Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

    I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful. For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.

    "Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

    "Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf." Or, as a sign in one California law enforcement agency put it, "We intimidate those who intimidate others."

    If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen: a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath--a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? Then you are a sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

    To this categorization, Whittle adds his own, regarding the pink and the grey:

    let’s get past Republican and Democrat, Red and Blue, too. Let’s talk about these two Tribes: Pink, the color of bunny ears, and Grey, the color of a mechanical pencil lead.

    I live in both worlds. In entertainment, everything is Pink, the color of Angelyne’s Stingray – it’s exciting and dynamic and glamorous. I’m also a pilot, and I know honest-to-God rocket scientists, and combat flight crews and Special Ops guys -- stone-cold Grey, all of them -- and am proud and deeply honored to call them my friends.

    The Pink Tribe is all about feeling good: feeling good about yourself! Sexually, emotionally, artistically – nothing is off limits, nothing is forbidden, convention is fossilized insanity and everybody gets to do their own thing without regard to consequences, reality, or natural law. We all have our own reality – one small personal reality is called "science, " say – and we Make Our Own Luck and we Visualize Good Things and There Are No Coincidences and Everything Happens for a Reason and You Can Be Whatever You Want to Be and we all have Special Psychic Powers and if something Bad should happen it’s because Someone Bad Made It Happen. A Spell, perhaps.

    The Pink Tribe motto, in fact, is the ultimate Zen Koan, the sound of one hand clapping: EVERYBODY IS SPECIAL.

    Then, in the other corner, there is the Grey Tribe – the grey of reinforced concrete. This is a Tribe where emotion is repressed because Emotion Clouds Judgment. This is the world of Quadratic Equations and Stress Risers and Loads Torsional, Compressive and Tensile, a place where Reality Can Ruin Your Best Day, the place where Murphy mercilessly picks off the Weak and the Incompetent, where the Speed Limit is 186,282.36 miles per second, where every bridge has a Failure Load and levees come in 50 year, 100 year and 1000 Year Flood Flavors.

    The Grey Tribe motto is, near as I can tell, THINGS BREAK SOMETIMES AND PLEASE DON’T LET IT BE MY BRIDGE.

    Now, let’s do a little free associating, just to take the model for a test spin:

    I’m going to throw out some names, and you tell me whether you think they are Pink or Grey? Okay? Ready?

    Donald Rumsfield.
    Al Sharpton.
    Bill Clinton.
    Ted Kennedy.
    George W. Bush.
    Condoleeza Rice.

    Okay, my score is Grey, Pink, Pink, Pink, Grey and Grey. Easy, right? Dems = Pink, Repubs = Grey. Now how about these?

    John Kennedy
    Abraham Lincoln
    Ronald Reagan
    Franklin Roosevelt

    These are more interesting, because there is something very Pink, something warm and emotional and comforting about them. Put all four of them at a dinner table (which I would trade the rest of my life to serve ice water for) and I think you would see four warm, gentle, bright and genuinely funny men.

    Now, think:

    Cuban Missile Crisis
    Fredericksburg
    Reykjavik
    Pearl Harbor

    I get solid Grey scores here. What about you? I get tough, hard-nosed, capable, competent, confident men facing evil straight in the eye and not backing down. (And anyone who even thinks about selling short Reykjavik as a symbol for those eight years of steadfast resolution should see my gun warning, above).

    Also, I see two Democrats and two Republicans. Opposing parties. Same Tribe.

    Now, when things are going swimmingly, when the End of History has arrived, as it did in the 90’s, having a Pink president (careful!) is no big deal. In fact, it’s a downright advantage. He can be a goodwill ambassador, and charm the pants (you heard me!) off of foreign dignitaries and have everyone cooing and gushing about how swell Americans are once the fascists are out of power.

    Now, unfortunately for Pink Power, there remain in the world a few people not impressed by this attitude.

    Not long ago, National Geographic ran a really first-rate, 4-hour documentary called INSIDE 9/11, as perfect an example as you could possibly want of the power of a real documentary to enlighten and inform without taking sides.

    Watching it was horrible, especially for people like me, because we feel like if we had only known what was going on we could have done something about it.

    By the time you've read through these you've probably recognized yourself as a sheep, wolf, or sheepdog, and also as either being pink or grey. You'll also be able to sort out which camps your fellow Americans fall into, and where our current leaders and would be leaders presently stand (the parties, at this moment in history are in stark contrast on which is pink and which is grey), and which paths they would lead us down.

    You'll also recognize that we have a choice tomorrow between those that would also "do something," and those who would not only do nothing, but undo all that has been done.

    Along with the vast majority of our soldiers, I say we continue the fight.

    Surrendering only pleases the wolves.


    Update

    Powerful words from The Anchoress:

    There is a vision in place. It’s difficult, and it is fraught with peril, pain, loss, doubt and heart-clutching fear. But it is the stark and single vision which can shift the Shari’a momentum. The vision is simply this: Help people find their liberty. I you can help them find that - and help them to learn to manage the messy business of freedom - they can begin to chart their own courses. Once they are free, they can enter the marketplace of ideas and industry and find means of movement that have nothing to do with a sword or martyrdom, and everything to do with creativity and human potential and hope.

    That is a bold vision. It is a vision rooted in faith, both of the supernatural and natural sort. Faith in God. Faith in mankind.

    And for some, particularly those who have long-since forgotten how to dream, who look at the world with grounded, earthbound eyes, it is a vision that seems utterly mad and impossible and futile.

    How sad for those who can no longer dream - who can no longer look at America and imagine the greatness within, and how that greatness might be shared - how the visions of the founders might be spread. How sad it is to realize that some of the people currently in leadership positions in this nation would look at General Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and they would say…”this was a bad idea…it’s getting difficult. We should just quit.”

    What would Bobby Kennedy say about these folks? At his funeral, his weakest brother, Ted, quoted George Bernard Shaw in words meant for the slain senator: “Some men see things as they are and say ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’”

    Bobby Kennedy would have understood the vision of George W. Bush. He might not have agreed with it 100%, but he would have understood the greatness and practicality of it, at its core. He would have supported the vision, if not always the method. Bobby Kennedy understood dreams. He understood that sometimes the warrior must have his day, or all the poems will be lost.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:54 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    November 03, 2006

    ...Not As They Do

    "Tis the season for pre-election surprises, some of them well deserved.

    Nationally, a powerful evangelical minister in Colorado Springs that was a vocal proponent of a statewide ballot initiative to ban on gay marriage was outed yesterday by a man who accused him of paying for sex from him over the past three years. As a result, Ted Haggard has stepped down from his post at his 14,000-member church and resigned as president from the National Association of Evangelicals.

    Haggard claims he is innocent, but his accuser, Mike Jones, reportedly has both voicemails and a letter from Haggard that he says proves the trysts occurred. Haggard was also accused of using methamphetamine in his presence. Haggard has also admitted to another minister that some of the allegations may have some truth behind them.

    Locally, the campaign of incumbent Republican Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison was rocked by allegations that he had an on-going affair with a local optometrist's wife. They are apparently still dating now that the couple has divorced.

    Obviously, both of these long-running affairs are morally wrong, and I'm sure our friends on the left will enjoy mercilessly beating them up over their conduct as we run up to the elections on November 7. We will find out at that time whether or not Colorado's gay marriage ban and Harrison's bid to remain sheriff are torpedoed by these politically timed, but still apparently valid charges.

    Nobody is perfect and we all have some sort of embarrassment or skeletons in our closets. Being human, we all make mistakes, and most of them are forgivable.

    But there is a special kind of hypocrisy in publicly advocating one position while privately undercutting it with a contrary and continuing pattern of behavior, and that is what troubles me about both of these cases, Haggard's moreso than Harrison's.

    Sheriff Harrison had just lost his wife of almost 36 years months before his affair began, and was probably emotionally vulnerable when his affair began. That doesn’t excuse it or justify his behavior in any way, but makes it at least something that most people can understand, if not condone.

    Haggard, however, has apparently risen to a position of prominence based upon the deep-seated and long-running deception of many, advocating one position in public and practicing another in private.

    God will forgive all of us who truly seek forgiveness, but among mortals, many will find Haggard's duplicity much harder to forgive.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    November 02, 2006

    Dear America: Vote Terrorist Democratic

    Root, root, root for the home team:

    "Of course Americans should vote Democrat," Jihad Jaara, a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group and the infamous leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, told WND.

    "This is why American Muslims will support the Democrats, because there is an atmosphere in America that encourages those who want to withdraw from Iraq. It is time that the American people support those who want to take them out of this Iraqi mud," said Jaara, speaking to WND from exile in Ireland, where he was sent as part of an internationally brokered deal that ended the church siege.

    And he's not alone.

    Muhammad Saadi, a senior leader of Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, said the Democrats' talk of withdrawal from Iraq makes him feel "proud."

    "As Arabs and Muslims we feel proud of this talk," he told WND. "Very proud from the great successes of the Iraqi resistance. This success that brought the big superpower of the world to discuss a possible withdrawal."

    Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas' military wing in the Gaza Strip, said the policy of withdrawal "proves the strategy of the resistance is the right strategy against the occupation."

    "We warned the Americans that this will be their end in Iraq," said Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, Hamas' declared "resistance" department. "They did not succeed in stealing Iraq's oil, at least not at a level that covers their huge expenses. They did not bring stability. Their agents in the [Iraqi] regime seem to have no chance to survive if the Americans withdraw."

    Abu Ayman, an Islamic Jihad leader in Jenin, said he is "emboldened" by those in America who compare the war in Iraq to Vietnam.

    No further comment seems necessary.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:03 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    Last Word on the ''Botched Joke'' Update: Almost Last Word

    I just watched what appears to be the uncut footage of the Kerry speech at Hot Air.

    It doesn't make me feel any less irritated, for while Kerry did clearly deliver a "botched joke" (i.e., it wasn't close to being funny), it seems obvious to me that the dig at the intelligence of the troops was scripted and intentional and targeted specifically at them, if part of a larger comment directed at President Bush.

    In the larger context of what he said in the first 3 minutes of the clip, I took it as something in the neighborhood of "Only morons would follow this idiot into war," but perhaps that is merely my perception.

    Well, me, and these guys.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:20 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    November 01, 2006

    A Pickshure Is Werth A Thousand Wurds

    A written response to "Jon Carry" from the American soldier.

    bannerkerry

    Hat tip: Michelle Malkin, who notes this picture has made it to Drudge as well.

    Update: Retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney calls for Kerry’s resignation.

    Not that it will happen. By insulting the military, Kerry's playing to his base.

    Update: Kerry finally apologizes.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:17 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    All Those Right Wing Morons

    "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."

    Those were the words of Democratic Senator John Kerry on Monday night while campaigning for fellow Democrat Phil Angelides in California.

    By midday Tuesday, outrage from the active duty military, veterans groups, online pundits, talk radio personalities and conservative politicians (and from conservative politicians that are veterans) had reached a crescendo, and Kerry, instead of apologizing, stated that he would not apologize, instead stating that the controversial line was targeted at the White House.

    Funny, that.

    I read the line, delivered at a Democratic campaign rally at a college campus, and cannot see how Kerry can claim how what he said could be construed as anything other than an insult to the intelligence of those Americans who chose to serve in the Armed Forces. Kerry's implication is clear:

    "If you are smart and do well in school, you can be successful. If you don't do well in school, and you don't make an effort to be smart, you'll end up in the military... and shipped off to fight in a war I do not support."

    How can any logical person construe this as an attack on President Bush or his leadership, as Kerry claimed? Clearly, neither the President, not the White House, nor even conservative politicians were referenced or even implied in what Kerry said. His statement, regardless of intent, directly challenges the intelligence of those who have and will join the Armed Forces of the United States.

    This of course is not the first time that Kerry has slandered American servicemen and women. He has a long history of such behavior, dating back to the 1970s and his infamous and unsupported "Genghis Khan" testimony, to his more recent allegations in our current conflict in Iraq that U.S. military forces were "terrorizing" Iraqis. When given a chance to attack the enemy, Kerry consistently defines the "enemy" as those wearing camouflage and the flag of the United States on their sleeves.

    Accidentally or not, John Kerry has offended those who serve this nation, and will not apologize to those he slandered.

    To me, that speaks volumes both about the man, and the Democratic Party that he represents.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    October 31, 2006

    At It Again

    It looks like someone is trying to steal Michael Yon's pictures. Again.

    This time?

    The Washington State Democratic Party, on behalf of congressional candidate Darcy Burner.

    Interestingly enough, this seems to be the second time a Democatic group has stolen intellectual property while trying to "help" Burner get elected.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    The Charge of the Lightweight Brigade

    It seems that John Kerry can't quit charging the guns:

    Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in response to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, assorted right wing nut-jobs, and right wing talk show hosts desperately distorting Kerry’s comments about President Bush to divert attention from their disastrous record:

    "If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

    I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

    The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

    Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men. And this time it won't work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq."

    I'm almost overwhelmed at how politically tone-deaf John Kerry in posting this response on his Web site.

    Almost.

    Not only does Kerry refuse to apologize for slandering those serving our country, he actually has the gall to try to go on the offensive and attack those condemning his comments. As many of the "assorted right wing nut-jobs" attacking him are current and former members of the military, Kerry insults them not once, but twice.

    Kerry even goes so far as to insist that those who are enraged at his slur have resorted to lies and distortions, even though his comments were captured in print, audio, and video formats. The context of his comments was quite clear, and it is disingenuous for him to try to say the video evidence he freely gave of his own accord was a distortion.

    His comments devolve from there into what even reads as a high-pitched and hysterical shrieking that seems to indicate that Kerry's immeasurable gaffe is somehow the Bush Administration’s fault. Certainly, the rant will play well on the far left fringe of the Democratic Party, but it serves to alienate almost everyone else in the country that expected a measured apology, not a second attack.

    Allied against the overwhelming core of the American populace that respects the military even if they have not served, an anemic John Kerry continues to futilely charge into the guns, perhaps snatching a more perfect Democratic defeat from the jaws of possible victory once more.

    Flash'd all their sabres bare,
    Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
    Sabring the gunners there,
    Charging an army,
    while All the world wonder'd:
    Plunged in the battery-smoke
    Right thro' the line they broke;
    Cossack and Russian
    Reel'd from the sabre stroke
    Shatter'd and sunder'd.
    Then they rode back, but not
    Not the six hundred.

    Cannon to the Right of Them.

    Cannon to the Center.

    Cannon all around.

    The magic hat lies (and lies, and lies... )

    shatter'd and sunder'd.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:40 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

    The Silence Hear 'Round the World

    The center-right side of the political blogosphere is buzzing this afternoon over a slur made against the military by Democratic Senator John Kerry while Kerry was stumping for California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides.

    Kerry said:

    "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."

    The remark, a slight against the intelligence of the men and women serving in our nation's military, would doubtlessly have been front page news if uttered by a Republican, but instead, the mainstream media has so far largely given the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts a pass.

    Not one story regarding the slur has been posted in major media outlets as reported on Google News as of 1:00 PM, more than 12 hours after Kerry made the comments.

    kerry

    A simple search of Google News For "John Kerry" captured only a handful of reports from conservative blogs, and the single link to anything approaching a major media outlet was post to a Chicago Tribune blog called The Swamp.

    As for North Carolina media outlets, neither the Raleigh-based television station Web site WRAL.com nor the McClatchy-owned Raleigh-based newspaper, the News & Observer, deemed the story worth a mention, even though Fort Bragg, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, and Pope Air Force Base are all within their readership/viewership, as are Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point and Marine Base Camp Lejune.

    It almost makes you wonder if the media might be attempting to cover for one political party over the other.

    Doubtlessly, when the media does catch up to the story, they will present it as a feud between the Republicans and Kerry, not the reprehensible belittling of our men and women in uniform that Kerry's offhand remark so clearly was.

    Update: WRAL finally posted an online article on the subject as I was writing this, setting up the story in such a way as to pit the White House against Kerry.

    I guess they had to wait until they could figure out a way to minimize the damage.

    Update: It's rare that they deserve such credit, but I'll always give it when due: AllahPundit reports that CNN ran the video clip of Kerry's comments "a good four or five times within the past hour."

    In the wake of running terrorsit propaganda videos as news on the 19th, that this could be seen as CNN's attempt to "Lurch" back towards the middle.

    Update: Kerry refuses to apologize. But he supports the troops!

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:28 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    John Kerry's Continuing Contempt For the Military

    Lurch just can't keep his contempt for our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines hidden any longer.

    “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

    This mindblowingly stupid comment comes courtesy of Allahpundit, who also has Kerry on audio and video over at Hot Air.

    I hope that members of our military keep in mind that Kerry is only articulating sentiments that many on the far left have held over and passed down to future generations of service-hating leftists since at least the Vietnam War era, and that our military can voice its displeasure with Kerry's "fellow travelers" at the ballot box exactly one week from today.

    If Kerry's backhanded slap at those in uniform isn't a call to get "out the vote" for our brave servicemen and servicewomen and those who support them, I don't know what is.

    Update: Republican Senator, Navy Pilot and former POW John McCain lets Kerry have it with both barrels:

    Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education. Americans from all backgrounds, well off and less fortunate, with high school diplomas and graduate degrees, take seriously their duty to our country, and risk their lives today to defend the rest of us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

    They all deserve our respect and deepest gratitude for their service. The suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq, is an insult to every soldier serving in combat, and should deeply offend any American with an ounce of appreciation for what they suffer and risk so that the rest of us can sleep more comfortably at night. Without them, we wouldn't live in a country where people securely possess all their God-given rights, including the right to express insensitive, ill-considered and uninformed remarks.

    I'm asking CY readers to send a copy of Kerry's comments and the link to the Hot Air URL (copy and paste: http://hotair.com/archives/2006/10/30/audio-john-kerry-on-americas-lazy-uneducated-military/ ) via email to everyone they know of voting age.

    As their selected candidate for President of the United States just two short years ago, John Kerry obviously reflects the mindset of many liberals in the Democratic Party. Let them all know what you think of them one week from today on November 7.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:54 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

    October 30, 2006

    Maryland Shocker: Top Dems Cross Party Lines, Endorse Steele

    Okay, I can't even pretend that I saw this coming:

    Former Prince George's County executive Wayne K. Curry, backed by five black members of the Prince George's County Council, today endorsed Republican Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's campaign for the U.S. Senate.

    Mr. Curry, a Democrat who became the first black Prince George's county executive in 1994, and served two terms, is influential in Prince George's, the state's second-largest county, with about 846,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    But the endorsement itself, while very important, doesn't excite me as much as why Curry seems to be breaking ranks with the state Democratic Party.

    Mr. Curry signaled his dissatisfaction with Maryland's Democratic Party last spring, when a Democratic poll was leaked to the press, calling Mr. Steele a "unique threat" to the Democrats.

    The poll advised Democrats to "knock Steele down" by linking Mr. Steele to President Bush and national Republicans, to turn Mr. Steele "into a typical Republican in the eyes of voters, as opposed to an African-American candidate."

    Mr. Curry was incensed by the poll, and said at the time that Mr. Steele's candidacy presented an "enormously historic" opportunity for blacks that "may ultimately break this sort of vices grip by Democrats who feel entitled to black votes regardless of how they treat black voters."

    I've long felt that lock-step voting was bad for blacks as individual voters and as communities, as Democrats felt they didn't have to give them anything other than lip-service attention to blacks during campaign season, while largely ignoring them between elections. The flipside of this, of course, is that Republicans running for office felt that they had no chance of picking up votes from blacks, and they ignored them, too. Both parties took black voters for granted in their own way, and black communities suffered as a result of their political capital being wasted.

    Perhaps this movement by a small group of Prince George's County black Democrats is just an anomaly that will prove to be a one-off oddity in the realm of American politics. On the other hand, perhaps other black community and political leaders will key in on Mr. Curry's observations and realize that breaking the vice grip Democrats have on the black vote is the best chance they have of wielding real political power in the future.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    Entering the Home Stretch

    I've mentioned the Scott Elliott's polling web site Election Projection before as being among the most accurate in the 2004 election campaign, and his latest results show the Republicans holding onto a slim lead in the Senate and moving within striking distance of maintaining the all-important House of Representatives.

    I consider the House to be "all important" for one simple reason; electing a Democratic House means that John Conyers and Lynn Woolsey and other liberals will be able to accomplish their dream of purposefully losing the War on Terror by defunding the military in Iraq, forcing a precipitous withdrawal, and setting the stage for genocide.

    Democrats are loath to admit it publicly, but electing them with be catastrophic not only for Iraq, but for our own nation, which will see Democrats furthering censure and impeachment measured they have already filed against the President and Vice President.

    In my opinion (and in the opinions of the two airmen and three soldiers I've recently talked to who just got back from Iraq), we owe it to those soldiers who have been killed and wounded in Iraq and the Iraqi people to finish the job we started there, not leave it abruptly in state chaos.

    Looking at the projections provided by Scott's formula, perhaps the security moms and dads that decided the 2004 elections are coming around to that same conclusion.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:11 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    October 27, 2006

    Blog Headline Writing 101

    Clearly, the appropriate title for this post exposing the Democratic activist who created the faux StopSexPredators blog to attack disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley should have been The Face that Launched a Thousand Quips.

    Frankly, I'm past the point of caring about the whole Foley issue, but as this guy sowed, so shall he reap.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    October 26, 2006

    CNN Poll Says Bush Failed: America Not Completely Fascist Yet

    Note with amusement that CNN filed this under "Broken Government," and then get sockpuppet some smelling salts :

    Most Americans do not believe the Bush administration has gone too far in restricting civil liberties as part of the war on terror, a new CNN poll released Thursday suggests.

    While 39 percent of the 1,013 poll respondents said the Bush administration has gone too far, 34 percent said they believe the administration has been about right on the restrictions, according to the Opinion Research Corp. survey. Another 25 percent said the administration has not gone far enough.

    Asked whether Bush has more power than any other U.S. president, 65 percent of poll respondents said no. Thirty-three percent said yes. Of those who said yes, a quarter said that was bad for the country.

    I'm glad to see that the Halliburton-built concentration camps reeducation centers are finally working.

    I was starting to get worried.

    Update: Mangled syntax corrected.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:12 PM | Comments (30) | TrackBack

    Common Goals

    Andrew Cochran notes something of interest today in the Counterterrorism Blog:

    I'm amazed by the op-eds written by Peter Bergen in today's New York Times tiled, "What Osama Wants," and by Michael Scheuer in yesterday's Washington Times, titled, "Another bin Laden victory." Both men are luminaries in the counterterrorism community on the basis of their brave and objective work inside terrorist cases and events, and also due to their open criticism of numerous elements of current national security strategy. Mr. Bergen is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, known in Washington more for criticizing President Bush than for agreeing with him. But both men endorse the current strategy in Iraq and express certainty that the loss of GOP control of the U.S. Congress would be an outright victory for Al Qaeda and jihadists. Frankly, I never would have imagined that either man would write this so close to the election. Given their backgrounds, their views should be taken seriously as a forecast by two world-reknowned and objective experts of probable jihadist reaction to the election.



    osamakerry

    Considering that Democratic and al Qaeda rhetoric in the 2004 Presidential campaign was almost identical, this should hardly be surprising.

    When the language of the Democratic Party's leading luminaries is indistinguishable from that of those who desire to destroy the American way of life, it might be time to reevaluate their choice of words and their positions.

    Keep that in mind, Security Moms.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:44 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    October 25, 2006

    This Message Brought to You By Embryos Against Dishonest Actors

    A response to Michael J. Fox from Scott Ott (Links shamelessly stolen from Allah at Hot Air).

    To date, embryonic cell research has brought forth not one cure, and instead, is plagued with the problem of uncontrolled cell division.

    Uncontrolled cell division, of course, has another name.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:01 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory

    Mary Katharine Ham vlogs that it appears once again that Democrats may be priming themselves for another electoral meltdown.

    I agree. Now all they need is some good theme music.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:10 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    October 19, 2006

    Democrats Plot Impeachment

    Wonder what the Democrats will do first if they managed to gain control of the House of Representatives?

    Wonder no more (h/t: Ace):

    A plan is in place to censure and impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Orchestrated and organized by the radical Left and Congressman John Conyers, Jr., this plan is ready to go should the Democratic Party take control of the House of Representatives in November.

    The plan is the ultimate manifestation of left-wing hatred for George W. Bush rooted in the contentious election of 2000. Since failing to defeat Bush in 2004, the Left has focused its efforts on destroying his presidency by assembling a list of charges aimed at impeaching him.

    The article is from FrontPageMag.com and therefore normally of dubious veracity, except for the tiny, troubling details that Democrats have already introduced to Congress H.Res 635 to investigate articles of impeachment, H.Res. 636 to censure President Bush, and H.Res. 637 to censure Vice President Cheney.

    Democrats are apparently preparing to attempt to impeach their way into the White House while soldiers are deployed overseas in two wars, a nuclear North Korea threatening the world with nuclear weapons, and an Iran desperate trying to obtain nuclear weapons threatens to wipe Israel off the map.

    Is everyone motivated to vote now, or do you like our nation's odds under President Pelosi?

    Update: For the record, Lorie Byrd called this back in May.

    Her post includes a link to a Washington Post article where Nancy Pelosi promised a series of investigations if the Democrats took control of the House, and when asked about impeachment as a result of the investigations, she said, "You never know where it leads to."

    Leading Democrats--not those "on the fringe" as some liberals would have you believe-- are behind these efforts. Maxine Waters, Jim McDermott, Jerrold Nadler, Lynn Woolsey etc, are just some of the House Democrats that have signed on as co-sponsers to all three of Charlie Rangel's censure and impeach resolutions cited above.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:34 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

    Brown and Yellow: Great on Heidi Klum, Not So Good On Voting

    Yeah, I Google-baited the snot out of that one. What of it?

    Anyway, it seems that a Vietnamese immigrant running for Congress in California might be behind letters sent to Hispanic voters in Orange County telling them that illegal aliens and immigrants can't vote.

    No, I'm not kidding:

    State investigators have linked a Republican campaign to letters sent to thousands of Orange County Hispanics warning them they could go to jail or be deported if they vote next month, a spokesman for the attorney general said.

    "We have identified where we believe the mailing list was obtained," said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

    He declined to identify the specific Republican campaign Wednesday, citing the ongoing investigation.

    The Los Angeles Times and The Orange County Register both reported Thursday that the investigation appeared to be focused on the campaign of Tan D. Nguyen, a Republican who immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam as a child and is now challenging Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez for her seat in Congress. Nguyen's Web site says he opposes illegal immigration.

    The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

    In fact, immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens can vote.

    The fact that he himself is an immigrant seems to have been lost on Mr. Nguyen, though if California is anything at all like North Carolina it is quite possible that illegal aliens could easily cast a ballot.

    Were these letters sent out to kindly remind Orange County voters not to break the law, or were they sent out to intimidate voters? I'd guess "yes," which would appear to be just slightly illegal, hence the Attorney General's involvement.

    What Nguyen should have done was to send out letters printed in Spanish, Screenwriterese, and Ghost to remind people that illegal aliens, fictional characters, and the dead can't vote, which would have a far more chilling effect on a wider front of the Democratic base, without having crossed legal lines.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    October 18, 2006

    More Cowbell: Dow Tops 12,000 for First Time Under Bush

    "It's the economy, Stupid."

    bushcowbell

    Via—where else?—Fox News:

    The Dow Jones industrial average swept past 12,000 for the first time Wednesday, extending its march into record territory as investors signaled their growing optimism about corporate earnings and the economy.

    The index of 30 big-name stocks surpassed 12,000 just after trading began, having already set closing records seven times over the past two weeks. It took the Dow 7 1/2 years to make the trip from 11,000, having been pummeled during that time by the dot-com bust, recession and the aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks.

    Funny how those "tax cuts for the rich" seem to be stimulating the economy for the entire nation. These are tax cuts that Democrat Charles Rangel said don't "merit renewal."

    Of course, Rangel isn't content to just end the tax cuts that have stimulated the economy to these record-breaking levels; he wants to raise your taxes. All of your taxes. Across the board, "no question about it."

    Expect all of the tax cuts to end, and for this booming economy to tank, if Democrats win the House of Representatives on Nov. 7.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:59 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    Jon Tester: Funded by Hate

    In the wake of the Mike Rogers attempt to "out" a conservative senator (using conveniently anonymous sources, of course) and the overwhelming support the practice of "outing" has among the rabid left wing, Dan Riehl comes out on the offensive against Democratic politicians that seem more than willing to profit from hate:

    If you think this is a small matter, I'd argue you're wrong. In total, from swimming in a sea of hate that responded to the death of innocent contractors in Iraq with ">"screw 'em">" prominent Democrat candidates have profited to the tune of $3.5 Million dollars. Below are just a few.

    Last I looked, Tester running in Montana had half a million dollars in the bank. Half of those dollars came from a Netroots web now claiming an Idaho Senator is a homosexual three weeks before an election, as if it's anyone's business besides his, even if he were.

    Is that the type of Democrat Tester is running as in Montana? Lamont is an empty suit, but he had no trouble filling his pockets with $400k from the very same source. And what of Jim Webb? Does he have a position on Gays in the military? Perhaps it's out.

    DNC Chair Howard Dean, Senators Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid, among others, traveled to Nevada to solicit support and lavish praise on the same individual whose blog is now featuring the clearest example of homophobic-laced hate in politics I've ever seen. Even today, they are raising money for a so-called expanded field.

    The Democrat Party built this network and that blog. They funded it with advertising, many, including John Kerry, have written copy for it and fueled its rage. And they reaped the fruit of that rage in dollars and in hype.

    Both parties have their share of those filled with hate, and I don't think that is in dispute. Nor do I think that a politician or his campaign can thoroughly research all of their small contributors to weed out and refuse contributions from those with extremist ideas. It simply isn't feasible.

    But candidates such as Jon Tester, who has apparently received half of his funding from the extreme left wing of the blogosphere that overwhelming supports outing as a political tool, shouldn't have that excuse.

    National Democratic leaders such as Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer should not be lavishing praise on a blogger that seemed to reveal in the death of American security contractors like Scott Helvenston, a former Navy SEAL that was among four contractors killed, burned, and mutilated trying to help Eurest Support Services deliver food shipments to American troops.

    Some on the right responded to their deaths by creating scholarship funds. Some on the left responded with an enthusiastic "screw 'em"":

    Every death should be on the front page (2.70 / 40)

    Let the people see what war is like. This isn’t an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush’s folly.

    That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

    by kos on Thu Apr 1st, 2004 at 12:08:56 PDT

    On the other hand, perhaps Jon Tester is aware of the politics of those that support him. They are, after all, among his largest financial supporters. By taking such large contributions from the Kossacks, perhaps "screw them" is a message Jon Tester, Harry Reid, and Barbara Boxer are willing to stand behind.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:22 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    October 17, 2006

    Democratic Blogger "Outs" Senator

    Pretty disgusting behavior, but par for the course for Mike Rogers, who seems to get off on this sort of thing. Rogers accuses Idaho Republican Larry Craig, a father of three and a grandfather of nine, of being a closeted homosexual. Craig denies the charge.

    I suppose it is possible Craig or other Republicans are closeted gays, but... so what?

    I personally find women attractive, but should that be the only defining trait I use to weigh and measure every activity and interest I have? Why should my sexual orientation be the driving force in my life, overriding all other considerations?

    Most people I know primarily care about issues of national security, taxes, crime, controlling growth, education, personal finances, and their family's spiritual and physical well-being. They aren't so emotionally stunted that they can only see their entire world through a single narrow prism of sexual preference, trying to somehow relate it it to all things. Average folks don't twist their realities this way. They have multi-faceted lives.

    Sadly, Rogers has generated a tremendous amount of support from blog-reading Democrats, as presently a supermajority of them (70%) support "outing" as a political tool.

    I'm rather disgusted by this, and I am not alone.

    Conservatives want to fight terrorists, and Democrats want to fight homosexuals.

    Sounds like someone has their priorities really screwed up.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:29 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

    October 15, 2006

    Congressional Page Sex Predator Dies

    That's the headline he would have gotten had he been a Republican unashamed of having sex with a page just 17 years old.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:13 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    October 12, 2006

    Questionable Methods, Questionable Results

    It seems that the British Lancet has a certain problematic pattern of behavior:

    From ABC News last year:

    Indian experts say a new study which found that some 10 million female foetuses may have been aborted in the country in the past 20 years was sensationalist and inaccurate.

    The study, published online by British medical journal The Lancet, says the practice of selective abortion is due to a traditional preference for boys in India.

    "It is a sensational piece of work. We are very, very concerned about this study," activist Sabu George said, who has been campaigning against the practice of foeticide for more than two decades.

    "An unreasonable estimate will undermine the issue," he said.

    Exaggerated? An unreasonable estimate in the Lancet? Shocking.

    Worried about the hype generated about "Frankenfood?" If you want to guess where it came from, thank this New York Times article in 1999:

    a prestigious medical journal is publishing a study suggesting that genetically modified food may be harmful, even though the research has been widely criticized by scientists and was found wanting by some of the journal's own referees.

    The Lancet, a journal based in England, said had it decided to publish the study in part to spur debate and to avoid being accused of suppressing information on a controversial subject.

    The study is also likely to be seized upon by opponents of such food in the United States, where consumers have until recently expressed little concern about the genetically altered corn and soybeans that have swept quietly into their diets.

    Charles Margulis of the Washington office of Greenpeace was quoted as saying, "I think it gives it a certain scientific credibility. It's going to increase concern here in the United States." But the decision to publish the study is itself generating debate: some scientists say the Lancet has lowered its standards and subverted the peer review process.

    Subverting peer review and lowering its standards of accuracy? Surely, this is not the Lancet we're talking about.

    Speaking of questionable accuracy and low standards, do you remember the 1998 study linking the common childhood MMR (measels,/mumps/rubella)vaccine to autism? It didn't do too well.

    Ten of the original 13 authors of a controversial 1998 medical report which implied a link between autism and the combined MMR vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella, have retracted the paper's interpretations.

    The retraction will be printed in the 6 March issue of The Lancet, which published the original paper. One author could not be reached and two others, Peter Harvey and lead author Andrew Wakefield, refused to join the retraction.

    "We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient," write the 10 authors in their retraction. "However, the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health."

    The original paper, which was based on parental and medical reports of just a dozen children, suggested a "possible relation" between autism, bowel disease, and MMR. The paper added it "did not prove an association".

    The Lancet rushed through a under-sampled study spearheaded by a possibly dishonest scientist. Interesting.

    It seems that sometimes a desire to influence or shock public sensibilities seems to get the better of the Lancet from time to time, as it did when it claimed just prior to the 2004 elections that 8,000-194,000 (but most often trumpeted as 100,000) Iraqi civilians had been killed.

    Funny, how the UN Development Program Iraq Living Conditions Survey using similar cluster survey methodology but on a far greater scale, recorded only 24,000 deaths published five months later with a 95% confidence interval of 18,000 to 29,000.

    If you didn't know any better, you might just think their studies were driven by leadership more interested in exerting political influence than presenting valid science.

    It's a good thing that couldn’t be the case.

    In Your Hands

    Scott Elliott wrote this very impassioned call to action for conservative voters yesterday:

    Here we are enduring the ongoing saga of Foleygate, immersed in a steady stream of scandalous revelations about who and when, what and where. After news broke of former GOP Rep. Mark Foley's disgraceful acts, it was only a matter of time before the headlines would begin tolling the death knell for the GOP’s chances in November. "GOP in meltdown" was the headline recently at MSN online. "Bush approval sinks to new low" was another. Phrases like "tipping point" and "nail in the coffin" are being banged out of keyboard after keyboard across the country faster than my 8-year-old can tell you his life story.

    And why shouldn't they be? After suffering through a withering summer in which their fortunes seemed to steadily decline into resignation, many Republicans feel the Foley scandal is indeed the coup de resistance for Democrats ravenous to regain the gavel of power on Capitol Hill. The undersea earth has shifted; the tsunami is on its way. And there's nothing we can do to stop the coming tidal wave from crashing down on November 7. There is no force to stand against the swelling political seas. Hey, we had a nice run; it's time to close up shop and accept the inevitable, right?

    I can hear Jimmy V. turning in his grave and the editorial board at The New York Times shrieking with delight. Are we really giving up? With so much to lose, so much on the table, with America's very future hanging in the balance, surely we can't be calling it quits. If we learned anything from the last three elections, it is that participation, not polls, pundits or pooh-poohing, makes or breaks an election.

    In 2000, ineffective GOP mobilization efforts and disaffected GOP voters afforded Al Gore 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. In 2002 and 2004, a transformation of miraculous proportions took place in the Republican get-out-the-vote machine. It culminated in the GOP control of both congressional chambers and the re-election of a Republican president who received over 3 million more votes than his opponent and nearly 8 million more than any previous presidential candidate in history.

    Scott, by the way, knows a thing or two about elections. His web site, called Election Projection, was only off of getting the exact electoral vote count correct by three in the 2004 Presidential race.

    Despite all the gloom and doom from the media, his present models are calling the Senate a dead heat and predicting that the Republicans will hold onto the House by five seats, quite a far cry from the slaughter many on the left are merrily predicting.

    In fact, the only way it seems that the Republicans could lose the House is if we decide not to vote. So vote already, and if you haven't registered, you need to do so quickly. Here in North Carolina, tomorrow is the last day to register to vote.

    A web site geared at getting out voters called PayAttention.org has all the details about registering and voting in your area. Please register, and use your right to vote.

    If you don't, some patchouli-stinking liberal front group might just do it for you.


    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    October 11, 2006

    The Greatest Conspiracy Ever

    Complete and utter crap.

    I'm frankly amazed that the same idiots who brought us the massively inflated body count study just before the 2004 election cycle would be stupid enough to try to float their same lies again, saying that as many as 650,000 Iraqis have died since the war began in 2003, 601,000 from violence.

    Proving once again that there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics," this study overestimates the number of actual deaths by just a mere 600,000 or so, according to the widely-regarded anti-war Iraq Body Count which puts the maximum number of Iraqis killed at less than 50,000.

    Even the basic premise of the study is dishonest, taking into account all Iraqi deaths over the past few years—car crashes, cancer, heart attacks, adverse drug reactions; anything will do—and including those non-war-related deaths along with the deaths of insurgents, Iraqi police, Iraqi military, and "legitimate" civilian combat-related deaths.

    Now I'm not surprised that someone blatantly dishonest enough to use sockpuppets to protect his fragile ego is supporting this dreck, but I expect people with a modicum of common sense to realize, that as Blue Crab Boulevard notes, that for this study to be close to valid, that an additional 15,500 people are dying each month than every recognized government and private estimate of deaths has ever supported. That's 400-500 additional deaths per day than any media outlet on the planet has reported.

    Let's use common sense for just a second: if this study was even third of what they claim (which would be almost 217,000 civilian deaths), don't you think that such a catastrophic loss of live would have been noticed by someone? al Jazeera, or al Manar, or maybe slightly larger and well-funded news organizations, such as the Associated Press, Reuters, or United Press International? Of course it would have. It is a mathematical impossibility to have hidden even this number of civilian combat deaths from a war zone so thoroughly saturated with media.

    As a former President once said, you can fool all of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. It would have taken the greatest cover-up in human history to have been able to have covered up 217,000 civilian deaths as a result of the war, much less the massively inflated body count of 650,000.

    As I just left in the comments at Matthew Yglesias' site:

    ...Where are the bodies?

    The Iraq war is extremely well covered by the international news media and is of specific interest to the Arab media in particular, and yet not a single media outlet in the world will independently claim even ten-percent of what this study suggests. Don’t it set off even the slightest alarm bells when a figure this greatly inflated comes across your radar?

    A simple, cursory look at the well-respected anti-war site Iraq Body Count will reflect that the maximum number of civilian deaths is less than 50,000.

    I know some are completely blinded by partisanship on both sides of this issue, but common sense has to tell you this study (once again timed for release before an election—how convenient, that) is patently absurd.

    To buy these conclusions, you have to swallow the impossibility that Reuters, the Associated Press, UPI, the BBC, the New York Times, the Guardian, Robert Fisk, al Manar, al Jazeera, and every other news conglomeration in Iraq are a willful part of the largest cover-up in human history, hiding three times of the number of those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (214,000 according to wikipedia) over the course of three-plus years.

    It’s patently absurd.

    I know we disagree and disagree strongly over the Iraq war, but even the most rabidly anti-war bloggers should come out strongly against this politically-motivated farce, if for no other reason than to protect your own integrity.

    This “study” is a blatant falsehood, and you know it.

    So say so.

    And yet, odds are neither Yglesias, nor Sock Puppet, nor Think Progress, nor Rising Hegemon, nor attytood, nor any other liberal blog likely have the integrity to challenge the study nor the world's media outlets.

    It is quite simple: either all of the world's media organizations are involved with a massive conspiracy with the U.S., British, and Iraqi governments for more than three years to cover up massive civilian losses roughly triple the number of those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    --OR--

    This study, like the one issued before it, is another statistical lie.

    I'll let you and Occam figure out which is more likely.

    Update: The Iraqis think this study is bogus as well h/t HotAir:

    THE Iraqi Government described as "exaggerated" an independent US study which estimated that 655,000 Iraqis had died since the 2003 US invasion.

    US President George W. Mr Bush had similarly called the report "not credible".

    The study estimated that one Iraqi in 40 had died as a result of the conflict by comparing the death rates from the period before the war to the period from March 2003 to June 2006.

    "This figure, which in reality has no basis, is exaggerated," said Iraqi government spokesman Ali Debbagh.

    "It is a figure which flies in the face of the most obvious truths," he said, calling on research institutions to adopt precise and transparent criteria especially when the research concerns victim tolls.

    The study has no basis in reality, and flies in the face of the most obvious truths.

    Of course, that's just the Iraqis saying that, not the report of an anti-war Democrat researcher who has contributed money to anti-war candidates, so the Iraqis are assuredly wrong.

    Update: One of the "Loose Changers" in the comments accidentally helped provide a good self-debunking point contained in the report:

    If you'd bother to read the study before denouncing it, you'd find that they were able to produce Death Certificates to verify 90% of the reported deaths in the sampled households.

    If that is indeed the case and the study results are validly extrapolated, then the Iraqi government should be able to produce 540,000 death certificates. Even if they can provide death certificates for just half of those that the study authors claim were killed by violence, then government morgues should be able to produce 300,000 death certificates, which again the media would have picked up very quickly as the media consistently uses the Iraqi morgues as a source for fatalities for their stories on a daily basis.

    In short, the study provides the evidence—or lack thereof—debunking itself.

    Update: Baghdad dentist Omar Fadil cuts loose:

    When the statistics announced by hospitals and military here, or even by the UN, did not satisfy their lust for more deaths, they resorted to mathematics to get a fake number that satisfies their sadistic urges.

    When I read the report I can only feel apathy and inhumanity from those who did the count towards the victims and towards our suffering as a whole. I can tell they were so pleased when the equations their twisted minds designed led to those numbers and nothing can convince me that they did their so called research out of compassion or care.

    To me their motives are clear, all they want is to prove that our struggle for freedom was the wrong thing to do. And they shamelessly use lies to do this…when they did not find the death they wanted to see on the ground, they faked it on paper! They disgust me…

    This fake research is an insult to every man, woman and child who lost their lives.

    As they say, read the whole thing.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:50 AM | Comments (38) | TrackBack

    October 10, 2006

    Greatest Political Ad Ever

    Go see it.

    Allah's got the other one.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    The Other "Blue Dress Moment"

    Things just keep getting worse for Bubba.

    It was bad enough that his attempts to censor the recent "Road to 9/11" mini-series backfired and instead exposed his incompetence in dealing with al Qaeda, reminding the world that he allowed an attempted chemical weapons attack on Manhattan to go unchallenged militarily. Now the ripples of North Korea's nuclear (or not) blast have shown the 1994 Agreed Framework Clinton allowed Jimmy Carter to lead has led us to our present state of affairs. North Korea, a rogue state that has always sold every weapons system it has ever developed to the highest bidder is threatening to fire a nuclear-armed missile. Given their history, we might look at this as both nuclear gamesmanship and a product demonstration.

    As time wears on and more failures are revealed, William Jefferson Clinton, the charismatic Man From Hope, is proving to be arguably the least competent foreign policy President of the twentieth century.

    It must be said that every president since the early 1970s has failed in one way or another in dealing with terrorism. From Nixon and Ford, down through Carter and Reagan, to George H.W. Bush, Americans suffered through a string of terrorist attacks nearly unanswered.

    Bill Clinton, however, established a new low point of inaction. He froze out his CIA Director, never meeting with him in two years, leading Woolsey to resign in disgust. Even though a new terror network was emerging to confront America directly, Clinton continued to treat the matter as a law enforcement issue. Clinton steadfastly refused to confront terrorism, as even his own top advisor Dick Morris noted:

    The weekly strategy meetings at the White House throughout 1995 and 1996 featured an escalating drumbeat of advice to President Clinton to take decisive steps to crack down on terrorism. The polls gave these ideas a green light. But Clinton hesitated and failed to act, always finding a reason why some other concern was more important.

    Clinton's unstated policy ignoring of the growing threat of al Qaeda emboldened them, leading to a plot that ultimately unfolded on the morning of September 11, 2001. Jumping office workers in Manhattan, a flaming facade in the Pentagon, and a rubble-strewn field in Pennsylvania are the legacy of President Clinton's decision to always find "some other concern" instead of acting against an increasingly bold al Qaeda terrorist network.

    But what Clinton didn't accomplish against terrorism while he was in office may eventually pale in comparison to his incompetence in allowing rogue states to develop the technology to manufacture nuclear warheads and the weapons systems to deliver them.

    On Clinton's watch, China successfully sold a conversion plant to Iran and the gas need to test the uranium enrichment process. In 1996, as Clinton froze out the CIA Director, Iran was busily constructing the Arak heavy water plant. Iran began the secret uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in 2000.

    During the same time period, North Korea was secretly expanding it's nuclear weapons research and designing long-range multi-stage missiles, even as the gullible Clinton sent Secretary of State Madeline Albright to fulfill her own historical blue dress moment.

    albrightkim

    Bill Clinton left office in 2001, leaving us a world safe for terrorism instead of from it, and with two rogue nations developing nuclear weapons programs. Perhaps we cold have known of all of these programs far earlier, had he and Congressional Democrats not emasculated with constant calls for intelligence agency budget cuts.

    Bill Clinton fundamentally misunderstood the threats posed by rouge nations aspiring to nuclear weapons capability and blinded American intelligence agencies that may have exposed them earlier. He fundamentally understood the causes of and how to confront Islamic terrorism.

    Clinton's "do nothing" legacy is echoed today by Democratic Senators and Congressmen that rose through the ranks during his presidency. These Senators and Congressmen—Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi among them—still hold desperately to the same flawed misconceptions that led us to a point where are today. We now face not one, but two rouge nations on the cusp of being able to provide terrorist organizations with nuclear warheads.

    President Clinton's "blue dress moment" with a White House intern led to the President being exposed as a distracted man with weak moral values who lied under oath.

    President Clinton’s other "blue dress moment," —sending Madeline Albright to negotiate for a piece of paper that was never honored—now becomes emblematic of his failures on the nuclear proliferation front as well, and may ultimately be a far more damning part of his legacy of charismatic incompetence.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:36 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    Who Do You Trust?

    According to USAToday's new poll, the pachyderms are toast:

    A Capitol Hill sex scandal has reinforced public doubts about Republican leadership and pushed Democrats to a huge lead in the race for control of Congress four weeks before Election Day, the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.

    Democrats had a 23-point lead over Republicans in every group of people questioned — likely voters, registered voters and adults — on which party's House candidate would get their vote. That's double the lead Republicans had a month before they seized control of Congress in 1994 and the Democrats' largest advantage among registered voters since 1978.

    Nearly three in 10 registered voters said their representative doesn't deserve re-election — the highest level since 1994. President Bush's approval rating was 37% in the new poll, down from 44% in a Sept. 15-17 poll. And for the first time since the question was asked in 2002, Democrats did better than Republicans on who would best handle terrorism, 46%-41%.

    "It's hard to see how the climate is going to shift dramatically between now and Election Day," said John Pitney, a former GOP aide on Capitol Hill who now teaches at Claremont-McKenna College in California. He said Iraq remains the biggest problem for Republicans: "People just don't like inconclusive wars."

    The plummeting GOP ratings in the poll of 1,007 adults, taken Friday through Sunday, come amid a series of events that have given Democrats ammunition to argue that the country needs a new direction.

    Ah, the sounds of wishful thinking.

    Now, it may very well come to pass that the Republicans have made enough mistakes to finally lose to a feckless Donkey, but I'll be among those surprised if that is the case. As I said in a previous post, "you can't beat something with nothing."

    And what, precisely, do Democrats really have to offer the American voter other than "we aren't Republicans?"

    If Democrats gain control of Congress, you can flush any pretense of border security down the drain. It will go from weak, to nonexistant.

    As for Iraq, forget it: Speaker Pelosi will push to have the troops "redeployed" to some place useful like Guam, and faster than you can say "Rwanda," you'll see a nation of 26 million ripped completely to shreds. Think Iraq is bad with us there now? See what happens to it if the party of "cut and run" takes over and allows bin Laden his victory.

    And allow bin Laden's victory they will. The Democrats have already shown they have no stomach for fighting in Iraq, so how long do you really think it would take for them to concoct a storyline saying that since bin Laden isn't in Afghanistan, than we shouldn't be either? Guam's going to get might crowded.

    As for Mr. Kim and the NorKs, we've seen what happens when President Bush tried the preferred Democratic solution of multilateral talks. Expect it to get even worse as Dems push the same failed strategies in dealing with Iran. Oh, and kiss you missile defense goodbye.

    Taxes? Going up if Democrats have their way.

    Jobs? Going down because taxes are going up.

    The current record-high stock market? Gone in the mist.

    And don't even get me going on the endless poltically-driven investigations that will completely cripple the government. Think two weeks of Foleygate is bad? Try two years of the same shrill whine as they try to Get Bush.

    But hopefuly, that unpleasantness won't come to pass. Between now and November 7, Foleygate will fade, along with the Democratic chance for victory. The Democrats won't win the House, but lose it by six, as I previously mentioned.

    Interestingly enough, Scott Elliott's extremely accurate Election Projection currently has the Elephants taking the House by five (220-215), so I feel my SWAG has some merit. The Senate is closer and currently a dead heat, but once again, I predict that the election will come down to the all-but-forgotten Security Moms (and Dads) on November 7.

    If the Democrats can convince them that by withdrawing from Iraq (and Afghanistan, which you know they will cry for next) is in this nation's best interests, and that allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons uncontested is a smart strategy, then the Republicans deserve to lose.

    I happen to think that the American voter is smarter than pollsters give them credit for. You can't beat something with nothing, even when the media is on your side.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    October 05, 2006

    Hastert Kills GOP? Nope.

    Methinks I smell a dirty diaper:

    House Republican candidates will suffer massive losses if House Speaker Dennis Hastert remains speaker until Election Day, according to internal polling data from a prominent GOP pollster, FOX News has learned.

    "The data suggests Americans have bailed on the speaker," a Republican source briefed on the polling data told FOX News. "And the difference could be between a 20-seat loss and 50-seat loss."

    Most GOP lawmakers have stood by Hastert, pending a full airing of the facts in his handling of the Mark Foley affair, in which the former Florida representative was caught exchanging salacious messages with teen pages in Congress. The new polling data, however, suggests that many voters already have made up their minds.

    I'd be very curious to know who this pollster is, and what allegiances he may or may not have to any factions within the Republican Party, for the simple reason that this poll flies in the face of common sense, and reeks of Inside the Beltway hysteria.

    People are going to walk into their polling pace and cast votes for the candidates on their ballots.

    Have you ever gone to the ballot box and thought, "you know, Congressman "X" really screwed up. Even though he isn't from my district, I'm going to vote for someone with a radically different viewpoint than my own to teach him a lesson, even if I get screwed in the process."

    What, you don't think like that? I don't think many other folks do, either.

    Unless they live in his district, people don't get to vote for or against Denny Hastert, and they aren't going to radically shift their voting of their candidates representing their interests to spite themselves.

    Allah may be right and Hastert very well resign tomorrow, but if he doesn't resign, the world will not end. The Republican Party won't lose by 50 seats, and it won't lose by 20 seats. It won't lose at all.

    My prediction: If Hastert stays, the Republicans keep control of the House by six seats. Why?

    A party with something—even an imperfect something—always beats a party of nothing, and that is something ever voter knows in his gut that they haven't created a poll to measure.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:13 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    Foley Pranked/ Ross Exposed?

    It looks like I was at least halfway on target when I attempted to ask the staff of the ABC News blog The Blotter when Brian Ross became aware of the Foley instant messages and if the came directly from the Congressional pages involved or from a third party intermediary.

    If Matt Drudge is right, we've got a partial answer to the second question:

    According to two people close to former congressional page Jordan Edmund, the now famous lurid AOL Instant Message exchanges that led to the resignation of Mark Foley were part of an online prank that by mistake got into the hands of enemy political operatives, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.

    According to one Oklahoma source who knows the former page very well, Edmund, a conservative Republican, goaded an unwitting Foley to type embarrassing comments that were then shared with a small group of young Hill politicos. The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into the hands of political operatives favorable to Democrats.

    The primary source, an ally of Edmund, adamantly proclaims that the former page is not a homosexual. The prank scenario was confirmed by a second associate of Edmund. Both are fearful that their political careers will be affected if they are publicly brought into the matter.

    The prank scenario only applies to the Edmund IM sessions and does not necessarily apply to any other exchanges between the former congressman and others.

    The news come on the heels that Edmund has hired former Timothy McVeigh attorney, Stephen Jones.

    This of course does not change the fact that Foley is an admitted predator, nor does it having any bearing on instant messages by other pages, nor does it make any apparent impact on the fact that Foley was able to get away with this for as long as he did. On Capitol Hill, we still don't know "who knew what, when" and if anyone else failed in their duties in protecting Congressional pages, and if so, if their failure would warrant resignation. That's what the ethics investigation is for. Until we have a better understand of what is going on in this very fluid situation, I think it's best to call off the call for heads.

    I am however, brought back to my original question that I submitted to the ABC News blog comments section that disappeared (no doubt due to a technical glitch, similar to the one that exposed the page's screen name).

    Brian Ross: When did you first become aware of these instant messages between House pages and Mark Foley, and who was that third party intermediary?

    Inquiring minds want to know.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:09 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

    ...Not As They Do

    Sometimes I simply pity the sad, bile-filled world occupied by extremists on both ends of the political spectrum, those that seem to believe "the ends justify the means" in any and all occasions.

    Such is the case with the two conservative bloggers that "outed" the former Congressional page that exchanged instant messages with disgraced Republican Congressman Mark Foley. Just as disgusting are those on the opposite end of the political spectrum that feign outrage over this act when they almost certainly would have done the same if the situation was reversed.

    A prime example of this duality is Judd at the far left blog Think Progress.

    Judd and his fellow extremists on the far left have now "attacked "right wing" blogger Roger L. Simon for linking to the story outing the Congressional page on his personal site and on the Pajamas Media portal (Note: I am also a Pajamas Media affiliated blogger), and "right wing" blogger Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com for linking to the Simon story.

    It must be confusing for Simon--a Greenwich Village-loving former Civil Rights worker, novelist and screenwriter--and Reynolds--a libertarian who once stated he desired a world with "legally married gay couples with assault weapons in their closets"--to be labeled as representative of the "right wing" as Judd would make them out to be, but theri position relative to him only serves notice to just how far out on the extreme left Judd resides.

    I personally disapprove of linking to the sites that outed the former page, but Judd was quite dishonest in how he attacked Simon, as while Simon linked the post, it wasn't his post's major focus:

    Only the Greek playwright's manic disposition could correctly characterize the times in which we live when the semi-sex life of an obscure congressman leads to the downfall of an administration and the rise of Nancy Pelosi (!) as Speaker of the House followed by... what... impeachment hearings? Lysistrata anyone? Meanwhile, does anyone think it is ironic that so-called progressives who excoriated eavesdropping on terrorists are feasting on the publication of supposedly confidential email and IMs? You can forget about privacy. It no longer exists, if it ever did. The Patriot Act, if you think about it, is on some levels a joke, the Constitution a sideshow. The craven and rapacious stalk the corridors of power egged on by a loathesome media as hypocrisy rules and child abuse rears its ugly head with the age of consent debated by people whose only interest is their own ambitions. Meanwhile, lost in the shadows, an enemy whose "Messenger" married a nine -year old watches and waits.

    The focus of Simon's post was the irony of Big Brother-paranoid liberals now glorifying in the once-private emails and instant messages of their fellow citizens. It was precisely this far left hypocrisy that Reynolds cited:

    Hmm: "Meanwhile, does anyone think it is ironic that so-called progressives who excoriated eavesdropping on terrorists are feasting on the publication of supposedly confidential email and IMs? You can forget about privacy. It no longer exists, if it ever did."

    Neither Simon nor Reynolds mentioned the page's name. Reynolds did not link to the blog that named the page in any way, shape or form. Simon only did so in a larger concept of showing how easily some can change their tune when it suits their political needs.

    And Simon is indeed right in that respect, as a simple search of Think Progress itself shows.

    Checking the emails, instant message and other communications of suspected terrorists? Think Progress is against it.

    Making political hay out of the emails and instant messages of a page-molesting Republican? Think Progress is all for it, as are most other liberal sites.

    Perhaps I might find the left's Republican witch hunt in the wake of Foley's resignation far more believable if they hadn't done so much to keep Democratic Congressmen accused of similar offenses in office in the past.

    Democrat Mel Reynolds, unlike Foley, actually had sex with a 16 year-old. He was indicted in April of 1994, and re-elected by Democrats that November all the same. Reynolds only left Congress months after being convicted on 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and the solicitation of child pornography.

    Democrat Gerry Studds, unlike Foley, was a Congressman who had sex with a 17 year-old page and refused to apologize for it. Studds even turned his back to Congress in disrespect as they read a censure motion against him. Democrats kept him in office until he finally retired 13 years afterward.

    Perhaps I could find Judd's outrage just a little more sincere if his party didn't have a track record of electing and re-electing the known sexual predators in their midst.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Not 18

    There are a lot of folks getting this wrong, so follow the bold:

    The page pursued by Mark Foley was 17 at the time Foley began sending explicit instant messages.

    The young man was 17 when the IMs began and continued to receive IMs after he turned 18, including the now infamous House vote instant message, were sent.

    That in no way mitigates the fact that a Congressman abused his position of authority in the pursuit of sexual gratification from those under his influence whether the victim is 16 or 60.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:21 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    Reprehensible Behavior

    I'm a bit behind the curve on this one, but it seems that a pair of conservative bloggers exploited a mistake by ABC News and exposed the name of one of the teens that exchanged instant messages with disgraced (and now former) Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley.

    Frankly, I'm disgusted by this, and I will not link to the blogs or even mention them by name. As Michelle Malkin notes:

    There was absolutely no good reason to expose the former congressional page's name and identity. Seizing on ABC News' redaction failure and reporting errors (more on that in a moment) to play gotcha in a feeble attempt to avenge Foley is not a sufficient reason to obliterate the young man's privacy. The young man was the prey, not the predator.

    Outing is a horrible practice when used to attempt to bully closeted gays. Outing is even more reprehensible when used to attack those who are the targets of sexual predators.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    October 04, 2006

    The Gay-Baiting Left

    They can call it a "big tent" party all they want, but by their actions, it's rather clear that what liberals are hiding under is just another name for a large white sheet:

    There's a list going around. Those disseminating it call it "The List." It's a roster of top-level Republican congressional aides who are gay.

    On CBS News on Tuesday, correspondent Gloria Borger reported that there's anger among House Republicans at what an unidentified House GOPer called a "network of gay staffers and gay members who protect each other and did the Speaker a disservice." The implication is that these gay Republicans somehow helped page-pursuing Mark Foley before his ugly (and possibly illegal) conduct was exposed. The List--drawn up by gay politicos--is a partial accounting of who on Capitol Hill might be in that network.

    I have a copy. I'm not going to publish it.

    Not going to publish it? He's just going to mention the positions held by those on the list, as well as which Congressional offices they work for. David Corn's the kid in class who claimed he didn't "tattle" even as he pointed at the other kids. The "List" was compiled by liberal activists over the course of several years.

    There is a vile, bullying aspect at play here in the left as they once again attack a minority group for daring to wander off of what Democrats feel are the borders of their liberal plantation.

    A black conservative? Must be a race traitor. Let's call him Sambo, or better yet, stalk him.

    A gay conservative? Let's invoke the 3/5 compromise, because gay conservatives don't have full citizenship.

    Nothing like whipping up on an uppity minority to get that liberal superiority Jones satisfied.

    One of these days, voters in different minority groups are going to realize that by giving the overwhelming supermajority of their votes to one party, no matter how they are treated by that party, that they've made themselves a political non-entity. They've taken themselves completely out of play, and given aware their power.

    Only once both parties have the think that they could gain or lose their votes as values-based individuals and families—and not a monolithic special interest groups—will they have any real power as people.

    It never amazes me that liberals abuse those they claim to represent. It only amazes me that those they abuse put up with the abuse.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:42 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

    Who Knew What, When

    Flopping Aces said he saw Dick Morris making a starling charge last night on Hannity & Colmes.

    It's hearsay evidence at best.

    Morris says he was told by a "respected reporter" has proof that a senior Democratic member of Congress knew about Foley's sexually explicit instant messages to House pages months ago.

    It remains to be seen if there is any validity to this charge. If a reporter (and that's a big "if") has such evidence, then that reporter has a moral obligation to come forward with the story. If the evidence is reasonably solid, then we would be looking at a situation where at least one Democrat knew that a sexual predator was preying upon theses teens, and did nothing for months to warn the House leadership or law enforcement of Foley's actions for obvious political gain.

    Which brings me back to my questions yesterday that disappeared at the ABC News blog, The Blotter.

    The questions were:

    • when did Ross become aware of the existence of these instant messages?
    • were these instant messages given to Ross and the Staff of The Blotter directly by the pages, or were they filtered through an intermediary?

    We know that Brian Ross of ABC News has been the lead journalist on this story, and that Ross's ABC News team has compiled at least 52 separate instant messages between Foley and House pages. It seems logical that if Morris really did make the claim that a respected reporter knew of a senior House Democrat sitting on this claim, that Brian Ross, as the reporter most immersed in this story, is likely the reporter to which Morris refers.

    Update: Jonah G. has the transcript (my bold):

    HANNITY: All right, perhaps, but we'll examine that in the next segment. But I think more importantly here there's some fundamental, I think, fairness issues here.

    Everybody that I know is glad Foley is gone, but there seems to be an issue here to purposefully politicize this issue, and I find that equally repugnant to me. And, more importantly, I think this takes on a whole new dimension, and this is it, that, if in the pursuit of political power you are going to falsely accuse individuals of knowing things about horrible scandals like this, you better have evidence, because we live in America, and those American people you're describing are fair-minded.

    MORRIS: And that's going to back fire.

    HANNITY: And when innocent people are smeared, Dick, I've got to believe that people would tend to side with the people that are being smeared. And I see that this is happening more and more in this scandal.

    MORRIS: And that's going to back fire on the Democrats by focusing on what did Hastert know, because you know that some of the Democratic congressmen knew. I had a reporter who told me today that she knows that one very prominent member of the Democratic leadership knew about this for months. And it came out through...

    HANNITY: That's a big story.

    MORRIS: ... a left-wing — came out — yes, but it's up to her to break it. And came...

    ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: But, Dick, it's the Republican leadership we're dealing with here. It's their leadership.

    MORRIS: Yes. I mean, the Democratic leadership knew, was what she told me. And I think that, obviously, it came out through a liberal Web site, and obviously it was fed to ABC through one of their more liberal channels. And obviously there were Democratic fingerprints on it.

    But I don't think that the public is going to care much about what Hastert knew and what the Democratic leadership knew and any of that. They are going to focus on the details of this scandal, and they'll be very glad that it came out, and they will feel that it epitomizes what's wrong with Congress.

    COLMES: All right, Dick, we only have a few moments here before we have to break again. But, look, this actually appeared on a Web site, "Stop Sexual Predators." I don't know that that's a liberal Web site.

    We know that the Democrat in the page program in Congress was not informed. Only the Republicans knew. To actually put any blame for this on the Democratic leadership, as if they should have done something, when it's clear the Republican leadership didn't, is really not taking responsibility where it belongs.

    MORRIS: Listen, I hate to take both of you on at once, but you're both missing the point. This is not a Democratic or a Republican scandal. It's a congressional scandal.

    Well, the pronoun "she" and "her" seems to blow my Brian Ross theory all to Hell unless Morris was intentionally misdirecting attention away from his source. The fact remains that Morris willing to go on the record and say that Congress is to blame here, not just one party. Knowing how dirty both parties can be, that seems an honest assessment.

    Now it is a matter of determining which other bums in addition to Foley need to be thrown out, and I suspect there are one or two more on both sides of the aisle. Anyone who knew about Foley's IMs (the emails were too ambiguous to act upon) to these pages and withheld that knowledge for any reason is little better than Foley himself, and is an accessory after the fact.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:34 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    October 03, 2006

    Driven to Distraction

    Pull up Memeorandum, any major news web site, or political blog this morning, and you'll see two stories prominently featured, one on the Amish school shooting that has claimed five lives so far in rural Pennsylvania, and the other one dealing with the fallout of disgraced Florida Congressman Mark Foley's sexually explicit computer communications with teenaged pages in the House of Representatives.

    It is clear that Foley's conduct is disgusting, unethical, and possibly criminal. It is also clear that (barring another major news event) this will be the political hot-button topic for at least the remainder of the week, due in no small part to how badly the House Republican leadership has responded to this clearly inappropriate behavior.

    Washington and those who cover it love a juicy scandal. and this certainly reaches a sustainable level of interest for political junkies.

    By all accounts, Mark Foley carried out explicit conversations with teen boys. Investigations should be launched by the appropriate law enforcement agencies to see if Foley broke any laws. If he did, he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent the criminal justice system can provide. We can hope that Foley's predatory behavior has been confined to the keyboard, and that he never had to opportunity to physically act out any desires he may have had.

    We can also probably agree with perfect 20/20 hindsight that the House Leadership should have more thoroughly investigated Foley's conduct, even though the parents of the page asked them to keep the matter quiet, and we can certainly fault their absence of leadership since this story came to light.

    We can even understand the Democratic plan to conflate this and grasp upon it as a major issue just five weeks out from a national election. If the Republicans were the minority party and had the chance to beat the Democratic Party over the head with this, they certainly would. All of that said, this story is not important when compared to the more pressing business facing the nation.

    We have 140,000 soldiers in Iraq apparently unable to effectively reduce increasing sectarian violence, and no one in either party able to articulate a viable plan to bring safety and security to the 26 million citizens of Iraq.

    We have a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan suffering crushing battlefield defeats, but we are unable to muster up the political will to go after their training camps in Pakistan, measurably improve Afghanistan's infrastructure, or destroy a poppy crop that fills the Taliban's coffers and our streets with drugs.

    We have an apocalyptic religious sect ruling Iran that is so radical that Ayatollah Khomeini outlawed it while he was alive, that is attempting to acquire nuclear weapons and has already stated an intention to "wipe Israel off the map," with the apparent goal of spurring a massive retaliatory strike in the hopes that nuclear explosions over Tehran will usher forth the Twelfth Imam to bring forth the Apocalypse, not to mention North Korean threatening to detonate one of their nuclear warheads.

    Ladies and gentlemen, we have major issues affecting millions of lives around the world facing us that will be determined in part by how we vote in just five short weeks.

    It is perfectly understandable that Democrats would seize upon such a minor issue as Foleygate and inflate its importance if they can, because such a minor issue that is something of a scale on which they may be able to operate. But we have far more pressing concerns as a nation than the predatory emails of a degenerate Congressman affecting a handful of teen boys. We have issues that affect the very lives of tens of millions of people around the world that have suddenly been put on a backburner.

    It's time we place Foleygate in its proper context as a sideshow and continue to press both political parties in America to deal with the very real and mortal threats facing other nations and our own.

    Too many lives hang in the balance to do otherwise.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:11 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    October 02, 2006

    Foley Follows Rehab Script

    Disgraced Congressman Mark Foley becomes a Kennedy.

    Letter purpordedly sent to WPBF, the ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach, from former congressman, Mark Foley:

    X X X X X

    October 1, 2006

    Painfully, the events that led to my resignation have crystalized recognition of my longstanding significant alcohol and emotional difficulties.

    I strongly believe that I am an alcoholic and have accepted the need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and related behavioral problems.

    On Saturday, with the loving support of my family and friends, I made arrangements to enter a renowned in-patient facility to address my disease and related issues.

    I deeply regret and accept full responsibility for the harm I have caused.

    Over the weekend, I communicated extensively with one of the most respected mental health experts in Palm Beach County, Florida, who has been instrumental in counseling and assisting me.

    Attorney David Roth, my good friend of four decades has been requested by me to fully and completely cooperate regarding any inquiries that may arise during my treatment.

    Words cannot express my gratitude for the prayers and words of encouragement that have been conveyed to me.

    Sincerely,

    Mark A. Foley

    X X X X X

    A spokeswoman for WPBF says that a reporter went to Roth's house where a woman, allegedly Roth's wife, confirmed a fax had been sent.

    This is another transparent attempt to shift blame from a man to something he's imbibed, but considering how often society allows people to get away with this little trick, you can't blame Kennedy-Gibson Foley for following the script.

    Perhaps if it turns out that a certain suspect liberal group was hiding the Foley story for months--which would be disgusting-- then they can use the same excuse.

    CREW is a liberal public interest group funded by George Soros and seems to have its fingerprints all over this scandal.

    The question isn't whether or not Foley is a lowlife pervert who belongs in jail. He does. The question isn't whether the House leadership did a good enough job with the Foley case when it came to their attention. They probably didn't.

    The real question is if CREW sat on these emails for months with the knowledge that children were at risk on the Hill thanks to stalker Foley.

    Foley is scum and deserves to be prosecuted, as does anyone who knew of his sexual interest in children and decided to not to take the story to the authorities, thereby putting other children at risk.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:19 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    September 29, 2006

    Joe Liebs in Pajamas

    Nope, not another lame Eric Muller/Wonkette/Gawker Photoshopping smear, but an interview of Connecticut's Senator Joe Lieberman by Pajamas Media's own Roger Simon.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Losing National Security Voters

    The always-excellent Lorie Byrd has a column up at Townhall.com hammering Democrats on their dismal national security record. The criticism of what President Bush referred to last night as the "party of cut and run" is well-warranted based, upon a long record of many leading Democrats ignoring, miscasting, and quite possibly "misunderestimating" the very nature and the extent of the threat of Islamic extremism. Not only are the liberal's misconceptions about the jihadist threat dangerous to Westerners, it is also dangerous to Islam itself, ignoring that by refusing to confront Islamic terrorism head on, they may be allowing terrorists to stigmatize over one billion of their co-religionists who are non-violent.

    Lorie's column liberally—uh, conservatively—quotes from a post I wrote earlier in the week, Legacy of Lies.

    Lorie, who also blogs at Wizbang!, and fellow Townhall.com-er Mary Katherine will be co-panelists with me and many other talented bloggers at the Carolina FreedomNet 2006 blog conference in Greensboro, NC next Saturday.

    We hope to see you there.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    September 28, 2006

    Torturing the Truth

    The New York Times has issued forth a typically hysterical editorial attacking the anti-terrorism legislation passed by the House yesterday on a vote of line 253-168. The Senate will likely pass their version of the bill today, and President Bush will likely sign the measure into law by the weekend.

    I rarely read the Times anymore, especially their editorials, but from time to time, their hyperbole-filled missives are worth the read, if for no other reason than to try to understand just how out of touch the "liberal elite" is with mainstream Americans.

    The Times editorial begins:

    Here's what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

    Hmmmm... the "mindless politics of a midterm election." I wonder, does this ever apply to Democratic-led Congresses, or only Republican-led ones? I think we know the answer.

    But here's the gem:

    ...The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists.

    I'd like for the Times to go out of their way for once and try to apply a little logic and reason, and—God forbid, facts—to support their contention that the legislation will make American soldiers "less safe." The truth the Times and its liberal supporters refuse to confront is that our enemies in this war against Islamic terrorism do not now, nor have they ever, followed any civilized notion of how to conduct warfare against military or civilian targets, and when they have been able to capture American soldiers, they have tortured, mutilated and beheaded them.

    Perhaps Bill Keller and company should search their own archives:

    The American military said today that it had found the remains of what appears to be the two American soldiers captured by insurgents last week in an ambush south of the capital, and a senior Iraqi military official said the two men had been "brutally tortured."

    An American military official in Baghdad, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that both bodies showed evidence of "severe trauma" and that they could not be conclusively identified. Insurgents had planted "numerous" bombs along the road leading to the bodies, and around the bodies themselves, the official said, slowing the retrieval of the Americans by 12 hours.

    [snip]

    General Caldwell declined to speak in detail about the physical condition of those who had been found, but said that the cause of death could not be determined. He said the remains of the men would be sent to the United States for DNA testing to determine definitively their identities. That seemed to suggest that the two Americans had been wounded or mutilated beyond recognition.

    "We couldn't identify them," the American military official in Baghdad said.

    Neither Mr. Keller nor his liberal supporters in the blogosphere seem to have anything approaching a reasoned response as to how this legislation will make the native barbarity of our enemies any more depraved than it already is. Perhaps the Times thinks they'll use dull knifes for beheading instead of sharp ones. The simple fact remains that no law we pass will affect how terrorists treat captured soldiers. They will brutally torture and kill any soldier they capture after this legislation becomes law, just as they did before.

    As for the "lasting damage" the Times shrieks will occur, I notice they didn't try to provide specific details. Fortunately for the Times, hyperbole doesn't rely on factual support, as history shows that past wartime Democratic Presidents have done far more damage to the Constitution than measures our present Administration would even consider.

    During World War I, Woodrow Wilson pushed through the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, cruelly slapping aside the notion that "dissent is the highest form of patriotism" embraced by today's defeatists. Heavy media censorship, the crushing of free speech about the war (at least for those that dissented) and even imprisoning former Presidential candidates was par for the course for Wilson's wartime Presidency.

    Bush, in stark contrast, has not made any attempt to muzzle the press, even to the point of allowing classified document leaks to news agencies like the Times without shutting the paper down or putting so much as a single reporter in jail.

    The hyperbole continues:

    Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists — because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That's pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.

    It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush's shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.

    It may come as a shock to the editors of the Times, but Democrats themselves have made themselves look soft on terrorism long before this legislation came around.

    The party of "defeat and retreat" features leadership that wants to force the American military into a headlong withdrawal from Iraq, genocidally ignoring the fact that such an act would destabilize the fledgling democracy even worse, possibly leading today's sectarian violence to denigrate into full-scale genocide. John Murtha has yet to explain how withdrawing thousands of miles away to Okinawa will make the streets of Baghdad any safer. Ned Lamont has yet to explain how shifting our forces away from the central front of the war on Terror in Iraq and the terrorist forces assembled there will make America safer. The Fringe Left is far more interested in loosing Iraq to make the Bush Administration look bad than combating terrorism. Their only plan is withdrawal and defeat. Democrats look soft on terrorism because they are soft on terrorism as shown by their own actions, not the actions of any other group.

    The screed goes on:

    Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.

    This may come as a shock to the Times, but the legislation passed by the House does not reinterpret the murky language of the Geneva Conventions, and in fact, does just the opposite: it clarifies and delineates a clear policy of what constitutes legal interrogation methods. The United States have never before attempted to clearly define how U.S. law should meet Geneva's standards, even though it should have done so when the standard was agreed to in 1929. What upsets the Times and many on the left is that this legislation strips them of their ability to label anything and every interrogation technique they don't like as torture.

    The Times Hyperbole Drive (unrelated to the Hitchhiker's Improbability Drive, and far less coherent) then kicks into overdrive as they kick out an unsupported list of possible abuses:

    Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant†in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

    The President patently does not have this power. The House bill's language states that a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another tribunal will determine if someone is to be classified as an enemy combatant, not the President. The Times goes beyond hyperbole and delivers a falsification.

    The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there's no requirement that this list be published

    As I stated previously, the legislation passed by the House does not reinterpret the murky language of the Geneva Conventions, and in fact, does just the opposite: it clarifies and delineates a clear policy of what constitutes legal interrogation methods. The Congress should have passed this legislation, or something like it, prior to World War II.

    Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

    Congress has the power to say that foreign terrorists are not entitled to the rights of American citizenship, and they have done so, much to the chagrin of those who would coddle them.

    Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

    Again, more hyperbole based upon an outright falsification. President Bush does not determine the status of a captured terrorist; a Combatant Status Review Tribunal made up of military judges makes that determination.

    Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

    The Times does a masterful job of spinning the actual language of the legislation, which stipulates that coerced evidence could only be used if certain conditions were met. Among those conditions are that "totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable," meaning that other information must support to coerced information. If a detainee confesses under interrogation to a bomb plot and no evidence can be found to support the admission, his confession cannot be used as evidence. Again, President Bush does not make any determinations whatsoever, the language of the bill explicitly delegates that power to the judge.

    Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

    Of course, the Times is referring to American civil and criminal law, which follows a somewhat different set of rules than the military criminal justice system. With the conviction of terrorist-supporting lawyer Lynne Stewart, an ugly truth already known by many in the legal and intelligence communities was shown to the world; not only were terrorists using confidential lawyer-client letters to smuggle information to one another, they also discovered that some activist lawyers actively participated. The decision to allow some secret evidence and testimony to protect the lives of sources and intelligence operatives is a reasonable one. Apparently, the Times would rather a defendant learn the source of the information so that he could pass it along to others so that the sources could be eliminated. That the source is quite likely to be tortured before being murdered is not apparently a concern of the Times.

    Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

    Of course the definition is unacceptably narrow for the Times. As I stated previously, the Congress, by finally defining terrorism, strips the ability of the Times to label anything and everything it wants as torture. The Times loses a rhetorical tool, and that seems to be their primary concern. The assertion made by the Times that "the bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture" is unconscionable, and a willful distortion of the bill's language and reality. There are literally millions of things the legislation didn't address—the price of tea in China, how long a detainee's hair may be, or if he's allowed to watch The View—but that does not translate into an acceptance or denial of a practice covered under other laws. The bill also refused to stipulate that the detainees cannot be assaulted by wookies or unicorns, so I'm certain the Times will address the oppression of terrorists by fictional beings in their next missive.

    The Times finishes with a call to action for Democrats to filibuster the bill, which patently won't happen. Democrats may not like giving America the tools to fight terrorism, but unlike the Times, they are occasionally forced to interact with reality.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:20 AM | Comments (49) | TrackBack

    September 27, 2006

    Legacy of Lies

    The Clintons, the Media, and the WMD Attack On America They Refused to Tell You About

    Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has jumped into the controversy over Bill Clinton's hissy fit this past Sunday, stating that Clinton likely went into the interview predetermined to pick a fight:

    "I think that as the most experienced professional in the Democratic Party, he didn't walk onto that set and suddenly get upset," Gingrich said. "He probably decided in advance he was going to pick a fight with Chris Wallace."

    This, Gingrich said, may have been a good strategy.

    "I think as a calculated political decision, it's reasonably smart," he said.

    Perhaps Clinton did calculate his response, but I don't know that by casting a light on the common post-/9/11 perception that Clinton obviously didn't do enough to deter terrorism—a perception shared by Osama bin Laden himself—that he calculated wisely.

    Senator Clinton attempted to defend her husband yesterday, saying that:

    "I'm certain that if my husband and his national security team had been shown a classified report entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States,' he would have taken it more seriously than history suggests it was taken by our current president and his national security team."

    This is a categorical lie, easily disproven.

    The 1993 World Trade Center bombing, financed by al Qaeda's Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was the first—and to date only—WMD attack in America by al Qaeda and Iraq-affiliated terrorists.

    If you have never heard this before, it is because the Clinton Administration downplayed the facts of the case, and a compliant and overwhelmingly liberal mainstream media still refuses to deliver the facts to the America people.

    Ramzi Yousef, a Kuwaiti-born al Qaeda terrorist using an Iraqi passport, concocted a plan to detonate a large ammonium nitrate bomb in the basement-level parking decks of WTC 1. The primary intent was to have the foundation of Tower 1 compromised, toppling it into WTC 2, bringing both buildings down and killing as many as possible of the 50,000 people who worked there.

    Abdul Rahman Yasin, the Iraqi bomb builder who retreated to Iraq after the attack and lived under Saddam Hussein's protection and with his financial support until the 2003 invasion (just ignore the explicit al Qaeda-Iraq link), created a massive 1,310 lb bomb.

    Answers.com has the details about this bomb, which was not a conventional car bomb as we have often been led to believe, but a complex IED and chemical weapon (my bold):

    Yousef was assisted by Iraqi bomb maker Abdul Rahman Yasin [1] . Yasin's complex 1310 lb (600 kg) bomb was made of urea pellets, nitroglycerin, sulfuric acid, aluminum azide, magnesium azide, and bottled hydrogen. He added sodium cyanide to the mix as the vapors could go through the ventilation shafts and elevators of the towers. The van that Yousef used had four 20 ft (6 m) long fuses, all covered in surgical tubing. Yasin calculated that the fuse would trigger the bomb in twelve minutes after he had used a cigarette lighter to light the fuse. Yousef wanted the smoke to remain in the tower, therefore catching the public eye by smothering people inside. He anticipated Tower One collapsing onto Tower Two after the blast. The materials to build the bomb cost approximately US$300.

    Wikipedia, FAS, and many other sources confirm both the use and the intent of this cyanide-laced weapon.

    As any fan of spy movies and novels knows, cyanide salts are extremely lethal even in small doses of 100-200 milligrams. Wikipedia provides the effects:

    Once more than 100–200 mg of sodium cyanide is consumed, consciousness is lost within one minute, sometimes within 10 seconds, depending on the strength of the body's immunity and the amount of food present in the stomach. After a span of about 45 minutes, the body goes into a state of coma or deep sleep and the person may die within two hours if not treated medically. During this period, convulsions may occur. Death occurs mainly by cardiac arrest.

    Yasin's bomb was designed to use both conventional blast mechanisms to attempt to topple the buildings and create a poisonous cyanide cloud to kill anyone inside Tower 1.

    As we know, Yasin's bomb failed in both of its goals.

    The World Trade Center Towers still stood despite the al Qaeda attack, and the cyanide, instead of being released as a gas as Yasin had designed, was instead vaporized by the explosion. The first chemical weapons attack by al Qaeda on the United States was a dud.

    And so when I hear Hillary Clinton state that her husband would have taken the threat of an al Qaeda attack inside the United States "more seriously than history suggests," than the current President did, I have to laugh. Bill Clinton was President of the United States when lower Manhattan was the victim of an al Qaeda plot executed by an Iraqi bomb-builder who detonated a chemical/conventional weapon under tens of thousands of Americans. President Clinton later knew what the bomb was composed of, knew how it was intended to be used, and what threat al Qaeda posed.

    Bill Clinton was President for another 7 years, 10 months, 25 days after this attack.

    His record of "fighting" terrorism during that time period speaks for itself.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    September 26, 2006

    Re-Stating the Obvious: Some Do Hate America

    An increasingly dyspeptic Matthew Yglesias states that we are now the leading terrorist state:

    Consequently, the United States now presents itself as what amounts to the globe's largest and most powerful rogue state -- a nuclear-armed superpower capable of projecting military force to the furthest corners of the earth, acting utterly without legal or moral constraint whenever the president proclaims it necessary.

    Please tell me why anyone in America should take people like this seriously. At least Yglesias is honest when he strongly implies he and many other liberals like him are not proud to be Americans. At least he's out of denial.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:20 PM | Comments (30) | TrackBack

    September 25, 2006

    Clinton Spins

    I had better things to do over the weekend that listen to Bill Clinton try to defend his record of inaction against al Qaeda, but Patterico took the time to show that once again, Bill Clinton is much more interested in imparting spin to defend his miserable record than accept fault for his failures in defending America from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network of terrorists.

    Chris Wallace asked Bill Clinton a very simple, straightforward question of why he didn't do more to get bin Laden, and in response, Clinton accused Wallace of a "conservative hit job."

    Mr. Clinton, asking you why you didn't do more is a legitimate question when thousands of people were injured and hundreds killed on attacks against U.S. targets in 1998 and 2000 while you were President.

    You admitted you failed, Mr. Clinton. You should have stopped there.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:10 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    September 21, 2006

    Lying About Body Armor

    We saw the availability of modern body for our troops raised several times by both parties as an issue in the 2004 elections, and Factcheck.org shows that the half-truths and lies are being raised once more, particularly by a 501(c) PAC called VoteVets.org, that claims to represent military veterans. These veterans should know about the body armor they are issued, and therefore is almost certainly lying on purpose, not from a position of ignorance. Interestingly and perhaps tellingly, the candidates supported by VoteVets.org seem to take stands on issues that would identify them as Democrats, and the one stated Republican candidate is the only one with an active web site to which the VoteVets have not activated the link. Make of that what you will.

    Factcheck.org provides the content of the ad in sidebar:

    VoteVets Ad: "Armor"

    Granato: AK-47, the rifle of choice for terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    This is a vest left over from the Vietnam War. It's the protection we were given when we deployed to Iraq.

    (Granato shoots AK-47 at vest)

    Granato: This is modern body armor, made for today's weapons.

    (Granato shoots AK-47 at vest)

    Granato: The difference is life or death.

    (Mannequins underneath show that modern vest stops bullets but Vietnam-era vest does not.)

    Granato: Senator George Allen voted against giving our troops this. Now it's time for us to vote against him.

    On Screen: Source: Vote #116, 108th Congress, 1st Session.

    Announcer: Vote Vets is responsible for the content of this advertisement.

    The problem is that Granato is categorically lying. The vest in question is not left over from the Vietnam War, but was of the PASGAT type issued from the 1980s until the Army began phasing in in the next-generation Interceptor body armor—the first wide-spread issue of military body armor designed to stop bullets, not just shrapnel—in 1999.

    I advise you to read the entire Factcheck.org article to educate yourself on the body armor issue in general, and the very dishonest ad being promoted by Votevets.org in specific. This new group should be closely watched.

    I'd like to point out that blogs on both ends of the political spectrum are pointing out the lies being spread by VoteVets.org. TPMMuckraker played the issue honestly, even though voteVets seems to be functioning as a Democratic front group.

    On the other hand, some folks will never let a little thing like facts get in their way.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:41 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    The Devil's Recipe

    The suspect in a horrific murder in Colorado—where a woman was tied by her neck to a tow-rope and dragged along an interstate highway and surface streets for over a mile to her death—has been arrested. Jose Luis Rubi-Nava is being held without bail yesterday on first-degree murder charges. He is thought to be an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

    This, of course, is far from the first death committed in the United States by an illegal alien and it assuredly will not be the last. One can also make the argument that this same crime could have just as easily occurred on the other side of the Rio Grande, and they would be correct.

    But this murder happened here, in our country, and a plausible argument can be made that it may never have occurred if Rubi-Nava had not found it so easy, like millions of others, to spill northward across our largely undefended borders.

    President Bush has not aggressively defended our borders, something that we expect from a President in a time of peace, much less the current climate of war. This as-yet-unknown woman can credit the White House with allowing her murderer into this country.

    Sadly, Jose Rubi-Nava is far from being the only unstable "dangerous material" the current administration has let across our border.

    I wonder how many more Americans will have to die from solitary acts, gang crimes or dirty bombs before President Bush realizes than an open border policy such as the one he practices is a devil's recipe inviting murder.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    September 19, 2006

    Wipe the Spittle From Your Face, Frances

    In an editorial in today's Washington Post, Eugene Robinson has a charateristic hissyfit in the typical liberal style, i.e., long on hysteria, accusation and emotional appeal, and woefully lacking in intelligence, coherence, or logic.

    He shrieks:

    I wish I could turn to cheerier matters, but I just can't get past this torture issue -- the fact that George W. Bush, the president of the United States of America, persists in demanding that Congress give him the right to torture anyone he considers a "high-value" terrorist suspect. The president of the United States. Interrogation by torture. This just can't be happening.

    Mr Robinson begins with quite the stemwinder, but like many liberal arguments, it is based upon hysteria and half-truths, not fact.

    What the President asked for is a legal clarification of Article Three of the Geneva Convention, which states:

    In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
    1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

      To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

      1. Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

      2. Taking of hostages;

      3. Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

      4. The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

    2. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

    An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

    The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.

    The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.

    Much of Article Three is readily defined, but certain parts of Article Three are legally murky, with no clear legal definition of what constitutes "Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment" nor of what constitutes "cruel treatment and torture."

    President Bush as asked Congress to pass a federal law legally defining the requirements of the United States as they relate to the Geneva Convention, a goal deemed "helpful" by the Judge Advocate Generals of the U.S. Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy in a signed letter to Sen. John Warner And Rep. Duncan Hunter six days ago.

    Major General Scott Black, U.S. Army, Judge Advocate General, when questioned about the subject by Sen. Diane Feinstein, stated of Article Three's prohibition on "Outrages upon personal dignity," stated:

    "In its current formulation, it's entirely too vague, and it puts - as you mentioned before - our service members at risk, our own service members at risk."

    For Robinson and other dishonest ideologues, providing a legal operating framework for our military and intelligence communities to operate under—instead of the legally dubious gray area that has existed since 1929—would strip away the ability of critics to shrilly proclaim "torture" whenever the notion suits them.

    Clearly defining what kind of interrogation procedures are legal, and deciding what behaviors are clearly illegal, will protect our men in women in uniform. Robinson's main complaint seems to be that legal definitions will strip him of his assumed right to excessive hyperbole.

    He drones on:

    It's past time to stop mincing words. The Decider, or maybe we should now call him the Inquisitor, sticks to anodyne euphemisms. He speaks of "alternative" questioning techniques, and his umbrella term for the whole shop of horrors is "the program." Of course, he won't fully detail the methods that were used in the secret CIA prisons -- and who knows where else? -- but various sources have said they have included not just the infamous "waterboarding," which the administration apparently will reluctantly forswear, but also sleep deprivation, exposure to cold, bombardment with ear-splitting noise and other assaults that cause not just mental duress but physical agony. That is torture, and to call it anything else is a lie.

    Mincing words have never been a problem for Robinson, and his proclivity for shredded logic and reason are second to none.

    Robinson seems infuriated that the military and intelligence services of the United States will not provide him with a detailed list of interrogation techniques for him to quickly spill into ink, thus rendering the methods less effective. What evils he suspects from a military he clearly detests he cannot say, and it angers him, as does the a list of uncomfortable and annoying but hardly horrific inducements that he calls torture, but many of us experienced to some degree in college, often of our own free will.

    Sleep deprivation is a fact of life during final exams. You can't turn on a college or professional football game without an obligatory crowd shot of nimrods in the stands, shirtless, in freezing weather for three hours at a clip. Bombardments of ear-splitting noise describe every dance club or rock concert to which I've ever gone. People willingly pay good money to have variations of these same experiences. To equate these discomforting but minor annoyances to anything resembling legitimate "torture" is the lie, a lie that Mr. Robinson is spreading with very little thought or reason.

    Blathering forward, and making progressively less sense, Robinson continues:

    It is not possible for our elected representatives to hold any sort of honorable "debate" over torture. Bush says he is waging a "struggle for civilization," but civilized nations do not debate slavery or genocide, and they don't debate torture, either. This spectacle insults and dishonors every American.

    I never thought I'd have remind an African-American of this fact, but Mr. Robinson, you are "free at last" because of those very kinds of debates. Civilized nations do debate slavery and genocide, and past sessions of Congress have had to argue against both in this nation.

    Creating federal laws--defining the legal and the illegal--are the very essence and purpose of the House and Senate. It is a shame that Mr. Robinson can't seem to grasp that this debate over creating standards to comply with Article Three is a bit of legislation that Congress should have debated and passed 77 years ago.

    Robinson's editorial goes on, but to continue to fisk such poor thinking is pointless. His logic is—after all—tortured.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:11 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    September 15, 2006

    Party Clown

    Sean Penn fails to dazzle us with his philosophical brilliance, quoting from radical Louisiana populist Huey "Kingfish" Long in a taped Larry King Live interview noted by Brent Baker at Newsbusters.

    It's amusing to me that Penn chooses to call several Administration officials "party clowns."

    Glass houses, buddy.

    Here's Penn wearing fake body armor, or rather, what appears to be an empty (and therefore useless) body armor carrier, in an apparent effort to look "movie tough" in his much documented (he brought along a cameraman and a Rolling Stone reporter) and nearly disastrous rescue attempt after Hurricane Katrina.

    pennarmor2
    pennarmor

    If you remember the story, Penn is bailing with that red cup because they almost sank the boat on launch. The near-sinking was captured because Penn had several photographers along with him other than the one on the boat. It's all about the photo op.

    When it comes to clowns, Penn clearly knows the role.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:44 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    September 08, 2006

    The Reality-Based Community's War On Freedom

    The Disney Corporation and ABC has a decision to make today, on whether the American people get to decide what they will watch on television, or if they will defer that decision to operatives of the Democratic Party.

    The Path to 9/11, a mini-series based in part upon individual interviews and the 9/11 Commission Report, is being fought tooth-and-nail by grassroots liberal activists and top Democratic Party politicians in an effort to stifle free speech. The Democratic Party has gone so far as to threaten to attempt to challenge ABC's broadcasting license in a clear challenge to this nation's First Amendment. If ABC allows the Democratic Party to set a precedent of censorship through intimidation, then all Americans will have lost a part of their freedom.

    Some elements of this mini-series are expected to be critical of the Bush and Clinton Administrations, and it does reputedly dramaticize some minor elements in the interests of accurately portraying the overall truth. That said, the overall treatment of the failings of the American government leading up to the horrific terrorist of September 11, 2001, must be shown. We must learn from our past mistakes to keep from repeating them in the future, and any attempt to prevent The Path to 9/11 from airing is an affront to the 2,973 people who died in lower Manhattan, Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. as a result of Islamic terrorism.

    I strongly urge you to contact ABC, let them know that you support their right to provide the programming of their choice to the American people.

    For 230 years we have been a nation of free men and women with the right to debate, dissent, and disagree. We should not forfeit that right to the whims of any political party.

    Debate the merits and accuracy of The Path to 9/11 after the American people have had a chance to view it and form their own opinions about its content. That is the American way.

    Censorship dictated by political operatives is not.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:01 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

    September 07, 2006

    An Inconvenient Freedom of Speech

    ABC's upcoming mini-series, "The Path to 9/11" which is scheduled to air the nights of September 10th and 11th, has shown that Democrats of all levels, from bloggers, to the national Democratic Party, to the former President of the United States, are all quite comfortable with muzzling freedom of speech when it suits their purposes.

    The mini-series is a dramatized account based on "a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and personal interviews," according to ABC spokesman Jonathan Hogan. Parts of The Path to 9/11 are speculative, and ABC freely admits that the film is a dramatization of known events, a very common approach to films ranging from Schindler's List to Bonnie and Clyde.

    Despite this common cinematic treatment, Democrats at all levels are actively campaigning to have ABC's mini-series altered or pulled from the air, using tactics ranging from accusations that the film is inaccurate, to threats of retribution against ABC and others involved with the project. It is transparent Stalinism, an attempt to muzzle the freedom of speech of those who do not march lock-step with their ideals, radiating from the top down.

    Former President Bill Clinton is demanding that the ABC drama be pulled from the air unless the script is revised to meet with his approval.

    The Democratic Party's National Director, Tom MacMahon, released a scathing attack on the film to Democratic supporters, encouraging them to bully ABC into taking the drama off the air, and was caught openly threatening to pull ABC's broadcast license if the network did not acquiesce to his demands. This is an open attempt to blackmail a broadcaster by the officers of the Democratic Party.

    Sitting Democratic members of Congress are also calling for the film to be censored. Democrats are unabashedly seeking to given themselves the power of Orwell's Ministry of Truth written about in 1984, and are actively stating their intention punish ABC for thoughtcrimes by threatening the networks broadcast license.

    Their behavior is shameful.

    No self-respecting American should concede a political party the ability to limit our Freedom of Speech. Hillary Clinton once stated, "we have a right to debate and disgree," but it is painfully apparent that Democrats feel that right applies to them, and only to what they would allow you to see.

    In 2001, Cyrus Nowrasteh, the same writer who created "The Path to 9/11," released a film called "The Day Reagan Was Shot." It too, was a fictionalized account. It, too, portrayed many politicians inside the White House in an unflattering light during a moment of crisis for the nation.

    Politicians portrayed in that film also criticized Nowrasteh's work and accuracy, but they made no attempt to censor the film and keep it from being aired, as Congressional Democrats and the former President have done with "The Path to 9/11." They made no attempt to blackmail the film's distributor to keep it from coming to air, as the Democratic Party's National Director has done. Republicans attacked the 2001 film for it's inaccuracies, but never attempted to run roughshod over our rights to see a controversial film and form our own opinions in the aftermath.

    Democrats from the top down have no such problem with attempting to control what you see, and are proving themselves quite willing to brush aside an inconvenient Freedom of Speech.

    Update: Captain Ed notes via email that he recalls the response to this and the other Reagan film as being quite contentious, and Joe Gandelman does a good job showing that many conservatives did in fact throw quite a few rocks at these films from the dubious safety of their own glass houses.

    To make my own position clear, I'm against any politically-driven censorship of films, and find such attempts to be vile. If you have any faith in the American public at all, you have to let these films, and future ones like them, stand or fall on their own merits, not those imposed by politicians.

    Update: The head of the CIA Counterterrorist Center's Osama bin Laden unit confirms that the Clinton Administration killed the attack plan protrayed in the film, and further contends that the Clinton Administration actually missed 8-10 chances to take out bin Laden.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:29 AM | Comments (31) | TrackBack

    Accuracy, or Censorship?

    The "-based" community is at it again (where did their "reality" go? I have no idea, and I've been trying to find out for years), as Representatives John Conyers, Jr., John Dingell, Jane Harman, and Louise Slaughter, Democrats all, released an open letter to the Walt Disney Company and ABC, asking for "factual accuracy" in the two-part miniseries, "The Path to 9/11."

    Mr. Robert A. Iger
    President and CEO
    The Walt Disney Company


    Dear Mr. Iger:

    We are advised that ABC is scheduled to air a two-part mini-series entitled "The Path to 9/11" on September 10 and September 11. While we have not yet seen this program, news reports raise serious questions about its accuracy. Therefore, we request that the inaccuracies described herein be addressed immediately and that the program be thoroughly reviewed and revised for accuracy before it airs.

    Among our concerns about the program are the following: first, it reportedly contains a scene in which Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, declines to give Central Intelligence Agency operatives the authority to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden, and in which those operatives are outside a house where Bin Laden is located. This account has been expressly contradicted by Richard Clarke, a high-ranking counterterrorism official in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

    Second, the film reportedly contains a scene in which the Central Intelligence Agency declines to share information about the 9/11 hijackers with the FBI and ascribes that failure to the so-called "wall," limiting information sharing by the Department of Justice in certain circumstances, and established by the Department of Justice in an internal memorandum.

    This scene is puzzling at best, and inaccurate at worst. According to a Republican Member of the 9/11 Commission, former Senator Slade Gorton, the "Department of Justice guidelines at issue were internal to the Justice Department and were not even sent to any other agency. The guidelines had no effect on the Department of Defense and certainly did not prohibit it from communicating with the FBI, the CIA or anyone else."

    These two examples alone create substantial doubt about the overall accuracy of this program. September 11th is a day of mourning and remembrance for every American. We do not believe that it is appropriate for it to be tainted by false assertions of blame or partisan spin.

    To avoid that occurrence, we urge you to review this film and correct these and other inaccuracies. We appreciate your prompt attention and reply to this time sensitive matter.

    Sincerely,

    Representatives John Conyers, Jr., John Dingell, Jane Harman, Louise Slaughter

    Let's address the first inaccuracy brought about by our fine upstanding Democrats, the claim apparently made in the film that, "...it reportedly contains a scene in which Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, declines to give Central Intelligence Agency operatives the authority to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden..."

    This is demonstrably inaccurate, and I thank the fine Congresspeople for pointing that out. There should not be one scene showing Clinton Administration officials declining chances to kill Osama bin Laden, but four.

    The 9/11 Commission Report states unequivocally that on four separate occasions--Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000--U.S. National Security Advisor Sandy Burger was "an obstacle to action," preventing strikes that would have perhaps killed Osama bin Laden, decapitating al Qaeda well in advance of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that killed nearly three thousand innocent people. This mini-series, if released with only one incidence of the Clinton Adminstration failing to kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance instead of the four chances we know that Samuel "Sandy" Berger blocked, is a whitewash of history. Like the good Congresspeople said, we deserve accuracy.

    Further, I am against any scene in the film that make's the infamous "Gorelick wall" seem "puzzling at best, and inaccurate at worst."

    There should be absolutely no doubt of the effect of the Gorelick wall in hindering terrorist investigations:

    As the No. 2 person in the Clinton Justice Department, Ms. Gorelick rejected advice from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who warned against placing more limits on communications between law-enforcement officials and prosecutors pursuing counterterrorism cases, according to several internal documents written in summer 1995. (none) "It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney's Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required," U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote Ms. Gorelick six years before the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon.

    As Senator John Cornyn was quoted in the same article:

    "These documents show what we've said all along: Commissioner Gorelick has special knowledge of the facts and circumstances leading up to the erection and buttressing of 'that wall' that, before the enactment of the Patriot Act, was the primary obstacle to the sharing of communications between law enforcement and intelligence agencies."

    I agree with the four Democratic Representatives that urges Disney/ABC to "review this film and correct these and other inaccuracies."

    I do highly suspect, however, that if Disney/ABC squared the film with the historical record that their cries would only become more shrill and bombastic.

    As for this and other ham-handed attempts at censorship by liberal Democrats, Giaus astutely notes:

    Back when Fahrenheit 911 was the talk of the blogosphere, all the criticism I read was about its accuracy. There were quite a lot of bloggers that were tearing it apart for its twisting of fact. A lot of bloggers wanted to set the record straight, but to my knowledge not one of those people I was reading at that time before I started blogging myself was calling for it to be silenced. They only wanted the record straight.

    Now we have a new "docudrama" about 9/11 coming out. And the left side of the blogosphere and mainstream Democratic politicians are calling for it to be radically changed or silenced. Some are gloating that they think they have silenced some voices.

    Have you noticed the difference here?

    One group decries the accuracy, the other decries the existence. Who is in favor of silencing the opposition again? Who is in favor of curtailing the free speech of others?

    I think the answer is obvious.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:03 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    September 06, 2006

    Dems Call For "No Confidence" Vote on Rumsfeld

    Like you didn't expect it:

    The Senate on Wednesday is set to debate a resolution that cites "no confidence" in the Bush administration's national security policies or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "ability to carry out the job," a Democratic leadership aide said.

    The resolution, which was first proposed by Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California, will be offered as an amendment to the Defense Department appropriations bill.

    Hey, I'm all for it.

    While we're at it, why don't we debate a "no confidence" resolution for the Democratic Party, which nearly five years after the 9/11/01 terrorist attack on American, still advocates headlong retreat and disarming our allies as defense policy.

    Rusmfeld has made mistakes as has every other Defense Secretary in wartime in American history, but at least he's trying to fight. Democrats are trying to tell us that running away from terrorists is the path to victory, but as a hallowed, still empty hole in Manhattan attests, there is nowhere left to run.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:20 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    August 31, 2006

    Soros: Negotiate with Evil

    I generally oppose the idea of taking moral advice from a convicted felon, and so it was with quite a bit of skepticism that I clicked on the link to today's Boston Globeeditorial by George Soros.

    My skepticism was well-founded:

    The failure of Israel to subdue Hezbollah demonstrates the many weaknesses of the war-on-terror concept. One of those weaknesses is that even if the targets are terrorists, the victims are often innocent civilians, and their suffering reinforces the terrorist cause.

    In response to Hezbollah's attacks, Israel was justified in attacking Hezbollah to protect itself against the threat of missiles on its border. However, Israel should have taken greater care to minimize collateral damage. The civilian casualties and material damage inflicted on Lebanon inflamed Muslims and world opinion against Israel and converted Hezbollah from aggressors to heroes of resistance for many. Weakening Lebanon has also made it more difficult to rein in Hezbollah.

    Precisely what further steps should Israel have taken to minimize civilian casualties, Mr. Soros? Israel warned all Lebanese civilians to leave areas where they might launch airstrikes, often days in advance. Israel primarily used precision-guided munitions from strike aircraft to strike specific targeted locations. Israel took the responsible steps any nation should by using precision weaponry instead of area weapons whenever possible, and gave up some of its combat effectiveness by announcing where strikes may occur well before an attack, so that Lebanese civilian and terrorist alike had the opportunity to leave well in advance. Apparently an advance warning wasn't enough, and Soros would have Israel provide transportation as well.

    Further, Soros blames Israel for their response, but does not even attempt to address the fact that Hezbollah purposefully thrust Lebanese civilians into the conflict. Hezbollah fired rockets from residential areas, hid the rockets themselves, their launchers, and their fighters in buildings occupied by civilians. The fact that the Lebanese government was weak, ineffectual, and heavily influenced by Hezbollah's paymasters in Damascus is a fact Soros would rather skip past than address.

    Another weakness of the war-on-terror concept is that it relies on military action and rules out political approaches. Israel previously withdrew from Lebanon and then from Gaza unilaterally, rather than negotiating political settlements with the Lebanese government and the Palestinian authority. The strengthening of Hezbollah and Hamas was a direct consequence of that approach. The war-on-terror concept stands in the way of recognizing this fact because it separates "us" from "them" and denies that our actions help shape their behavior.

    Starting with Presidents Nixon and Ford, the United states, with the rest of the world in tow, started a pattern of appeasing terrorists by providing little or no deterrence to increasingly violent attacks. The lack of a cohesive and forceful military response to these attacks only encouraged the spread of terrorist groups, allowing them to grow virtually unchecked as they killed and injured thousands. It was this long-running pattern of relying on politics, policing, and negotiating that placed us in the situation we have today. Soros repeat a pattern that 35 years of failures has proven is impotent and ineffectual.

    Hezbollah, Hamas and the governments that support them have repeatedly stated that their reason to exist is to wipe Israel off the face of the map and to force the rest of the world to accept their radical version of Islam at the point of a sword. Historically, Soros' recommended course of action has proven to be one of failure time and again. He, like the components of the Far Left that lap up his funding, are philosophically unable to face that reality, and continued a dogged pursuit of polices that encourage terrorism to continue to blossom.

    A third weakness is that the war-on-terror concept lumps together different political movements that use terrorist tactics. It fails to distinguish among Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, or the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi militia in Iraq. Yet all these terrorist manifestations, being different, require different responses. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah can be treated merely as targets in the war on terror because both have deep roots in their societies; yet there are profound differences between them.

    Again, Soros shows that he misunderstands the problem of confronting Islamic terrorism on a fundamental level. Theirs is not a "political†movement, and while these groups interpret Islam differently, they do not recognize a separation of theology from governance. The tenants of Sharia itself disprove his views categorically. While the specifics differ, all share a common goal of the destruction of Israel, the subjugation of the West under Islam, and death to any that hold an opposing view. You cannot negotiate with those who see their views and their views alone as Absolute Truth. You can choose to bend their will and give up your views, your freedoms, and your rights, or you must fight them to the death. This is the lesson that Islam has spread to every border as it has expanded and been forcefully repulsed over nearly 1,400 years of human history, whether to invading Muslim Army has been Sunni or Shiite in makeup. Soros and those who acquiesce to his viewpoint are woefully unprepared to take the only course of action that over a millennia of experience shows us is the only thing that works to stop or slow the spread of the violence inherent to the various fundamentalist sects of Islam.

    Looking back, it is easy to see where Israeli policy went wrong. When Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Israel should have gone out of its way to strengthen him and his reformist team. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, the former head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, negotiated a six-point plan on behalf of the Quartet for the Middle East (Russia, the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations). It included opening crossings between Gaza and the West Bank, allowing an airport and seaport in Gaza, opening the border with Egypt; and transferring the greenhouses abandoned by Israeli settlers into Arab hands. None of the six points was implemented. This contributed to Hamas's electoral victory. The Bush administration, having pushed Israel to allow the Palestinians to hold elections, then backed Israel's refusal to deal with a Hamas government. The effect was to impose further hardship on the Palestinians.

    Soros forgets to mention the constant failure of these groups to keep their end of a bargain. Once more, Soros places all the blame on Western states, while treating Arab states as children unable to take any initiative towards peace or betterment on their own. It betrays an inherent racism, the absolving of a proclivity towards violence as an accepted consequence of who they are. Soros belittles both the mental acuity of these actors and absolves them or wrongdoing. Though a sidenote, Soros forgets to mention what happened when those prosperous greenhouses were transferred from Israeli to Palestinian hands.

    The Palestinians destroyed them. The hardships they suffer are self-imposed.

    Nevertheless, Abbas was able to forge an agreement with the political arm of Hamas for the formation of a unity government. It was to foil this agreement that the military branch of Hamas, run from Damascus, engaged in the provocation that brought a heavy-handed response from Israel -- which in turn incited Hezbollah to further provocation, opening a second front.

    That is how extremists play off against each other to destroy any chance of political progress.

    Once more, Soros shows he cannot wrap his mind about the simplest concept; as long as terrorist groups are alive, there can be no peace.

    Israel has been a participant in this game, and President Bush bought into this flawed policy, uncritically supporting Israel. Events have shown that this policy leads to the escalation of violence. The process has advanced to the point where Israel's unquestioned military superiority is no longer sufficient to overcome the negative consequences of its policy. Israel is now more endangered in its existence than it was at the time of the Oslo Agreement on peace.

    Similarly, the United States has become less safe since Bush declared war on terror.

    Israel's "flawed policy"--its determined will to survive-- seems to trouble Soros greatly. A tiny sliver of land in a vast Middle East, Israel only exists because its military has successfully repulsed attempts made by every single Arab neighboring state to destroy them. Israel escalates conflicts until they become unbearable for those attacking them, or it dies. Soros does not seem overly concerned about the possibility of the latter.

    Soros says we are less safe now than in the past. Wars are never safe by definition, but the appeasement he preaches is far more deadly.

    The time has come to realize that the present policies are counterproductive. There will be no end to the vicious circle of escalating violence without a political settlement of the Palestine question. In fact, the prospects for engaging in negotiations are better now than they were a few months ago. The Israelis must realize that a military deterrent is not sufficient on its own. And Arabs, having redeemed themselves on the battlefield, may be more willing to entertain a compromise.

    There are strong voices arguing that Israel must never negotiate from a position of weakness. They are wrong. Israel's position is liable to become weaker the longer it persists on its present course. Similarly Hezbollah, having tasted the sense but not the reality of victory (and egged on by Syria and Iran) may prove recalcitrant. But that is where the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas comes into play. The Palestinian people yearn for peace and relief from suffering. The political -- as distinct from the military -- wing of Hamas must be responsive to their desires. It is not too late for Israel to encourage and deal with an Abbas-led Palestinian unity government as the first step toward a better-balanced approach.

    Given how strong the US-Israeli relationship is, it would help Israel to achieve its own legitimate aims if the US government were not blinded by the war-on-terror concept.

    Once more, Soros seems to be under the illusion that the Palestinians want peace. Hezbollah, Hamas, and their sponsors patently refuse to recognize Israel's right to even exist. They state in their charters that they fight for the total destruction of Israel.

    George Soros seems to think that is negotiable.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:58 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    Not the Way We Remember It

    In an article focusing on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's speech to the American Legion Tuesday, the L.A. Times' Julian E. Barnes slipped this in near the end:

    Rumsfeld's speech drew sharp complaints from Democrats, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, whose father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was criticized by Rumsfeld in a speech Monday.

    The elder Kennedy, who served as a U.S. ambassador to Britain before World War II, resigned that post because he opposed British and U.S. war preparations.

    "Secretary Rumsfeld is the last person who should preach the lessons of history after ignoring them for the last six years," Kennedy said in a statement. "As a result of his failures, Americans are less safe."

    Barnes states that the elder Kennedy "opposed British and U.S. war preparations," but it is not surprising that he glossed over just why the senior Kennedy was opposed to the preparations for war.

    Wikipedia offers a clue:

    Kennedy was (for a while) a close friend with leading Jewish lawyer Felix Frankfurter, who helped Kennedy get his sons into the London School of Economics, where they worked with Harold Laski, a leading Jewish intellectual and prominent Socialist.[4] While holding positive attitudes towards individual Jews, Kennedy's views of the Jews as a people were, by his own admission, overwhelmingly negative.

    According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy's embassy aides, Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as "kikes or sheenies." Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that "[some] individual Jews are all right, Harvey, but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch."[5] When Klemmer returned from a trip to Germany and reported the pattern of vandalism and assault on Jews by Nazis, Kennedy responded "well, they brought it on themselves."[6]

    On June 13, 1938, Kennedy met with Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador in London, who reported to Berlin that Kennedy had told him that "it was not so much the fact that we want to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose. [Kennedy] himself fully understood our Jewish policy."[7] Kennedy's main concern with such violent acts against German Jews as Kristallnacht was that they generated bad publicity in the West for the Nazi regime, a concern he communicated in a letter to Charles Lindbergh.[8]

    From Seymour Hersh's Dark Side of Camelot:

    There is no evidence that Ambassador [Joseph] Kennedy understood in the days before the war that stopping Hitler was a moral imperative.

    "Individual Jews are all right, Harvey," Kennedy told Harvey Klemmer, one of his few trusted aides in the American Embassy, "but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch. Look what they did to the movies." Klemmer, in an interview many years later made avail­able for this book, recalled that Kennedy and his "entourage" gener­ally referred to Jews as "kikes or sheenies."

    Kennedy and his family would later emphatically deny allegations of anti-Semitism stemming from his years as ambassador, but the German diplomatic documents show that Kennedy consistently minimized the Jewish issue in his four-month attempt in the summer and fall of 1938 to obtain an audience with Hitler. On June 13, as the Nazi regime was systematically segregating Jews from German society, Kennedy advised Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador in London, as Dirksen reported to Berlin, that "it
    was not so much the fact that we wanted to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose. He himself understood our Jewish policy completely." On October 13, 1938, a few weeks before Kristallnacht, with its Brown Shirt terror attacks on synagogues and Jewish businesses, Kennedy met again with Ambassador Dirksen, who subsequently informed his superiors that "today, too, as during former conversations, Kennedy mentioned that very strong anti-Semitic feelings existed in the United States and that a large portion of the population had an understanding of the German attitude toward the Jews."


    From George Mason University's History News Network:

    Arriving at London in early 1938, newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy took up quickly with another transplanted American. Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor assured Kennedy early in their friendship that he should not be put off by her pronounced and proud anti-Catholicism.

    "I'm glad you are smart enough not to take my [views] personally," she wrote. Astor pointed out that she had a number of Roman Catholic friends - G.K. Chesterton among them - with whom she shared, if nothing else, a profound hatred for the Jewish race. Joe Kennedy, in turn, had always detested Jews generally, although he claimed several as friends individually. Indeed, Kennedy seems to have tolerated the occasional Jew in the same way Astor tolerated the occasional Catholic.

    As fiercely anti-Communist as they were anti-Semitic, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these "world problems" (Nancy's phrase). No member of the so-called "Cliveden Set" (the informal cabal of appeasers who met frequently at Nancy Astor's palatial home) seemed much concerned with the dilemma faced by Jews under the Reich. Astor wrote Kennedy that Hitler would have to do more than just "give a rough time" to "the killers of Christ" before she'd be in favor of launching "Armageddon to save them. The wheel of history swings round as the Lord would have it. Who are we to stand in the way of the future?" Kennedy replied that he expected the "Jew media" in the United States to become a problem, that "Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles" were already making noises contrived to "set a match to the fuse of the world."

    During May of 1938, Kennedy engaged in extensive discussions with the new German Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Herbert von Dirksen. In the midst of these conversations (held without approval from the U.S. State Department), Kennedy advised von Dirksen that President Roosevelt was the victim of "Jewish influence" and was poorly informed as to the philosophy, ambitions and ideals of Hitler's regime. (The Nazi ambassador subsequently told his bosses that Kennedy was "Germany's best friend" in London.)

    Columnists back in the states condemned Kennedy's fraternizing. Kennedy later claimed that 75% of the attacks made on him during his Ambassadorship emanated from "a number of Jewish publishers and writers. ... Some of them in their zeal did not hesitate to resort to slander and falsehood to achieve their aims." He told his eldest son, Joe Jr., that he disliked having to put up with "Jewish columnists" who criticized him with no good reason.

    Like his father, Joe Jr. admired Adolf Hitler. Young Joe had come away impressed by Nazi rhetoric after traveling in Germany as a student in 1934. Writing at the time, Joe applauded Hitler's insight in realizing the German people's "need of a common enemy, someone of whom to make the goat. Someone, by whose riddance the Germans would feel they had cast out the cause of their predicament. It was excellent psychology, and it was too bad that it had to be done to the Jews. The dislike of the Jews, however, was well-founded. They were at the heads of all big business, in law etc. It is all to their credit for them to get so far, but their methods had been quite unscrupulous ... the lawyers and prominent judges were Jews, and if you had a case against a Jew, you were nearly always sure to lose it. ... As far as the brutality is concerned, it must have been necessary to use some ... ."

    Brutality was in the eye of the beholder. Writing to Charles Lindbergh shortly after Kristallnacht in November of 1938, Joe Kennedy Sr. seemed more concerned about the political ramifications stemming from high-profile, riotous anti-Semitism than he was about the actual violence done to the Jews. "... Isn't there some way," he asked, "to persuade [the Nazis] it is on a situation like this that the whole program of saving western civilization might hinge? It is more and more difficult for those seeking peaceful solutions to advocate any plan when the papers are filled with such horror." Clearly, Kennedy's chief concern about Kristallnacht was that it might serve to harden anti-fascist sentiment at home in the United States.

    Like his friend Charles Coughlin (an anti-Semitic broadcaster and Roman Catholic priest), Kennedy always remained convinced of what he believed to be the Jews' corrupt, malignant, and profound influence in American culture and politics. "The Democratic [party] policy of the United States is a Jewish production," Kennedy told a British reporter near the end of 1939, adding confidently that Roosevelt would "fall" in 1940.

    But it wasn't Roosevelt who fell. Kennedy resigned his ambassadorship just weeks after FDR's overwhelming triumph at the polls. He then retreated to his home in Florida: a bitter, resentful man nurturing religious and racial bigotries that put him out-of-step with his country, and out-of-touch with history.

    Senator Edward Kennedy has the gall to suggest some are ignoring history. Considering his family history of admiring and trying to appease fascists intent on wiping out Jews, he may count himself lucky if that is indeed the case.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:05 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    August 29, 2006

    The Jews Did It

    I'm sure it sounds better in the original German.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:50 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    August 28, 2006

    Mystery Senator Exposed?

    Mary Katherine Ham notes this Club for Growth article that Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) may be the "mystery senator" holding up legislation that would create "an online, searchable database to allow taxpayers to investigate all federal spending."

    Is she?

    di

    Well, she certainly seems to have the right qualifications...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:54 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    August 22, 2006

    Shared Scitless

    Proof once again that liberals dispise few things more than a live voter's right to choose:

    Critics of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's independent run to keep his job attacked on two fronts Monday, with one group asking an elections official to throw him out of the Democratic Party and a former rival calling on state officials to keep his name off the November ballot.

    Staffers for the senator from Connecticut, who lost the Aug. 8 Democratic primary to Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, called both efforts dirty politics. The senator filed as an independent candidate a day after the loss, running under the new Connecticut for Lieberman Party.

    A group whose members describe themselves as peace activists asked Sharon Ferrucci, Democratic registrar of voters in New Haven, to remove Lieberman from the party, arguing that he cannot be a Democrat while running under another party's banner.

    [snip]

    John Orman, a Democrat who gave up a challenge to Lieberman last year, argued in complaints filed with the state Monday that the senator should be kept off the Nov. 7 ballot.

    Orman, a Fairfield University professor of political science, accused Lieberman of creating "a fake political party" and added: "He's doing anything he can to get his name on the ballot."

    Joe Lieberman, who has a solid liberal voting record going back to when he was first elected to the Senate in 1989, who was nominated as the Vice Presidential candidate for the Democratic party in 2000, isn't "Democrat enough" for the Peace Democrats (otherwise known as Copperheads as they struggled against Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s, calling him Abraham Africanus as modern liberals call the current Republican President the Chimperor without any registration of the implicit racial overtones spanning three centuries, but I digress). If Lieberman's resume is the standard which we discard Democratic candidates, Republicans would run nearly unopposed.

    Connecticut's liberals are playing a dangerous game, trying an overt attempt to throw out the seasoned incumbent frontrunner, forcefully limiting the choices of the voter, based upon the most inane of arguments and the most brazenly partisan of reasons.

    I wrote just two weeks ago that I hoped Ned Lamont would win the primary, and when he won, I was thrilled that the Democratic Party would be committing Lamonticide. But I had no idea that the self-administered poison would so quickly take effect.

    Connecticut Liberals are trying every trick in the book to keep Connecticut voters from have Joe Lieberman on the ballot.

    It appears they aren't "Pro-Choice" after all.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:10 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

    August 17, 2006

    A Blip

    As you know by now, a liberal Detroit judge has ruled against the NSA's terrorist communications intercept program initiated by President Bush. If you fan out across the blogosphere, everyone has an opinion on the ruling.

    I'm not really up to it, so I'll go with the professionals, starting with the Volokh Conspiracy

    Eugene Volokh:

    ...the judge's opinion in today's NSA eavesdropping case seems not just ill-reasoned, but rhetorically ill-conceived. A careful, thoughtful, detailed, studiously calm and impartial-seeming opinion might have swung some higher court judges (and indirectly some Justices, if it comes to that). A seemingly angry, almost partisan-sounding opinion ("[The orders] violate the Separation of Powers ordained by the very Constitution of which this President is a creature," emphasis added, thanks to a caller for pointing this out) is unlikely to sway the other judges — especially when the opinion is rich in generalities, platitudes ("There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution"), and "obviously"'s, and poor in detailed discussion of some of the government's strongest arguments.

    Dale Carpenter:

    I am one of those who believes that the NSA program is not authorized by the AUMF, that it violates FISA, that FISA is a constitutional exercise of congressional power, and that therefore the NSA program is both illegal and unconstitutional. I have written so here. But I am less sure this is an issue courts should review, and even less sure that this case is one they should review.

    So while the much sexier questions of executive power, the First Amendment, and the Fourth Amendment, will no doubt occupy many of us over the coming months (as they already have), I'd be willing to bet that at either the appellate court or the Supreme Court the suit will be dismissed for lack of standing.

    Orin Kerr:

    I've just read through the Fourth Amendment part of Judge Taylor's opinion on the NSA domestic wiretapping opinion, and, well, um, it's kind of hard to know what to make of it. There really isn't any analysis; rather, it's just a few pages of general ruminations about the Fourth Amendment (much of it incomplete and some of it simply incorrect) followed by the statement in passing that the program is "obviously" in violation of the Fourth Amendment...

    It's hardly obvious that the program — or some aspect of it — violates the Fourth Amendment; that's the issue before the court, and my sense is that we really don't know enough to answer it without knowing the facts...

    I can come up with explanations for why a district court judge inclined to rule against the program would put out an opinion that isn't quite ready for prime time. For example, Senator Specter's bill would take these issues away from the district court, so the choice might be to speak now or never. But at least based on the court's Fourth Amendment analysis, I suspect this opinion is important more for its political impact and its triggering of appellate review than for any analysis in the opinion itself.

    Mark Levin hits many of the same points. The consensus among these legal scholars is that the judge made a very weak ruling, and seem to indicate that it will probably get tossed at a September 7 appellate court hearing.

    My gut reaction? The ACLU venue-shopped to get a judge that fit their needs, and won a short-term political victory. In the long run, it won't affect the operations of the NSA program all that much, if at all.

    I just can't get too excited or irate over a case that seems assured to die a quick death.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:38 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    Murtha Lied (Confirmed)

    Patterico has directly confirmed that Democratic Rep. John Murtha just flat out lied about when he was briefed about Haditha.

    It appears that the DNC's retreat specialist is in trouble.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:01 AM | Comments (23) | TrackBack

    August 16, 2006

    Democratic Ad Equates Illegals with Terrorists

    Nuance:

    WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Democratic political ad is under fire from Hispanics who say it unfairly compares Latino immigrants to terrorists.

    The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sponsored a 35-second ad on its Web site that shows footage of two people scaling a border fence mixed with images of Osama Bin Laden and North Korea President Kim Jong Il.

    Pedro Celis, chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, said in a statement Tuesday that the DSCC should remove the ad because it vilifies illegal Hispanic immigrants and is "appalling."

    Houston City Councilwoman Carol Alvarado, a Democrat, sent a letter to DSCC Chairman Sen. Charles Schumer of New York asking that the ad be pulled. She said it could alienate Latino voters.

    "To liken Latino immigrants to bazooka-toting terrorists not only undermines the positive relationship our party has with this community, but also lowers us to a despicable level as breeders of unfounded fear and hatred," Alvarado wrote.

    The ad opens with the words "Security Under Bush and GOP?" It features scenes of a masked man with a bazooka, scenes from terrorist attacks and police inspecting a subway train. It also shows Osama bin Laden, Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a docked ship as it claims "4 times as many terrorist attacks in 2005."

    Then comes footage of a person climbing over a corrugated metal border fence and another preparing to climb it as the words "millions more illegal immigrants" form on-screen. In the following scene, viewers see the words "North Korea has quadrupled its nuclear arsenal" with footage of a tank and North Korea President Kim Jong Il.

    The ad ends with the words, "Feel safer? Vote for change."

    Terrorism and illegal immigration are two hot-button issues facing America right now, but the Democrats seem unwilling or unable to realize that while there is some concern that our lackadaisical border security may enable terrorists to cross the border, illegal aliens are not terrorists. While they are an economic and social concern, illegal aliens are not actively engaged in trying to destroy America and take America lives.

    That Democrats seem to view these two issues on an equal plane betrays the fact that the reality-challenged Party doesn't hold Islamic terrorists as any more of a threat to American lives than does an illegal alien's attempt to find a better life by the wrong means. With increasingly rare exceptions, Democrats are still a party incapable of admitting and coping with the very real threats of Islamic terrorism facing the Western world.

    Does an entire political party unable and unwilling to address your safety with a single concrete plan to address terrorism in the five years since September 11 make you feel safer?

    Me neither.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:44 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    August 14, 2006

    Sockpuppet: Voice of FREEDOM!!!

    Safely hidden in his hidden Brazillian jungle fortress, sockpuppet sallies forth to warn us of the evils of the BushCo Mind Control Agenda:

    The Bush administration has adopted an array of tactics to control the news, from threatening journalists with criminal prosecution to paying pundits and manufacturing and distributing propaganda videos disguised as taped news segments. One such tactic, used with increasing frequency and obviousness, is that when Bush officials need to do an interview in order to address some brewing crisis, they will sit with only the most sycophantic and Bush-loving "journalists" who will shower them with praise and adoration in lieu of scrutiny and real questions.

    Sockpuppet's biggest gripe seems to be that al-Reuters, al-Jazeera, and al-Franken aren't the primary means of distributing information to the world at large. By his estimation, Sean Hannity, Brit Hume and Pamela of the blog "Atlas Shrugs" are the Administration's primary media outlets to the world.

    And you know what? He's right.

    Sockpuppet cites ironclad evidence showing that Hume was granted an interview with President Bush in September, 2003 and just three years later an interview with Vice President Cheney in February of 2006. Such single-source media domination should not be stood for in a free society.

    The blatant right wing domination of the news reared its head again on August 12 as Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice dared to be interviewed by Sean Hannity, only to be followed by Pamela's hour-long interview of Ambassador John Bolten, when he obviously should have been appearing on The View or Al-Manar instead.

    These developments have been a huge point of concern for White House Spokesman Tony Snow, long since cut out of the news distribution loop in favor of a mom from New York, a point he made at his last White House Press conference that a now jobless White House Press could not attend.

    It is a sad day indeed when politicians are reduced to associating with extremists, as Sockpuppet notes.

    A sad day indeed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:06 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    August 10, 2006

    Meanwhile, in the Psychosphere...

    As details emerge on today's foiled mass murder plot from members of the Religion of Peace, most people are thankful that the attacks were thwarted and that many of those involved in the plot have either been arrested or are on the run.

    Of course, that would be most normal people.

    The Jim Jones wing of the Democratic Party smells a conspiracy.

    Although it may not be a "cry wolf" situation, I am skeptical because of the timing. Granted the timing would have been better for BushCo, Inc. for this to break prior to Holy Joe's spanking in CT, it still fits in the every other year (just before elections) pattern of TERROR!!!! alerts. Or am too cynical?

    Comment by BuzzMon

    Yeah, yeah, yeah, even if this is real, the timing is a political event. (9/11 redux.) I'm both skeptical and jaded. Bojinko!

    Comment by eCAHNomics

    Damn Brits. They weren't supposed to run this op until two weeks before the election!

    Comment by Castor Troy

    From the latest AP story, he're the key line:

    "Officials said the government has been aware of the nature of the threat for several days."

    In other words, instead of warning people a few days ago when they would have been out of harm's way, they created maximum inconvenience at a time of maximum danger for maximum effect after setting the whole thing up with tony snow's press conference yesterday.

    Comment by angry young man

    I guess the 2006 election season has now officially begun

    Comment by DeepDarkDiamond

    These comments are just a few representative excerpts from one popular liberal blog, but they mirror the comments made by many others.

    It would seem a sizable portion of the Far Left thinks George Bush and Tony Blair engineered a massive al Qaeda terrorist plot to punish liberals for selecting Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Democratic Primary. What, you haven't heard that one yet? Don't worry.

    You will. They did.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:40 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

    August 09, 2006

    Lamonticide

    As I hoped they would, Democratic primary voters in Connecticut unleashed "nedrenaline" on an unsuspecting American public last night, as the single-issue candidate Ned Lamont beat long-time Democratic Senator Joe Liebermann by four percentage points.

    Liberals are of course loving this, one even dropping in a taunting comment in my last post on the primary race,"Scared to death, aren't you?"

    Err, not quite.

    The Lamont victory, which may be known in years to come as the "Lamonticide" of the Democratic Party, is precisely what conservatives would have hope for if we were voting (and judging by the number of new voters and voters who switched parties prior ot the election, we may have) in Connecticut last night. Lamont's vicotry speech chant of "troops out now!" with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton over either shoulder couldn't have been scripted better if it had been written by Ann Coulter and filmed by Rush Limbaugh. It was the perfect re-introduction of a McGovernite Democratic party as it would occur in Karl Rove's dreams.

    Shlock waves rippled across the country almost immediately. A giddy Kos immediately said Senator Joe Lieberman is not a real Democrat, and proclaimed he should to be stripped of his committee appointments.

    New York Times editorial this morning fatally misunderestimated the average American's intelligence as it tried to label the Daily Kos/Code Pink/Cindy Sheehan fringe "moderates," while fellow "moderate" Michael Moore, in all of his bloated myopia, issued a threat to all Democratic congressmen and senators that they better play by the rules of the radical left, or else.

    Ned Lamont's win has galvanized the netroots and encouraged the progressive movement's most partisan fringe to bring forth their most barbaric yawps.

    It is, in short, a disaster in the making. Moderate voters to retch as the netroot's most vile proponents are thrust on stage. By the time November rolls around and moderate Democrats and independents flee the now-radicalized left that has run roughshod over the exclusionist Democratic Party, the radicals will too late learn that the active ingredient in "nedrenaline" is syrup of ipecac.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    August 07, 2006

    Terror of the Tumbleweeds

    Cindy Sheehan has once again resumed her lonely vigil in Crawford, Texas, and I do mean lonely.

    sheehen

    Even with a flattering AFP photo angle that seeks to fill the frame as much as possible, only a handful of protestors can be viewed in frame, with just over a dozen supporters noticable.

    Support for the dictator-loving, America-loathing anti-war mom seems to have dropped a bit since her September 21, 2005 march that drew just 29 supporters.

    "For What Noble Cause" indeed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:50 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    Patriot Act Used to Charge CIA Contractor

    Via WRAL-TV:

    In the weeks after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal stunned Iraq, a story emerged from Afghanistan about a CIA contractor named David Passaro, a former Special Forces medic accused of beating an Afghan detainee so severely that he later died.

    More than three years later, after several soldiers working at Abu Ghraib have been sentenced to prison, Passaro will finally stand trial when jury selection begins Monday -- in a civilian court in his home state of North Carolina. He is the first, and so far only, civilian to be charged with mistreating a detainee during the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    To bring charges against Passaro, who as a civilian isn't subject to military justice, prosecutors turned to the USA Patriot Act, arguing the law passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks allows the government to charge U.S. nationals with crimes committed on land or facilities designated for use by the U.S. government.
    When U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle agreed last year, prosecutors received a license to enforce the nation's criminal laws in "any foxhole a soldier builds," said Duke University law professor Scott Silliman.

    "Until 2005, Passaro ... was unreachable in federal courts," said Silliman, who runs Duke's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security. "What we're seeing is Congress moving to ensure there is criminal accountability for civilians accompanying the forces."

    Silliman said the law represents a dramatic expansion of the reach of federal prosecutors, whose jurisdiction most experts believed was limited to places like embassies and consulates, and not locations like the remote U.S. base in Afghanistan where detainee Abdul Wali turned himself in to U.S. forces.
    "What the Patriot Act said was that part of Afghanistan is now part of our ... jurisdiction," Silliman said. "The charge of assault is as if it had occurred in Raleigh. All you have to show it's an assault."

    Waiting for the left side of the blogosphere to condemn this expansion of federal power against a U.S. citizen? Don't hold your breath.

    While the Glenn/Ellison/Wilson/Ellers side of the blogosphere (and that's just in one house in Brazil) is quick to condemn the Patriot Act for just about any other application of it's power, I strongly suspect that when it comes to this case, Lefties will fall silent. An ACLU challenge would be most unexpected.

    Why?

    The answer should be obvious. Liberals seem only concerned about the "Good Americans," i.e. them, that might have their rights infringed upon by what they see as an abusive Patriot Act. Men such as Passaro, as emissaries of Bush Administration foreign policy, aren't seen to have those same rights. They are, in effect, "Bad Americans."

    I happen to be thankful that the Patriot Act gives the government a legal option to seek redress for crimes committed by U.S. civilians, and hope that Passaro gets a fair trial in the courts to resolve his guilt or innocence.

    No man should be above the law, regardless of politics. In this instance, the Patriot Act provides that law.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    August 02, 2006

    Cold-Blooded Libel

    America's most disgusting Ex-Marine is sued for libel over his allegations that Marines in Haditha "killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

    Attorneys for Frank D. Wuterich, 26, argue in court papers that Murtha tarnished the Marine's reputation by telling news organizations in May that the Marine unit cracked after a roadside bomb killed one of its members and that the troops "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." Murtha also said repeatedly that the incident was covered up.

    Murtha argued that the questionable deaths of 24 civilians were indicative of the difficulties and overpowering stress that U.S. troops are facing. The congressman, a former Marine, has been a leading advocate for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.

    In the court filing, obtained by The Washington Post, the lawyers say that Murtha made the comments after being briefed by Defense Department officials who "deliberately provided him with inaccurate and false information." Neal A. Puckett and Mark S. Zaid, suing for libel and invasion of privacy, also wrote that Murtha made the comments outside of his official scope as a congressman.

    [snip]

    This case is not about money; it's about clearing Frank Wuterich's name, and part of that is to identify where these leaks are coming from," Zaid said in an interview. "Congressman Murtha has created this atmosphere that has already concluded guilt. He's created this environment that really smells, and he's the only one who has done that."

    It is work noting that Murtha's claim of a cover-up has already conclusively debunked.

    h/t AllahPundit at Hot Air, who has more.

    Update: I question the timing:

    Evidence collected on the deaths of 24 Iraqis in Haditha supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot the civilians, including unarmed women and children, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.

    Agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service have completed their initial work on the incident last November, but may be asked to probe further as Marine Corps and Navy prosecutors review the evidence and determine whether to recommend criminal charges, according to two Pentagon officials who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity.

    The decision on whether to press criminal charges against four Marines ultimately will be made by the commander of the accused Marines' parent unit, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif. That currently is Lt. Gen. John Sattler, but he is scheduled to move to a Pentagon assignment soon; his successor will be Lt. Gen. James Mattis.

    My initial reaction to this is, "Where's the news?"

    We've known since this story broke that the Marines killed these civilians. That fact has never been in doubt at all, so to breathlessly say that the evidence supports what you already know is, well, grandstanding.

    Nothing has changed.

    It seems quite suspicious that the AP chose to break this non-story on the same day that it was announced that the three Marines decided to sue Murtha for libel.

    Perhaps the goal of the AP isn't as much grandstanding as it is trying to deflect attention from their "Democratic Hawk" of record.

    8/3 Update: I speculated above that the sudden and unexpected AP account above might have been to distract attention from the lawsuits against Murtha. This morning, Time magazine seems to support that line of reasoning, directly contradicting the AP claims (my bold):

    DOD officials tell TIME that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently set up a Pentagon task force, which meets once a week, to track Haditha and prepare for the eventual release of the investigations' results. But a Pentagon source familiar with the criminal investigation says that contrary to the suggestions of some media reports Wednesday, there have been no conclusions that the Marines deliberately killed unarmed civilians. This source also says that the bodies of those killed at Haditha have not been exhumed, which makes proving murder 'very challenging.'

    That seems to take the air out of the sails for certain liberal bloggers and their fans, who seem all too eager to see these Marines in front of a firing squad, trial be damned. As I said back in May as this story wasdeveloping:

    Someone who truly supports the troops, even if they do not support the war, would want this incident fully investigated to uncover the truth. They would want to know the facts.

    They would want to know if the Marines fired out of blind rage at the loss of their friends, and they would be equally interested in finding out if the Marines assaulted that location because someone inside fired upon them, as they claimed. Was it a slaughter of innocents, or were insurgents firing from within civilian homes? Were those that triggered the IED among the dead? We do not yet know, and some are already passing judgment.

    We all want the truth of the matter in this incident, and if the Marines did murder Iraqi civilians, they should be tried in a court of law and then sentenced for their crimes if convicted.

    Instead, many liberals seem willing to skip the trial in favor of simply lynching those accused, based upon sometimes faulty and always incomplete media reports.

    Our Marines, and the Iraqi people, deserve better than that.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:48 AM | Comments (66) | TrackBack

    July 28, 2006

    Cindy Lied, SAGEBRUSH DIED!

    Hot Air has a breaking story that Cindy Sheehan arranged a strawman purchase of five acres of land in Crawford, TX, on a concocted sob-story that the real buyer was a Hurricane Katrina victim trying to start over.

    sheehan2

    Oops. I bet that little detail wasn't supposed to slip out.

    On the bright side, she couldn't loose any more credibility...

    Update: Cindy's new themepark, Stalkerland.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:03 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

    Frog-Marching Tice?

    This press release by the so-called "National Security Whistleblowers Coalition" is sure to get the progressive netroots in a tizzy (via Stop the ACLU):

    On Wednesday, July 26, Russell Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst and a member of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), was approached outside his home by two FBI agents who served him with a subpoena to testify in front of a federal grand jury. NSWBC has obtained a copy of the subpoena issued for Mr. Tice's testimony and is releasing it to the public for the first time. The subpoena directs Mr. Tice to appear before the jury on August 2, 2006 at 1:00 p.m. in the Eastern District of Virginia. Mr. Tice “will be asked to testify and answer questions concerning possible violations of federal criminal law." [To view the subpoena click here].

    In response to the subpoena, Mr. Tice issued the following statement: “This latest action by the government is designed only for one purpose: to ensure that people who witness criminal action being committed by the government are intimidated into remaining silent.†He continued: “To this date I have pursued all the appropriate channels to report unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted [by the government] while I served as an intelligence officer with the NSA and DIA. It was with my oath as a US intelligence officer to protect and preserve the U.S. Constitution weighing heavy on my mind that I reported acts that I know to be unlawful and unconstitutional. The freedom of the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state.â€

    Uh, yeah.

    Are we to believe that the purpose of the NSWC is to protect those that illegally leak classified information to the media? I'm only asking, because that is what not only what Russell Tice did, but publicly admitted to doing.

    The NSWC is calling this a "witch hunt," but when someone commits a crime, and acknowledges doing so publicly, what responsible authority can decide not to investigate the charges? This is akin to an arsonist standing outside of a burning abandoned, shouting "I DID IT!" and then expressing incredulity when he is taken down to the local precinct for questioning.

    To cry foul when the government takes your admission seriously is perhaps even more deranged than stalking a fellow employee and acting surprised when you get disciplined for it.

    Perhaps Tice is the only person that may be facing a subpoena at this time, but I strongly suspect that the NSWC is making so much noise because they are concerned that others in their merry little band of leakers might also wind up in front of a federal grand jury.

    It appears Tice and his ilk are willing to be patriots only up until the point that they might have to deal with the legal consequences of their actions.

    Chickensquawks.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:19 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    July 26, 2006

    "You're a Dead Man"

    Those were the words uttered to George at Seixon this morning on his cell phone, from a person he believes to be none other than disgraced lefty journalist Jason Leopold.

    This was after Larry Johnson's alleged threats against George and his family yesterday.

    Several weeks ago, Glenn Greenwald—the official one, not one of his many assumed names we've since learned of—made the following statement in the comments to the post A Proud Member of the Toddler-Threatening Community:

    There are random anonymous commenters who make repugnant comments all the time on blog. LGF linked to a post I wrote yesterday and I had people coming to my blog telling me to do the world a favor and end my life with an honor suicide just as my Muslim terrorist allies would do.

    There is a big difference between comments of this sort coming from people who have influence and are known opinion leaders (like David Horowitz, Michelle Malkin, StopTheACLU, etc.) and some random individual who starts commenting on a blog. Trying to build up her importance in order to make her somehow representative of the "Left" is rather misleading.

    So tell me now Mr Greenwald: does Jason Leopold constitute "a known opinion maker," as a "regular contributor" to CNBC and National Public Radio? Is he "representative of the 'Left'" as a writer for Alternet, CounterPunch, Common Dreams, Raw Story, and Truthout?

    What of Larry Johnson, who gave the weekly radio address on July 23, 2005 for the Democratic Party, and wrote a July, 2001 NY Times editorial claiming a declining terrorist threat, and has appeared on many of the major news channels? I think he qualifies as well.

    Larisa Alexandrovna, the managing editor of progressive news site Raw Story seems to be the most likely person to have given Seixon's name to Leopold, and she is certainly regarded as a representative of the "Left."

    This is Glenn Greenwald's chance to go after three "known opinion makers" that most reasonable people would agree have likely conspired to go far over the line. this would seem to present Greenwald with the fight he seems to be clamoring for in the excerpted comment cited above.

    What course of battle, then, does Greenwald choose today?

    Why, attacking the exact same "random anonymous commenters" at LGF that he seemed to think were unimportant less than a month ago.

    Perhaps with Wilson, Ryan, Ellison and Thomas also using that same computer, Glenn simply couldn't get online long enough to post a condemnation about the kind of people he personally states he thought were worthwhile condemning.

    He'll get to it tomorrow, I'm sure.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:51 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

    House of Cards

    I've long held, as you see above, that "liberalism is a persistent vegetative state," but at no point could I ever have predicted that it was as inbred and corrupt as the story unfolding around Sexion, an American blogger living Norway, seems to indicate.

    The entire sordid situation is too bizarre for me to accurately replicate, so I'll send you to Matthew Sheffield's explanation of events as they are currently understood.

    Read it.

    Seriously.

    Because if you don't, the rest of this post won't make any sense.


    Apparently, disgraced journalistic fraud and technorati-addicted freak Jason Leopold (hi Jason, yes I see you, go stalk someone else), several of Leopold's sockpuppet identities, ex-CIA Joe Wilson defender (man what a bad time for that) and former media darling Larry Johnson, and Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story (the liberal "Drudge Report") are all involved in a bizarre web of... well, I'm not exactly sure. But it involves fake sock puppet identities, attempts to discredit a Daily Kos diarist and Seixon, allegations of a conspiracy theory, and what appear to be threats against Seixon and his family by Johnson.

    Read this post by Ace, and follow the whole bizarre thing at Seixon's blog.

    Jason Leopold, a disgraced journalist with a history of admitted mental illness and drug addiction, allegedly created (and seems to presently create) false identities and false emails to attempt to discredit critics on the Internet. His former colleague at Raw Story, Larisa Alexandrovna, jumps in supporting these attempts to discredit at least one of these critics. A former CIA and State Department Counter-terrorism official, Larry Johnson, loyal to all things Joe Wilson, is apparently threatening bloggers and their families across international borders.

    "crosspatch" offers a plausible explanation for these attacks in the comments of Sexion's latest post:

    What it seems to be is that their whole community is based on faith. For example, that Bush "stole" the elections in 2000 and 2004 is a fundamental principle in their world. Now they have no actual proof of this and this is all based on a plausible scenario. When you begin to expose people like Jason as liars or catch them making thigs up or spreading falsehoods, it risks bringing down their entire community they have so carefully built and nurtured. In other words, what you are doing is speaking heresey. You must be attacked and run off so that you don't "poison the minds" of other believers. But unlike the rank and file "believers" people like Larry are in the college of cardinals on their religion. They have a great deal to lose. People like Johnson, Wilson, Dean, Kos, et al have much to lose if people don't believe their scenarios anymore. If people stop believing that Rove controls the world and that Rumsfeld is dictating Israeli military strategy, then their entire little empire is lost and they are no longer celebrities as their own status is reduced.

    [snip]

    You are being treated this way because you are a threat to Larry's status and all the "plausible scenarios" that have been trotted out to support the community that shares those beliefs. Fact is their enemy when it is at odds with their beliefs.

    An interesting hypothesis.

    Not surprisingly, this same comment would describe the motive for Glenn Greenwald's alleged sock puppetry and his reputed recent, after-the-fact "evidence tampering."

    What do these liberal luminaries—Jason Leopold, Glenn Greenwald, Larry Johnson, Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame—and the rest of the "reality-based" machine have to lose if their house of cards falls apart?

    Quite a lot, from several angles.

    Financially, Greenwald, Wilson, and Plame all have current or future books whose success obviously hinges on the credibility of author.

    Larry Johnson has quite the media career going for himself, with many appearances in major international media, but if his credibility is damaged or he is shown to be unstable(which seems to be a developing story), his media spotlight would quickly dim, and his value to BERG Associates would certainly diminish.

    Likewise, (writer) Leopold's Truthout and (editor) Alexandrovna's Raw Story, leftists news sites with already questionable credibility, have much to loose if their writers and editors are caught as frauds, or show that they can be easily duped.

    Of course, the much larger picture, which "crosspatch" correctly identified, is that if these and other central figures in the "reality-based" community are exposed as charlatans and dupes, then an entire series of allegations that form the potential base of growth for the progressive moment falls apart.

    This is going to be fun to watch.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    July 25, 2006

    Odd Man In

    I haven't been paying too much attention to the Joe Liebermann/Ned Lamont Democratic primary battle in Connecticut, other than to read blog commentary from the progressive "Nedheads" and smirk, but this post has me thinking it could get a lot more interesting:

    The most interesting question about the possibility that Connecticut Democrats could deny Joseph Lieberman renomination is whether that would help or hurt the senator's political prospects. Or, for that matter, the Democratic Party's.

    That's because even if Lieberman loses the Aug. 8 Democratic primary - and the newest polling data says that is a real possibility - he would be a huge favorite for re-election as an independent come November.
    And if that is the case, it would not be hard to write a scenario in which the real loser from a Lieberman defeat to anti-war candidate Ned Lamont might be the Democratic Party itself

    That would especially be the case if Lieberman's good friend Sen. John McCain of Arizona becomes the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and picks Joe as his running mate.

    There are a couple of good nuggets to mull over in just those few paragraphs.

    First, what would a Lamont primary victory really mean?

    It would be a huge victory for the Kossaks and their ilk, beating an incumbent with a progressive political newcomer (who is leading 51%-47%, barely within the margin of error, in the latest Quinnipiac University poll). But that moral victory aside, would the primary election cement a win for Lamont in "blue" Connecticut?

    Probably not.

    Primary voters in Connecticut, (or so I've read here and there) tend to be far more liberal than their fellow Nutmeg State voters, which seems be be true when you consider the state's electoral map in the 2004 Presidential elections. True, John Kerry trounced Bush in Connecticut 55% to 44%, but the county-by-county map shows a state that while Democratic in makeup, was hardly a progressive monolith. The state itself is solidly Democrat, but there doesn't seem to be an overarching affinity among Connecticut voters for the rabid netroots politics favored by Lamont's most vocal supporters. It is quite possible—perhaps even probable—that Lamont could win the primary battle, but lose the war for the Senate seat in a state that is Democratic, but moderately so.

    And how Paul Brown think that this battle in Connecticut may affect '08?

    If Lieberman were to win as an independent it would give him great influence, not just in the Senate, but as the face of a new politics that transcends party labels.

    Although he has pledged to caucus with the Democrats if elected as an independent, he would be a bigger player than even today as the party's former vice presidential candidate.

    And he would be an awfully attractive running mate for McCain, not to mention other potential Republican
    White House hopefuls.

    A fusion ticket with a Republican Presidential candidate (please not McCain) and Lieberman as a Vice Presidential candidate would be even more competitive than the Cheney/Perazzi ticket I've secretly been holding out hope for. Cheney/Lieberman, anyone?

    Quite frankly, the Lamont primary challenge is tough to view as anything other than a liability for the overall Democratic Party's long-term chances, even if the Frothing Few think that a Lamont primary victory would be a long-term triumph for the netroots.

    Look for the wailing and knashing of teeth to continue.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:03 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    July 24, 2006

    Maryland Democrat Rapes Mail Order Bride

    In Maryland, Democratic Senate candidate David Dickerson has just been charged with beating and raping his 19-year-old mail order bride.

    The response from the nutroots was immediate and predictable.

    Why Does This Seem Like Some Sort Of Set-Up??? Is He really a Democrat or just someone "posing" as a Democrat! You see, I've become way over the line "cynical" these days. I wouldn't put it past the Repukes to have someone out there stating he's a Dem, but all the while a Repuke.

    I need MUCH MORE information & background on this one. I don't doubt that some Democrats can be THIS stupid, but right now??? Right before an election where the Dems seem to be gaining some ground?? I wonder.

    Or shorter, "ROOOOOOOOVE!!!

    This message brought to you by the Democratic Underground, where the nuts never fall far from the tree.

    dunuts

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:15 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    July 19, 2006

    Bush Vetoes Cancer

    As he promised he would do, President Bush vetoed a bill that would have lifted restrictions on federally funded human embryonic stem cell research:

    "This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others," Bush, speaking at the White House, said after he followed through on his promise to veto the bill. "It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect. So I vetoed it."

    In it's reporting, the Washington Post couldn't help but jump at the chance to make a charge it couldn't actually support:

    Such research is controversial because it holds the promise of finding cures for major diseases, such as Parkinson's, but requires destroying human embryos to extract the cells.

    The reality of the matter is that embryonic stem cell research hasn't been able to get past a single fundamental hurdle that of unrestricted cell division, so that "promise" is nothing but a pipe dream.

    Wikipedia reminds of what many of us forgot since high school:

    Cell division is the biological basis of life. For simple unicellular organisms such as the Amoeba, one cell division reproduces an entire organism. On a larger scale, cell division can create progeny from multicellular organisms, such as plants that grow from cuttings. But most importantly, cell division enables sexually reproducing organisms to develop from the one-celled zygote, which itself was produced by cell division from gametes. And after growth, cell division allows for continual renewal and repair of the organism.

    But cell division must be regulated by the body, and a great deal of the genetic code we carry makes sure that growth is regulated and eventually terminated.

    Embryonic stem cells, as I stated before, have a problem with unrestricted cell division.

    There is another name for that problem, and many scientists seem to agree that it could take a decade or longer to fix that problem in embryonic stem cell research, if it is ever fixed at all.

    Frankly, I'm with the President on this one: I'm against killing human embryos to create cancer, when adult stems cells are already clinically proven to work.

    Update: As if cued up for a comic relief, the reliably clueless Oliver Willis writes a breathless post, The Republican Culture of Ignorance and Death, where he repeatedly accuses the president of banning "stem cell research," conflating the two quite different lines of research into one. Of course, this is simply not the case.

    In addition, Bush didn't ban any research whatsoever, he merely banned the federal funding of dubious embryonic research. Bush actually increased federal funding of stem cells obtained from adults, umbilical cords, placentas and animals during his presidency.

    Once again, Willis shows that the culture of "ignorance and death" is assuredly his own.


    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:16 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    July 18, 2006

    Groped?

    "Groped."

    In a word overwrought with sexual harrassment dogma and victimization, that word has a very distinct social context. Most would agree to a contextual definition of groping as unwanted touching of a sexual nature, a context provided in no small part by our most recent ex-president.

    Taylor Marsh is therefore quite dishonest in her hyperbolic headline, Bush Gropes Germany's Merkel.

    Ever taking things out of context and folding them into a "reality-based" worldview, the four still images she includes on her site of President Bush giving German Chancellor Angela Merkel's shoulders an affectionate squeeze as he passes by on the way to his seat at the G8 summit.

    Merkel does appear startled, but the lightweight outrage of American liberals who attempt to blow this into an international incident, or worse, some sort of transferred Oedipal complex is amusing to the extreme.

    It betrays the mindset of a group of ersatz political bloggers with so little real substance that they are reduced to Page Six hissyfits of feigned indignation over a shoulder touch.

    It becomes increasingly harder to take Taylor Marsh and her Fellow Travelers seriously on any subject of real importance.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    July 17, 2006

    Language Barriers

    In a moment of candor during the supposedly private G8 luncheon, President Bush was caught on an open mike discussing Hezbollah's recent attacks against Israel to British Prime Minster Tony Blair:

    "See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s--- and it's over," Bush told Blair as he chewed on a buttered roll.

    It is a probably valid assessment of the situation, but the liberals at Firedoglake actually have the temerity to snip at the President for his choice of words.

    Christy Hardin Smith huffed:

    It seems that the President of the United States needs a visit from Emily Post.

    While munching on a roll, George Bush had a conversation with Tony Blair about Hizbollah cutting out their "shit." So much for that born-again veneer…this deciderating and Presidenting is hard work. (And the fact that the curtain gets lifted from the "moral majority" act for public consumption is just a side bonus, I suppose, since neither Bush nor Blair knew the microphone was on. And we continue now in the "do as I say, not as I do" Administration…)

    I'm sorry, but did Christy Smith forget which web site she writes for?

    Firedoglake is riddled with profanity (most of it from the denizens that comment there, some from the authors), and in the comments to this very post, Christy had to edit out an apparent threat made about poisoning the President's food.

    To hear a poster at Firedoglake lecture about profanity is to hear Kennedy lecturing us about sobriety. Quite frankly, you don't know whether to be embarrassed for them, or of them.

    Christians curse sometimes, Christy. Even ministers. Even Presidents. That you feign surprise at that, to score some petty points among your sycophants, is perhaps not all that surprising (low hanging fruits, and all), but don't expect anyone outside of your clique to think you are very clever for doing so.

    The President of the United States said shit because Hezbollah terrorists—supported and supplied by Syria and Iran—are firing rocket after rocket at Israeli cities in order to kill Israeli civilians. This is something that is—interestingly enough—not profane enough for her to find the words to condemn Hezbollah for in this post.

    And she thinks President Bush has the language problem...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:18 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    July 13, 2006

    Culture of Corruption

    In November of 2005, I became aware of a non-profit called Beauchamp Tower Corporation. BTC was focused on a project they called Operation Enduring Service.

    The premise for the program was really quite simple and broken down into several easily understood parts.

    Start with mothballed ships that were no longer of use to the Navy.

    Convert those of historical significance to floating museums.

    Take others in good shape, and turn them into disaster response ships.

    The rest—those that had no historical significance or were too worn or obsolete and destined for a scrapyard—would be salvaged to help pay to restore the museum ships worth restoring. Like most truly good ideas, it was simple and direct.

    On many occasions on this blog I wrote of the proposed "Salvation Navy," an idea so good it simply had to occur.

    How many lives could we have saved in Hurricane Katrina with these ships bringing in food, water, and emergency workers just hours after the storm's landfall? How many lives would be saved in future hurricanes?

    In the event of another 9/11-type terrorist attack, how much support could a ship such as this provide to aid in recovery?

    This is what Ward Brewer, CEO of Beauchamp Tower envisioned.

    But that was before Enduring Service and the "Salvation Navy" it would create ran into the buzzsaw of incompetence, corruption, and criminality that may eventually implicate officials within the U.S Maritime Administration, the Department of Transportation, and other members of the Executive and Legislative branches.

    * * *

    The Tip of the Iceberg

    Let's start with illegal access of Beauchamp's servers by the U.S. Maritime Administration. Most would simply call it hacking, but password theft and false identity use will do as well.

    According to documents obtained from Ward Brewer, CEO of Beauchamp Tower Corporation. BTC has a strict User Agreement for their server and web site. The server was used as a medium to provide partners and vendors of the project with internal corporate information—which was and is copyright protected

    Item 5 C-F of the User Agreement explicitly states:

    c) User agrees that he or she is not an employee of or contracted by the United States Department of Transportation and or the United States department of justice, or any agency within the structure of these departments, such as, but not limited to, the Maritime Administration. user agrees to, acknowledges, and hereby testifies that he or she is not an employee of the afore mentioned agencies.

    (d) User agrees to and permits BTIS access to ISP identities, other internet information, and data deemed necessary by BTIS to confirm user identity and verify user is not an employee of the afore mention federal agencies. User also grants the user's internet service provider permission to identify the user's identity to btis for verification that user is not an employee of the afore mentioned federal agencies. BTIS agrees to maintain the privacy of such information, provided user is not an employee of the afore mentioned federal agencies. BTIS reserves the right to deny or terminate, at BTIS's sole discretion, access to this site by any user that BTIS cannot verify user's identity or where user's identity is not known to BTIS.

    (e) Any person employed by or contracted by the United States Department of Transportation and or the United States Department of Justice, or any agency within the structure of these departments, is hereby denied any and all access to this website without the expressed written permission of BTIS. Any person employed by or contracted by the afore mentioned agencies that attempts to enter this site will be in violation of state and federal laws, which may include, but not be limited to, laws pertaining to false identity, internet website use, and software user agreements. BTIS reserves the right, at BTIS's sole discretion, to prosecute any violation of this agreement. written agreements may be obtain, at BTIS's sole discretion, by contacting info@btcorp.us and requesting written permission. Written permission to enter this site must be dated after January 30, 2004. Written permission dated prior to this date is not valid.

    (f) User understands that he or she may not, and agrees that he or she will not knowingly communicate to any employee of the Department of Justice or Department of Transportation the passcodes to enter this site or disclose the contents of this website with out the express written permission of BTIS.

    Brewer states that Maritime Administration officials actively sought the password to access the protected portion of the BT Corp site, and were eventually successful, obtaining it from an accidental posting to a veteran's group web site. Brewer states further:

    MARAD officials were told a number of times that they were not allowed on the website, yet they continued to search the Internet to try and find the password every time we changed it. Once they obtained the password (which we were forced to continually change, agency officials electronically signed in under false identities—violating the our End License User Agreement.

    And there is indeed proof that Maritime did indeed successfully "hack" into Beauchamp's site no less than 15 times.

    What evidence is there? There are server logs, as shown in this screen capture (click to enlarge):

    There are the logs of the Maritime Administration's illegal access time and IP addresses, including:

    ipandtimes

    And there is much, much more, which has been turned over to the FBI for investigation, evidence of such obvious weight that agents declared felony charges were “quite possible†when discussing it with Brewer. Of course, once the case went to the US Attorney General's office in Washington for permission to investigate, it has since stalled...

    While we've been debating and defending legitimate programs by the NSA and CIA, other elements of the government haven't even attempted to find a legal excuse for their accessing of private information. They've simply broken in.

    Of course, the million dollar question is: "Why?"

    Why would a federal agency illegally hack into the web server of a not-for-profit organization working in emergency response?? What were they hoping to find, and why were they willing to risk it?

    The answer appears to be a simple combination of political corruption and revenge, but that is a story for another post...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:05 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    July 12, 2006

    Lord of the Dunce

    Poor Glenn Greenwald.

    He tries hard. He really, really does. But no matter how he tries to rationalize it, hyperbole against public figures does not come close to equating to terroristic threats uttered against children.

    Nevertheless, Greenwald, tries to make that exact case in this post, attempting to equivilate comments made by Misha of the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler with those made in the past week by Counterpunch-published liberal academic Deborah Frisch.

    Gleenwald offers up this quote from Misha as evidence of equivalence as Misha talks about the Hamdan decision granting Geneva Convention rights to terrorists after the release of an al Qaeda video showing the bodies of two American soldiers captured, tortured, and murdered by terrorists:

    Of course, this is the same Supreme Court that earlier decided in Kelo that private property rights only matter as long as a private company doesn't offer a better deal, above or below the table, to local authorities, so one shouldn't really be surprised. The unelected, black-robed tyrants have a long history of not giving a fig about the Constitution if they don't like what it says, not to mention a long tradition of usurping the powers of the legislative and executive branch by ruling by judicial fiat. . . .

    Try doing anything to those mutilating darlings of the Supremes in order to extract life-saving intel from them, and then wait for the Supreme Whores to decide that you were "humiliating" them in doing so.

    Five ropes, five robes, five trees.

    Some assembly required.

    Greenwald misrepresents the quoted section, as Greenwald bolded this text, not Misha, adding emphasis that was not there in the original. In his commentary immediately following, Greenwald goes on to state:

    He's advocating that the five Supreme Court Justices in the Hamdan majority be hanged from the neck until they're dead. His homicidal formulation is a play on the more standard call of the Right for American journalists to be hanged -- "Journalists. Rope. Tree. Some assembly required" -- another death call which, it just so happens, Misha also issued just a few days ago.

    Now, does Greenwald, in his wildest delusion, seriously think that Misha is advocating for the lynching of Supreme Court justices and journalists? What would a reasonable person determine? A reasonable person—which I've given up on Greenwald attempting to be—would realize that Misha has a long-running infatuation with the rhetorical device known as hyperbole.

    Most adults understand that hyperbole is the deliberate overstatement or exaggeration, and yet, Greenwald exposes himself as the Amelia Bedelia of the American Left, unable to understand that Misha's use of language is anything but literal.

    That is the only rational explanation for this graph:

    What happened? They all seemed to find such disturbing rhetoric so upsetting, such cause for great alarm this weekend, when it came from an obscure person in some comment section, but they have not said a word of condemnation about these death calls from a prominent blogger on the Right. Nor have any of them condemned the calls by Misha's readers for Islamic countries to be turned into radioactive parking lots or for the death of the towel heads by other means. Why not?

    Greenwald cannot differentiate between Misha's hyperbole, and Deb Frisch's physical and sexual threats made against a minor. How sad.

    I'd tell him to take a long walk off a short pier, but I don't know that the poor man would survive the rhetorical drop.

    Note:via Instapundit, Dan Riehl wasn't quite as pleasant in his criticism.

    Update: It becomes even harder to take Greenwald seriously. He's written a follow-up post to the one discussed above where he flatly lies about things written by conservative bloggers. Patrick Frey demands a retraction, but I don't think he's going to get one. Greenwald doesn't seem to have that much integrity. I flatly called Greenwald a liar in his comments, and when I checked hours later, he had no response. I'll let that stand on its own. Notice I didn't link to Greenwald again. I got the memo from Rove, and I concur. He really isn't worth it anymore, even if he is a willing patsy.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:12 AM | Comments (20) | TrackBack

    Joe Wilson Outed Plame's Name

    When all is said and done, all the hyperbole has been set aside, and all the conspiracy theories debunked, it comes down to this little tidbit written by Bob Novak:

    I learned Valerie Plame's name from Joe Wilson's entry in Who's Who in America

    Joe Wilson's Who's Who bio outed his wife's name after an unnamed primary source accidentally revealed information about her role. Karl Rove and the CIA's own Public Information Officer Bill Harlow merely confirmed what Novak already knew.

    I don't care too much about the whole Plamegate/Fitzmas bit, though I have read along with it, and this anti-climax is simply hilarious in its non-scandal.

    No laws were broken in Plame's name going to press. Not even a tiny one. An inadvertent slip of a position was cross-referenced with publicly available information that Wilson and Plame were stupid and vain enough to volunteer.

    This wasn't a grand conspiracy. This was Spies Like Us.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:44 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

    July 11, 2006

    Brain Freeze

    After her third Wendy's Frosty of the day, Cindy Sheehan wondered why some people thought hunger strikes were so hard. *

    Like her poor, starving fellow travelers in isolation at Guantanamo Bay, Sheehan is expected to gain 13 pounds on her ice cream-laced "fast."


    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:55 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    July 07, 2006

    Red Face

    I see via columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin that North Face has decided to sell "vintage" jackets celebrating the memory of the Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (CCCP), or at the rest of us like to call it, the USSR.

    Quite a country, the USSR.

    It started via a revolution in 1917 where Czar Nicolas and his family were murdered by thugs loyal to Lenin. Stalin came to power after Lenin's death, and in 1939, signed a non-aggression pact with the Nazis. It didn't last long, however, and in 1941 they were in a war that saw tens of millions of Soviet boys and girls forced into combat, sometimes unarmed, often with an officer's pistol aimed at the back of their heads. Millions of them were cut down by either German machine guns or their own officers.

    Before, During, and after the Second World War, the CCCP killed tens of millions in Joseph Stalin's gulags, and when Nikita Kruschev ran the country, he spoke to each and every American, "we will bury you."

    How lovely a sentiment to promote to America's youth.

    Tens of millions of more people in eastern European countries were crushed under the weight of the Iron Curtain, their human rights stripped away as mass graves filled in periodic purges. Unknown thousands died over the decades trying to flee this tyranny, gunned down by their own soldiers for trying to escape to the west and freedom. You celebrate it with a "trendy" jacket.

    The jackets features "comfortable, easy-care fabric." I bet it would have been welcomed in the frozen forced labor concentration camps known as gulags, where those who desired the freedom to shop at western department stores were worked to death alongside criminals.

    North Face—or perhaps we should call it "Red Face" for the embarrassing pimping of totalitarian regimes as fashion chic—is one of many brands of VF Corporation, the same publicly held capitalist corporation that owns the brands Wrangler, Lee, Vanity Fair, JanSport, Eastpak, Vans, and Nautica, just to name a few.

    I wonder, does VF Investor Relations know that their subsidiaries are promoting a communist regime that killed millions of people, including hundreds of Americans in gulags?

    This same regime that VF corporation seeks to market and capitalize on, developed and supplied weaponry that killed more than 33,000 American servicemen in the Korean war, and took another 58,191 American lives in Vietnam.

    This the legacy of mass murder, political oppression and war with America can be yours for just $78 American, courtesy of North Face and VF Corporation.

    Do let them know what you think:

    VF Corporation

    VF Corporation
    105 Corporate Center Blvd.
    Greensboro, NC 27420-1488
    Phone: 336.424.6000
    Fax: 336.424.7668

    Investor Relations
    Cindy Knoebel
    VP, Financial and Corporate Communications
    VF Services
    P: 336.424.6189
    F: 336.424.7668

    Media Inquiries
    Paul Mason
    P: 336.424.6192
    F: 336.424.7668


    North Face
    Phone:(866) 715-3223, prompt 7.
    Monday-Friday, 8:00am-4:00pm
    Pacific time

    Address:
    The North Face, Inc.
    Customer Service
    2013 Farallon Dr.
    San Leandro, CA 94577
    USA


    Like the fallen totalitarian regime they seek to profit from promoting, I'm sure they would just kill to hear from you.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:42 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    July 05, 2006

    If It Makes You Happy...

    Vai K-Lo on NRO's The Corner, this little bit from America's favorite anti-American, anti-war mom:

    Activist Cindy Sheehan, who is leading a hunger strike [ed. -- not really] against the war in Iraq, tells Norah O'Donnell that she would rather live under Hugo Chavez than George W. Bush.

    I'm tired and sore from my own move to a new residence, but I find that I can dig deep and help load just one more truck if that is really what she wants. I'll even throw in my extra cardboard boxes and packing tape.

    And just to make it easier, I even found a web site where she can get international moving quotes. Guess what? At least six moving companies are willing to take her to Venezuela, even though Hugo isn't likely to be there to help her unpack, as he's working on a oil-for-arms deal with North Korea.

    All the same, I'd be willing to bet millions here are ready to help her pack.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:02 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    Been There. Didn't Care For It.

    The BBC's Gerry Anderson in Belfast told President Bush he could "rot in hell" on his July Forth birthday during a broadcast yesterday. He has since apologized.

    Mr. Anderson, like many BBC reporters, has a problem getting his facts right.

    Not only is the President's birthday not on July 4th (it is tomorrow, July 6th), he has already been to Belfast.

    Update: As Republican Babe notes in the comments, the BBC apologized, not Anderson.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:25 AM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

    June 30, 2006

    Curses! Foiled Again

    It looks like one of them college edumacated fellers over at the Daily Kos musta figgered us out.

    With smart folks like that, how are we ever going to keep those negroes out of office?

    They's too swift for us.

    I wonder what going to happen come the 'lections?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:38 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

    Further Thoughts on Hamdan

    From a comment left on this post:

    Without law to govern our actions, we are no better than the terrorist who's objective is to destroy our way of life.

    And therein lies a key thought of many American liberals. He—and others like him—truly believe that courts protect our liberties and our lives.

    He will never understand that the Supreme Court did not have the legal authority to rule on Hamdan (Congress passed DCA '05, legally stripping them of jurisdiction, which SCOTUS then illegally usurped back from Congress). He will never understand that the Constitutionally defined Commander in Chief powers outweigh those powers the Court unilaterally gives itself.

    He will not bother to understand the Court trampled on the Constitution in Hamdan with a murky application of international law, nor will he admit that they ignored the plain meaning of the Geneva Convention, which all but specifically exempts terrorists from Geneva protections under Article 4.1.2. To people like him, the Supreme Court, an un-elected body of political appointees, is the ultimate and unquestioned law of the land.

    This is not how this nation was set up. The Court is but one of three co-equal branches of government, and it does not rule over the others. But my, oh my, it tries.

    The Court in this decision pulls a trifecta. It ignores Congress, overreaches into the President's executive powers as Commander in Chief, and not content to stop there, decided a case based upon international law instead of following the U.S. Constitution.

    And yet, people view the court to be infallible with an almost religious fervor, and actually think that the court protects our lives and liberties.

    It doesn"t.

    Tens of millions of men have protected our lives and liberties by putting on a uniform and picking up a rifle to stop the barbarians crashing the gates, while judges simply sat.

    Don't tell me who guards my liberty. Is isn't a sleepy Ginsberg, or a decrepit Stevens, or a gesturing Scalia, or any other Supreme Court judge through the history of a Court that misunderstood for nearly 200 years the simple phrase, "that all men are created equal."

    The people protecting my liberties are 20-year-olds with guts and guns.

    In the end, the law is just a piece of paper, reflecting the ideas of a culture, and those ideas are not always just or fair or true. Often, despite the veneer of precedent and legalese, court decisions are arbitrary, capricious, dangerous and cruel.

    The Hamdan decision is one such poor example, and highly why the Supreme Court is anything but infallible.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:09 AM | Comments (20) | TrackBack

    June 29, 2006

    Defenders of Oppressors

    Via U.S. Newswire:

    House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today following the United States Supreme Court decision that trying Guantanamo detainees before military commissions violates U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions:

    "Today's Supreme Court decision reaffirms the American ideal that all are entitled to the basic guarantees of our justice system. This is a triumph for the rule of law.

    "The rights of due process are among our most cherished liberties, and today's decision is a rebuke of the Bush Administration's detainee policies and a reminder of our responsibility to protect both the American people and our Constitutional rights. We cannot allow the values on which our country was founded to become a casualty in the war on terrorism."

    Translates PunditGuy (via Hot Air):

    'If you plan terrorist attacks against America, if you kill Americans in a successful terrorist attack, if you kill our troops in Iraq or on any battlefield, we, the Democratic Party, will defend your right to be defended.'

    If terrorists maim and murder innocents by the thousands, anywhere on earth, the Democratic Party will rush to defend their rights under American law.

    antiwar

    White flag. Yellow back. Brown pants. Your Democratic Party.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:15 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

    Bush Loses Hamdan, SCOTUS Loses Its Mind

    According to the Associated Press:

    The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

    The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.

    The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.

    I'm familiar with a saying that goes, “if you can keep your head, while everyone around you is losing theirs, then clearly, you don't understand the situation.â€

    When it comes to Hamdan, that is certainly the case for me.

    Quite frankly, I've never been sure about the military tribunal route for terrorism suspects captured overseas. To me it either makes sense to try them as criminals in a federal court, hold them until hostilities were over (if we deem the Geneva Conventions apply), or execute them like rabid dogs (if we deem the Geneva Conventions don't apply). The tribunal route just seemed odd to my sensibilities.

    Over at Hot Air, Allah seems confused:

    So if they try him, they have to take him to federal court — but they don't have to try him? What?

    He also notes this from SCOTUSBlog:

    As I predicted below, the Court held that Congress had, by statute, required that the commissions comply with the laws of war -- and held further that these commissions do not (for various reasons).

    More importantly, the Court held that Common Article 3 of Geneva aplies as a matter of treaty obligation to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today's ruling. The commissions are the least of it. This basically resolves the debate about interrogation techniques, because Common Article 3 provides that detained persons "shall in all circumstances be treated humanely," and that "[t]o this end," certain specified acts "are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever"—including "cruel treatment and torture," and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." This standard, not limited to the restrictions of the due process clause, is much more restrictive than even the McCain Amendment. See my further discussion here.

    This almost certainly means that the CIA's interrogation regime is unlawful, and indeed, that many techniques the Administation has been using, such as waterboarding and hypothermia (and others) violate the War Crimes Act (because violations of Common Article 3 are deemed war crimes).

    If I'm right about this, it's enormously significant.

    Quite frankly, if SCOTUSBlog is correct in that SCOTUS is saying the Geneva Conventions apply to non-state terrorist entities, then the court is out of it's ever-lovin' mind.

    What is then to keep them from applying the Conventions to other non-state groups? Can drug cartels now claim to be protected under Geneva? How about serial killers?

    The message to the soldier in the field seems clear: Take no prisoners, and collect whatever intel you can gather off the bodies.

    Great job, Stevens. I think it's time you retire.

    Update: Stop the ACLU has a roundup.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:29 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    June 27, 2006

    A Few Fries Short of a Happy Meal

    Poor Glenn Greenwald. It seems that he has once and for all stepped away from the land of the credible, and his latest missive on reaction to the New York Times banking story blowback makes that painfully obvious:

    Any doubts about whether the Bush administration intends to imprison unfriendly journalists (defined as "journalists who fail to obey the Bush administration's orders about what to publish") were completely dispelled this weekend. As I have noted many times before, one of the most significant dangers our country faces is the all-out war now being waged on our nation's media -- and thereby on the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press -- by the Bush administration and its supporters, who are furious that the media continues to expose controversial government policies and thereby subject them to democratic debate. After the unlimited outpouring of venomous attacks on the Times this weekend, I believe these attacks on our free press have become the country's most pressing political issue.

    Any doubts have been dispelled, eh, Glenn? By this, I would be so bold as to infer that you have concrete proof of your allegation that the President has the intention to thrown journalists in jail. Certainly, you would not be so bold as to make such a wild accusation without so much as a shred of proof. Why, such a strong claim, without any evidentiary support whatsoever, would be absolutely Leopoldian.

    Sadly, the condition seems degenerative:

    Documenting the violent rhetoric and truly extremist calls for imprisonment against the Times is unnecessary for anyone paying even minimal attention the last few days. On every cable news show, pundits and even journalists talked openly about whether the editors and reporters of the Times were traitors deserving criminal punishment. The Weekly Standard, always a bellwether of Bush administration thinking, is now actively crusading for criminal prosecution against the Times. And dark insinuations that the Times ought to be physically attacked are no longer the exclusive province of best-selling right-wing author Ann Coulter, but -- as Hume's Ghost recently documented -- are now commonly expressed sentiments among all sorts of "mainstream" Bush supporters. Bush supporters are now engaged in all-out, unlimited warfare against journalists who are hostile to the administration and who fail to adhere to the orders of the Commander-in-Chief about what to print.

    "All-out, unlimited warfare against journalists..." Well, that would certainly explain why the CNN Building in downtown Atlanta was just leveled by Tomahawk cruise missiles, and why Navy SEAL 13.5 (Documents and Records) are presently engaged in a fierce, close-quarters battle against the Times editorial staff in the brie cooler.

    Oh wait... none of that is happening.

    Greenwald's article presumably continues after that point, but I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would care.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:26 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

    Taking Money From Crackers

    That seems to be the "sin" that so shocked Washington Post staff writer Mathew Mosk. A black conservative candidate actually accepted campaign contributions from white conservative donors. Oh, Bartleby! Oh, Humanity!

    Not one to waste time, Mosk starts race-baiting out of the gate:

    The fundraiser thrown for Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele on Thursday night, while ordinary in most ways, struck some African American leaders as notable because of the host.

    Unlike the dozens of high-dollar events across the country in his U.S. Senate bid, this event was thrown by the producer of the famous "Willie Horton" ad, the 1988 commercial that came to symbolize the cynical use of skin color as a political wedge.

    It seemed a most unusual choice for Steele, the first African American elected to statewide office in Maryland and a Republican whose strategy for winning a Senate seat in a state dominated by Democrats has involved the aggressive courtship of black voters.

    I was in high school when the Horton commercial came out and honestly don't remember it, but this is what Wikipedia had to say about Mr. Horton:

    William R. Horton Jr. (born August 12, 1951 in Chesterfield, South Carolina) is a convicted felon who was the subject of a Massachusetts weekend furlough program that released him while serving a life sentence for murder, without the possibility of parole, providing him the opportunity to commit a rape and armed robbery. A political advertisement during the 1988 U.S. Presidential race was critical of the Democratic nominee and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis for his support of the program.

    [snip]

    Beginning on September 21, 1988, the Americans for Bush arm of the National Security Political Action Committee, began running an attack ad entitled "Weekend Passes," using the Horton case to attack Dukakis. The ad was produced by media consultant Larry McCarthy, who had previously worked for Ailes. After clearing the ad with television stations, McCarthy went back and added a menacing mug shot of Horton, who is African-American. He called the image "every suburban mother's greatest fear." The ad was run as an independent expenditure, separate from the Bush campaign, which claimed, as is legally required, not to have had any role in its production.

    On October 5, a day after the "Weekend Passes" ad was taken off the airwaves, and also the date of the infamous Bentsen-Quayle debate, the Bush campaign ran its own ad, "Revolving Door," which also attacked Dukakis over the weekend furlough program. While the advertisement did not mention Horton or feature his photograph, it depicted a variety of intimidating-looking men walking in and out of prison through a revolving door.

    The commercial was filmed at an actual state prison in Draper, Utah, but the persons depicted - thirty in all, including three African-Americans and two Hispanics - were all paid actors. Attempting to counter-attack, Dukakis's campaign ran a similar ad about a Hispanic murderer named Angel Medrano who murdered a pregnant mother of two while on furlough from a federal, rather than state, prison, the idea being that this would reflect negatively on Bush, who was the sitting Vice-President. Dukakis's ad stated Medrano's name and showed his photograph.

    So while the effectiveness of the Horton commercial made Americans remember it as a symbol of using race as a wedge, both Parties were guilty of using racism in their 1988 campaigns. Republicans just had the more memorable commercial. It is interesting how the Post writer chose not to cover both sides of this low point in American politics, but considering his already obvious agenda, it should hardly be surprising.

    Mosk makes his angle even more apparent just a few paragraphs down:

    Nor, Steele said, was there anything incongruous about donations he took from others who have offended black audiences in the past, including Republican Sens. Trent Lott (Miss.) and Conrad Burns (Mont.) as well as Alex Castellanos, the man behind the racially charged "White Hands" ad that then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) used to attack his black challenger.

    It featured a close-up shot of a pair of white hands crumpling a letter as the narrator says, "You needed that job . . . but they had to give it to a minority."

    Perhaps the Washington Post could find a more thinly-veiled way to attempt to label Michael Steele as a race traitor, but short of directly calling him "Uncle Tom" (as Maryland Democrats have already done), I'm not sure that they could.

    Having gone so far to smear Steele, Mosk apparently felt no compunction to maintain historical accuracy when the opportunity arises to smear others.

    Democrats said there are several names on Steele's donor list that won't help him. It includes Lott, who lost his leadership post for seeming to endorse Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist presidential candidacy, and Burns, who drew sharp criticism for saying he found it "a hell of a challenge" to live among all the blacks in Washington, D.C.

    Steele also has received support from former Reagan administration education secretary William J. Bennett, who was criticized for suggesting that aborting black babies would help reduce crime, and former first lady Barbara Bush, who turned heads when she mused that mostly African American evacuees from Katrina living at a Houston shelter "were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." Steele accepted $1,000 from Castellanos, the man behind the "White Hands" ad.

    "Having that kind of support sends mixed messages and are going to make it very difficult for him to make inroads with African American voters," said Isiah Leggett, a former state Democratic Party chairman. "He should be smart enough to see the inconsistency there."

    Mixed messages? Inconsistency? Mr. Mosk, you have no shame.

    Trent Lott's comments on Thurmond's 100th birthday rightfully cost him his seat as the Senate Republican Leader, in a Senate that today counts Democratic Senator and former Klansman Robert Byrd as its longest serving member.

    Burns was hammered and rightfully so, for the way he responded to an elderly racist rancher's question about how he could live in Washington, D.C.. Perhaps he simply should have ignored him.

    The attack on William Bennett, however, was dishonest. Bennett did not suggest aborting black babies would reduce crime, he pointed out how ridiculous it would be to abort black children to reduce crime. For that matter, if you aborted all children, your crime rate would go down to zero because there would be no people to commit crimes. Common sense, ripped completely out of context, trotted out by Mosk to continue a reprehensible line of attack. He may be morally bankrupt, but at least he's consistent.

    After a half-hearted feint at objectivity that was quickly revealed as a strawman, and a vague warning to black voters that "People are going to want to know where he stands, and who stands with him [my emphasis]," Mosk concludes:

    To this point, Democrats vying to challenge Steele in the Senate race have focused on the money Steele has received from those with ties to President Bush. Their accusation: that Steele is campaigning as someone without partisan ties but is being bankrolled by Bush and his supporters.

    Steele has countered that the money does not make the man -- that Bush's name won't be on the ballot in Maryland and Bush won't occupy the Senate seat if Steele wins. The same holds true for such donors as Lott and Burns, Steele said last week.

    The important message he has for black voters, he said, "is that it will make a difference for them to have me at the table."

    Not to belabor the pot-and-kettle too much, Democrats aren't the only people focusing on contributors to Steel's campaign. That is after all, the very idea that Mosk's article seeks to advance. How much further could he reveal his strong Democratic bias?

    Liberal blogger Steve Gilliard is perfectly content to be led to follow Mosk's script. He puts up a picture of Steele with the caption, "I take money from racists."

    gilliard

    Gilliard would know. He is, after all something of an expert on racism.

    Either you're a black Democrat, o you're a race traitor, says Gilliard.

    We learned from Clarence Thomas about how skin color doesn't equal loyalty.

    I think Matthew Mosk just found his reader base.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:44 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    June 23, 2006

    Netroots Meltdown?

    The Netroots movement will fail because it's a myth based upon a lie sitting upon a foundation of fragmented political thought.

    Gee Dan, tell us what you really think.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    June 22, 2006

    Talking Moore

    Via InstaPundit, we hear thoughts about a man we don't hear too much of these days, Michael Moore:

    With all the uproar over what rating the movie "Facing the Giants" will get, surely Moore would be offering some thoughts?

    After all, when "Fahrenheit 9/11" was given an R rating, Moore told teenagers to disregard authority: "I encourage all teenagers to come see my movie, by any means necessary. If you need me to sneak you in, let me know." Moore said, "There is nothing in the film in terms of violence that we didn't see on TV every night at the dinner hour during the Vietnam War."

    Speaking of Michael Moore and wars and small screen violence, a frontline Iraqi interpreter named "Hoss" at Pat Dollard's has a few words (Quicktime, NSFW) for Mr. Moore in his latest Young Americans teaser. I didn't catch all of it, but I think he compared him to poison ivy.

    SP32-20060622-181512

    At least, I think he called him a "little itch." I might be missing something in translation.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:29 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

    June 19, 2006

    Cole's Shoals

    Juan Cole, the "scholarship-lite," questionably Arabic-fluent professor passed over for a position by a school that even accepts the Taliban, bitterly attacked White House spokesman Tony Snow for rather innocuous response to question asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer Sunday:

    BLITZER: "Let's talk a little bit about troop withdrawal potentials for the U.S. military, about 130,000 U.S. forces in Iraq right now.

    In our most recent CNN poll that came out this week, should the U.S. set a timetable to eventually withdraw troops from Iraq, 53 percent said yes; 41 percent said no.

    Senator Dianne Feinstein wrote a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle today. She's going to be on this show, coming up.

    She wrote this: "We have now been in Iraq for more than three years. And we believe that the time has come for that phased redeployment to begin. It is also time for the Bush administration to provide a schedule and timetable for the structured downsizing and redeployment of U.S. forces in Iraq."

    "Does that make sense?"

    SNOW: "The president understands people's impatience — not impatience but how a war can wear on a nation. He understands that. If somebody had taken a poll in the Battle of the Bulge, I dare say people would have said, wow, my goodness, what are we doing here?

    But you cannot conduct a war based on polls. And you can't conduct this kind of activity. What you have to do — and the president's been clear about this — is take a look at the conditions on the ground. Let's think for a moment of the alternative.

    Snow makes a self-evident point that no reporter thought to question: a major counteroffensive mounted by an enemy that you thought was on the verge of being beaten is—at the very least—a sobering experience, one that requires recalibration and reevaluation before the offensive continues.

    Cole, for some reason infuriated with Snow's response, went off on a odd rant that predictably enough, blamed Bush:

    The president of the United States is in some ways the nation's leading public historian. More people hear about American history from him than from virtually any other source, with the possible exception of Hollywood.

    It has therefore been dispiriting to witness the falsehoods about American history consistently purveyed by the Bush administration. Bush and his officials have repeatedly made allegations that simply are not true, but they sin most grievously against the muse of Clio with their flat-footed and implausible analogies.

    On Sunday, the most prominent among Bush's spokesmen from the ranks of Fox Cable News anchors, Tony Snow, did it again. He compared our current situation in Iraq to the Battle of the Bulge. This battle began in mid-December, 1944, a little over 3 years after the US entered the war. Snow also suggested that the American public was ready to throw in the towel at that point in the war!

    Is the only way this tawdry administration can make itself feel good to defame the Greatest Generation? My late uncle used to tell us stories of how he fought at the Battle of the Bulge. Is Tony Snow saying he was a coward? That the Americans back at the homefront were?

    Let' examine this outburst for a moment.

    While I am certainly limited by having just a normal human circle of friends and acquaintances, I think I can honestly state that not one of them confuses the White House with the Smithsonian, nor do they think of the President as being "Curator in Chief."

    Or, perhaps I merely was too young to have heard and appreciated FDR's fireside chats about the Punic Wars, where he boldly proclaimed:

    "The only think we have to fear is: HUGE. FREAKING. ELEPHANTS."
    Perhaps I missed LBJ's dissertation on the evolution of Peruvian pottery, where he stated:
    "Any jackass can stomp on some greenware, but it takes a good Moche to use a press mold."
    …Or perhaps Presidents are more involved in making historic decisions than mistranslating them. Juan Cole is, once again, on his own in his strange little world.

    At no point would it appear to a rational person that Snow's hypothetical question of "what are we doing here?" could be stretched into a charge of defaming an entire generation. Nor does it seem likely one could reasonably conflate this question into calling for surrender, nor could an intelligent person misunderstand that question to be a statement labeling Cole's uncle (or anyone else) as a coward.

    I'm sure Juan Cole has a point.

    I'm just not sure that it's worth wading through the barren shoals of his mind to determine just what that point may be.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:22 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    al Qaeda Kidnapping Plays to the DNC

    Via Brietbart:

    An umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in a Web statement Monday that it had kidnapped two U.S. soldiers reported missing south of Baghdad. There was no immediate confirmation that the statement was credible, although it appeared on a Web site often used by al-Qaida-linked groups.

    U.S. officials have said they were trying to confirm whether the missing soldiers were kidnapped.

    "Your brothers in the military wing of the Mujahedeen Shura Council kidnapped the two American soldiers near Youssifiya," the group said in a statement posted on an Islamic Web site.
    The Web site did not name the soldiers.
    The soldiers were reported missing Friday after insurgents attacked a checkpoint. The Defense Department identified the missing men as Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore.
    The U.S. military said Monday that seven American troops have been wounded, three insurgents have been killed and 34 detained during an intensive search for the soldiers.
    Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, said fighter jets, unmanned aerial vehicles and dive teams had been deployed to find the two men. They went missing Friday during an attack on their checkpoint in the volatile Sunni area south of Baghdad that left one of their comrades dead.


    al-Zarqawi's killing and the wildly successful series of raids that followed were crippling both for al Qaeda in Iraq and for the increasingly panicked voices of anti-war Democrats after Bush's surprise visit to Baghdad. A military or political blow against U.S. forces in Iraq was desperately needed. This kidnapping of two American soliders—and I think it only safe to assume that this was planned as such from the beginning—can only be viewed as a much-needed political success for al Qaeda and its allies.

    Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed that American commanders in Iraq didn't anticipate such an attempt and didn't better prepare their men for it. On a micro level, I surprised that the soldiers manning this checkpoint feel for a simple diversionary plan that has been used for thousands of years. It is a classic military tactic to use skirmishers to draw a defensive force away from the location it is guarding so that the now undermanned location can be then assaulted by an enemy force hidden nearby. This may not be the oldest trick in the book, but it certainly comes close.

    Now we can anticipate a full-on media campaign by al Qaeda and the Democratic Party to be played out in the mainstream media, hopefully (from their perspective) blunting the impressive gains made against the terrorists in Iraq in the past two weeks.

    The media, now having the names of these two soldiers, will begin stalking their families, probing for an image of a tearful wife or mother, hoping for an anti-war or anti-Bush soundbite [note: already there].

    If we are unable to locate and free these two soldiers, it is quite likely that these terrorists will feature the soldiers in a propaganda video, perhaps decapitating them, which will then be released to al Jazeera, Reuters, and the Associated Press. It is perhaps the worst possible outcome, and one we must prepare to face based upon past treatment of prisoners by these terrorists.

    In any event, be assured that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Dishonorable John Murtha will use these events as "evidence" of why we must beat a retreat from Iraq.

    al Qaeda is no doubt counting on Democrats toutter those very sentiments, and the three leaders of the Defeat Party cited above are almost certain not to disappoint.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:25 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    Nagin Calls for National Guard

    Via Fox News:

    Mayor Ray Nagin asked the governor Monday to send National Guard troops to patrol his city after a violent weekend in which five teenagers were shot to death.

    City leaders convened a special meeting to voice outrage after the killings Saturday in an area near the central business district.

    [snip]

    Nagin asked Gov. Kathleen Blanco to send up to 300 National Guard troops and 60 state police officers to patrol the city. The City Council said it also would consider increasing overtime for police to put more officers on the street.

    Upon hearing of the request, Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha immediately called for the Louisiana National Guard to redeploy to Bangor, Maine.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:03 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    June 16, 2006

    A Matter of Visibility

    Eight-term Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson may have been tossed off the influential Ways and Means Committee behind closed doors by his fellow Democrats, but he didn't go quietly. Jefferson and the Congressional Black Caucus, noting that a white Democrat, West Virginia Congressman Alan Mollohan, has been allowed to keep his seat while under investigation, implied that race may be an issue.

    I would find the spectacle of a falling out between the Congressional Black Caucus and the Democratic Party an interesting turn of events as we go into the '06 elections, especially in light of the fact that black conservatives have a fair chance of picking up governorships in Pennsylvania and Ohio and a high-profile U.S. Senate Seat in Maryland. That said, I don't think the different treatment of Jefferson and Mollohan is as much an issue of race as it is one of visibility, and hence, politics.

    When it comes right down to it, Alan Mollohan's alleged transgressions fly well below the radar of most people, even many of those of us who are very interested in politics. William Jefferson's circumstances, however, are anything but under the radar.

    The public easily latched onto the mental image of foil-wrapped frozen stacks of bribe money found in Jefferson's freezer, and the furor over the raid on his Washington, D.C. offices surpassed even that. Fair or not, William Jefferson has quickly become the image in many people's mind when they think of corrupt politicians, and almost single-handedly killed the “culture of corruption†storyline Democrats wanted to use this fall.

    Being a public relations liability for the Democratic Party in an election year has far more to do with his ouster than does the color of his skin.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:53 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

    June 14, 2006

    Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut…

    ...sometimes you don't:

    The leaders of the state's Democratic and Republican parties have asked voters not to cast ballots for state Supreme Court candidate Rachel Lea Hunter, whose fiery rhetoric in recent weeks has included comparing the actions of a black congressional candidate to that of a slave.

    "She's unstable and unqualified, and the thought of her serving on the highest court in North Carolina is scary," state Republican party chairman Ferrell Blount said Tuesday.

    Blount's comments came after Hunter, a former Republican running as a Democrat, used the title "Dur Fuhrer" -- commonly associated with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler -- when referring to state Democratic party chief Jerry Meek.

    Hunter's sanity—or lack thereof—might also be indicated by links on her site (to which I refuse to link), to liber-nut-arian Lew Rockwell, presumably some of whose Gary North-oriented readers would stone to death another odd duck /paleocon/libertarian she supports, Justin Raimondo. She also links to a "9/11 was an inside job" conspiracy site, and perhaps not surprisingly, Cindy Sheehan's organization.

    I personally have no problem with "Madame Justice" (as she like to call herself) being part of the court system, I just think she belongs on the other side of the bench—perhaps in a competency hearing.

    Captain Ed and Allah have commented on the wannabe Justice as well.

    Note: She'll still probably win in Chapel Hill (motto: "Left of center, right out of our minds").

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    June 13, 2006

    FOUND: The Word The Media Lost

    A word seems to be missing from this story from CNN:

    Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, who presided over the city's economic renaissance of the 1990s, was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in prison and fined more than $6,000 for racketeering and tax evasion.

    U.S. District Judge Richard Story praised Campbell, 53, for two decades of public service but said he could not ignore his crimes.

    Campbell was convicted in March of a single racketeering count and three counts of tax evasion. He was cleared of charges he lined his pockets with payoffs from a contractor but was found guilty of failing to pay taxes on what prosecutors said was illegally obtained money. Campbell said the money was gambling winnings.

    "Yes, Bill Campbell, you did good things, and there is a person in this room that recognizes this," Story said, referring to himself. He cited Campbell's work in improving public housing in Atlanta as an example.

    But the judge added that during the trial he "was overcome, almost appalled, at the breadth of misconduct in your administration."

    The story goes on for another 13 more paragraphs, and yet, I can't find that word.

    Couldit be in WXIA's coverage? No.

    How about UPI's story? Nope, it's not there, either.

    It isn't until the very last word of the very last paragraph of this AP story that we finally found that missing word [my bold]:

    Instead, he was convicted on just three counts of federal tax evasion, and acquitted on racketeering and bribery charges _ a verdict he and his attorneys painted as a vindication. Campbell was once considered a rising star for Democrats.

    I wonder how that one particular word got so lost?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:55 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    What Plagiarism Isn't

    With al-Zarqawi dead, Bush in Baghdad and a botched Fitzmas bringing nothing but trickling, impotent gloom, the Left needed something to brighten their day.

    This isn't it.

    Plagiarism or sloppy cut-and-paste? That's what blogger Rude Pundit is asking about two passages in Ann Coulter's white-hot book Godless, which has already had its share of criticism over its content.

    Pundit's evidence:

    Coulter, Chapter 1 of Godless: The massive Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a $227 million hydroelectric project proposed on upper St. John River in Maine, was halted by the discovery of the Furbish lousewort, a plant previously believed to be extinct.

    Portland Press Herald, from "Maine Stories of the Century": The massive Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a $227 million hydroelectric project proposed on upper St. John River, is halted by the discovery of the Furbish lousewort, a plant believed to be extinct.

    Coulter: A few years after oil drilling began in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, a saboteur set off an explosion blowing a hole in the pipeline and releasing an estimated 550,000 gallons of oil.

    The History Channel: The only major oil spill on land occurred when an unknown saboteur blew a hole in the pipe near Fairbanks, and 550,000 gallons of oil spilled onto the ground.

    In the first pair of sentences about the Dickey-Lincoln Dam, Coulter's copy is almost word-for-word the same as the copy from the 2000 Portland Press list, with the only difference being a minor shift in verb tense (present to past, "is" to "was").

    But is copying an item from a list plagiarism? Even with the list item being copied nearly word for word, the case for calling this plagiarism is questionable at best. Why?

    If you look at the various definitions of plagiarism, the underlying theme is the concept of the theft of creative work or ideas from another person. Some people define it is a willful reproduction of the work of another, while more stringent standards hold it to be any reproduction of another's work, willful or subconscious.

    Regardless of details, the key to plagiarism is the theft of a creative work or ideas. Does a list item meet the standard of "a creative work or ideas" needed to support a charge of plagiarism? Despite the almost verbatim copy, I'd argue that it most likely does not.

    The claim that the second passage contains evidence of any plagiarism at all is frankly nonsensical.

    The line from the History Channel and from Coulter's book are only similar in they discuss the same event, where a saboteur blew up a pipe in Alaska spilling 550,000 of oil.

    By Rude Pundit's unsustainably broad standard, no two people could write about the same event and cite the same facts (or even different descriptions of the same place, as Coulter cites the location as "in Prudhoe Bay" and the History Channel says "near Fairbanks") from that event without one plagiarizing the other.

    To quote Thomas Jefferson, "He's most likely completely full of crap."

    As are his too-broad charges of plagiarism.

    (h/t Allah at Hot Air)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:19 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    Truthout.org: Fresh Out Of Truth

    I'm not too emotionally invested in the Plamegate story and so I'm probably not enjoying this as much as others, but anytime the Democratic Underground-types have their conspiracy theories crushed and their frog-marching cancelled, I must admit that I find it highly amusing.

    From the NY Times:

    The prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case on Monday advised Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, that he would not be charged with any wrongdoing, effectively ending the nearly three-year criminal investigation that had at times focused intensely on Mr. Rove.

    The decision by the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, announced in a letter to Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, lifted a pall that had hung over Mr. Rove who testified on five occasions to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the disclosure of an intelligence officer's identity.

    In a statement, Mr. Luskin said, "On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove."

    Liberal conspiracy site Truthout.org and their ace reporter on this story, Jason "24" Leopold have had their credibility heavily if not irreparably damaged with their speculative accusations, and I doubt anyone with any credibility themselves will take either TruthOut or Leopold seriously again.

    "Truth to Power?"

    Maybe not.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:16 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    June 06, 2006

    Shooting Messengers

    Ann Coulter, she of 9/11/01 "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" fame, has released her new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism and has quickly (and predictably) generated a media firestorm with her rhetoric.

    A key graph of her book that has generated a significant amount of heat in the liberal blogosphere after Today Show host Matt Lauer read this portion of her book on the air, regarding a group of 9/11 widows:

    "These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing Bush was part of the closure process." And this part is the part I really need to talk to you about: "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much."

    Think Progress has a transcript of the entire exchange, in which Coulter attacks what she calls the "left's doctrine of infallibility."

    Lauer was predictably almost speechless, and most of the liberal blog reaction proved that they either didn't understand the meaning of her commentary, or it didn't have an effective rebuttal for this line of attack.

    Peter Daou of The Grit and Steve Soto at the Left Coaster were reduced to griping about the fact that Lauer interviewed Coulter, and never sought to engage Coulter's point. The point, of course, was simply this: personal tragedy does not bestow omnipotence upon the bereaved.

    The particular group Coulter reviles is a group of just four 9/11 widows sometimes known as "the Jersey girls" that did, in fact use the celebrity afforded by their spouses deaths on 9/11/01 to make plenty of noise in support of John Kerry's Presidential run in 2004. These women do have the right to voice their opinion, and the right to politicize that opinion on stage as loud as the public is willing to bear. But just as certainly, the fact that they were made widows because of a horrific terrorist attack did not grant them unassailable credibility or inherent wisdom.

    Excessive hyperbole aside, Coulter was right on this point.

    Despite the much-mocked and paraphrased fallacy of Maureen Dowd (before she was walled up Amontillado-like behind the wall of Times Select) that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute," the death of a loved one does not automatically grant intelligence or insightfulness or Truth, nor does it grant a Writ of Veracity, where the speaker can no longer be challenged because of the shield of personal loss.

    Both sides have been "grief pimps" at times, trotting out survivors of one tragedy or another who conveniently fit their political needs of the day, but is it s a disingenuous person indeed that attacks the messenger for this, instead of an obviously perverse message.

    The so-called Jersey Girls have my sympathy for their personal loss, but they are not qualified to preach unopposed about matters of public policy.

    No one is.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:41 PM | Comments (24) | TrackBack

    June 05, 2006

    I Guess She Hates Him, Too

    I guess reminding Cindy Sheehan that the UN (not the U.S.) imposed sanctions on Iraq, that the Koran flushing never happened, and that white phosphorus is not a chemical weapon (or no more than TNT is a chemical weapon) and that it is no way related to napalm and that it cannot be "enhanced" by it, wouldn't do much good.

    Support the troops? I support only those who are NOT supporting the exploitation of the Iraqi people, and those who do not allow the war profiteers to carry on with their death and destruction all for the sake of an opulent lifestyle. I do not support those who are supporting a criminally insane and treacherous foreign policy.


    Interestingly, Cindy Sheehan's son Casey "supported the exploitation" (by her definition, not mine) by volunteering to go on a rescue mission into Sadr City. It cost him his life.

    I guess Cindy hates him, too.

    (h/t Allah)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    A Matter of Priorities

    A rouge nation with budding nuclear weapons capabilities is being run by a cult obsessed with End Times eschatology, and threatens ten of millions of lives in southwest Asia. Sectarian violence continues in Iraq. We're importing poverty in record amounts through a southern border that leaks like a sieve, and Patrick Kennedy is out of rehab and back on the road.

    Mr. President, if you really think I care about gay marriage right now, you're out of your ever-lovin' mind.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:42 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

    June 02, 2006

    Exhumation (NOT YET) Granted in Haditha (Updated)

    Update: Lawhawk wrote to inform me that I goofed, and he was right: the families of the victims have not yet granted the NCIS permission, but that the NCIS is looking to exhume the bodies of those killed. Big difference. If permission is not granted, it could potentially make the case more difficult for presecutors.

    As the Haditha investigation goes forward, Iraqis appear to have reversed course and are now allowing the bodies of the victims to be exhumed so that forensic evidence could be collected by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigation. Traditionally, Muslims do not allow disinterment.

    The Washington Post's article about this development caught my attention with this paragraph, particularly the sentence highlighted in bold:

    A source close to the inquiry said Naval Criminal Investigative Service officials have interviewed families of the dead several times and have visited the homes where the shootings allegedly occurred to collect as much evidence as possible. Exhuming the bodies could help investigators determine the distance at which shots were fired, the caliber of the bullets and the angles of the shots, possibly crucial details in determining how events unfolded and who might have been involved.

    Forensically, I was initially perplexed at how they intended to judge the distance at which the shots were fired. At extremely close ranges inside a house, the terminal velocity of bullets can't change much from 15 feet to 5, but the possibility is that shots would leave varying amounts of powder residue depending on their distance to target. A shot at contact range would presumably deposit far more residue on the victim's body around the wound than would a shot fired from across a room. I know it depends upon the exact circumstances, but it would seem that closer contact range shots might be more consistent with an execution, where shots from across a room might be more consistent with room-clearing fire.

    It may perhaps be nothing but a mere formality (in fact, that is what I suspect and what WaPo reporter Josh White just confirms via email) but the investigators are also interested in verifying the caliber of the bullets.

    This might be of interest because all all standard Marine Corps entry weapons (variants of the M4 and M16 rifles, and the M249 SAW) are 5.56 NATO caliber weapons, with the possible exception of the 9mm NATO round in the M9 Beretta pistol and the 12-gauge round fired by shotguns sometimes used by entry teams.

    I think it is highly unlikely that the autopsies with uncover any other weapon calibers, but if 7.62/.30 caliber bullets or bullet fragments are found, then this case would get very, very interesting, to say the least.

    The U.S. has 7.62 NATO rounds in use by the Marine Corps, but they occur primarily in sniper rifle systems and the M240 medium machine guns—neither of which are practical for house-to-house raids cited in this case. The 7.62x39 Warsaw pact round, or ".30 Russian" as it is sometimes know, is the standard caliber for the Russian small arms favored by the insurgency. Anything other than 5.56mm NATO or 9mm NATO rounds would be a major surprise.

    In any event, I hope that the NCIS investigation is able to find conclusive, unambiguous evidence so that the Marines involved face justice based upon the strength of solid evidence, not mere speculation or questionable eyewitness accounts.

    Update: I'm not certain of the veracity of the charge, but I'll put out the link so that you can read it and decide for yourself. Sweetness & Light notes that the doctor who conducted the initial autopsies may have ties to an insurgency-supporting group.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:04 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    An Empty Nation

    Via Hot Air this morning, I was shocked to find—and I do mean shocked—to find an editorial in The Nation passing judgement on the Marines involved in the Haditha killings, and blaming it all on—you guessed it—George W. Bush. You didn't see it? It was sandwiched between their monthly column highlighting the heroes of Afghanistan and Iraq, and a sidebar piece about how things are so much better in Iraq now in 2006 than planners dared to dream in 2002. Oh wait… The Nation has never written such articles, have they? My bad.

    No, instead they hitch their wagon to the charges leveled by floundering redeployment specialist John Murtha. Before he blamed senior military leadership for a cover-up and implied that randomly murdering civilians was a matter of policy (not to mention just pure fun, right John?), Murtha found the time to judge the Marines in the Haditha incident "cold-blooded killers" based upon preliminary NCIS reports given to him by sources within the military.

    Murtha does not bother to wait for the investigation to be complete. Murtha doesn't bother to see what the final investigator's report, scheduled at the time of his outburst to be released 60 days later, may say. He doesn't wait for charges to be brought, or a for the trial to even be scheduled. He simply pronounced the Marines guilty of premeditated murder, a capital offense. We need no trial. We need no jury and we need no judge. From behind the safety of a microphone, Judge Dreadful has made his pronouncement.

    This of course, is just the kind of fuel The Nation relies on. If prematurely sentencing up to a dozen Marines in what could be capital case can be slanted in some way to tarnish the White House, then the Marines they would sacrifice without benefit of a trial are worth it.

    I always thought that liberals were against the death penalty.

    I guess it just depends on who they get to kill.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:03 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    June 01, 2006

    RFK Jr.'s Racial Politics

    Yesterday, I became aware that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was going to be releasing an article in Rolling Stone magazine today alleging massive voter fraud in the 2004 President election. I remarked that such an article had the great possibility of being a spectacular implosion, and opined about what the article was likely to discover:

    I suspect the content of the article will provide bold headline-inducing accusations, weave nebulous connections and schemes, and in the end, fail to provide any sort of evidence that can be considered solid, or bring forth witnesses that won't almost immediately be found to have credibility problems.

    Even the flimsiest of evidence will be enough for the more excitable types on the far left, but barring something truly explosive and concrete (which is something that has been sorely lacking in every Democratic “bombshell†of the past six years), I imagine this will be grist for the Democratic Underground types for months to come, and largely forgotten within the next week by everyone else.

    Now that the article has been released in Rolling Stone, my supposition turned out to be woefully unprepared for just how low this particular Kennedy was will to stoop.

    Not only is Kennedy guilty of providing no actual support of election fraud in any of, "13,000 elections run by 13,000 independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities," as he calls them, the tone of the article he wrote reveals itself to be something far, far worse: nothing more and nothing less than Democratic electioneering, as an attempt to smear the name of Ken Blackwell, a black conservative gubernatorial candidate in Ohio.

    There is a reason that the Washington Post labeled Democratic cries of election fraud a "conspiracy theory," and the New York Times (source, full text) declared "there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale." RFK's shoddy research (much of it largely irrelevant statistical analysis of exit polling data from carefully selected analysts and Democratic pollsters) is merely a framework for an unscrupulous, and rather blatant political agenda.

    Kennedy's article was constructed for one reason, and one reason only; to smear a black fiscal and socially conservative candidate that has charisma, integrity, and cross-cultural appeal--in short, a real chance of winning. Blackwell defeated Attorney General Jim Petro in the 2006 Republican primary with 56% of the vote, and has been significantly closing the gap with Democratic frontrunner Ted Strickland in recent weeks. Strickland led Blackwell by 16 points in a Russmussen poll on May 8, but that gap has dramatically to just six points in a May 25 UC-Ohio poll.

    As Blackwell continues to close in on a candidate that seems increasingly unable to find traction, the Kennedy assault targeting Blackwell's duties in the 2004 President elections seems like nothing less than an attempt to smear a black conservative and attempt to save the 2006 Ohio governorship Strickland seems primed to fumble away.

    Ohio Democrats fear a Strickland loss, but the national Democratic Party fears that Blackwell may be in the vanguard of black conservatives that may cut across racial and party lines, eroding their traditional stranglehold on the black vote.

    For 40 years Democrats have virtually ignored the black community, coasting on increasingly empty promises from the civil rights era, while still being able to count on their votes. With the emergence of Ken Blackwell in Ohio, Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania, and Michael Steele in Maryland, the DNC is absolutely terrified that black voters might veer away from the increasingly radicalized liberal politics that share little in common with many middle class suburban and rural black voters. They fear this year's slate of black conservatives could be be the end of their dominion.

    Kennedy, a white Massachusetts liberal born of privilege, seeks to smear a self-made conservative black candidate that emerged from a traditional blue-color home under the flimsiest of pretenses to keep black voters, as his potential running mate Hillary Clinton might say, "on the plantation."

    We've learned to expect almost any level of debauchery from the Kennedy clan, but this new race-driven low of RFK, Jr. goes beyond the pale.

    Update: fixed some some minor grammar errors.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:18 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

    May 31, 2006

    Lefties: We Did Get Fooled Again

    This has all the making of a spectacular implosion:

    A damning and detailed feature article, written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for Rolling Stone and documenting evidence of the theft of the 2004 Presidential Election is set to hit newstands this Friday, The BRAD BLOG can now confirm. The online version of the article will be posted tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

    The article -- headlined on the cover as "Did Bush Steal the 2004 Election?: How 350,000 Votes Disappeared in Ohio" -- has been several months in development and will contend that a concerted effort was undertaken by high-level Republican officials to steal the Election in Ohio -- and thus the country -- in 2004!

    Kennedy told The BRAD BLOG this morning that "the best evidence says the Republicans succeeded" in their plan.

    He writes in the 10-page long article, and confirmed to us today, that evidence shows Ohio Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell was "certainly in on" the scheme, and there are indications that the effort went all the way up to the White House.

    Kennedy, who is co-host of Ring of Fire, a weekend show on Air America Radio, is an environmental attorney and the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy. This is his first public foray into the realm of Election Fraud, Election Integrity, Electronic Voting and, in particular, the questionable results of Election 2004.

    It will be very interesting to see what "evidence" RFK, Jr. will present. Despite the claims made above, I suspect the content of the article will provide bold headline-inducing accusations, weave nebulous connections and schemes, and in the end, fail to provide any sort of evidence that can be considered solid, or bring forth witnesses that won't almost immediately be found to have credibility problems.

    Even the flimsiest of evidence will be enough for the more excitable types on the far left, but barring something truly explosive and concrete (which is something that has been sorely lacking in every Democratic “bombshell†of the past six years), I imagine this will be grist for the Democratic Underground types for months to come, and largely forgotten within the next week by everyone else.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:36 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

    Time for a Refill

    It sounds like Al Gore's out again:

    Al Gore has made his sharpest attack yet on the George Bush presidency, describing the current US administration as "a renegade band of rightwing extremists".

    I wish.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:15 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

    May 27, 2006

    Geography Doesn't Lie

    It seems like John Kerry is trying to keep the myth of the Magic hat alive:

    John Kerry starts by showing the entry in a log he kept from 1969: "Feb 12: 0800 run to Cambodia."

    He moves on to the photographs: his boat leaving the base at Ha Tien, Vietnam; the harbor; the mountains fading frame by frame as the boat heads north; the special operations team the boat was ferrying across the border; the men reading maps and setting off flares.

    "They gave me a hat," Mr. Kerry says. "I have the hat to this day," he declares, rising to pull it from his briefcase. "I have the hat."

    He may have the hat, but what he needed was a map.

    I cannot speak with authority about the charges brought by the SBVFT, but I can say one thing with absolute certainty:

    John Kerry did not take anyone into Cambodia from his swift boat based at Ha Tien. The navigable Giang Thanh River runs near the Cambodian border, but at no point does it ever cross.

    Map from Ha Tien
    Entrance to the Giang Thanh River
    Gulf of Siam East of An Thoi

    If Kerry said he took forces up the Giang Thanh and dropped Spec-Ops soldiers off so that they could walk into Cambodia, I could believe him, but geography does not lie.

    John Kerry never took his swift boat from Ha Tien, Vietnam up the Giang Thanh River into Cambodia, and if he insists that he did, he is either delusional, or guilty of telling a lie.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:16 PM | Comments (64) | TrackBack

    May 26, 2006

    Hubris, Interrupted

    I first saw this story break yesterday:

    President Bush ordered the Justice Department yesterday to seal records seized from the Capitol Hill office of a Democratic congressman, representing a remarkable intervention by the nation's chief executive into an ongoing criminal probe of alleged corruption.

    The order was aimed at quelling an escalating constitutional confrontation between the Justice Department and the House, where Republican and Democratic leaders have demanded that the FBI return documents and copies of computer files seized from the office of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.).

    In a six-paragraph statement, Bush cast the dispute in historic terms and said he issued the order to give Justice Department officials and lawmakers more time to negotiate a compromise. "Our government has not faced such a dilemma in more than two centuries," Bush said. "Yet after days of discussions, it is clear these differences will require more time to be worked out."

    The order capped five days of tumultuous negotiations involving the White House, the Justice Department and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who denounced the Saturday-night raid as an infringement on the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches and had joined Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in demanding that the seized documents be returned.

    I resisted the urge to make an immediate comment on this, and instead decided to sleep on it and mull things over. Now that I have, think I like the President's intervention even less.

    I first noted on Wednesday and much more qualified experts have confirmed, there is no apparent validity at all to the argument by legislators that they have some sort of Constitutional protection from their offices being searched.

    Congressional offices have no special protections under the Fourth Amendment compared to other offices, and the FBI did get a duly sworn search warrant from a federal judge. Nor does the Speech or Debate clause seem to be even an plausible impediment to the execution of a search warrant.

    No, the more I look at the President's decision to intercede in this case by impounding the seized documents for a 45-day period, the more I dislike his decision.

    There was no compelling legal reason that I can ascertain for the President to intercede in this matter, even though he has the apparent power to do so. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, the Justice Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation went well beyond the legal standard in their search of Jefferson's Congressional office, perhaps to the point of showing too much deference to his status as a congressman.

    No, the "reasoning" here is purely political in nature, as Bush as paused (but not stopped) the investigation so that Denny Hastert and the rest of the Republican leadership can pull their heads out of their collective… well you know.

    From this perspective, President Bush overreached, using the power of the Executive to interrupt the Legislative branch's constitutional right to make complete fools of themselves by continuing to exhibit such constitutionally ignorant, publically repellant and arrogant behavior.

    The great casualty in Bush's intercession is some much-needed congressional hubris.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:02 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    May 25, 2006

    Ignoring the Rule of Holes

    You've got to hand it to House Speaker Denny Hastert: he's all about novel interpretations:

    House Speaker Dennis Hastert accused the Justice Department Thursday of trying to intimidate him in retaliation for criticizing the FBI's weekend raid on a congressman's office, escalating a searing battle between the executive and legislative branches of government.

    "This is one of the leaks that come out to try to, you know, intimidate people," Hastert said on WGN radio Thursday morning. "We're just not going to be intimidated on it."

    Asked later Thursday whether he thought he Justice Department retaliated against him with the leak, Hastert replied: "All I'm saying is, here are the dots. People can connect any dots they want to."

    [snip]

    Within minutes of that report late Wednesday, the department issued the first of two denials that it was investigating Hastert. The speaker demanded a retraction from ABC News, which stood by its story. Hastert on Thursday threatened to sue the network and reporters and executives for libel and defamation.

    So Hastert believes that the Justice Department is trying to "you know, intimidate people," by first leaking false information about him to an ABC reporter, and then almost immediately and officially contradicting the false information in the strongest of terms. One would think if the Department of Justice was truly out to stain the Speaker as he maintains, they'd let the stain "set," and not issue a near immediate denial of the charge against him.

    Of course, logic hasn't factored into much of what the Speaker of the House has uttered in the past week, so perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised at his foolish consistency.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:20 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    Poisoned by (not so Il)legals

    Via the Raleigh, NC, News and Observer:

    Sixty or more schoolchildren might have been exposed to mercury in a series of incidents that led Wednesday to the closing of a Durham elementary school and the evacuation of a church and seven homes.

    Oak Grove Elementary School on Wake Forest Road was closed early Wednesday, a day after four students brought unknown quantities of the hazardous substance there. A Durham man who police think gave them the mercury was arrested Wednesday.

    [snip]

    State and county officials on Wednesday pieced together a sequence of events that they say they think began Friday night when Carlos Guerra, 21, who works for an air-conditioning company, went to an East Ramseur Street church and gave an unknown amount of mercury to four youngsters.

    Garner police charged Guerra, of 311 LaSalle St., No. 3001H, with stealing the mercury from a Garner job site Friday.

    "I don't think he knew what he was dealing with," said Lt. Don Paschall of the Durham County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating. "He was referring to it as 'magic water.' "

    Health officials say Guerra gave the mercury in cups to four children at Iglesias De Restauracion, a storefront church east of downtown. On Tuesday, the officials say, the four children brought the mercury to school, wiped it on others and sprayed it from spray bottles on three school buses and in at least one classroom.

    This is the story currently being reported by the media, but that may not be the entire story.

    There are questions about the citizenship status of Guerra, as well as some of his victims. I have attempted to contact the Durham County Sheriff's Department and three reporters at local news organizations for comment, and hope to have confirmation of his status later this afternoon.

    Roughly 65 percent of North Carolina's Latino population —more than 300,000—are illegal immigrants.

    Update: I just got confirmation that Guerra is here legally.

    He's just an idiot.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:19 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    May 24, 2006

    Oh, Deer

    Ladies and Gentlemen, your tax dollars at work:

    According to an AP story, the National Park Service needs to thin the elk herd in Rocky Mountain National Park. Officials estimate that it will cost $18 million to accomplish this.

    The New Editor has other, more rational ideas.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:54 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    Arrogance

    This past Saturday, FBI agents bearing a signed search warrant signed by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan entered the Congressional Offices of Democrat William Jefferson of Louisiana in pursuit of evidence in a felony bribery case. The warrant was granted after an affidavit was filed that stated agents recovered $90,000 in bribery payments from a freezer in his home, and in light of the fact that Jefferson refused to comply with a subpoena for documents last year.

    Showing abject ignorance of the applicable law and more than a little arrogance, Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert demanded that the document seized in the raid should be returned, and the FBI agents involved in the raid, "ought to be frozen out of that (case) for the sake of the Constitution."

    As you might expect, the NY Times is having a field day:

    After years of quietly acceding to the Bush administration's assertions of executive power, the Republican-led Congress hit a limit this weekend.

    Resentment boiled among senior Republicans for a second day on Tuesday after a team of warrant-bearing agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation turned up at a closed House office building on Saturday evening, demanded entry to the office of a lawmaker and spent the night going through his files.

    The episode prompted cries of constitutional foul from Republicans — even though the lawmaker in question, Representative William J. Jefferson of Louisiana, is a Democrat whose involvement in a bribery case has made him an obvious partisan political target.

    Speaker J. Dennis Hastert raised the issue personally with President Bush on Tuesday. The Senate Rules Committee is examining the episode.

    Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House majority leader, predicted that the separation-of-powers conflict would go to the Supreme Court. "I have to believe at the end of the day it is going to end up across the street," Mr. Boehner told reporters gathered in his conference room, which looks out on the Capitol plaza and the court building.

    A court challenge would place all three branches of government in the fray over whether the obscure "speech and debate" clause of the Constitution, which offers some legal immunity for lawmakers in the conduct of their official duties, could be interpreted to prohibit a search by the executive branch on Congressional property.

    A "separation of powers" conflict? Do either Hastert or Boehner or anyone else protesting the execution of this search warrant, have even the slightest reading comprehension? Folks, it isn't that hard.

    Congressional office have any special protections from search warrants, as noted by White Collar Crime Prof Blog:

    The Fourth Amendment does not afford any specific protection to legislative offices so long as there is probable cause to believe that there is evidence of criminal activity at the location specified, and the House of Representatives would not have standing to raise a Fourth Amendment claim on its own.

    Thus, Jefferson's Office has no special immunity, or "specific protection," and the FBI had enough evidence to obtain a search warrant from District Court Judge Hogan.

    Hastert seems to base his claims on his understanding of the Constitution—proving for once and for all that he understands it about has much as you might expect a former high school wrestling coach would.

    Section Six of Article I of the U.S. Constitution clearly and unambiguously states:

    The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

    One does not need to graduate from a top flight law school to easily discern in the passage above that the commission of a felony is specifically cited as one of three exemptions from the privilege from arrest. The charges being pursued against Jefferson are indeed felony charges.

    The "speech and debate" clause only applies to a Congressman's official duties, and if Hastert, Boehner and other congressmen think that accepting bribes is part of their official duties, then perhaps we need more search warrants executed on Congressional offices, not fewer.

    A "culture of corruption" indeed exists in Washington, and this corruption manifests itself in the very souls of Congressmen who are so arrogant as to believe their offices are some sort of sanctuary from the law.

    November.

    Faster, please.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:34 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    May 23, 2006

    Over the Top

    It seems that at least a few blogs on the left side of the blogosphere have taken offense to Mort Kondrake's recent editorial in the Pasadena Star-News.

    Mort, it seems, has had it with those on the political left that he feels have taken partisanship to the extreme:

    ENOUGH already! It's harmful enough that ideological conflict and partisan politics are preventing this country from solving its long-term challenges on health care, fiscal policy and energy. Now it's threatening our national survival.

    Liberal State of the Day doesn't quite agree trying to make a parallel between the presidential administrations of WWII and the War on Terror:

    … back then the US attempted to strictly adhere to the Geneva Convention. The US populace was not concerned that "The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave" was torturing its enemies. We weren't trying to form opinion and policy based on the latest episode of '24'. Now we have a Torture Veep; back then we had a something completely different - a reasonable and honest human being.

    State's Jeff doesn't quite seem to grasp that his hyperbole would seem to bear out Kondrake's point about extreme partisanship to the letter, but let's focus merely on what he understands to be facts.

    Did the United States "strictly adhere" to the Geneva Convention in World War Two? We would certainly like to think so and indeed in the vast majority of cases we did, but as Victor David Hanson notes:

    We know about the horrific German massacres of American prisoners, but little about instances of Americans' shooting German captives well before the Battle of the Bulge. Such murdering was neither sanctioned by American generals nor routine — but nevertheless it was not uncommon in the heat of battle and the stress of war. No inquiry cited Generals Hodges, Patton, or Bradley as responsible for rogue soldiers shooting unarmed prisoners.

    Biscari. Dachau. Chenogne. Very un-Geneva massacres did occur, and those involved, when tried, suffered few lasting penalties. We occasionally murdered, and we did in dire situations torture our enemies if we thought it could save American lives. The U.S population, at the time, certainly wouldn't have blamed Presidents Roosevelt or Truman for that if they knew the details, if it meant Johnny would come marching home instead of being unloaded from a train's baggage car.

    Then, at least, partisanship has its limits.

    Kondrake was imperfect in his arguments, as Bill Quick notes, but his overall argument remains:

    …the fundamental problem infecting much of Congress, the media and the political class - especially those left of center - is that they are consumed with loathing for President Bush and all his works and are prepared to do anything to undermine him, even if it makes the country less safe.

    I await a point-by-point rebuttal from the media, the Congress, and political liberals of these basic charges. It should be easy to prove that these claims are false… shouldn't it?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:16 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    Guns & Poseurs: Use Your Delusion, Too

    Yesterday, our favorite internet deity Allah dug up a story about a supposed Army Ranger by the name of Jesse MacBeth who claims in a series of videos that he witnessed and even participated in officially-sanctioned atrocities while serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq, such as:

    • He and other U.S. Army Rangers were ordered "...do whatever it takes...to strike fear in the hearts of the Iraqis..." (1:07);
    • He and other Rangers routinely executed children as part of the interrogations of their parents (6:15);
    • He personally killed almost 200 men, women, and children, many at close range, and most or all noncombatants (7:30);
    • He and other Rangers infiltrated a mosque, waited for about 200 worshipers to arrive and pray, slaughtered them with guns, ignited the bodies, hung them from the rafters, wrote anti-muslim graffiti on the walls, and left bodies in the streets (9:30);
    • He and other Rangers shot and killed unarmed protesters and children who threw rocks (12:20);
    • He personally killed a mother pleading for mercy, and her three children, including an infant, because he "had to."(16:05)


    This willingness to call American soldiers murderers made him immediately popular on the fringe left, where he spoke at antiwar rallies and found himself the darling of the leftwing alternative media.

    The problem was, Jesse MacBeth was never a Ranger.

    Jesse MacBeth was never in any branch of the military, and his lies are almost too numerous to mention... except for those for which he garnered convictions, perhaps. MacBeth is currently wanted on bench warrant issued today for "violation of a court order" and "assault in the fourth degree" in Washington State and probation violations in Arizona.

    I guess sooner or later, this fraud will get to wear a uniform after all.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    May 19, 2006

    A Dim Bulb In Searchlight

    Via the Washington Times:


    Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called a proposal to make English the official language "racist" on the Senate floor yesterday.

    "This amendment is racist. I think it's directed basically to people who speak Spanish," the Democrat said during the already tense debate over immigration reform.

    So, asking people to speak English is a nation that speaks predominately English, is not only wrong, but racist?

    Somebody better tell these folks.

    Even though these people can tie their ethnic origins to Mexico, Africa, Korea and India, they all speak English here, even though at least two are fluent in other languages.

    I work with people from Spain, Sierra Leone, and Germany as well as the United States, and they all speak English in addition to their native languages of Spanish, French, and German. Why? Because we are predominately an English-speaking country, and to integrate into American society and get all of it that it has to offer economically and culturally, you need to learn English.

    Perhaps it is because I work with immigrants that I understand this basic fact that seems lost on the good Senator from Searchlight.

    If anything, encouraging people to keep to their native tongues after they immigrate to another culture is to invite isolationism and advocate resisting assimilation. Of course this amendment is directed to people who speak Spanish, as they are our largest immigrant group at the present time. If people are going to legally immigrate to this country, we want them to be able to take advantage of all America has to offer. So much of that opportunity can be crippled by a language barrier, and therefore it is vital they learn English. To encourage people to remain illiterate in a nation's primary language is to isolate them and leave them as second-class citizens Balkanized from the rest of society.

    To pander to people in such a way as to isolate them, to try to convince them that their language barrier—which robs them of so many opportunities—is a source of pride, well, that is a racist sentiment, Harry.

    Got that?

    Good.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:29 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    May 17, 2006

    10 Un-Angry Men

    I had something that might be an epiphany, or not, when arguing with the Daou Report crowd that came by to visit my FISA judges post earlier today.

    The left is still screaming that without a case being brought before the judiciary for review, that various top secret National Security Agency programs just must be illegal. The fact that this program has been reviewed by the NSA Inspector General's office, the NSA General Counsel's office, and a bevy of career Department of Justice lawyers is irrelevant. In their minds, all Executive Branch employees are automatically Bush Administration frontmen. Apparently, when George W. was inaugurated, they all went Agent Smith, and could no longer be trusted to have any sense of professionalism, integrity, or patriotism.

    Since the 42-page document supporting the Administration position comes from the Department of Justice, an executive branch agency, then they are automatically to be dismissed according to the prevailing leftist eschatology. Those of us who actually think that the President and career government employees actually care about this country would seem to be effectively disarmed by what they would disallow.

    But are we?

    Much has been made about the fact that the legality of the NSA program has not gone through the FISA Court challenge of some sort. I'd make the argument that while it has not gone through the traditional route, all ten active FISA judges were briefed on the program January 9, 2006, four months and eight days ago. While sworn to secrecy and unable to discuss the case with the public, any of these ten judges could have resigned from the FISA court in the past four months, and that resignation would have been unmistakably read as a sign of protest against the NSA surveillance program.

    As of today, all ten of these FISA judges are still on bench.

    It could mean absolutely nothing, but one would hope that if FISA judge was seriously opposed to the program in any way, that he would resign. As these judges would not have to resign their federal district judgeships along with their FISA roles, the effect on a concerned judge would seem to be a fairly low burden. If they were in fact exposing what some pundits have described as "a major illegal act" by a sitting President, one that some are certain is a step towards totalitarianism, wouldn't they act? Certainly, giving up whatever minor perks that come from being on largely-unknown court would be worth saving the Constitution wouldn't it?

    And yet, knowing what they know, all ten of these FISA judges have failed to resign in protest.

    I wonder why that is.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:30 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    A Border Wall that Works

    Whether you are for or against illegal immigration, we can all agree on one simple fact: a continuous border barrier is far more effective than the current erratic use of border barriers, which tend to merely direct illegal immigrants and smugglers into more remote and dangerous areas.

    A key gripe against building a continuous border barrier is one of construction and maintenance costs. Another complaint is that the barrier would not be effective. I think I can prove both of these theories incorrect. By using existing prefabricated construction materials, we can build a barrier system that is all but impervious to illegal immigrants that has low maintenance costs.

    I propose a relatively simple system, composed of:

    • a vehicle barrier.
    • a primary wall-type barrier
    • two rows of fencing

    It would look in profile something like this:

    It would use very simple components starting with a vehicle barrier system. For that, we look to history.

    Dragon's teeth were used in World War II as fortifications to stop tanks. While specialty vehicles and combat engineers combined with flanking maneuvers limited their wartime impact, these structures are extremely durable, and many can be seen in Europe to this day. Made of reinforced concrete, they get harder over time and they can be mass-produced in forms and transported to their installment sites. These "teeth" would be very difficult for civilian vehicles to penetrate, and the point of their use would be to force would-be illegal immigrants to approach the primary barrier system on foot.

    The primary wall-type barrier would serve two purposes. First, it provides an imposing physical barrier that will slow or stop illegal immigrants. It will also screen the American side of the border from view, making it difficult for illegals to judge the location of Border Patrol agents on the American side.

    The wall itself only needs to be 15'-20' tall, and can be made of post-and-cap prefabricated systems. I-beam posts are driven into the ground, and cranes lower pre-cast interlocking concrete slabs into place to the desired height. This system is very common, and is often used to create sound barriers on U.S. highways. The walls would be armed with sensors to detect anyone attempting to chisel through, tunnel under, or scale over them, and those scaling the walls would encounter electrified concertina wire at the wall's top.

    The current through the wire would not be lethal, but it would be very uncomfortable for those attempting to enter the country illegally.

    Concertina wire, a type of coiled razor wire, is effective when combined in layers and in conjunction with other barriers, such as fencing.

    Any illegals that successfully bypassed the primary wall barrier would then face two rows of chain-link fencing, faced with multiple rolls of concertina wire and topped with another.

    Prefabricated guard towers placed at key vantage points, when combined with sensors, would be used to direct border patrol agents to vector in on those who would attempt to enter the country illegally.

    A typical intercept of illegal aliens might work something like this.

    Illegals approach the U.S. Mexican border from the Mexican side. Cameras and other sensors would detect the presence of movement day or night when the illegals are still hundreds of yards away from the wall. The dragons' teeth would assure that the illegals cannot rely on vehicles to make the crossing, forcing them to proceed on foot.

    As the pedestrian illegals approach the primary wall on foot, alerts are already being sent to the border patrol via sensors so that U.S. Border Patrol agents can begin to deploy to the area. Many illegals may not have the capability to easily surpass the primary wall. They many not have access to a ladder of sufficient length, or they may not wish to challenge the electrified concertina, which while not lethal, is painful and startling. Those who do decide to proceed will be slowed by the concertina, which will snag on clothing and flesh if the person navigating it is not very careful.

    In many instaces, once an illegal tops the wall he may find himself facing Border Patrol agents staring back at them, after the agents have been tipped off by sensors.

    If agents haven't yet arrived, the illegal still faces a 15-20' drop onto hard ground, and two tall chain-link fences faced and topped with more layers of concertina wire. A smart illegal will bring wire cutters with him, but it would still take precious minutes to cut through or try to crawl over and through the concertina, at which time the U.S. Border Patrol would be able to close in and affect an arrest. any damged concertina could be easily be replaced at a rate of up to a kilometer an hour.

    Will this barrier system completely stop the flow of illegal aliens? Of course it will not, but it is vastly superior to the current system, where a simple post fence only serves as a visual reminder of the border in some areas. This barrier will create a “catch zone,†and should significantly hamper the flow of illegal aliens and complicate the lives of drug smugglers.

    Of course, this barrier is only part of a working system. The other major component must be removing the motivation to attempt to enter the country illegally, and that is generally an issue of economics, a subject I'll tackle at another time.

    Update: The Senate has voted for a triple-layer barrier 370 miles long, and 500 miles of vehicle barriers. Think there is any shot they'll use these ideas?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:02 AM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

    May 16, 2006

    Other "Jobs Americans Won't Do"

    Though looking at his poll numbers, I think the President is doing the best he can to mimic the effect politically.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Shots Fired in the Immigration War

    Via Drudge, it looks like the immigration debate is heating up:

    A parting gunshot from a vehicle leaving Waffle House in West Asheville shattered a window and caused a minor injury, police said.

    The shooting happened around 3:00 a.m. Saturday after a group of whites argued with a group of Hispanics at the 24-hour restaurant on Smokey Park Highway, Asheville police Lt. Wallace Welch said.

    “The two groups were jawing back and forth with each other over citizenship issues and whatnot,†Welch said.

    As the Hispanic group drove off, someone in the vehicle fired at least once into a large window near the front door, he said.

    Whether from a ricocheted bullet or flying glass, Welch said, one man's arm was bleeding when police arrived. He declined medical treatment.

    Police were looking for a white Dodge Intrepid that left the restaurant going west.

    Most of the legal immigrants I've heard from in North Carolina (via my own conversations and local talk radio) are very strongly against illegal immigration, usually even more than native-born Americans. I'm be willing to go out on a limb and make the assumption that the shooter in this case was one of the millions of illegal aliens that this and previous administrations have allowed to come into this country. Asheville, by the way, is one of the most liberal cities in North Carolina.

    This is not the first time shots have been fired over this contentious issue, and I fear that it will not be the last. It could get much worse. As the Heritage Foundation notes it almost certainly will get worse:

    An immigration plan proposed by Senators Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) would provide amnesty to 9 to 10 million illegal immigrants and put them on a path to citizenship. Once these individuals become citizens, the net additional cost to the federal government of benefits for these individuals will be around $16 billion per year. Further, once an illegal immigrant becomes a citizen, he has the right to bring his parents to live in the U.S. The parents, in turn, may become citizens. The long-term cost of government benefits to the parents of 10 million recipients of amnesty could be $30 billion per year or more. In the long run, the Hagel/Martinez bill, if enacted, would be the largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years.

    The vast majority of these immigrants will be low-skilled workers without even basic English language skills. It is nothing less than the mass importation of poverty from a foreign culture.

    Have we learned nothing from the riots in Europe? Unskilled, uneducated immigrants will cluster in ghettos, become understandably outraged at their inability to have what they see others having. We will run the distinct risk of having riots in New York and Los Angeles on par with what we saw in Paris.

    I cannot support a Republican Party or a Republican candidate that seeks to ensure the Balkanization of America, and frankly, few of the front-runners in either party are offering me much in '06. Sitting out '06 is a growing possibility.

    For '08, give me a Tom Tancredo or based upon this article, a candidate like John Cox.

    If the Republican Party won't do it, I'm sure we can create a conservative third party that will.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:48 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    May 15, 2006

    Live-blogging Jorge's Immigration Speech

    I'll be live-blogging President Bush's immigration speech tonight here at 8:00 PM (Eastern). Quite frankly, I'm prepared to be disappointed.

    Michelle Malkin has deconstructed the speech preview. N.Z. Bear is compiling a list of others live-blogging the speech at The Truth Laid Bear.

    I'll be watching this on Fox News, and will be primarily concerned with his delivery and reaction.

    And so it begins...

    Going pretty much by the playbook several minutes in. No surprises yet, he's keeping to the script... Keeps talking about high technology security… don't we just need good masons?... Confirms 6,000 National Guard soldiers will play support role only, for one year, and the will start standing down as new border patrol agencies and technologies come online... Playing up role of state and local law enforcement, but I don't hear a pledge of monies. Can you say "un-funded mandate?"... Pledges to end catch-and-release, and just when he starts to win me back a little, he starts in on his temporary worker program, pushing his "doing the jobs Americans won't" angle. Don't make me laugh…

    I do agree that we do need biometric ID cards to cut down on document fraud, and Bush scores points. AND THEN... he says deportation is "unrealistic" losing those points and more... Oh, no, he really is trying to convince us his amnesty plan is not an amnesty plan.

    Bush seems completely unwilling or unable to differentiate between legal and illegal immigration...

    Delivery-wise, this was a good effort, and I spotted no flubs of note...

    Jorge was sharp, but I don't think he was able to change anyone's mind, especially the conservative base. He might have assuaged moderates with this speech, but Bush lost the base. I think he is now quite possibly a lame duck.

    Fox News is reporting mixed reviews from conservative Senators.

    Give me a few minutes to digest this, and I'll be back, but my initial reaction is that Bush just split the Republican Party.

    He's "The Divider."

    * * *

    Glenn Reynolds posts the full text of the speech.

    Ian Schwartz at Expose the Left has the video.

    * * *

    I've watched a few minutes of commentary from the television pundits, did a quick tour of some of the top blogs, and now I've had a while to think about it, I think I'll stick with with my original statement that Bush has split the Republican Party. But now a new question arises: is it a permanent split in the party, and if not, how long with it last?

    I'm guessing it won't be a permanent split, and that most Republicans will "come home" by the '06 elections, but given this administration's near-Palestinian capability to make the wrong choices at the wrong time, I don't know that anyone can say that such a reconciliation is by any means automatic.

    Update: The first blogospheric immigration split has occured, as Lorie Byrd has parted ways from Polipundit.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:05 PM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

    Problems of Addiction

    If you've ever seen a chronic addict, one thing you'll almost always notice is their inability to accept blame for their problems. They blame it on others in their family, the police—anyone and anything but themselves. They cannot accept responsibility for their actions, and always search for excuses instead of a cure.

    The people who do recover from additions don't succeed because of gimmicky cures or 12-step programs. They succeed or fail based upon the strength of their will. All too often, though, their will is weak, and their families are crushed and ripped apart as the addict slowly implodes.

    I've seen it before, and I fear I'm about to watch it again.

    Tonight at 8:00 PM President Bush will deliver a speech on immigration that cynically uses National Guard troops as a prop, promises to crack down on employers with more “catch and release†raids, and push for his “amnesty by any other name†guest worker proposals. A junkie looking for his fix, an alcoholic reaching for one more glass, President George Bush simply can't seem to help himself.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:19 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    Almost There

    If you've been following Confederate Yankee for a while, you might be familiar with a project called Operation Enduring Service that I got quite interested in after my brother introduced me to it back in early November.

    The concept is one of those beautiful synergies where someone combines existing and emerging technologies in new and unexpected ways. The idea was simple: take mothballed ships from the U.S. Navy's reserve fleets, and upgrade them to provide support in the wake of disasters.


    USNS San Diego (T-AFS-6), an O.E.S. candidate

    What kind of support could just one of these ships provide?

    They could:

    • Service a disaster area of thousands of square miles (up to 100 miles inland) with minimal (if any) outside support.
    • Provide complete berthing facilities for hundreds of emergency responders "on scene" at a disaster site.
    • Fully integrated communications system serving all local, state, and federal agencies, as well as cell phone coverage and military band frequencies--allowing for seamless communications between all disaster scene personnel, no matter what radio frequency or cell phone is being used.
    • Daily provide over 100 tons of bagged and palletized ice to the disaster region.
    • Daily generate, bottle, and palletize up to tens of thousands of gallons of fresh water.
    • Provide refueling station and loading platform for helicopters operating in the disaster area.
    • Carry thousands of tons of food and supplies for a disaster area.

    As simple and important as this idea is, the project has faced an uphill battle against governmental red tape and congressional inertia (as Newton noted, a body at rest tends to stay at rest) from the very beginning.

    That battle could end as early as today.

    Stay tuned for details…

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:11 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    May 12, 2006

    The Speech Bush Should Give, But Won't

    John Derbyshire was hallucinating at NRO's The Corner this morning when he wrote about what President Bush could say in his immigration speech on Monday night. It won't happen of course, because President Bush doesn't give a damn about border security and I don't trust him to change. Love him or hate him for it, the President sticks to his convictions.

    All the same, Derb's vison of the speech Bush could deliver is a beautiful dream.

    "My fellow Americans: Our nation's lawmakers are currently debating issues of immigration reform. The House of Representatives has passed a bill to deal with the problem of illegal immigration. The Senate is crafting somewhat more general proposals, including a 'guest worker' program of the type that we tried out, with unhappy results, in the post-WW2 period, the type that has caused grave problems in Germany, and that in any case vastly expands the responsibilities of a federal government department utterly unable to cope with its current tasks. Agreement on a suitable compromise between House and Senate is not in sight, and may not be possible. Any legislation that emerges from current proposals would, it seems to me, neither address our main problems in this area, nor answer the question so often asked about immigration reform: Why pass new legislation when existing legislation is not being, and in some cases cannot be, enforced?

    "To offer a way forward on this issue, I am going to propose the following. One: That all legal immigration into the U.S.A., excepting only cases crucial to our national security, be halted forthwith. Two: That Congress authorize the federal government, as a matter of the highest priority, to construct high walls along our entire northern and southern borders, supplemented by electronic monitoring devices and manned patrols in much greater numbers than at present; and that Congress designate all necessary funds for this effort. Three: That by widespread and rigorous enforcement of employer sanctions, and greatly increased sweeps of suspect workplaces, and by responding with dispatch to citizen reports, the enforcement arm of our immigration services begin the human but speedy removal of illegal immigrants from our nation, by attrition and deportation; and that Congress designate all necessary funds for this purpose..

    "My fellow Americans: Since the passing of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments, our nation has engaged in the greatest act of generosity in human history, opening our country to tens of millions of people from all regions of the world, sharing our wonderful American dream in a way unprecedented in all the chronicles of humanity, and unequalled in the world of our time. Generosity, however, must have a limit. It is time now to take a pause: to cease the inflow for a while, in order that those who have come, and their children, can be fully, happily, and successfully absorbed into our nation's fabric. This is how the previous great wave of immigrants, the wave that ended in 1924, was assimilated.

    "We are a large-hearted and generous nation, and may we always remain so. We cannot, however, take in all three or four billion of the world's poor and striving. There are limits even to our hospitality, and I believe it is the general sense of the American people today that those limits have been reached....."

    As I said: nice fantasy.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:11 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    Want my Vote? Earn It

    Anyone who happened to drop by earlier in the week probably noticed I'm just a bit unhappy with the White House right now over it's permissiveness regarding illegal immigration. Like many conservatives, that is just one of many issues that is causing Republican credibility to plummet, as this D.C. Examiner editorial noticed:

    Bush's refusal to veto pork-barrel spending has compromised the efficacy of his tax cuts. Indeed, “limited government†never looked so big. Adding to Bush's problem is the stench of scandal stinking up Capitol Hill on both sides of the aisle. Conservatives look at 12 years of GOP control of Congress and wonder why they don't have much more to show for it.

    On foreign policy, conservatives have admired Bush's steadfast pursuit of the war on terror, but they are puzzled and frustrated that he so resolutely refuses to take concrete, credible actions to secure our borders. When they learn the U.S. Border Patrol is alerting Mexican authorities of Minutemen locations, many conservatives call it the last straw.

    Karl Rove reportedly has a plan to “stir up†the base to again save the Republicans' electoral bacon, but conservatives won't be satisfied this time around with more token efforts on issues like marriage and dire warnings that “the Democrats would be far worse.†Conservatives have heard that song before and know it never has a second verse.

    For all the reasons above and more, I'm at a point where I'm ready to consider disassociating myself from the Republican Party, and from the grumbling I've heard, I am far from alone. What would bring me back?

    National Defense.
    Our active duty military deserves flexible, lightweight body armor. Our duty military deserves more modern small arms that are more rugged and offer better stopping power. We need faster, lighter, reliable and more survivable mechanized transport and combat vehicles on land, and in our near-shore and riverine “brown water†navy.

    Our active duty, retired, and disabled veterans deserve far better benefits than those they currently subsist on. I'm specifically focusing on medical care for disabled and retired veterans and their survivors. The brave men and women of the United States military put their lives on the line for this nation, and it seems that the very least we should do in return is treat those lives with the proper respect and humility their sacrifice warrants.

    Educate government employees as to the proper legal channels for whistle-blowing. Heavily investigate leaks, and pass a law mandating a minimum of five years in prison for those that do not follow this procedure (i.e. leak to the press).

    And while I realize this is very controversial position and not one most other conservatives accept, I think “don't ask, don't tell†is a foolish position, barring thousands of patriotic Americans from serving their country for reasons that have little to do with their ability to serve or fight.

    We need to do a lot more for our military, but this is probably as much as we can handle in one or two election cycles.

    Smaller, smarter government.
    We cannot cut taxes and raise spending and expect anything good to come from it. We can keep the tax cuts, but we have to dramatically lower spending. The best way to do this is by substantially reducing the ability to introduce and increasing the ability to strike congressional earmarks.

    Disband the Department of Homeland Security. Like the plague, it seems to kill everything it touches, from FEMA to the Border Patrol. We do not need another layer of red tape slowing things down at the very moments that real homeland security depends on speed and decisive action.

    Election reform.
    Reverse McCain-Feingold, as this infringement on free speech leads to a less-informed American voter at the period in time they are most interested in listening. Introduce federal standards for a secure photo ID for American voters. America has sacrificed far too much blood for the freedom of self-governance, and each individual's precious vote must be protected. A secure photo ID for voters is a step in that direction long overdue. A return to paper ballots, while cumbersome and slower than modern technologies, is also a step in the direction of securing the integrity of the voting process. “Old tech†paper ballots are much more difficult to destroy or illegally modify than other ways of registering votes.

    Embrace Diversity
    Yes, just repeating this empty liberal talking point gives you a vaguely disgusting feeling like wet grass clippings clinging to your skin, but we should own this. Most core conservative values are common across racial and economic lines. Most communities want lower taxes, smaller, smarter government, and broad support for their families. We need to undo the damage Johnson's “Great Society†did to minority communities, and try to reverse the current trend of too many single-parent families and too many of their men underemployed or in prison. They deserve better lives, and we should be able to find a way to help them accomplish that. Right now, we're doing them no more favors than Democrats are. That needs to change.

    Protect Your Own.
    Sick to death of wasting billion to prop-up corrupt governments overseas while our citizens are missing the basics that they should have for being an American, we should embrace “screw you†foreign policy. There are many governments in the world taking billions of dollars of our money that are actively working against us. That has to stop. Throw the United Nations out of New York, and stop subsidizing it. It has never done anything for us of note, and all too often sympathizes with nations that do not have humanity's best interests at heart. Let John Bolton's final gesture to this den of thieves be with a raised finger. Let NATO handle their own problems, as they certainly don't support ours. Make a new alliance with the Anglosphere and other like-minded nations.

    Stop supporting the importation of poverty into America. A border fence like none other should seal off the border with Mexico entirely. Call National Guard units to the border until the fence is completed. Deport all illegals, for any infraction at all. Heavily fine any employer who hires illegals, and split that fine in half, dedicating ½ to social programs to help the assimilation of legal immigrants, and ½ to whistleblowers who report illegals and those who hire them. Call it deportation an assimilation through capitalism.

    Take some of those trillions of dollars saved by no longer supporting petty tyrants and invest them in the United States. Develop our own domestic energy resources to be self-sufficient. Technologies exist to extract energy from our oil, coal and gas reserves that are far cleaner and safe that once existed, and with our vast economic resources, we should be able to rapidly develop now energy sources so that we are an energy exporter instead of importer.

    Create a healthcare system that provides an publicly-acceptable level of coverage and care to all citizens and legal aliens.

    De-fund the albatross that is Social Security, and instead, create a working, sustainable retirement system that allows people to invest in privatized accounts.

    Encourage the return to nuclear families, and support community-based initiatives.

    * * *

    That is the dream platform to re-capture my vote. I wonder if anyone will come close to providing it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:44 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    May 11, 2006

    A Jibe Called Quest

    Matt Stoller makes the argument that Quest Communications should be rewarded for refusing to provide non-personal "outside" call data to the National Security Agency. This leaves a significant hole in the NSA database that they are trying to use to help catch al Qaeda terrorists that are trying to kill folks like you and me.

    I thought about what Matt had to say, and decided he was right, so I decided to help Quest work on their branding with a snazzy new ad campaign featuring one of their old slogans for that hip "retro" feel.

    I think it captures their corporate spirit quite well, don't you?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:51 AM | Comments (30) | TrackBack

    And?

    USA Today has packaged a story today about a massive National Security Agency call database in such a way as to make it sound quite sinister, but isn't this what we pay them to do?

    The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

    The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

    Read those two key sentence again:

    . This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

    The headline is somewhat—and likely purposefully—misleading. Nobody is recording your phone calls as USA Today would have you infer from the headline. No, they simply keep records that note that 202-555-5555 made a 4 minute call to 919-555-5555 on May 11 at 3:30 PM. In other words, this NSA program collects nothing more than the phone companies already do for billing purposes, it simply consolidates various phone company databases to paint a picture of communications patterns within the United States.

    Why this is even considered a secret is somewhat puzzling. I always assumed such a program had existed for years. I would have thought that something similar to this database would have already existed at the Federal Communications Commission, various internet governing and other federal and private organizations interested in communications trends and forecastings.

    Leslie Cauley tries to make the program sound sinister by saying it doesn't go though a FISA judge. I fail to find that intimidating. I get the exact same level of detail every month in from Verizon. Is Cauley suggesting I need a FISA court judge to approve my phone bill?

    The meat of the article is simply this:

    The government is collecting "external" data on domestic phone calls but is not intercepting "internals," a term for the actual content of the communication, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program. This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it's been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for "social network analysis," the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together.

    The NSA is consolidating and analyzing already collected data to try to stop terrorist attacks before they happen.

    What exactly is the legitimate complaint against this program?

    Update John at Stop the ACLU has a roundup underway, as does Pajamas Media, Michelle, etc...

    This is shaping up to be quite an opinion war.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:01 AM | Comments (101) | TrackBack

    OPR Drops NSA Probe That Wasn't

    I'm sure this will inflame a lot of people who won't bother to read it closely, but it was a rather stupid idea to begin with:

    The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers security clearance.

    The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax Wednesday to Democratic Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York saying it was closing its inquiry because without clearance it could not examine department lawyers' role in the program.

    What you might miss in a quick read (and perhaps what CNN is hoping you will do) is that this story has nothing to do with the legality of the NSA program itself.

    No, OPR has a different charter entirely:

    [Justice Department spokesman Brian] Roehrkasse noted the OPR's mission is not to investigate possible wrongdoing in other agencies, but to determine if Justice Department lawyers violated any ethical rules.

    In short, this was a political jab, and the fact that my opportunistic former congressman Maurice Hinchey was right there with another clichéd soundbite simply confirms it.

    "This administration thinks they can just violate any law they want, and they've created a culture of fear to try to get away with that. It's up to us to stand up to them," Hinchey said.

    How annoying DoJ lawyers is an example of "standing up" against the evil forces of BushCo, Hinchey doesn't quite explain.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    May 10, 2006

    Boilerplate Special

    Considering how fast the blogosphere and media can get out a story, you've probably already heard this:

    Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson was back home in Dallas on April 28 giving a speech to minority real estate folks and offering a most interesting take on how business is done in Washington.

    Jackson, former head of the Dallas Housing Authority, recounted a conversation he had in the nation's capital with a minority publisher.

    "He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years," Jackson said of the bidder, according to an account of the speech in the Dallas Business Journal. "He made a heck of a proposal and was on the GSA [General Services Administration] list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him.

    "Then he said something. . . . He said, 'I have a problem with your president.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush. ' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.' "He didn't get the contract," Jackson continued. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

    While the same article says that Jackson's contract denial violates "the Constitution's prohibitions on government retaliation for speech" and perhaps federal procurement law, a government contracts specialist that I interviewed says that may not be true.

    An agency may be able to drop a contract for any reason, or none at all, depending on how the specific contract is written. Many of the state and federal government contracts he has worked on have a clause in the boilerplate (legal fine print) that stipulates that the government can terminate the contract for any reason or none at all with a 30-day notice. He said he sees contracts terminated for political reasons "all the time."

    Let me be very clear in saying that I think it is morally shameful for Jackson to fire a qualified vendor over political differences. A federal agency works for all Americans regardless of political stripes, not just Democrats or Republicans.

    Alphonso Jackson should certainly step down for his behavior, but it doesn't appear that he'll fact criminal charges for a practice that seems something less than rare.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    White House Travel Docs Revealed

    Via WUSA9.com:

    How much do you think Osama bin Laden would pay to know exactly when and where the President was traveling, and who was with him? Turns out, he wouldn't have had to pay a dime. All he had to do was go through the trash early Tuesday morning.

    It appears to be a White House staff schedule for the President's trip to Florida Tuesday. And a sanitation worker was alarmed to find in the trash long hours before Mr. Bush left for his trip.

    It's the kind of thing you would expect would be shredded or burned, not thrown in the garbage.
    Randy Hopkins could not believe what he was seeing.

    There on the floor next to a big trash truck was a thick sheaf of papers with nearly every detail of the President's voyage.

    “I saw locations and names and places where the President was going to be. I knew it was important. And it shouldn't have been in a trash hole like this,†he said.

    Darn right they shouldn't be in the trash. They should have been at the Mexican consulate, waiting for approval.

    Angry? Nah, not me.. Derb neither.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Palace Revolt

    Almost since he was elected in 2000, liberals have been calling for the impeachment of President Bush. The vast majority of the "impeachable offenses" they cite—intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq war, claims of torture at Guantanamo Bay, the targeted NSA surveillance of suspected terrorist communications intercepted as they enter or leave the United States, etc—have been groundless.

    The Administration's on-going failure to ensure American sovereignty and secure America's borders, however, has raised the specter of impeachment from an unlikely source: conservatives.

    News yesterday that the U.S. Border Patrol was spying on the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and reporting their findings to the Mexican government was the last straw for many conservatives who had been, until this point, Bush Administration defenders.

    Not only was the Border Patrol alerting the Mexican government of the location of Minutemen on the border to apparently thwart their attempts to slow illegal immigration and drug smuggling; they were also providing information upon individual chapters of the Minutemen in the Midwest. A spokesperson for the Minuteman Corps stated speculated that this information could only have been collected by the Department of Homeland Security. The fact that DHS does not even make serious attempt to rebut the charges, quite frankly, leaves me stunned. If this can be believed, Americans are spying on Americans to benefit a foreign power with the blessing of the White House.

    La Shawn Barber brings forth something I never though I'd find myself seriously contemplating: a draft of possible Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush.

    RESOLVED that George Walker Bush, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:

    Article I: Abuse of Power: Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, failing to impart the due and proper administration of justice by protecting citizens against foreign invasions, contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch (Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Internal Revenue Service, for example) and the purposes of these agencies. This conduct has included one or more of the following:

    (1) Complicit with foreign governments in breaching U.S. sovereignty. America's founders codified the notion that “We the People†would govern the country by a representative democracy. The government remains legitimate only through consent of the governed, and “We the People†retain the inalienable right to alter the government, abolish it, or amend the Constitution.

    Anyone who has read this blog knows that I've supported the Administration on most issues, but as far back as the second week of this blog in November of 2004, I've been warning Bush about his approach to illegal immigration and border security. I wrote then, "Bush's current lackadaisical attitude on the subject may have fatal consequences that could not only cripple his second term, but replicate or exceed the human tragedy of that day in September three years ago."

    Now that I find that the Bush Administration is not just lackadaisical, but apparently engaged in the active and deliberate undermining of efforts by civilians groups to do the job he refuses to do, I think I may have reached my limit. If President Bush cannot see fit to uphold his oath of office, perhaps it is time to give that opportunity to President Cheney.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:12 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    May 09, 2006

    Tancredo Rips DHS Spying for Mexico

    Tancredo press release, courtesy of Minuteman Blog Central:

    WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressmen Tom Tancredo (R-CO) decried a recently-disclosed U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) practice of tipping off the Mexican military to the location of Minutemen volunteers. According to a story in this morning's Inland Daily Bulletin, CBP notifies the Mexican government of when and where the Minutemen are planning to monitor the border and if violence is used by the Minutemen against illegal aliens. There has not been one verified instance of Minutemen volunteers using violence against illegal aliens.

    "The Mexican military doesn't exactly have a 'good government' reputation. The Border Patrol has documented more than two hundred incursions into the U.S by the Mexican military, and Texas sheriffs even apprehended Mexican government vehicles that were used to ferry drug runners across the border. By tipping off Mexico's military to the Minutemen's location, the U.S. government is asking for trouble," said Tancredo.

    "Heavily-armed military officials stationed only yards from civilians are at least intimidating. I can only surmise that the Border Patrol bureaucrats' spying is meant to have a chilling effect on the Minutemen's recruitment of more volunteers," said Tancredo.

    "The Minutemen haven't been accused of breaking the law. Quite the contrary-they have gone out of their way to aid law enforcement and ensure the safety of our border. The U.S. government has no grounds upon which to stifle the Minutemen's constitutional right to organize," Tancredo concluded. "I want to know the legal basis for CBP informing a foreign government of the activities of private citizens who are obeying the law."

    I'm going to take a "time out" before I say anything else on the subject, or I might start questioning the paternity of certain people.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:59 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    Mexican Handoff

    Someone remind me: which country is the Border Patrol charged with protecting?

    DailyBulletin.com:

    While Minuteman civilian patrols are keeping an eye out for illegal border crossers, the U.S. Border Patrol is keeping an eye out for Minutemen -- and telling the Mexican government where they are.

    According to three documents on the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Web site, the U.S. Border Patrol is to notify the Mexican government as to the location of Minutemen and other civilian border patrol groups when they participate in apprehending illegal immigrants -- and if and when violence is used against border crossers.

    A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed the notification process, describing it as a standard procedure meant to reassure the Mexican government that migrants' rights are being observed.
    "It's not a secret where the Minuteman volunteers are going to be," Mario Martinez said Monday.

    "This ... simply makes two basic statements -- that we will not allow any lawlessness of any type, and that if an alien is encountered by a Minuteman or arrested by the Minuteman, then we will allow that government to interview the person."

    Minuteman members were not so sanguine about the arrangement, however, saying that reporting their location to Mexican officials nullifies their effectiveness along the border and could endanger their lives.

    "Now we know why it seemed like Mexican officials knew where we were all the time," said Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. "It's unbelievable that our own government agency is sending intelligence to another country. They are sending intelligence to a nation where corruption runs rampant, and that could be getting into the hands of criminal cartels.

    "They just basically endangered the lives of American people."

    I'll never support impeachment proceedings brought against President for going to war with Iraq based on flawed intelligence, not will I fault him overmuch for an executive order that authorized the NSA to try to close intelligence gaps using targeted intercepts of suspected terrorist communications. In both instances, a plausible, if not strong case could be made that he was trying to act in this nation's best interests.

    His resistance to protecting this nation's borders, however is another matter entirely. Bush refuses to protect the territorial integrity of the United States, leaving us exposed to an importation of poverty that strains our social welfare system and artificially depresses wages. At least as important is the fact that President Bush's border policies leave us naked to the threat of terrorist infiltration.

    Surely an al Qaeda terrorist who grew up in the shifting sands of the Arabian Peninsula or the rugged mountains of Afghanistan could easily walk across an unattended border to cut America from her soft underbelly.

    Bush's border policies? Those are what I consider impeachable offenses.

    Update: Via Michelle Malkin, Minuteman Blog Central shows that the story just gets worse:

    This article does not report information told to the MCDC media offices that the Border Patrol chiefs have also been passing along intelligence reports to the government of Mexico on the activities of Minutemen not only at the borders, but in locations such as Utah, Nevada, Illinois, Massachusetts and Tennessee. Perhaps a follow-up story is coming tomorrow or an over zealous editor took the info out?

    Part of a report distributed last August to the Mexican government from Border Patrol bureaucrats read over the phone to the MCDC media offices contained not only numbers (estimated chapter membership) of Minutemen in Illinois, but a statement on their activities and that they didn't seem to know any politicians there, indicating that the Illinois Minutemen didn't yet have any political clout.

    That is not a report on the location of Minutemen at the border, but political intelligence from our government to a foreign nation about the activities of American citizens petitioning our own government for redress of grievances.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    May 08, 2006

    Dinky Links

    Within hours of General Michael V. Hayden being nominated for the Director's position at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Left has already staked out their conspiracy theory of choice. Sadly, they have very little to go on.

    The best they could do was this sad, underdeveloped theory from TPM Muckraker:

    While director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden contracted the services of a top executive at the company at the center of the Cunningham bribery scandal, according to two former employees of the company.

    Hayden, President Bush's pick to replace Porter Goss as head of the CIA, contracted with MZM Inc. for the services of Lt. Gen. James C. King, then a senior vice president of the company, the sources say. MZM was owned and operated by Mitchell Wade, who has admitted to bribing former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham with $1.4 million in money and gifts. Wade has also reportedly told investigators he helped arrange for prostitutes to entertain the disgraced lawmaker, and he continues to cooperate with a federal inquiry into the matter.

    King has not been implicated in the growing scandal around Wade's illegal activities. However, federal records show he contributed to some of Wade's favored lawmakers, including $6000 to Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) and $4000 to Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL).

    Before joining MZM in December 2001, King served under Hayden as the NSA's associate deputy director for operations, and as head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.

    So here we go:

    King worked under Hayden at the NSA. King left the NSA to work at MZM, and Hayden brought him back to the NSA as a contractor.

    MZM was owned and operated by a guy named Mitchell Wade. Wade admitted paying bribes to disgraced Congressman "Duke" Cunningham. There are no allegations whatsoever that King did or was even aware of anything illegal or unethical going on during his employment at MZM, and King's above-board position as a contractor is the only tenuous connection between Hayden and the criminals Wade and Cunningham.

    Don't you see the obvious conspiracy?

    Hayden knew a guy who knew a guy who did something wrong with another guy.

    I have a line to the White House more direct than that. I guess this was the best they could do on short notice.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Spies Like Us

    Last Friday afternoon CIA director Porter Goss stepped down from his position—unexpectedly, at least to the media—and blogs on the let and less responsible mainstream media outlets were quick to surmise an embarrassing scandal must be the proximate cause of his departure. We now know that Goss stepped down because he butted heads with National Director of Intelligence John Negroponte over the future direction of the CIA.

    Later that same afternoon, Negroponte's deputy, Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, was put forth as the probable successor to Goss. Within minutes, people seized upon the fact that Hayden was the General in charge of the NSA when a program was put in place by an executive order of President Bush. The program conducted surveillance of specific communications of suspected al Qaeda agents, where one end of the communications was based inside the United States and the other was in a foreign country.

    A media-driven controversy has raged since that time, as opponents of the program have called it illegal and some have even pushed for censure or impeachment of the President for issuing the executive order, when in fact, not one of them knows what the order entails.

    This morning, President Bush made his nomination of General Hayden official, and thus the controversial NSA intelligence program will be a central point of contention in his confirmation hearings. The fact that Hayden is a military officer being picked to run a civilian agency alarmed some of the more excitable and inept members of Congress, but that sentiment is quickly being dismissed rather quickly, especially in light of the fact that so many military men have run the CIA in the past.

    Anonymous blogger and former intelligence officer Spook86 at In From The Cold provided unequivocal support:

    "Mike Hayden is supremely qualified for this position," said Mr. Bush in making the announcement. "He knows intelligence community from the ground up...he has been both a producer and consumer of intelligence." Hayden, the nation's highest-ranking military intelligence officer, appeared with President Bush in the Oval Office, where the nomination was announced.

    We agree with the President. Hayden is a superb choice, an exceptionally effective intelligence leader who--if confirmed--can continue needed reforms at the CIA.

    [snip]

    If American is serious about reforming the CIA, then General Hayden should have confirmation hearings that focus on genuine intelligence issues, not ill-founded concerns about what uniform he wears to the office. At this juncture in the War on Terror, General Hayden (and the agency) deserve a speedy confirmation process, and a quick up-or-down vote. Hayden is hardly an unknown commodity on Capitol Hill and in the intelligence community; his outstanding record speaks for itself.

    Over the weekend and before the nomination was official, I queried a former intelligence officer that worked at the NSA, and asked him several questions about General Hayden.

    I asked what he thought of Hayden in general, if there would be friction from within the CIA from having the director of another intelligence agency named to run their organization, and how Hayden would handle the obvious focus of some during the hearings on his implementation of Bush's executive order.

    When asked about how the CIA would response to the former NSA Chief, he answered:

    I think there will be problems inside CIA with the long-time spooks and Intelligence analysts. [General] Mike [Hayden]'s experience has all been in military Intelligence as a collector of information. NSA and the Central Security Service for the military Intelligence collection operations do not issue Intelligence reports. That is the realm of CIA and DIA. The CIA, for example, has always been in charge of the National Intelligence Estimates. Other agencies and the military NIE reps are there to keep CIA honest, and that has sometimes been difficult...

    [snip]

    ...[But] we got things done. For just that reason there will be some of the so-called 'elite' in the ranks of the CIA employees who will balk a bit. He should be able to hold his own. Porter Goss surely did.

    In regards to the expected questions about the NSA program authorized by President Bush's executive order:

    ...I know that Bush thinks very highly of him [Hayden], but there are some in Congress who have not been briefed on collection and operations programs - Feingold and Specter - who can give him some problems in hearings. He can handle those little pissants though. Hayden will be grilled by the Intelligence Committee. Not too many pissants there.

    Hayden reminds me a lot of another former Director of the NSA, Admiral Noel Gayler. Gayler went on to become a full Admiral and Commander of the Pacific Fleet...

    [snip]

    I do hope Hayden gets the nod, and I will be right there for the confirmation hearings, just to see some of the loony Senators make complete fools of themselves - particularly Rockefeller.

    While the opinions of two former purported spies are hardly enough to say this is a widespread, consensus viewpoint, it does seem to suggest that Hayden brings with him a reputation that indicates he has the ability to get the tough jobs done, and reforming a bumbling, politically-driven organization back into the nation's premiere civilian intelligence agency might just take a military commander's discipline to accomplish.

    It is also very interesting that neither of these intelligence officers thought that the Senate confirmation hearings are going to be too tough for the General, and that the officer I interviewed felt that any Senators questioning Hayden on the NSA case would, "make complete fools of themselves."

    This is going to be one interesting confirmation hearing, and if these sources and others can be trusted, Senators looking to attack General Hayden for their own personal gain might very quickly find themselves in well over their heads.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:27 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    A Stringer of Large-Mouthed Asses

    Several of my distant brethren on the far left of blogosphere this morning have gone out of their way to prove that the “reality-based community†is leaking reality at an every increasing rate, as they went postal over a flippant comment President Bush made about—wait for it—fishing.

    Yes, while being interviewed for the German magazine Bild, the interviewer asked about his best and worst moments as President.

    Bush gave the rather obvious answer that the 9/11/01 terrorist attack was his worst, while his best moment was:

    "I would say the best moment was when I caught a 7 1/2-pound largemouth bass on my lake," Bush said, laughing.

    Believe it or not, the Party of the Perpetually Peeved found a way to have a complete hissy fit over this, as well.

    Firedoglake:

    So, let me get this straight. The man has been President for five freaking years. And the thing that he thinks is his best moment in office as President of the US of A is catching a big fish in his lake.

    Americablog

    Most Americans couldn't name a best moment for Bush either. But he's been President for over five years and his best moment was catching a fish? That says a lot. He really is the WORST PRESIDENT EVER…

    And the geniuses over at Hullabaloo, well, they smell conspiracy:

    With all the daily opportunities available to do such good for your fellow country-folk, and the world, the only thing Bush specifically mentioned that made him happy is catching a big fish. In his own lake. Which could very well be deliberately stocked with big fish.

    Mercy (or as they say mercí).

    I'm certain they'll soon be petitioning Russ Feingold to try to impeach Bush, claiming no doubt, that using a Tiny Torpedo without Congressional authorization is an illegal act of war.

    As nutty as these folks get over a joke Bush made about fishing, it's no wonder the American voter won't trust them with football.

    (h/t : Memeorandum)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:34 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    May 06, 2006

    Praying for a Cinderella Man

    So let me see if I understand the defense here.

    Patrick Kennedy, son of famed Oldsmobile yachtsman Ted, and grandson of Prohibition bootlegger Joe, used the alibi that it wasn't alcohol that caused him to crash his car at 2:45 AM Thursday morning, it was drugs.

    That's a pathetic excuse, even by Kennedy family standards.

    But it turns out that even that ignoble defense fell apart, as a D.C-area bar employee reports that she saw him drinking in the bar shortly before the crash, and the Capitol Police listed him as being under the influence of alcohol in their traffic report.

    While some disingenuously try to play it off as just an accidental drug interaction issue—oh, he was just sleep-driving, explains away Talk Left—as if that is a normal, everyday occurrence like sneezing—the very real fact is that Kennedy was a threat to others when he is behind the wheel. This was his second suspicious wreck in just two weeks. Kennedy's penmanship in the earlier accident report was so discombobulated that it is very hard to believe that he wasn't under the influence then, as well.

    Patrick Kennedy now states will be entering a rehabilitation program at the Mayo Clinic for an addiction to prescription drugs. He states that he has "no recollection" of the events of Late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, and yet, he provided a full explanation of the wreck and a denial that he was drinking, despite eyewitness testimony to the contrary, and then provides a description of the police's treatment of him.

    Now I see via Michelle Malkin that some posters at the Daily Kos want him gone, tossed out of Congress—though not because they care about Kennedy :

    Here's the problem folks: most Americans who aren't partisans truly believe the democrats and The Republicans are "all the same" and that the power-elite takes care of its own.

    Democrats can talk about Abramoff and Cunningham and the Republicans' toothless ethics bill, but so long as the People see us as just the "other side of the coin", they have little reason to go to the polls to vote for Dems.

    Now we've got Congressman William Jefferson who despite allegations of bribery won't resign, and Patrick Kennedy who announces he's "going to vote" and so dodges a Breathalyzer test, and now will go into rehab rather than resign.

    This gives all the justification in the world to independents who will say that the Dems are "just as bad" and that "all of them are corrupt."

    It isn't Kennedy they care about, but how he might affect upcoming elections. Nice.

    My personal feeling on the subject (speaking as someone who drank like Hemingway while in college) was that Kennedy should keep his job while he gets some help... idle hands being the devil's playthings and all that. My thought that was that once he got out of Mayo, he could immerse himself in his work, which could keep him too busy to get bogged down thinking about his addictions.

    At least, that is what my position was.

    Dan Riehl, recovering himself, had different thoughts on Kennedy's best way back to sobriety, and he's none to happy with the way things are progressing thus far:

    Unfortunately, it looks as though the same enablers, including the media, will likely prop him up once again, perhaps long enough to at least survive until some day when he really falls down. Let's hope he doesn't kill someone else in the process. I came too close to doing that myself while behind the wheel of a car more times than I'd care to share. Certainly, anyone who can take advantage of a good hospital, especially with Kennedy's additional mental illness, should do so. But the notion that he will be anything like fit to perform in government for at least a couple of years is simply a myth.

    [snip]

    If Rep. Patrick Kennedy gave a damn about addiction recovery as a whole and knew anything about how to bring it about, he'd quit the House, admit what an abject failure he's been, then get some genuine humility and real help and not look back.

    That he likely won't do so tells you how ready to simply go on lying and using he is, as opposed to taking a break so he can come back re-invigorated and continue the good fight as regards addiction recovery, or anything else. Hell, Oprah will probably have the still sick man on as cured within 3-6 months. What a pathetic joke and complete insult to addiction recovery that will be.

    When looking at it from Dan's perspective (and I do encourage you to read the whole thing), I can see his point as well. It isn't "just an addiction"—as if that wasn't bad enough—but a serious mental illness (bi-polar disorder) and a family history of addiction that are compounding the issue.

    I think Dan is right. Patrick Kennedy should make facing down his demons his full-time job for now. He can always return to Congress once he's clean and sober. Americans love an underdog fighting back from adversity, and he'd certainly be a far better Congressman with a clearer head. Let's pray he can get there.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:17 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    May 04, 2006

    At Least The Car Stayed Dry

    Drudge is running a flash that Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), son of Sen. Ted Kennedy, make be part of a suspected drunk-driving crash and cover-up involving the Capital Police:

    Police labor union officials asked acting Chief Christopher McGaffin this afternoon to allow a Capitol Police officer to complete his investigation into an early-morning car crash involving Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), son of Sen. Ted Kennedy.

    ROLL CALL [note: my link-ed.] reports: According to a letter sent by Officer Greg Baird, acting chairman of the USCP FOP, the wreck took place at approximately 2:45 a.m. Thursday when Kennedy's car, operating with its running lights turned off, narrowly missed colliding with a Capitol Police cruiser and smashed into a security barricade at First and C streets Southeast.

    “The driver exited the vehicle and he was observed to be staggering,†Baird's letter states. Officers approached the driver, who “declared to them he was a Congressman and was late to a vote. The House had adjourned nearly three hours before this incident. It was Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy from Rhode Island.â€

    Baird wrote that Capitol Police Patrol Division units, who are trained in driving under the influence cases, were not allowed to perform basic field sobriety tests on the Congressman. Instead, two sergeants, who also responded to the accident, proceeded to confer with the Capitol Police watch commander on duty and then “ordered all of the Patrol Division Units to leave the scene and that they were taking over.â€

    A source tells the DRUDGE REPORT: It was apparent that the driver was intoxicated (stumbling) and claimed he was in a hurry to make a vote. When it became apparent who it was instead of processing a normal DWI the watch commander had the Patrol units clear the scene and allowed the other building officials drive Kennedy home.

    This morning's incident comes just over two weeks after Kennedy was involved in a car accident in Rhode Island.

    Developing...

    Unlike some Drudge stories, this might have some meat to it, as MSM sources are corroborating that Kennedy was involved in a 3:00 am wreck, and that the responding officers were not allowed to perform field sobriety tests. WUSA9.com has more details:

    9 News has learned U.S. Capitol police officers are concerned about the handling of an accident involving Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-Rhode Island) about 3 a.m. this morning.

    Rep. Kennedy was reportedly behind the wheel of a green Ford Mustang when it crashed into a security barrier at 1st and "C" streets Southeast.

    No one was hurt, but there are reports that the car nearly struck a Capitol police cruiser and that it had been swerving, as if trying to make a U-turn.

    So far, Kennedy HAS NOT been charged. The congressman released a statement Thursday night saying alcohol was NOT involved.

    "I was involved in a traffic accident last night at ... the U.S. Capitol. I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident and I will fully cooperate with Capitol Police in whatever investigation they choose to undertake," he said.

    The Capitol Hill Fraternal Order of Police is calling for higher-ups in the department to allow patrol officers to complete their investigation.

    The head of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1, Lou Cannon, told 9 News that he's concerned that Kennedy may have received special treatment and this could be a case where “rank has its privilege.â€

    Capitol police Officer Greg Baird wrote a letter to acting Chief Christopher McGaffin saying how the investigation was handled calls the department's integrity into question.

    According to Rollcall.com, Baird -- acting chairman of the Capitol Police Fraternal Order of Police –- said Kennedy's Mustang had its lights off when it narrowly missed crashing into a police cruiser and smashed into a security barrier at 1st and C streets Southeast about 2:45 a.m.

    According to sources, Kennedy told police that he was late for a Congressional vote. But the House had adjourned more than three hours earlier, sources said.

    According to Roll Call, Baird wrote in his letter that the driver got out and “was observed to be staggering.†He told officers he was a congressman late for a vote. Baird wrote that patrol officers at the scene were prohibited from performing field sobriety tests. Then two sergeants arrived, conferred with a watch commander and “ordered all of the patrol division units to leave the scene … that they were taking over.â€

    Congressman Patrick Kennedy is Ted Kennedy's son. He is currently serving his sixth term as the Democratic Congressman from Rhode Island. He sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

    First off, and very seriously, I'm glad no one was hurt. A late model (2005) Ford Mustang weighs 3,351 lbs, and traveling through the dark with its lights off in the dark is a recipe for disaster. My second thought was, of course, thankfulness that Kennedy wasn't near the Inlet Bridge over the Tidal Basin, or things could have ended far more tragically.

    This case could bode very poorly for the Kennedy clan and the Capital Police as well if there is any evidence at all of a cover-up. Odds are than any questionable involvement by either Patrick Kennedy or his father Ted—if indeed there was any—can and probably would disappear faster than a bottle of Maker's Mark down Ted's fleshy gullet. The Capitol Police watch commander and other senior officers seem somewhat more likely to take any fall here.

    Capitol Police Officer Greg Baird seems to be a good cop trying to shine light on a shady situation. He felt strongly enough about the interference in his investigation that he went against his superiors when he felt they were wrong. That takes guts, and integrity.

    It will be very interesting to see how—and if—this case proceeds.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:47 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    Howard Dean Screws Gay Outreach Coordinator, Advocate at DNC

    Via Drudge:

    Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean on May 2 fired the party's gay outreach advisor Donald Hitchcock less than a week after Hitchcock's domestic partner, Paul Yandura, a longtime party activist, accused Dean of failing to take stronger action to defend gays.

    Dean immediately hired gay former Democratic Party operative Brian Bond to replace Hitchcock, according to DNC spokesperson Karen Finney, who called Bond a "proven leader."

    Bond served from 1996 to 2003 as executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a bipartisan national group that raises money and provides training to help elect openly gay candidates to public office.
    "It was not retaliation," Finney said of Hitchcock's dismissal. "It was decided we needed a change. We decided to hire a proven leader."

    Hitchcock declined comment Tuesday night except to confirm that Dean informed him May 2 through a surrogate that he had been terminated. He said he was considering consulting an attorney to decide whether to contest the firing.

    Regardless of how you feel about gay couples, this stinks to high heaven for the DNC. If a female activist had made charges that Dean wasn't doing enough for rape victims and Dean fired her husband, who was in charge of a related outreach effort, it would almost certainly and immediate be condemned as a retaliatory act that was certainly tasteless, unethical, and depending on the jurisdiction, may be legally actionable as well.

    The Democratic Party claims to have big tent, but Howard Dean seems to take a dim view of the rights of those who enter through the back door.

    We can only hope that if they do decide to follow with legal action for this apparently retaliatory firing by Screamin' Howard, that Hitchcock and Yandura get justice in the end.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:02 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    May 03, 2006

    What Amnesty Brings

    Welcome to the new look of illegal immigration.


    Source.

    Via the L.A. Times:

    Mexican President Vicente Fox will sign a bill that would legalize the use of nearly every drug and narcotic sold by the same Mexican cartels he's vowed to fight during his five years in office, a spokesman said Tuesday.

    The list of illegal drugs approved for personal consumption by Mexico's Congress last week is enough to make one dizzy — or worse.

    Cocaine. Heroin. LSD. Marijuana. PCP. Opium. Synthetic opiates. Mescaline. Peyote. Psilocybin mushrooms. Amphetamines. Methamphetamines.

    And the per-person amounts approved for possession by anyone 18 or older could easily turn any college party into an all-nighter: half a gram of coke, a couple of Ecstasy pills, several doses of LSD, a few marijuana joints, a spoonful of heroin, 5 grams of opium and more than 2 pounds of peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus.

    The law would be among the most permissive in the world, putting Mexico in the company of the Netherlands. Critics, including U.S. drug policy officials, already are worrying that it will spur a domestic addiction problem and make Mexico a narco-tourism destination.

    So not only are we facing an ever-increasing number of illegal aliens leaching funds and services that were created to help America's legal residents, we're now facing the distinct possibility that these illegals will be junkies and addicts desperate for a fix as well.

    Remember to "thank" your Republican senators pushing for the amnesty bill by voting them out of office in November.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:16 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    McCain's Missing Merchandise

    David Ignatius has a WaPo Op-ed up to day called, A Man who won't Sell his Soul.

    Interestingly enough, it is about John McCain, one of the most calculating, cynical, triangulating Senators in office, and one who made the frightening admission just last week that he won't let a little thing like the Constitution get in his way:

    "He [Michael Graham] also mentioned my abridgement of First Amendment rights, i.e. talking about campaign finance reform... I know that money corrupts... I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government."

    McCain sold out the most important part of the First Amendment by heavily infringing on the right to free political speech with McCain-Feingold, and now he appears ready to dump the Amendment altogether. John McCain can't sell his political soul.

    You can't sell what you don't possess.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 02, 2006

    Cato the Blunder?

    I've just completed the 22.5-page Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush (31-page PDF), authored by Gene Healy and Timothy Lynch of the libertarian CATO Institute.

    The executive summary should be compelling to everyone, regardless of political orientation.

    It begins:

    In recent judicial confirmation battles, President Bush has repeatedly—and correctly—stressed fidelity to the Constitution as the key qualification for service as a judge. It is also the key qualification for service as the nation's chief executive. On January 20, 2005, for the second time, Mr. Bush took the presidential oath of office set out in the Constitution, swearing to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." With five years of the Bush administration behind us, we have more than enough evidence to make an assessment about the president's commitment to our fundamental legal charter Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power. In its official legal briefs and public actions, the Bush administration has advanced a view of federal power that is astonishingly broad, a view that includes
    • a federal government empowered to regulate core political speech—and restrict it greatly when it counts the most: in the days before a federal election;
    • a president who cannot be restrained, through validly enacted statutes, from pursuing any tactic he believes to be effective in the war on terror;
    • a president who has the inherent constitutional authority to designate American citizens suspected of terrorist activity as "enemy combatants," strip them of any constitutional protection, and lock them up without charges for the duration of the war on terror— in other words, perhaps forever; and
    • a federal government with the power to supervise virtually every aspect of American life, from kindergarten, to marriage, to the grave.
    President Bush's constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers.

    The CATO authors make the charge that a sitting president is violating his oath of office and the Constitution he has sworn to protect on multiple occasions, and these are charges not to be dismissed lightly. I had to read this document.

    After reading it all and taking it in, I sit here with mixed emotions.

    The authors make a strong case in each instance, and the way they frame the issues, there seems little practical doubt as to whether or not the President is guilty of some of the things that Healy and Lynch charge. But is little doubt the same as no doubt, and how do we judge?

    Example #1 was the infamous McCain-Feingold bill (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or BCRA).

    Bush did sign McCain-Feingold into law after objecting to it on Constitutional grounds. It which seems to be a direct assault upon the most important core principle of the First Amendment, free political speech. But Healy and Lynch then make this comment on page 5 (as the page is numbered, may vary in your PDF viewer):

    …when the president abdicates his constitutional responsibility, as President Bush did when he signed a bill he knew to be unconstitutional, there is no guarantee that the courts will act to uphold theirs.

    In fact, the Supreme Court did not accept President Bush's invitation to strike down the offending portions of the BCRA. In 2003, in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the court upheld all the major provisions of the BCRA.

    To me, this seems perplexing. If the President thinks a congressional bill is unconstitutional and signs it into law thinking it is unconstitutional, should he face impeachment when the Supreme Court upholds all the major provisions of the law?

    If he should then be impeached, what of the members of Congress who voted to pass the bill in the first place? Do they not violate their oaths as well? And what do we do with a Supreme Court that upholds what many lay people consider a clear violation of the very essence of the First Amendment? Should we toss them all, executive, legislative, and judicial, and appoint President Antonin Scalia for filing a dissent that upheld the Constitution?

    From McCain-Feingold, to "free speech" zones, the so-called "torture memos," and questions about apparently expanding powers to arrest and seize property, Healy and Lynch take aim at the President but find themselves hitting other targets with virtually every shot.

    For example:

    • The "free speech" zones are enforced by the Secret Service or local police at Secret Service behest, and the authors cannot even provide evidence that Bush ha any part in these decisions;
    • the "torture memos" debate is carried forward upon opinions put forth by the Justice Department and the Department of Defense, as well as the White House;
    • the "war powers" argument put forth by the authors would seem to implicate almost every president back to Truman (with the apparent exception of Bush 41) for using police actions instead of congressional declarations as their method to go to war, while at the same time noting the current President Bush seized upon Congressional use of force still in effect from the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and got a congressional use of force authorization of his own as well;
    • The FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies are indicted along with the President under a charge of overly expanded arrest and seizure powers;
    • an alleged expansion of surveillance powers would condemn the NSA as well (note: I think the authors are fundamentally wrong in their assertions made in this section, and they should admit this is blind speculation on their part based upon unsupportable assumptions, which they don't);
    • and on and on…

    It would appear at the end of the article that all branches of the federal government, and indeed most individual departments of these branches, must bear at least some responsibility for the current wretched state of affairs the authors state this nation is currently in, or may find itself in at some point in the future.

    The often compelling—and occasionally self-defeating—arguments made by Healy and Lynch would seem to indicate an entire federal system that has become corrupted to the point that we as a nation should consider a wholesale scrapping of all three branches of government and start them afresh—OR—it suggest that the authors may over-reaching to support a hypothesis that may have been pre-determined, and in doing so, tarred everyone with the same brush.

    I'll be very interested to see other impressions of this document.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:25 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    Wind

    I don't much care for the over-saturated Plame case and have refused to cover it for the most part, but the latest round of over-the-top assertions are really too much.

    Over at Donkelephant, Justin Gardener is in over his head regarding a Raw Story claim that Valerie Plame was working on Iran when she was exposed. Setting aside for now the fact that whoever leaked to MSNBC correspondent David Shuster is also a leaker worth firing and perhaps prosecuting, we catch Gardener hyperventilating:

    To all of those who said she wasn't really a covert agent, that she wasn't really doing anything of importance…well, you're wrong. She was working on Iran. In fact, she was tracking the ins and outs of their attempts to acquire WMDs. And the Bush administration's actions most likely harmed that intelligence gathering.

    [snip]

    Should Rove go to jail for leaking her name to Novak? Who friggin knows at this point. But should he be ashamed because his brand of dirty politics could have cost us something in the Iran intelligence shell game? You're damn right he should.


    Back up a second, Justin.

    Plame was a WMD analyst, based out of CIA headquarters since 1997 because her cover was likely exposed in the Adlrich Ames affair. Others sources say her cover was blown as far back as the mid-1990s in separate events by a spy in Russia and diplomatic incompetence in Cuba.

    Her exact position was classified, but to argue that anyone who drove through the main gates of the CIA in Langley every day for work is somehow covert is asinine. Joe Wilson himself said she wasn't covert (his exact word was "clandestine") in a July 14, 2005 interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN. As her husband, he just might know a bit more about that than does Justin and his compatriots.

    As for Rove, it remains to be seen if he will even be charged. Shouldn't we wait to have a trial and then see if he is convicted before he is sent to jail, or is that whole "due process thing" superfluous?

    As for what revealing Plame's name did or didn't do to her section in the CIA, I think Gardener and his friends at Raw Story are making assumptions they cannot possibly support without a much higher security clearance than they presently have at CIA HQ (which I think is "none," but feel free to correct me). Plame is hardly the only WMD analyst in the CIA, and is quite likely to be one of many working on Iran. I find it highly unlikely that an intelligence agency infamous for so many layers of bureaucracy would have just one analyst working on a country that most have targeted as one of our main proliferation threats since before President Clinton was in office.

    Did the disclosure of Plame's identity have an impact on investigating Iran's WMDs? I'm sure it could have, but to what degree we may not know for some time (if ever), as that information is almost certainly classified. It would stand to reason that anytime you lose a person with experience it decreases the overall knowledge base to a certain degree. But Plame was not the only CIA analyst working on Iranian WMD programs, and I've seen no one able to cite evidence she was even one of the more important analysts in this area.

    Her exposure was certainly unfortunate, but I don't think anyone can make the statement that it was highly detrimental to the overall work, and it certainly wasn't terminal to the Agency at large.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:15 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    May 01, 2006

    A Day Without A Difference

    Today was the much-touted Day Without Immigrants, code for a day where illegal aliens and their supporters across the United States weren't supposed to work, or shop, or do much of anything other than protest. In short, they were supposed to act French.

    Even though North Carolina has a substantial Hispanic population (45% of which are illegal. Thank you, Mike Easley), I must confess I didn't notice any significant difference in my daily routine.

    Traffic flowed (or didn't) about the same. Taco Bell, staffed by Pakistanis, was still open, and Wendy's, staffed by Mexicans, was as well.

    It might have been a Day Without Immigrants in some parts of the country, but here in Raleigh, North Carolina, as I experienced it. this seemed to be just another Monday.

    It was a Day Without a Difference.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:36 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

    Day of the Lamprey

    In the United States today, organizers are touting what they call a "Day Without Immigrants." I'm sure real Americans such as Squanto, Manteo, Crazy Horse and Geronimo would support such a cause if they alive, but that is not what today is really about. No, this May Day—a communist/socialist holiday—is about something completely different.

    This May Day protest is a celebration of the illegal importation of poverty, and an attempt to legitimize the violation of this nation's sovereignty. It is a blight on this nation's long history of accepting immigrants legally from other nations with open arms, by those who seek to latch onto this nation's economy like a lamprey, sucking dry social services meant for this nation's legitimate unfortunates, and artificially lowering wages so that legal Americans on the lower end of the economic scale cannot afford to live on what they bring home from work.

    I spoke to a homebuilder yesterday who told me that without illegal labor, his cost per square foot for framing a home would nearly double. In other words, that means that because of an artificial depression of labor costs, legal Americans in this trade are getting far less in wages than they should. Want to take a guess who hurts the most in this arrangement?

    Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were busy this past weekend protesting the War in Iraq, but where have they been for poor blacks and other minorities that are seeing their wages undercut by illegal labor? For that matter, how many poor blacks and other minorities, including legal immigrants, would stay poor if entry level and trade-skill labor rates were what they should be?

    So have a soft spot in your heart if you must for those illegals who overcrowd our schools, close our hospitals and fill our prisons. If you can read this, they are probably just a sympathetic cause you can choose to agree or disagree with without much of an impact to your daily life, and you can hardly blame them for wanting something better than they have in their own countries.

    But that is not a legitimate excuse for the poverty they bring to this nation and perpetuate, adding 12 million poor and destitute to an overtaxed social support system, making it impossible for the system to raise up those who are here legitimately.

    Chris Muir's Day-by-Day said of the illegals protesting “We demand the American Dream!! Without the American part†and he was mostly right:

    What Muir can't address in two panels is what these illegals are doing to the American Dream for hard-working legal residents of this nation. Who cares about their needs and dreams? Apparently, they'll just fall through the cracks in Hell's Kitchen and Davenport and Bethlehem and Princeville, remaining at the bottom, never allowed a leg up, as we allow the poor of other nations to bury them alive.

    * * *

    I've often heard Republicans using analogy of fishing to describe the difference between them and Democrats.

    Democrats, it is said, will give a hungry man a fish. That is great for today, but tomorrow, than man will be hungry again, and no closer to providing a meal for himself. Democrats will give him another fish, courtesy of the government, who took that fish from someone else. It is a vicious, unending cycle.

    Republicans, instead, say they want to teach the man to fish, to be self-sufficient so that he can feed himself and his family not just that day, but in days to come.

    But something falls apart when the lake or river all these people depend on is overrun with parasites that suck the life out of the fish...

    Eventually, everybody starves.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:56 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

    April 29, 2006

    Show Me How

    It's everywhere you turn this evening on the mainstream new sites. Fox. CBS. CNN:

    Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters marched Saturday through Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq just hours after an American soldier died in a roadside explosion in Baghdad -- the 70th U.S. fighter killed in that country this month.

    "End this war, bring the troops home," read one of the many signs lifted by marchers on a sunny afternoon three years after the war in Iraq began. The mother of a Marine killed two years ago in Iraq held a picture of her son, born in 1984 and killed 20 years later.

    Cindy Sheehan, a vociferous critic of the war whose 24-year-old soldier son also died in Iraq, joined in the march, as did actress Susan Sarandon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. One group marched under the banner "Veterans for Peace," while other marchers came from as far off as Maryland and Vermont.

    You know what? I want this war over, too.

    I want all the fighting to stop, for our troops to come home. I want to never again fear the sound of jet engines carried upon the wind under bright blue skies. I want to never again turn on the news to see that a suicide bomber in an Tel Aviv or Bali or London or Poughkeepsie made widows and widowers and orphans for his bloodthirsty god. I want to be able to do without these concerns.

    Show me how.

    Show me how to stop bin Laden's planes and Zarqawi's swords with Peace and Love and warm squishy visions of Equality and Justice. Show me how a hug can stop an IED. Explain how constantly apologizing for simply being who I am will stop their lust for killing me for simply wanting to exist.

    Please do that. Find a solution. Go beyond your recycled rhetoric and show me how to co-exist with those who will murder the whole world for their thuggish god.

    But that would be too hard, and it isn't really your goal, is it? You exist to complain, not resolve. Resolving is so... messy.

    You can't bring your cute three year-old daughter to solve the real problems of the world. You can't even acknowledge the world is not a Benneton ad. There are people who want to murder that cute little girl simply because she is an American. Simply because she is a Christian, or a Jew, or a Wiccan. Simply because she wants to go to school, or chose her own fate, or grow up to think for herself, and not bend to their god's rigid dictums of what he says she must do and be and say.

    So please, show me how wandering down well-guarded streets on a nice spring day wearing cake make-up, chanting and waving a fan, will keep planes from shattering glass and steel and bodies. Show me how your leisurely stroll stops Next Time from happening. Do that, and I'll be found waving the largest "Bush=Hitler" sign at the very next rally.

    But that isn't how the world works is it?

    Predator and prey relationships, the most basic of interactions in nature, are something that the followers of the Church of Darwin refuse to acknowledge could apply to themselves.

    Show me how to reason with a zealot. In the split-second as his thumb drops on the plunger to detonate the bomb on his belt packed with hundreds of ball bearings, negotiate with him, infidel.

    I'm waiting.

    Show me how to stop Darwin. Show me how to stop their bloodlust.

    Show me that your "peace and justice" aren't empty words muttered by empty heads. Show me how capitulation to their plans for world domination will stop the killing instead of intensify it.

    Please.

    I'm waiting.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:24 PM | Comments (61) | TrackBack

    April 28, 2006

    Advertising Grey

    Chris Bowers of MyDD is angry that the marketers of United 93 have chosen an across-the-board buy on the conservative advertising network at BlogAds while ignoring the much large circulation at liberals blogs (4.37 million page views/week and 17.78 million page views/week, respectively).

    He writes:

    Why did the marketers of United Flight 93 decide to only advertise on conservative political blogs? The Liberal Blog Advertising Network is four times as large, and is even a 20-30% better deal per page view (or CPM, to use the relevant industry term). Do they think that attack is only relevant to red America? Do they think that only Republicans were attacked on 9/11? Do they think that only conservatives remember that day? Do they think that the only people who took action on United Flight 93 had voted for George Bush one year earlier?

    The Americans aboard Flight 93 were red and blue, male and female, white and not, gay and straight. They were all heroes, and all Americans recognize them as such. All of America was attacked on that day, and all of America worked to save lives that day. There have clearly been, and continue to be, disagreements about the appropriate course of action for us to pursue as a nation in response to that day. However, on September 11th itself, we were all united, including on United Flight 93.

    For some reason, in memory of that day, the marketers of Untied Flight 93 have taken it upon themselves to continue the conservative slander against liberals and progressives in this country that we don't remember that day, that we didn't care about the lives that were lost, and that we somehow hate our country. If any single day in American history should have shown just how utterly slanderous statement like that are, it was September 11th, when right in the heart of blue America we all stood together. And yet, even in the marketing of their own film about a day when we were not divided, Universals studios and the marketers of their latest film have chosen to divide us. That is sad and offensive. As not only the manager of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network, but also as a proud patriot who works every day to try and help the country that I love, the country in which I was raised, the country where nearly everyone who I ever loved lived, the country that has produced my favorite works of art, music and literature, that country that I still believe is the greatest beacon of hope the world has ever known, I am saddened and offended by this. And I promise that I will not be attending this movie, which I had been intended to see and review on Sunday, until I receive some sort of explanation on this matter.

    In some respects, Chris is right: on 9/11 we were not thinking about "red and blue, male and female, white and not, gay and straight."

    But we were pink and grey even then. The difference?

    The Pink Tribe is all about feeling good: feeling good about yourself! Sexually, emotionally, artistically – nothing is off limits, nothing is forbidden, convention is fossilized insanity and everybody gets to do their own thing without regard to consequences, reality, or natural law. We all have our own reality – one small personal reality is called “science,†say – and we Make Our Own Luck and we Visualize Good Things and There Are No Coincidences and Everything Happens for a Reason and You Can Be Whatever You Want to Be and we all have Special Psychic Powers and if something Bad should happen it's because Someone Bad Made It Happen. A Spell, perhaps.

    The Pink Tribe motto, in fact, is the ultimate Zen Koan, the sound of one hand clapping: EVERYBODY IS SPECIAL.

    Then, in the other corner, there is the Grey Tribe – the grey of reinforced concrete. This is a Tribe where emotion is repressed because Emotion Clouds Judgment. This is the world of Quadratic Equations and Stress Risers and Loads Torsional, Compressive and Tensile, a place where Reality Can Ruin Your Best Day, the place where Murphy mercilessly picks off the Weak and the Incompetent, where the Speed Limit is 186,282.36 miles per second, where every bridge has a Failure Load and levees come in 50 year, 100 year and 1000 Year Flood Flavors.

    The Grey Tribe motto is, near as I can tell, THINGS BREAK SOMETIMES AND PLEASE DON'T LET IT BE MY BRIDGE.

    You have to read Whittle's entire essay to catch the full effect, but the fact is that after 9/11 we did divide. It wasn't about "red and blue, male and female, white and not, gay and straight," but about taking a threat head on, or trying to stay in our comfort zones and pretending if we just found a way to be nice, it couldn't happen again.

    Greys, for rather obvious reasons, have an abiding affinity for sheepdogs and many followed them to the center right, whereas Pink gravitated towards the "reality-based" community of the center left instead. Former Democrats and social liberals have surprisingly found themselves identified as Grey, and some erstwhile conservatives have been found to be Pink to the core. Lines are crossed and re-crossed and mostly blurred, but is isn't about being a conservative or a liberal.

    It is about which way made you feel safe, Pink or Grey.

    The passengers who acted of Flight 93 were stone-cold Greys when it counted.

    The marketers of this film simply spent their cash where they though they could find an emotional hook, an accord that would work the best for them. Greys attract Greys, and anyone who reads blogs know that most of the Greys have pitched their tents to the right of center, even if in a temporary state. Good marketers market where the bulk of their target demographic lies.

    It really is an simple as that.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:14 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    April 27, 2006

    Misplaced Words

    Quick, see if you can find out what word is missing from the lede of this Associated Press article in the NY Times:

    Sen. Debbie Stabenow's campaign has corrected her campaign finance reports to show that some donations from 2002 and 2003 came from an Indian tribe then represented by now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, not an individual as she reported at the time.

    Stabenow's campaign originally reported that $4,000 in donations came from Christopher Petras, who was the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe's legislative director at the time. The donations came during a period in which Stabenow and other Michigan lawmakers sought funding for the tribe and wrote letters to federal regulators on the tribe's behalf.

    The campaign wrote the Federal Election Commission on April 14 to correct the report to show the donations came from the tribe. Records originally listed Petras as giving Stabenow's campaign $2,000 on March 6, 2002, and an equal amount on June 30, 2003. Copies of the checks showed the first was dated Feb. 20, 2002, and the second June 2, 2003.

    Give up? The word is Democrat.

    Don't bother looking for it in these paragraphs, or for that matter, in the entire article, even though Sen. Debbie Stabenow is in fact a Democrat. Apparently, the Associated Press does not want the words "Democrat" and "Abramoff" appearing in the same sentence, much less the same article.

    Miraculously, the AP does find a way to run this story with the Republican Party mentioned three times, twice directly relating it to Jack Abramoff.

    Just so we're clear, the Associated Press would like to remind us that whole Jack Abramoff affair is a Republican scandal.

    Please ignore that all but five Democratic Senators took contributions from Abramoff's clients. Ignore that Democrat Debbie Stabenow is re-writing her campaign report, and please, ignore the recent ethics complaint filed against Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for taking up to $66,000 from Abramoff's clients.

    You wouldn't want these inconvenient facts to get in the way of a good narrative, would you?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    April 24, 2006

    Illinois Dem Shrieks for Impeachment

    Oh, this is too rich:

    State Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood) has sponsored a resolution calling on the General Assembly to submit charges to the U.S. House so its lawmakers could begin impeachment proceedings.

    It would be the first state legislature to pass such a resolution, though the measure faces a dim future in a Republican-controlled Congress.
    ...

    "This president has acted like an emperor," Yarbrough said.

    Emperor Bush immediately had Rep. Yarbrough drawn and quartered, with her head placed on a pike at the palace gates as a warning to others.

    Get all the gory details at The New Editor.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    April 23, 2006

    Connections

    Ever wonder what happens when you set loose a military officer on a recently disgraced intelligence officer? You end up with a lot of interesting connections, courtesy of Mind in the Qatar.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Juan Cole's Uninformed Comment

    I generally ignore University of Michigan History Professor Juan Cole, who often seems little more than Oliver Willis with a PhD. This morning, however I noticed via Memeorandum a shoddily constructed piece he entitled All Right, Not All Right, and I felt compelled to respond.

    Professor Cole's post was one of many that I have seen trying to push the meme that the administration shouldn't penalize those who illegally leak classified information, if they are going to “leak†classified information themselves.

    This of course is a valid criticism if true, but what Cole and his center left compatriots consistently and willfully ignore in propping up their strawman argument is the simple, unassailable fact that the President and Vice President (via an update to a Clinton-era Executive order) have the authority to classify and declassify information for both broadcast (widespread media) and narrowcast (targeted, selective media) distribution. Only releases made by those without legal declassification are illegal leaks. Those news releases made with Administration approval, whether broadcast or narrowcast, are 100% legal.

    Democrats in general and liberals in particular may not like the fact that the Administration has this legal authority to narrowcast information, but the remedy is simple: win elections. Instead of going this route, however Cole and his merry cohorts try to obfuscate the truth and twist facts.

    Need proof? Read on.

    Cole's article tries to make comparisons between various "leeks," while keeping the strawman alive that legal narrowcasts of declassified information are the same as illegal leaking of classified information.

    He starts by making a claim against White House Advisor Karl Rove:

    It IS all right for Bush campaign strategist Karl Rove to leak classified intelligence about the identity of Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA operative.

    A damning charge to be sure, but what does Cole have as proof of his allegations? Nothing it turns out. The MSNBC article he links to says specifically that:

    ...Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article. It is unclear, however, what passed between Cooper and Rove.

    The second link is a self-referential link back to Cole's own site, hardly evidence of any wrongdoing. Cole makes an assertion that he can provide no factual evidence to support. I think this failure to support his charge shows far more about Cole's inability to formulate a valid thesis than it does anything about Karl Rove.

    Professor Cole, after failing to make the case against Rove, seems to be making the attempt to exonerate newly-disgraced CIA officer Mary McCarthy:

    It is NOT all right for CIA employee Mary McCarthy to leak classified information and blow the whistle on secret torture prisons maintained by the US government in Eastern Europe. (There is disagreement on who the criminals are here, however.)

    Here, Cole tries to misdirect his readers. Cole tries to make the outlandish charge that McCarthy had to illegally leak classified information to the Washington Post's Dana Priest on multiple occasions to "expose" what she felt was an illegal act.

    But Mary McCarthy worked in the Inspector General's office of the CIA, placing her in the best possible position to legally blow the whistle on any activities by the CIA she may have thought illegal. McCarthy, perhaps more than almost any other officer in the CIA, know what was the legal way to expose information, and what was illegal. She willfully chose to commit a crime when other options were open to her, and for that there is no excuse.

    Cole continues:

    It is NOT all right for Larry Franklin, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz's "go-to" man for Iran at the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia Iran desk to pass classified documents to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which then passed them on to a spy, Naor Gilon, in the Israeli embassy.

    Again, Cole seems to have a problem understanding that Franklin cannot legally declassify and pass along information on his own. He then tries to tie Franklins' case to this allegation:

    It IS all right for Secretary of State Condi Rice to discuss with AIPAC Middle East operative Steve Rosen some of the same things that were in the documents passed to him and Keith Weissman by Larry Franklin, who is in jail for it.

    Once again, as he did above, Cole tries to pass off an unsupported allegation as a fact. Franklin plead guilty. He knows what he did was wrong, and admitted it.

    Rosen, trying to keep from facing jail time for his own illegal acts, is trying to do anything at all possible to muddy the waters, and that includes dragging in Secretary of State Rice, former Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni, and two others if at all possible. Once again, these are allegations, and unsupported by any evidence. Cole once again proves that the closest he can get to a valid thesis is wishful thinking.

    As I stated above, the President and Vice President have the authority to classify and declassify information for both broadcast (widespread media) and narrowcast (targeted, selective media) distribution, and releases made without legal declassification are criminal acts.

    I can only hope for his student's sake that Juan Cole is a better history professor than he is a political commentator.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:12 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    April 21, 2006

    CIA Officer Didn't CYA

    A CIA agent has been fired for leaking classified information to the media:

    CIA officials will not reveal the officer's name, assignment, or the information that was leaked. The firing is a highly unusual move, although there has been an ongoing investigation into leaks in the CIA.

    One official called this a "damaging leak" that deals with operational information and said the fired officer "knowingly and willfully" leaked the information to the media and "was caught."

    The CIA officer was not in the public affairs office, nor was he someone authorized to talk to the media. The investigation was launched in January by the CIA's security center. It was directed to look at employees who had been exposed to certain intelligence programs. In the course of the investigation, the fired officer admitted discussing classified information including information about classified operations.

    The investigation is ongoing.

    A Justice Department spokesman said "no comment" on the firing. The spokesman also would not say whether the agency was looking into any criminal action against the officer.


    Gee... I wonder who it was?

    In all seriousness, this is damaging for certain political factions within the CIA, and was almost certainly a shot across the proverbial bow by Porter Goss, the former agent hired by the President to clean up the Agency. It will be very interesting in the days to come to see if this was an isolated incident, or if this is simply the first in a series of house-cleaning moves long overdue.

    Note: A.J. Strata concludes that the CIA was fired for leaks that led to the N.Y. Times publishing the original NSA wire-tapping story. The CIA does appear in the NY Times article, but this AP story ties the firing to the Washington Post's secret prison story from late last year.

    Update: Rick Moran brings up the very interesting possibility that since no evidence that the secret prisons ever existed, that the operation that brought down CIA officer Mary McCarthy may have been a sophisticated "sting" to target leakers (h/t Captain Ed).

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:02 PM | Comments (24) | TrackBack

    April 20, 2006

    I Question the Timing

    Like others, I noticed with a quite a bit of cynicism the report of immigration raids conducted yesterday with what appears to political timing. Michelle Malkin not only notes this occurrence, she provides a GAO document showing just how shoddy immigration enforcement has been during the Bush Administration, which makes the timing of the raid even more suspect.

    It could been far worse, however.

    Some politically-timed government raids have ended with a tragic loss of life, like the April 19, 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, TX (timeline via PBS), just as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was coming up for a funding review in Congress. 80 people died in an inferno after an 80-day standoff that started with a botched raid that left 4 federal agents and six Davidians killed.

    Interestingly enough, on the same day the immigrations raids were announced, CNN also carried a story noting that six of the seven Davidians imprisoned after the standoff will be freed from prison in the next two months.

    I guess we can at least be thankful that these latest politically-timed raids didn't end in a loss of life.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 19, 2006

    Carl Bernstein: Kicking and Screaming

    Carl Bernstein longs to be relevant again.

    His recent piece in Vanity Fair will not provide that relevance, painting him instead as a man whose drive for past glory has reduced him to parroting almost shriek-for-shriek tenants of the far left long proven false or misleading. He has grown intellectually lazy and lethargic, producing a column unworthy of a front page diary at the Daily Kos—or perhaps worse, provides a column that is specifically what one would expect at Kos or the rabid message boards of the Democratic Underground.

    It begins:

    Worse than Watergate? High crimes and misdemeanors justifying the impeachment of George W. Bush, as increasing numbers of Democrats in Washington hope, and, sotto voce, increasing numbers of Republicans—including some of the president's top lieutenants—now fear? Leaders of both parties are acutely aware of the vehemence of anti-Bush sentiment in the country, expressed especially in the increasing number of Americans—nearing 50 percent in some polls—who say they would favor impeachment if the president were proved to have deliberately lied to justify going to war in Iraq.

    John Dean, the Watergate conspirator who ultimately shattered the Watergate conspiracy, rendered his precipitous (or perhaps prescient) impeachment verdict on Bush two years ago in the affirmative, without so much as a question mark in choosing the title of his book Worse than Watergate. On March 31, some three decades after he testified at the seminal hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee, Dean reiterated his dark view of Bush's presidency in a congressional hearing that shed more noise than light, and more partisan rancor than genuine inquiry. The ostensible subject: whether Bush should be censured for unconstitutional conduct in ordering electronic surveillance of Americans without a warrant.

    Raising the worse-than-Watergate question and demanding unequivocally that Congress seek to answer it is, in fact, overdue and more than justified by ample evidence stacked up from Baghdad back to New Orleans and, of increasing relevance, inside a special prosecutor's office in downtown Washington.

    In terms of imminent, meaningful action by the Congress, however, the question of whether the president should be impeached (or, less severely, censured) remains premature. More important, it is essential that the Senate vote—hopefully before the November elections, and with overwhelming support from both parties—to undertake a full investigation of the conduct of the presidency of George W. Bush, along the lines of the Senate Watergate Committee's investigation during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.

    Ignoring the incoherent first sentence that never should have made it past an editor's desk, Bernstein calls for a Bush Administration investigation based upon polling data and the words of a convicted felon shilling a book, and his call for an vague, wide-ranging inquisition "of the conduct of the presidency" is a hopeful wail from a partisan hoping for a witch hunt, based upon... well what, exactly?



    How much evidence is there to justify such action?

    Certainly enough to form a consensus around a national imperative: to learn what this president and his vice president knew and when they knew it; to determine what the Bush administration has done under the guise of national security; and to find out who did what, whether legal or illegal, unconstitutional or merely under the wire, in ignorance or incompetence or with good reason, while the administration barricaded itself behind the most Draconian secrecy and disingenuous information policies of the modern presidential era.

    "We ought to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated, again, by the American people," said Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on April 9. "The President of the United States owes a specific explanation to the American people … about exactly what he did." Specter was speaking specifically about a special prosecutor's assertion that Bush selectively declassified information (of dubious accuracy) and instructed the vice president to leak it to reporters to undermine criticism of the decision to go to war in Iraq. But the senator's comments would be even more appropriately directed at far more pervasive and darker questions that must be answered if the American political system is to acquit itself in the Bush era, as it did in Nixon's.

    Oh, the tiredness of it all! Dredging up the one-hit wonder of "what they knew and when they knew it," Bernstein in no way attempts to apply that broad charge to a specific, credible allegation that the law requires. Instead, he hangs it out there, as untended gill net, furtively hoping to ensnare anything and everything that drifts past.

    Bernstein, unable or unwilling to bring into focus charges of his own, attempts to make Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter his whipping boy, selectively quoting and rearranging the order Specter's to make it appear that Bush did something illegal and not within his power. But what did Specter say, and how did he say it?

    Via the transcript of Fox News Sunday, the actual conversation between host Brit Hume and Senator Specter:

    HUME: ...Is it your view that what the president and the vice president, as well, did in that matter constituted a leak?

    SPECTER: I don't know, because all of the facts aren't out, and I think that it is necessary for the president and the vice president to tell the American people exactly what happened.

    Brit, I think too often we jump to conclusions before we know what all of the facts are, and I'm not about to condemn or criticize anybody, but I do say that there's been enough of a showing here with what's been filed of record in court that the president of the United States owes a specific explanation to the American people.

    HUME: About the release of this information or what?

    SPECTER: Well, about exactly what he did. The president has the authority to declassify information. So in a technical sense, if he looked at it, he could say this is declassified, and make a disclosure of it.

    There have been a number of reports, most recently — I heard just this morning — that the president didn't tell the vice president specifically what to do but just said get it out. And we don't know precisely what the vice president did.

    And as usual, Brit, the devil is in the details. And I think that there has to be a detailed explanation precisely as to what Vice President Cheney did, what the president said to him, and an explanation from the president as to what he said so that it can be evaluated.

    The president may be entirely in the clear, and it may turn out that he had the authority to make the disclosures which were made, but that it was not the right way to go about it, because we ought not to have leaks in government. We ought not to have them.

    And the president has justifiably criticized the Congress for leaking and, of course, the White House has leaked. But we ought to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated, again, by the American people.

    [bold mine - ed]

    Bernstein reorders and selectively quotes Specter's statements, conveniently leaving out that while Specter would like to know the details of the inner workings of the White House (wouldn't we all?), Specter acknowledges that Bush does have the specific authority to declassify information. Furthermore, on March 25, 2003 Bush amended President Bill Clinton's Executive Order 12958 to extend that power to the office of the vice president when acting "in the performance of executive duties." How forgetful of Mr. Bernstein to omit these inconvenient details.

    Long on generalities and short on facts, Bernstein attempts to press an already weak attack:

    Perhaps there are facts or mitigating circumstances, given the extraordinary nature of conceiving and fighting a war on terror, that justify some of the more questionable policies and conduct of this presidency, even those that turned a natural disaster in New Orleans into a catastrophe of incompetence and neglect. But the truth is we have no trustworthy official record of what has occurred in almost any aspect of this administration, how decisions were reached, and even what the actual policies promulgated and approved by the president are. Nor will we, until the subpoena powers of the Congress are used (as in Watergate) to find out the facts—not just about the war in Iraq, almost every aspect of it, beginning with the road to war, but other essential elements of Bush's presidency, particularly the routine disregard for truthfulness in the dissemination of information to the American people and Congress.

    The first fundamental question that needs to be answered by and about the president, the vice president, and their political and national-security aides, from Donald Rumsfeld to Condoleezza Rice, to Karl Rove, to Michael Chertoff, to Colin Powell, to George Tenet, to Paul Wolfowitz, to Andrew Card (and a dozen others), is whether lying, disinformation, misinformation, and manipulation of information have been a basic matter of policy—used to overwhelm dissent; to hide troublesome truths and inconvenient data from the press, public, and Congress; and to defend the president and his actions when he and they have gone awry or utterly failed.

    Once again, the formerly great writer calls for a congressional inquisition into every aspect of the Bush Presidency, but cannot provide a single, specific reason why it should occur. Citing everything from warfighting to domestic disaster response, Bernstein asks for the unprecedented: an apparent play-by-play stenographic record of every decision ever made in an attempt to second-guess and undermine a sitting President, ostensibly expanding congressional and media powers with an impossibly broad investigative self-mandate to usurp those powers afforded to the Executive Branch by the Constitution. It is a coward's call for insurrection that no American President in this nation's history has ever had to endure.

    From this fevered cry, Bernstein plunges headlong into a litany of charges made up of theories long debunked and ideas half-baked, made by the anonymous and the vengeful:

    Most of what we have learned about the reality of this administration—and the disconcerting mind-set and decision-making process of President Bush himself—has come not from the White House or the Pentagon or the Department of Homeland Security or the Treasury Department, but from insider accounts by disaffected members of the administration after their departure, and from distinguished journalists, and, in the case of a skeletal but hugely significant body of information, from a special prosecutor. And also, of late, from an aide-de-camp to the British prime minister. Almost invariably, their accounts have revealed what the president and those serving him have deliberately concealed—torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, and its apparent authorization by presidential fiat; wholesale N.S.A. domestic wiretapping in contravention of specific prohibitive law; brutal interrogations of prisoners shipped secretly by the C.I.A. and U.S. military to Third World gulags; the nonexistence of W.M.D. in Iraq; the role of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's chief of staff in divulging the name of an undercover C.I.A. employee; the non-role of Saddam Hussein and Iraq in the events of 9/11; the death by friendly fire of Pat Tillman (whose mother, Mary Tillman, told journalist Robert Scheer, "The administration tried to attach themselves to his virtue and then they wiped their feet with him"); the lack of a coherent post-invasion strategy for Iraq, with all its consequent tragedy and loss and destabilizing global implications; the failure to coordinate economic policies for America's long-term financial health (including the misguided tax cuts) with funding a war that will drive the national debt above a trillion dollars; the assurance of Wolfowitz (since rewarded by Bush with the presidency of the World Bank) that Iraq's oil reserves would pay for the war within two to three years after the invasion; and Bush's like-minded confidence, expressed to Blair, that serious internecine strife in Iraq would be unlikely after the invasion.

    Insider accounts from which disaffected members of the administration, and which distinguished journalists? Bernstein can't be troubled to provide those essential details, and instead dives into a sea of conspiracies unprovable or disproven.

    Bernstein will not say that the "aide-de-camp to the British prime minister" he ostensibly cites in reference to the so-called "Downing Street Memos" were composed almost exclusively of high-level summaries composed by British diplomats of conversations had by British intelligence officers and diplomats who were relating what they remembered of conversations they had with their American counterparts about what the Americans thought about what they thought the President said. Why didn't Bernstein go the final step, and connect them all to Kevin Bacon?

    Not a single credible witness has come forward to tie the Administration to abuse at Abu Graib, and those who did commit the abuses there were tried and convicted in a court of law. Charges leveled against Marines performing their duties at Guantanamo Bay have turned out to be baseless, and in many cases were made by those who had never set foot on the island.

    Bernstein goes as far as to blatantly lie to his readers, stating that the Administration engaged in "wholesale N.S.A. domestic wiretapping in contravention of specific prohibitive law," when not a single credible person connected to the program in any way has ever provided the first shred of evidence that this program was anything other than the specific, targeted intercepts of international communications affiliated with suspected terrorists. I charge Bernstein to provide any evidence of this charge. He cannot, relying instead upon insinuation, hyperbole, and unsubstantiated claims, which not coincidentally, make up the overwhelming majority of his spurious, politically motivated charges.

    Carl Bernstein, once a journalist credited with taking down a clearly corrupt President for specific criminal charges, has pissed away his credibility and goodwill American citizens may retain for him in an article that could have been scripted by Hugo Chavez and Michael Moore. It is sad to see a once great man futility tilting at windmills, trying to regain glories and respect long past, but it is even more repulsive when Carl Bernstein would undermine our very system of government with an open-ended inquisition of one branch by another in his pursuit of past glories.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:32 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    April 18, 2006

    Purdue BDS

    Vikram Buddhi, you've got some 'splaining to do (h/t Drudge):

    Buddhi told investigators he posted the message, along with other derogatory messages aimed at the president, but Martin said Buddhi's actions should be covered by the First Amendment since Buddhi would have never actually carried out his threats.

    In the various messages posted, Buddhi urged the Web site's readers to bomb the United States and for them to rape American and British women and mutilate them, according to court documents. Other messages called for the killing of all Republicans.

    "What was allegedly said certainly is derogatory and may be inflammatory," Martin said. "But there's no real serious threat more than it was chat on the Web."

    Martin, of course is citing the First Amendment clause which grants an exception to those who advocate Killing George Bush, Laura Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and the rape and mutilation of western women.

    In the wake of these charges, Buddhi was immediately offered teaching assistant positions by Karachi State University and Yale, which offered Buddhi a John Hinkley Jr. Fellowship…

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:17 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    Salting Slugs

    Slimy and spineless, subsisting on a steady diet of debris and feces and preferring to hide in dark, dank places, it seems that the University of California at Santa Cruz chose their mascot of a banana slug wisely.

    One week ago, today a group of UC Santa Cruz students calling themselves Students Against War (SAW) committed felonies by blocking military recruiters from the U.S. Army and National Guard attempting to participate in a job fair on campus. According to the exact letter of the law as it is written in Title 18, Part I, chapter 115 Section 2388 (a):

    Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully makes or conveys false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies; or Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully causes or attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or willfully obstructs the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service or the United States, or attempts to do so -

    Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

    [emphasis mine - ed.]

    Clearly, by willfully obstructing the recruiting efforts, these students committed felonies covered by federal treason and sedition laws, but that has not inflamed public sensitivities. No, what has inflamed the Left is the simple act of conservative Michelle Malkin, who posted the contact information of the organizers from the SAW press release (names since removed) on her blog.

    As a result of posting this contact information, the three student activists who led this illegal act - Sam Aranke, Janine Carmona, and David Zlutnick - have been inundated with irate phone calls and emails. Some, perhaps many of them were threatening. The students have since asked Malkin to remove their contact information even though it has been used (and is still being used) by other fringe group web sites to help in their recruiting efforts.

    Not surprisingly, the left wants to have it both ways. They want to be able to recruit on their own without objection or impassioned criticism, while they at the same time object to military recruiting by committing felonious acts of treason and sedition, and hope to get away with it without any response.

    Blogger Ezra Klein, not surprisingly a Slug himself, wants to generate sympathy for these criminals, calling them:

    ...young, idealistic kids determined to save the world, feeling their way through uncertain thickets of ideology and unfamiliar collections of ideas, and naive about the dangers of direct political action outside a university's protected confines.

    Klein would excuse a felonious act with a good intention, and would make college a place where laws do not apply. In his fantasy world that may be the case, but as Duke university lacrosse team members found out at 5:00 AM this morning, college enrollment is no excuse for committing one or more felonies.

    Sam Aranke, Janine Carmona, and David Zlutnick proudly conspired to commit a felonious act against the United States. A few empty emailed death threats are a mild penalty compared to the jail time that they and their treasonous compatriots so richly deserve.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:10 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

    April 12, 2006

    Cut and Run Republicans

    We've been "Fristed" again in the illegal immigration debate, and this time House leader Dennis Hastert has joined the chorus of cowardice:

    House Republicans rushed through legislation just before Christmas that would build hundreds of miles of fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, require that businesses verify the legality of all employees' status through a national database, fortify border patrols, and declare illegal immigrants and those who help them to be felons. After more lenient legislation failed in the Senate last week, the House-passed version burst into the public consciousness this week, as hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country turned out to denounce the bill.

    Yesterday, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) issued a joint statement seeking to deflect blame for the harshest provisions of the House bill toward the Democrats, who they said showed a lack of compassion. "It remains our intent to produce a strong border security bill that will not make unlawful presence in the United States a felony," Hastert and Frist said.

    Once again Republican leaders show they are not worthy of leading even their own parties, much less America. Bill Frist, who would like to become President, proves once again why he does not have the spine for the office he seeks. He will not garner my vote under any circumstance.

    Increasingly, a third party vote for a truly conservative candidate coming out of either party seems palatable. As Dan Riehl notes:

    I hope there's a leader somewhere in that crumbling party, which today appears to be a shadow of itself, full of political whores intent on abandoning principle so as to pimp themselves for votes. If Republicans remain on this co-dependent Democrat path they are on, look for significant third party challenges from the Right. From what I am seeing today, I would strongly consider voting for one now.

    The Democrats still can't win elections, but the GOP seem intent on losing them. as they run the party into the ground.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:19 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    April 10, 2006

    It Washes Off in the Rio Grande

    Some are estimating that as many as one million people—roughly one for every twelve illegals—will be protesting today in what are calling a national day of action for "immigrants' dignity."

    Thousands of demonstrators wearing white T-shirts and waving signs and American flags filled the streets of an immigrant neighborhood Monday for the first of dozens of marches planned in a national day of action billed as a "campaign for immigrants' dignity."

    The two-mile Atlanta march was in support of immigrant rights nationally as well as in protest of state legislation awaiting Gov. Sonny Perdue's signature. If signed, it would require that adults seeking many state-administered benefits prove they are in the country legally.

    Carlos Carrera, a construction worker from Mexico, held a large banner that read: "We are not criminals. Give us a chance for a better life."

    Dignity?

    To borrow from Inigo Montoya in The Princes Bride, "I do not think that word means what they thinks it means."

    Dignity, according to the relevant part of the entry in the Free Online Dictionary, is:

    1. The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect. 2. Inherent nobility and worth: the dignity of honest labor. 3. a. Poise and self-respect. b. Stateliness and formality in manner and appearance.

    Dignity, it seems fair to say, is something that you either have, or something you have not. You cannot impart an inherent quality; it is present, or it isn't. Dignity can be lost and regained, but it is not something anyone else can bestow upon you.

    Illegal immigrants have no dignity because they know that no matter how much they deny it, they are criminals, each and every one, without exception. You may not like that label, Carlos Carrera, but is still the truth. You run from problems in your own country instead of finding a way to make your own nation better, and leach off American citizens that which is not rightfully yours to take.

    Illegals don't take tax dollars from America's rich, they steal it from America's poor, robbing the weakest in our society of what we have set aside for them. They are criminals for crossing our borders against our laws. They are criminals for stealing services allocated to our poor. I have heard of honor among thieves, but never dignity. Illegals have no dignity, and deserve no respect.

    Do you really want dignity, illegals? Go back to your home countries. Make yourselves worthy of respect by reforming your corrupt governments, instead of trying to undermine ours. If you do come here, do so legally. Follow our laws. Respect our traditions and our cultures, and you will find that respect reciprocated. Disrespect us, demanding by the hundreds of thousands what is not your to demand, only hardens our hearts to your transgressions.

    All twelve million illegals can protest for dignity, but dignity is not something that can be given to criminals.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:06 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    April 08, 2006

    EXCLUSIVE: NSA Used Technology, not Mind Control, to Intercept Calls

    This proves what, exactly?

    AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.

    Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.

    This sounds serious, but what exactly does Klein say he actually saw?

    AT&T was providing "full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment" according to Klein. A "secret room," that apparently all AT&T technicians knew about, was openly built beside the room housing AT&T's switching equipment for international and long distance calls.

    Regular AT&T technicians, including Klein, connected circuits to a splitting cabinet leading to the secret room, which was so secret, it seems many AT&T employees knew they were being built not just there in San Francisco, but in Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego. Obviously, this was something they were taking great efforts in trying to hide.

    Then Klein adds:

    Klein said he came forward because he does not believe that the Bush administration is being truthful about the extent of its extrajudicial monitoring of Americans' communications.

    "Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA's spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA's charter or with FISA," Klein's wrote. "And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals' phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens."

    So what Klein actually saw was that voice and data communications were shunted into a room that he was not allowed access to, and that he did not see any external filtering equipment that blocked voice or data communications before they entered that room.

    I ask a simple question: Why would the NSA put any of their top secret, state-of-the-art equipment, including the technologies they use to target and filter calls, anywhere but in a secret room?

    As a taxpayer, I wouldn't want the equipment laying around where just anyone, be it a Mark Klein or an AT&T employee working for China on the side, could access it, reveal details about it, or possibly corrupt it.

    Klein's statements are based at least partially on politics, as he shows a dislike for the Administration in his statements. In the end, he only confirms the existence of the location of one specific NSA intercept site, and nothing about the program itself. He adds very little to the national debate.

    Once again, the evidence (or lack thereof) is irrelevant; it's the seriousness of the charge that seems to matter.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

    And Speaking of Credibility...

    Joe Wilson reveals more about himself than he probably should. No wonder his wife wanted a secret identity.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:58 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    April 06, 2006

    Fristed

    On the day the Gospel of Judas was revealed, Senate Republicans declared their betrayal of Republican voters.

    Senate Republicans have put forth a proposal that awards more benefits to illegals the longer they've broken immigration laws. The immigration "compromise" that John O'Sullivan properly recognizes as a surrender leaves many angry conservatives feeling violated and abused by Senate Republicans led by Bill Frist that refused to listen to their constituents.

    We were violated by our own party, who proved one again securing the nation's borders really doesn't matter to them. I hope these Senators enjoy ever second of their surrender of values, as conservative bloggers will not let the 65% supermajority of Republicans voters forget this betrayal in elections to come.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:21 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    McKinney: Symptom of the Disease

    Via CNN:

    No more he-grabbed-she-slapped -- whether U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney should be charged over a confrontation with Capitol Police last week will be decided by a grand jury, perhaps as soon as next week, said federal law enforcement sources familiar with the case.

    Prosecutors have decided to present the case, and the grand jury will begin hearing testimony Thursday, the two sources said.

    Senior congressional sources said that two House staff members -- Troy Phillips, an aide to Rep. Sam Farr, D-California, and Lisa Subrize, executive assistant to Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Michigan -- have been subpoenaed to testify.

    The Justice Department and the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, which is handling the case, refused to comment.

    Law enforcement officials refuse to comment, while McKinney refuses to shut up, or even apologize, instead insisting that this isn't a matter of security, but one of race.

    But it is about security, as it was July 24, 1998, when Capitol Police officers John Gibson and Jacob Chestnut were gunned down trying to protect members of Congress just like McKinney at the same kind of checkpoint she bypassed and ignored.


    Slain Capitol Police officers John M. Gibson, left, and Jacob J. Chestnut, right.
    Via the Washington Post.

    Officer Chestnut was in a very similar situation to the one Cynthia McKinney placed the Capitol Police in last week, when she bypassed a metal detector like the one Officer Chestnut was manning and refused to stop.

    The difference between the instances was that a bullet from Russell Weston's .38-caliber revolver killed Officer Chestnut almost instantly as he pushed through the checkpoint in 1998, and the Capitol Police were fortunate that Representative McKinney was armed only with a cell phone.

    Cynthia McKinney has no respect for the men and women of the Capitol Police force who have placed their lives on the line for her day in and day out, and the dead silence of her fellow Democrats speaks volumes about how they feel about crimes against the police as well.

    Democrats refuse to engage in the issue, preferring to ignore it, hoping it will go away. I think we've seen that plan before.

    Update: DeLay speaks about these officers past and present as well (h/t reader Tom TB).

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:14 AM | Comments (41) | TrackBack

    Time to Leave

    Senate Republicans released a new immigration proposal Wednesday night that amounts to little more than a graduated amnesty program, rewarding the most those who have broken federal immigration laws the longest. According to MSNBC:

    Republican officials said the GOP plan would divide illegal immigrants into three categories:
    • Those who had been in the country the longest, more than five years, would not be required to return to their home country before gaining legal status. They would be subject to several tests, including the payment of fines and back taxes, and be required to submit to a background check, according to these officials.
    • Illegal immigrants in the United States less than five years but more than two would be required to go to a border point of entry, briefly leave and then be readmitted to the United States. As with the longer-term illegal immigrants, other steps would be required for re-entry, after which they could begin seeking citizenship, these officials said.
    • Illegal immigrants in the United States less than two years would be required to leave the country and join any other foreign residents seeking legal entry.
    The officials who described the proposal did so on condition of anonymity, saying the had not been authorized to pre-empt senators.

    These weak-willed Senate Republicans are sending the message that the longer an illegal alien has broken the law, the more that crime is acceptable. That is not the message we should be sending to those so openly contemptuous of our nation's laws. The message we should be sending?

    It's time to leave.

    Kill the market for illegal jobs by building a controlled legal market though a strong guest worker program. Make it too risky for companies to hire illegals by imposing stiff fines on employers using illegal immigrant labor. It will not result in mass government-run deportations, but a gradual, economics-run repatriation of illegals when they can no longer find work in this country.

    It's time to leave.

    Now.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:24 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    April 04, 2006

    Legacies

    Richard Cohen of the Washington Post has a dyspeptic editorial up this morning, A Hole in Which Hopes Are Buried, in which he expresses general outrage at everything George W. Bush.

    Cohen starts his rant at Ground Zero:

    President Bush is starting to look beyond his presidency. His focus is on his legacy, which he is sure will vindicate his decision to go to war in Iraq. But his most fitting memorial is likely to be where I was Sunday: the immense gash in Lower Manhattan known as Ground Zero. More than 4 1/2 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the hole has yet to be filled.

    Tourists come and look. The selling of souvenirs is prohibited at the site itself, but around the corner, on Vesey Street, peddlers hug the shadows. The proper souvenir to take away from this place, though, is the memory of its immense emptiness. It's a hole filled with broken promises and silly rhetoric, an inverted monument to the Bush administration's unfathomable failure even to capture Osama bin Laden.

    Cohen attempts to affix the failure to rebuild the WTC site as Bush's legacy, as if urban commercial architect were among the many mythical powers he has assumed in his imagined “imperial presidency.†But Bush is not to blame for the failure to rebuild at Ground Zero. Rounds of ensuing site designs have been brought forth, shot down, and slowed down because of politics, lawsuits wrangling over insurance monies, and safety concerns, all local issues.

    He then chastises the President for not yet getting Osama bin Laden. I once thought more of Richard Cohen, but he seems unable to grasp the simple fact that Osama is a figurehead, a symbolic leader whose operational capabilities have steadily declined in every nation as al Qaeda cells are picked off one-by-one around the world. But then, Cohen isn't really interested in bin Laden. Were Bush to call a joint session of Congress and have bin Laden's head literally brought out on a silver platter, Cohen would assuredly be among the first to quote the Dali Llama saying that the death of bin Laden would just create ten more.

    What Richard Cohen will not do, is face the brutal fact that the man he so openly admires, William Jefferson Clinton, through inaction in the Sudan and repeated hesitancy in Afghanistan, allowed bin Laden to live to see the horrors his disciples would create.

    The two felled Towers and the 2,792 souls taken in their collapse are a legacy to Clinton's inaction, not Bush's bravado. Ground Zero is the hole that Bill built.

    Cohen rails about President bush's supposed incompetence in waging war, yet fails to account for President Clinton's abject failure in waging peace that led us to where we are today. If Bush's legacy is a void, Bill Clinton's legacy is a blackened September sky.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    April 03, 2006

    Big Easy Babylon

    Outside the oceanographic certainty that the French Quarter is destined to be part of the Gulf of Mexico sea floor sooner rather than later, the polarized racial politics of the mayoral race in a post-Katrina New Orleans betrays a bigoted Big Easy that might be too repulsive to rebuild:

    Instead, with the city's majority-black status in doubt for the first time in decades, one dominant motif has emerged from the campaign: race, which for nearly 30 years has been merely a muted subtheme in politics here. Since 1978, New Orleans has elected black mayors, and there has been little doubt about the racial identity of the eventual winner.

    This year, each of the three major candidates or their supporters have aligned themselves along racial lines, with each camp hoping it has singled out the correct, and as yet unknown, demographic.

    In part, this is a measure of how far the office of mayor has been reduced in the seven months after the storm.

    If this election has been reduced to nothing more than a census in a hole in a swamp, are the cultural remains of New Orleans really worth rebuilding?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Without Further DeLay

    The Washington Post reports that former House majority leader Tom DeLay has announced his retirement:

    Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), a primary architect of the House Republican majority who became one of the most powerful and feared leaders in Washington, told House allies Monday night he will step down from the House rather than face a reelection fight that appears increasingly unwinnable.

    The decision came just three days after his former deputy chief of staff, Tony C. Rudy, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and corruption charges, telling federal prosecutors of a criminal enterprise being run out of DeLay's leadership offices. Rudy's plea agreement did not implicate DeLay in any illegal activities, but by placing the influence-buying efforts of disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff directly in DeLay's operation, the former aide may have made an already difficult reelection bid all but out of reach.

    DeLay, who turns 60 this Saturday, did not say precisely when he would step down, but under Texas law, he must take himself out of reelection consideration by August if his name is to be removed from the November ballot.

    In recent memory DeLay has been dogged with allegations of corruption with the guilty pleas of Jack Abramoff and his former press secretary, Michael Scanlon, preceding the even more recent Rudy plea. I think this is a pretty strong indication that DeLay feels charges against himself are imminent, and that his future prospects will now depend on the work of prosecutors instead of pollsters.

    Update: Mike Allen of Time has the exclusive interview with DeLay.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    Nuts in Texas

    Tom Elia at the New Editor makes me wonder:

    Who is more insane, the college professor who gave a speech calling for the destruction of humanity with the ebloa virus, or those in attendence who gave him a standing ovation?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:06 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    April 02, 2006

    And What Was It Before?

    The NY Times released an anonymous editorial Sunday titled, "The Endgame in Iraq." To read it is to understand why the Times is failing both financially and intellectually.

    Iraq is becoming a country that America should be ashamed to support, let alone occupy.

    And what was it before? A brutal dictatorship that ran rape rooms and torture centers, a thugocracy that twice invaded its neighbors and used chemical weapons against civilian and soldier alike.

    The nation as a whole is sliding closer to open civil war. In its capital, thugs kidnap and torture innocent civilians with impunity, then murder them for their religious beliefs.


    And what was it before? A country where the government itself kidnapped and murdered not dozens, but hundreds or thousands at a time. Does the Times simply prefer state-sanctioned mass murders to ad hoc slaughter?

    The rights of women are evaporating.

    And what were they before? Rape rooms, RAPE ROOMS were run by the government itself.

    The head of the government is the ally of a radical anti-American cleric who leads a powerful private militia that is behind much of the sectarian terror.

    And what was it before? The head of government ran what was once the fourth largest army in the world, not 10,000 ragtag thugs, and Saddam's "state security" murdered more civilians in "peacetime" that Iraq lost during the war and occupation combined.

    The Bush administration will not acknowledge the desperate situation. But it is, at least, pushing in the right direction, trying to mobilize all possible leverage in a frantic effort to persuade the leading Shiite parties to embrace more inclusive policies and support a broad-based national government.

    One vital goal is to persuade the Shiites to abort their disastrous nomination of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Mr. Jaafari is unable to form a broadly inclusive government and has made no serious effort to rein in police death squads. Even some Shiite leaders are now calling on him to step aside. If his nomination stands and is confirmed by Parliament, civil war will become much harder to head off. And from the American perspective, the Iraqi government will have become something that no parent should be asked to risk a soldier son or daughter to protect.

    And what was it before? When at any time, was this war not a "desperate situation" for those reporting for the New York Times? Since before this war began, the Times has consistently prescribed clouds of doom for every lining of silver. The very fact that even Shiites are calling for al-Jaafari to step down is a measure many did not expect. Iraqis want peace, having seen enough death and destruction in the hands of the dictator the Times presumably would prefer to remain in power. It is hardly surprising that the Times would feel that no soldier should risk his life to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan. They didn't support this from the beginning and helped create this situation by giving the insurgency hope, so why should they change their approach now?

    Unfortunately, after three years of policy blunders in Iraq, Washington may no longer have the political or military capital to prevail. That may be hard for Americans to understand, since it was the United States invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and helped the Shiite majority to power. Some 140,000 American troops remain in Iraq, more than 2,000 American servicemen and servicewomen have died there so far and hundreds of billions of American dollars have been spent.

    Yet Shiite leaders have responded to Washington's pleas for inclusiveness with bristling hostility, personally vilifying Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and criticizing American military operations in the kind of harsh language previously heard only from Sunni leaders. Meanwhile, Moktada al-Sadr, the radically anti-American cleric and militia leader, has maneuvered himself into the position of kingmaker by providing decisive support for Mr. Jaafari's candidacy to remain prime minister.

    A faction, one faction of Shiites lashed out after an elite Sunni-Shiite anti-terrorist unit took on the Madhi Army militia and destroyed one of its bases, and freed a kidnapped hostage without sustaining a single casualty. The Iraqi Army has quietly relegated al Qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni insurgency to near irrelevance.

    Do you doubt this?

    When is the last time you heard the name Zarqawi? When was the last major success of the insurgency against the Iraqi Army, much less the U.S. or British militaries?

    al Qaeda and the remaining Sunni insurgency can still take lives and they may be able to do so far years, but they cannot win. With this threats behind them the Iraqi Army now turns to clearing out a just one corrupt Shiite faction and its Madhi Army milita allied with Iran. al-Sadr is no kingmaker. He has no great constituency outside of his slums, only poor political skills, and an alliance with Iran that has made him a legitimate military target. No one can play kingmaker from beyond the grave.

    It was chilling to read Edward Wong's interview with the Iraqi prime minister in The Times last week, during which Mr. Jaafari sat in the palace where he now makes his home, complained about the Americans and predicted that the sectarian militias that are currently terrorizing Iraqi civilians could be incorporated into the army and police. The stories about innocent homeowners and storekeepers who are dragged from their screaming families and killed by those same militias are heartbreaking, as is the thought that the United States, in its hubris, helped bring all this to pass.

    And what was it before? Under Saddam, Iraqis knew who it was who was dragging innocent people away in the middle of the night. Today, they at least stand a fighting chance.

    As it now stands, the Army is increasingly able to handle its own areas of responsibility; predominately Shiite Army units successfully defended Sunni sections of Baghdad during "sectarian" fighting. This fact is something the Times prefers not to cover as it undermines their three-years-and-counting "all it lost" narrative, but this truth that is establishing trust all the same. With the Iraqi Army on legs that grow steadier day by day, the U.S and Iraqi Army forces like the ones that cleaned out the Madhi Army militia nest last week can now focus on weeding out militiamen. Things are bloody and fluid in Iraq, but perhaps not as dire as the Times predicts over and over again.

    It is conceivable that the situation can still be turned around. Mr. Khalilzad should not back off. The kind of broadly inclusive government he is trying to bring about offers the only hope that Iraq can make a successful transition from the terrible mess it is in now to the democracy that we all hoped would emerge after Saddam Hussein's downfall. It is also the only way to redeem the blood that has been shed by Americans and Iraqis alike.

    Conceivable? Most certainly. al Qaeda can take lives, but it is far past the point that it can win. The Sunni insurgency is quietly melting away as Iraqis take the lead in "clear, hold and build" operations, and Sunnis see that the government is operating in their best interests.

    The biggest threat to Iraq's future at the moment is a lightly armed Madhi Army militia that is held together by a cult of personality surrounding Moktada al-Sadr and Iranian special forces soldiers.

    The situation in Iraq is far from ideal, but individuals now have a say in their own future, which is something they have not had in decades. Iraq isn't what we want it to be now, but it is better than it was before, under Saddam. The Times, of course, decided their approach to this war before it began, and no Coalition success was too large to overlook, and no Coalition setback was too small to ignore. Don't expect their coverage to change. The Times coverage in Iraq is brutal, one-sided, and superficial.

    But then, that's what it was before.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:38 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

    March 31, 2006

    The Signs are There

    I guess we can consider this indicative of Democratic competence in their "cut-and-run-and-gun" national insecurity program.

    This campaign the DNC is running on is going to generate a lot of votes. Republican votes.

    Ian at Expose the Left has the video.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:18 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    Iranian Stealth Missile

    This is interesting. We talk of 700-ton bombs that will never get off the ground (an M-1 Abrams main battle tank, by comparison weighs 65 tons), and the very next day, the Iranians counter in the bluster war with this:

    Iran successfully test-fired a locally made missile with the ability to carry a warhead and avoid radar, the airforce chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards said Friday.

    "Today, a remarkable goal of the Islamic Republic of Iran's defence forces was realized with the successful test-firing of a new missile with greater technical and tactical capabilities than those previously produced," Gen. Hossein Salami said on state-run television.

    The missile, while locally made, is of American design.

    I'd translate the last part about “greater technical and tactical capabilities†to mean they're now using B4-4 rocket engines instead of their earlier designs using A8-3s.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:39 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    March 29, 2006

    Full of Sound and Fury

    ...Signifying nothing.

    Classic Macbeth to be sure, but in this instance, the "nothing" has turned out to be claims from Democrats, libertarians, and some weak-willed Republicans that President Bush's executive order that authorized the creation of a terrorist intercept program by the National Security Agency is in some way illegal.

    Yesterday, five FISA judges testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about this very program:

    FEINSTEIN: Thank you very much. Now, I want to clear something up. Judge Kornblum spoke about Congress' power to pass laws to allow the president to carry out domestic electronic surveillance. And we know that FISA is the exclusive means of so doing. Is such a law, that provides both the authority and the rules for carrying out that authority — are those rules then binding on the president?

    [U.S. District Judge Allan] KORNBLUM: No president has ever agreed to that.

    When the FISA statute was passed in 1978, it was not perfect harmony. The intelligence agencies were very reluctant to get involved in going to court. That reluctance changed over a short period of time, two or three years, when they realized they could do so much more than they'd ever done before without...

    FEINSTEIN: What do you think, as a judge?

    KORNBLUM: I think — as a magistrate judge, not a district judge — that a president would be remiss in exercising his constitutional authority to say that, "I surrender all of my power to a statute." And, frankly, I doubt that Congress in a statute can take away the president's authority — not his inherent authority but his necessary and — I forget the constitutional — his necessary and proper authority.

    FEINSTEIN: I'd like to go down the line, if I could, Judge, please. Judge Baker?

    [U.S. District Judge Harold] BAKER: Well, I'm going to pass to my colleagues, since I answered before. I don't believe a president would surrender his power, either.

    FEINSTEIN: So you don't believe a president would be bound by the rules and regulations of a statute. Is that what you're saying?

    BAKER: No, I don't believe that. A president...

    FEINSTEIN: That's my question.

    BAKER: No, I thought you were talking about the decision…

    FEINSTEIN: No, I'm talking about FISA and is a president bound by the rules and regulations of FISA?

    BAKER: If it's held constitutional and it's passed, I suppose he is, like everyone else: He's under the law, too.

    FEINSTEIN: Judge?

    [U.S. District Judge Stanley] BROTMAN (?): I would feel the same way.

    FEINSTEIN: Judge Keenan?

    [U.S. District Judge John] KEENAN: Certainly the president is subject to the law. But by the same token, in emergency situations, as happened in the spring of 1861, if you remember — and we all do — President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and got in a big argument with Chief Justice Taney, but the writ was suspended.

    KEENAN: And some of you probably have read the book late Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote, "All the Laws But One." Because in his inaugural speech — not his inaugural speech, but his speech on July 4th, 1861, President Lincoln said, essentially, "Should we follow all the laws and have them all broken, because of one?"

    FEINSTEIN: Judge?

    (UNKNOWN) [probably U.S. District Judge William Stafford]: Senator, everyone is bound by the law, but I don't believe, with all due respect, that even an act of Congress can limit the president's power under the necessary and proper clause under the Constitution.

    And it's hard for me to go further on the question that you pose, but I would think that (inaudible) power is defined in the Constitution, and while he's bound to obey the law, I don't believe that the law can change that.

    While a full transcript of the five judge's testimony is not yet available, Spruill notes that all five—his word was "each"—of the five judges seems to hold that the President's argument that he has the inherent Constitutional authority to conduct warrantless wiretapping.

    This is consistent with the FISA Court of Review's findings in In re: Sealed Case when the Court recognized "the President's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance."

    These judges seem to agree with the exact point I made in December:

    Every President from the dawn of international wire communications well over 100 years ago until 1978 assumed this right, and the courts have always deferred to this particular power inherent to the Presidency. This is supported by case law and precedent, and is summed up in the five-page Department of Justice briefing (PDF) delivered last week. In short, the Department of Justice seems willing to make the case that Bush was well within his constitutional powers. If anything, Congress may have exceeded their constitutional powers in passing FISA.

    Even after passing FISA, Carter himself did not feel strictly bound by it, nor has any President since, from Reagan, to George H. W. Bush, Clinton, to George W. Bush. They have all asserted (and over the past two weeks, their DoJ attorneys have as well) that the Office of the Presidency has the Constitutional authority to authorize warrantless intercepts of foreign intelligence. This power has been assumed by every president of the modern age before them, dating back, presumably to the Great Eastern's success in 1866 of laying the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable. From Johnson, then, through Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland (again), McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and Taft, through Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, to FDR and on to Truman, Eisenhower, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and into the Carter administration, the Presidency has had the inherent and unchallenged power to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign powers for national security reasons.

    This is a simple, unassailable fact, not matter how loudly demagogues shriek.

    FISA is a case of Congress infringing upon the inherent power of the executive branch, and if it comes up as a direct constitutional challenge, FISA will most likely be struck down as Congress infringing upon the constitutional authority of the executive branch to perform foreign intelligence functions.

    Statutory law cannot override the President's constitutional powers and duties; only a constitutional amendment has that power. Neither FISA nor other current statutory proposals in the Senate can infringe upon the President's Article II powers.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:55 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    Cut-And-Run-And-Gun

    The new, "aggressive" 2006 Democratic platform advocates shifting 140,000 American soldiers out of Iraq to attack a nuclear-armed nominal ally to capture a figurehead dialysis patient that Harry Reid already thinks is dead.

    More. Please.

    Note: Bad link fixed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:16 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    Handcuffs, Not Kid Gloves

    The Washington Times editorial on illegal immigration by Tony Blankley this morning really set me off (h/t Drudge), especially this part:

    ...The senators should remember that they are American senators, not Roman proconsuls. Nor is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee some latter-day Praetor Maximus.

    But if they would be dictators, it would be nice if they could at least be wise (until such time as the people can electorally forcefully project with a violent pedal thrust their regrettable backsides out of town). It was gut-wrenching (which in my case is a substantial event) to watch the senators prattle on in their idle ignorance concerning the manifold economic benefits that will accrue to the body politic if we can just cram a few million more uneducated illegals into the country. ( I guess ignorance loves company.) Beyond the Senate last week, in a remarkable example of intellectual integrity (in the face of the editorial positions of their newspapers) the chief economic columnists for the New York Times and The Washington Post — Paul Krugman and Robert Samuelson, respectively — laid out the sad facts regarding the economics of the matter. Senators, congressmen and Mr. President, please take note.

    Regarding the Senate's and the president's guest-worker proposals, The Post's Robert Samuelson writes: "Gosh, they're all bad ideas ... We'd be importing poverty. This isn't because these immigrants aren't hardworking, many are. Nor is it because they don't assimilate, many do. But they generally don't go home, assimilation is slow and the ranks of the poor are constantly replenished ... [It] is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico ... The most lunatic notion is that admitting more poor Latino workers would ease the labor market strains of retiring baby boomers ? Far from softening the social problems of an aging society, more poor immigrants might aggravate them by pitting older retirees against younger Hispanics for limited government benefits ... [Moreover], [i]t's a myth that the U.S. economy 'needs' more poor immigrants.

    [my bold, not in original - ed.]

    It does not help that a small but growing number have no intention to assimilate, as shone in these disturbing images captured yesterday noted on both the left and the right.

    It also inspired my to contact my Senators, Richard Burr (R) and Elizabeth Dole (R), to whom I sent the following email:

    Dear Senator,

    It is with a great deal of concern, and even anger that I write to you this morning, regarding the subject of illegal immigration before us this day.

    According to an article this morning in the Washington Times:

    Gallup Poll (March 27) finds 80 percent of the public wants the federal government to get tougher on illegal immigration. A Quinnipiac University Poll (March 3) finds 62 percent oppose making it easier for illegals to become citizens (72 percent in that poll don't even want illegals to be permitted to have driver's licenses). Time Magazine's recent poll (Jan. 24-26) found 75 percent favor "major penalties" on employers of illegals, 70 percent believe illegals increase the likelihood of terrorism and 57 percent would use military force at the Mexican-American border.

    An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (March 10-13) found 59 percent opposing a guest-worker proposal, and 71 percent would more likely vote for a congressional candidate who would tighten immigration controls.
    An IQ Research poll (March 10) found 92 percent saying that securing the U.S. border should be a top priority of the White House and Congress.

    And yet those of you in the Senate, including 73 percent of Republicans, support guest worker legislation, rewarding those that would break the law, repeating polices that have failed miserably in the past.

    This must not stand. Immigration must be legal. Amnesty is not an option. Illegals must leave this country, and return legally. Employers who hire illegals must be heavily fined. Illegal immigrants must be charged as felons. We must have our southern border sealed with fences and walls to enforce legal immigration, and prevent illegal immigration.

    I am but one voice of many, but mine is a loud voice, getting louder, with more than 60,000 influential readers coming to my conservative political blog (http://confederateyankee.mu.nu) last month alone.

    I will use that digital pulpit to highlight the fact that you specifically voted against the will of North Carolina's Republican voters. I will questions your motives. I will question your reasoning. I will examine your other legislation. I will examine your connection to lobbyists. And I will do so relentlessly.

    America is a land of immigrants. Immigration is good for America's soul. But this immigration must be legal, and every immigrant must come here legally, without exception.

    Those of us who can legally vote, including legal immigrants, will have it no other way.

    Sincerely,

    As I stated in my email to the good senators, I'm completely behind the concept of immigration, but it must be legal immigration.

    Those who break our laws should be treated with handcuffs, not kid gloves.

    Update: The hihg school students who ran up the Mexican flag at Montebello HS (cluelessly but appropriately running the American flag in the "in distress" upside down position) were not from Montebello HS, but nearby El Rancho High School and both "a board member and the acting administrator of the El Rancho High School were present" according to Ward Brewer, who called Montebello and El Rancho high schools in running this story down.

    It sounds to me like a couple of folks need to be fired from El Rancho.

    Another reader who claims to be from the area states that many of the students and families of students from El Rancho are *gasp* illegals, though I have no way of verifying this.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:50 AM | Comments (29) | TrackBack

    March 28, 2006

    Flailing Fukuyama

    One can only hope that the truth brigade of the liberal blogosphere that so effectively curtailed the career of Ben Domenech will maintain their high standards of integrity in the pursuit of accuracy, and be among the first to call for the head of famous ex-neocon Francis Fukuyama.

    Fukuyama's life-altering revelation that caused him to turn away from neoconservatism was supposedly triggered by a speech calling the Iraq war "a virtually unqualified success." It turns out Fukuyama's story was instead the unqualified fabrication, according to the man who gave the speech, Charles Krauthammer, who calls Fukuyama out:

    I happen to know something about this story, as I was the speaker whose 2004 Irving Kristol lecture to the American Enterprise Institute Fukuyama has now brought to prominence. I can therefore testify that Fukuyama's claim that I attributed "virtually unqualified success" to the war is a fabrication.

    A convenient fabrication -- it gives him a foil and the story drama -- but a foolish one because it can be checked. The speech was given at the Washington Hilton before a full house, carried live on C-SPAN and then published by the American Enterprise Institute under its title "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World." (It can be read at http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.19912,filter.all/pub_detail.asp.) As indicated by the title, the speech was not about Iraq. It was a fairly theoretical critique of the four schools of American foreign policy: isolationism, liberal internationalism, realism and neoconservatism. The only successes I attributed to the Iraq war were two, and both self-evident: (1) that it had deposed Saddam Hussein and (2) that this had made other dictators think twice about the price of acquiring nuclear weapons, as evidenced by the fact that Moammar Gaddafi had turned over his secret nuclear program for dismantling just months after Hussein's fall (in fact, on the very week of Hussein's capture).

    It's all right there in black and white pixels, with an easily followed link to a copy of the speech above. Fukuyama misrepresented the content of Krauthammer's speech as being something else, which certainly as vile as misrepresenting the content of the speech as his own.

    I'm sure the intrepid truth squad of the far left - at Firedoglake, Media Matters, the Daily Kos, and others - will press Fukuyama for a full accounting for his transgressions with the same righteous fury they unleashed last week in their relentless pursuit of truth.

    Seriously.

    Any minute now.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:40 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    March 23, 2006

    Hillary Clinton's Lost Translation of the Bible

    You knew she couldn't keep her inner liberal quiet forever, but you would at least hope she wouldn't resort to rewriting the Bible for political gain:

    Invoking Biblical themes, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton joined immigration advocates Wednesday to vow and block legislation seeking to criminalize undocumented immigrants.

    Clinton, a potential 2008 presidential candidate and relative latecomer to the immigration debate, made her remarks as the Senate prepares to take up the matter next week.

    Clinton renewed her pledge to oppose a bill passed in December by the House that would make unlawful presence in the United States _ currently a civil offense _ a felony. The Senate is set to consider a version of that legislation, as well as several other bills seeking to address the seemingly intractable issue of immigration reform.

    Surrounded by a multicultural coalition of New York immigration advocates, Clinton blasted the House bill as "mean-spirited" and said it flew in the face of Republicans' stated support for faith and values.

    "It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures," Clinton said, "because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself." [my bold - ed.]

    Senator, I doubt you even know what the Good Book looks like, but please have your campaign researchers at least make a pass at reading the New Testament before you try to rewrite Luke 10:25-37.

    The Good Samaritan, like the priest and the Levite, was an Israeli, and Samaritans exist to this day inside Holon, Israel, and Nablus in the West Bank. The proposed law would not criminalize the Good Samaritan, because he, too is a native citizen of Israel. Jesus Christ, like the Good Samaritan, is also a native son, and not an illegal immigrant.

    Your comments, Senator Clinton, were not just calculated to be inflammatory, they were laughably ignorant. Perhaps the next time you are seen near a Bible for a photo-op, you should consider opening it.


    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:26 PM | Comments (25) | TrackBack

    Red, or Black?

    The Church of the Perpetually Offended is up in arms again, this time over the "fact" that Ben Domenech of the Washington Post's new blog Red America made the "racist" comment that Coretta Scott King was a communist while blogging under the screen name Augustine at RedState. While I do not know if Domenech is Augustine, let's say that he is for argument's sake.


    Predictably, the leftists making this charge said far more offensive things then Domenech did when leveling their charge against him, but their hysteria basically boils down to one simple question:

    Whether or not Domenech was right about King's politics, when did communism become a race?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:15 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    March 17, 2006

    ...A Persistent Vegetative State

    Let me get this straight:

    You cannot believe documents released by un-named government sources, because you cannot vouch for the credibility of the source,

    -BUT-

    You must believe documents released by un-named government sources, because the credibility of the source must be impeccable for them to want to remain anonymous.

    "Paging Dr. Sanity..."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:38 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    Hell no, we won't go...

    ...to work:

    This week, students were protesting a newly passed law that has the support of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, a leading presidential candidate from Chirac's party. The measure, due to go into effect in April, will make it easier to hire and fire young people at a time when the youth unemployment rate averages 23 percent.

    The protesters' anger focuses on provisions that will allow companies to fire employees under 26 at any time during their first two years of work, without cause.

    "They're offering us nothing but slavery," said Maud Pottier, 17, a student at Jules Verne High School in Sartrouville, north of Paris, who was wrapped in layers of scarves as protection against the chilly, gray day. "You'll get a job knowing that you've got to do every single thing they ask you to do because otherwise you may get sacked. I'd rather spend more time looking for a job and get a real one."

    Why, the nerve of employers, expecting you to do what they ask!

    It's like these kids expect to have tenure, or something.

    Cheese-Eating Tenure Monkeys...

    Heh.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    March 15, 2006

    Duck and Cover

    "It's like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet."

    Sure, we could be talking about the ballistic missile intercept program, but we're not.

    We're talking about much more elusive targets:

    "I haven't read it," demurred Barack Obama (Ill.).

    "I just don't have enough information," protested Ben Nelson (Neb.). "I really can't right now," John Kerry (Mass.) said as he hurried past a knot of reporters -- an excuse that fell apart when Kerry was forced into an awkward wait as Capitol Police stopped an aide at the magnetometer.

    Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) brushed past the press pack, shaking her head and waving her hand over her shoulder. When an errant food cart blocked her entrance to the meeting room, she tried to hide from reporters behind the 4-foot-11 Barbara Mikulski (Md.).

    "Ask her after lunch," offered Clinton's spokesman, Philippe Reines. But Clinton, with most of her colleagues, fled the lunch out a back door as if escaping a fire.

    Even though Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold was firing blanks in his pandering to the far left for his expected '08 Democratic Presidential primary run, the shots scattered Senate Democrats as effectively as live rounds.

    While Democrats are more than willing to play partisan politics with American lives as they continue attacking the President for his executive order authorizing an NSA terrorist surveillance program, they are not willing to put their own reputations on the lines during an election year, even if they believe the program is wrong.

    Cowardly to the core?

    Obviously.

    But this is politics, and today's Democrats have a tradition of trying to hide what the really believe in order to get elected.

    As this is an election year, Democrats are more than willing to snipe at the President if they think it helps them. They'll quickly turn and run, however—as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid and almost every other Democrat has done—if there is the threat of any accountability for their actions from voters.

    Top Democrats cannot say what they really feel, which is in line with Radical Russ and the MoveOn.org/George Soros wing of the party that finances their campaigns, because they'd then lose the moderate voter that they must have to win elections. For Democrats, being pinned down and forced to display their true colors (white or yellow) is a losing proposition.

    They have no choice now but to duck and cover, and hope they can outlast the storm.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:54 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    Who...

    ...let the nuts out?

    Watch for updates...

    Update: Where did it go? I guess the bong hits finally wore off...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:27 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    March 14, 2006

    Democratic Party Now Comes With Warning Labels

    Don't you just love truth in advertising?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:33 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    March 13, 2006

    Wisconsin's Shame

    U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) has announced that on Monday, March 13, he will introduce a resolution into the Senate to censure President George W. Bush for the warrantless surveillance of suspected terrorists in foreign countries trying to communicate with contacts here in the United States.

    I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Democratic Presidential hopeful for this unexpected and quite welcome 35th birthday present.

    The good Senator was nice enough to post the rationale for his censure resolution on his Senate web site. Not surprisingly, the political left is utterly delighted with Feingold's charges. They are not the only ones.

    So what exactly does the good Senator advocate? He begins:

    Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has announced that he will introduce a resolution in the U.S. Senate on Monday to censure the President of the United States. Feingold's resolution condemns the President's actions in authorizing the illegal wiretapping program and then misleading the country about the existence and legality of the program. Feingold calls the resolution an appropriate and responsible step for Congress to take in response to the President's undermining of the separation of powers and ignoring the rule of law.

    "The President must be held accountable for authorizing a program that clearly violates the law and then misleading the country about its existence and its legality," Feingold said. "The President's actions, as well as his misleading statements to both Congress and the public about the program, demand a serious response. If Congress does not censure the President, we will be tacitly condoning his actions, and undermining both the separation of powers and the rule of law."

    The President's illegal wiretapping program is in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The FISA law makes it a crime to wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order. The Bush Administration has obtained thousands of FISA warrants since September 11th and has almost never been rejected by the FISA court. FISA even allows wiretaps to be executed immediately in an emergency as long as the government obtains a warrant within 72 hours.

    "This issue is not about whether the government should be wiretapping terrorists – of course it should, and it can under current law" Feingold said. "But this President and this Administration decided to break the law and they have yet to give a convincing explanation of why their actions were necessary, appropriate, or legal. Passing more laws will not change the fact that the President broke the ones already in place and for that, Congress must hold him accountable."

    Feingold's basic charges are these:

    • President Bush created a program that violated FISA which, "makes it a crime to wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order."
    • President Bush mislead the country about the existence of the program.
    • President Bush mislead the country about the legality of this program.
    • Congress must hold President Bush accountable because, "this President and this Administration decided to break the law and they have yet to give a convincing explanation of why their actions were necessary, appropriate, or legal."

    Let's address these charges point-by-point.

    Charge 1: President Bush created a program that violated FISA which, "makes it a crime to wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order."

    Feingold is correct only in that FISA does make it illegal to "wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order."

    But the NSA surveillance of these suspected terrorist communications only intercepted communications, outside of the United States. Former NSA director General Michael V. Hayden implemented the surveillance program and states [ed. - my bold]:

    This is not about intercepting conversations between people in the United States. This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with al Qaeda. We bring to bear all the technology we can to ensure that this is so. And if there were ever an anomaly, and we discovered that there had been an inadvertent intercept of a domestic-to-domestic call, that intercept would be destroyed and not reported. But the incident, what we call inadvertent collection, would be recorded and reported. But that's a normal NSA procedure. It's been our procedure for the last quarter century. And as always, as we always do when dealing with U.S. person information, as I said earlier, U.S. identities are expunged when they're not essential to understanding the intelligence value of any report. Again, that's a normal NSA procedure.

    So let me make this clear. When you're talking to your daughter at state college, this program cannot intercept your conversations. And when she takes a semester abroad to complete her Arabic studies, this program will not intercept your communications.

    Not one soul, not one single soul, has ever in any way, been able to substantiate the false charge that this was a domestic spying program as it has been reported in the media and by politically motivated Democrats, including Russ Feingold, in the past.

    On the first charge of his censure resolution, Democratic Senator Russ Feingold is not only incorrect, but wildly incorrect in his assertions as stated by the very man who implemented the program to intercept terrorist communications outside of the United States.

    Charge 2: President Bush mislead the country about the existence of the program.

    Is Senator Feingold making the charge that the President has the obligation to announce to the country and the world that he has authorized the NSA to intercept the communications of al Qaeda suspects if someone merely asks about it? The President is under some sort of obligation to blurt out top secret information if someone merely gets close?

    It appears that is exactly the Wisconsin Democrat's argument.

    He then cites three instances where President Bush did not inform the nation about warrantless wiretaps.

    Note that Senator Feingold focuses on the word wiretaps. Note in General Hayden's speech that he never uses the word wiretap once.

    Not only is Senator Russ Feingold—a potential Democratic Presidential contender in 2008—making the astonishing claim that secret intelligence programs should not apparently be kept secret, he appears to make the attempt to mislead the American public about the very nature of the NSA intelligence program by calling it wiretapping.

    Russ Feingold makes an insane "rule" about being utterly revealing to the point of self-defeat, and immediately violates that rule himself.

    Charge 3: President Bush mislead the country about the legality of this program.

    Once again, Senator Feingold makes a charge, but has shown neither the willingness nor the ability to support it.

    Two Attorney's General, White House counsel, the top legal minds of the National Security Administration, and top Justice Department lawyers have maintained, and existing case law such as the FISA Court of Review's decision in In re: Sealed Case, Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld, and other evidence in this 42-page Dept. of Justice brief (PDF) strongly asserts that warrants are not required for this kind of international surveillance. FISA simply does not apply. Even if FISA did apply to this program, FISA would be illegal, not the NSA's program. The President has a duty as Commander-in-Chief (sorry Glenn, but those are the facts as they are, not as you would have them) to direct military assets such as the National Security Agency to conduct foreign surveillance, as collecting intelligence about enemy forces is a unquestioningly part of normal war-fighting activities.

    No one—not one single soul—can say categorically with any objectivity that the President's executive order is illegal. A case against the program has not been adjudicated, and the majority of those with explicit access to the details of the program hold it to be legal. It may be in doubt, but it is far from being held to conclusively be illegal.

    Once again, Democratic Senator Feingold falls far short of supporting his charges.

    Charge 4: Congress must hold President Bush accountable because, "this President and this Administration decided to break the law and they have yet to give a convincing explanation of why their actions were necessary, appropriate, or legal."

    And yet, Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, has not provided any evidence that so much as one single law was broken. No case has been decided or even tried to show that this foreign terrorist surveillance program was illegal, immoral or even improper, and those experts (not pundits, but experts) most familiar with the specific, classified details of the program overwhelmingly support its legality.

    Senator Feingold doesn't seem to regard the increasingly bold attacks of radical Islamic terrorism over the past 30 years is "a convincing explanation of why their actions were necessary, appropriate, or legal."

    Why is the President is more worthy of attack from this Wisconsin Democrat than is radical Islamic terrorism? Because Russ Feingold's Presidential aspirations comes first. Defending America... well, that's further down the line.

    Update: Minor language revisions made for clarity.

    Update 2: A.J. Strata has what is (IMO) a pretty fair assessment of how Feingold's grandstanding is ripping liberals apart from the rest of the Democratic Party.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:23 AM | Comments (89) | TrackBack

    March 10, 2006

    Fancy Lies

    Certain liberal bloggers are all atwitter over the "racism" displayed in a web site put forth by the National Republican Senatorial Committee called FancyFord.com that targets Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford, Jr.

    Jesse Berney runs the screamer, Elizabeth Dole is a racist, and calls FancyFord.com, "a racist attack site" that in Jesse's bleary eyes, has but one goal:


    What's the message behind this site? The line of white women on the front page, the fact that it highlights his attendance at NBA All Star events featuring Biz Markie, the emphasis on opulence all combine to portray Ford as a pimp. The site tries to be subtle in its racism, but it fails.

    Pam's House Blend agrees:

    The Fancy Ford web site is something to behold and cherish. It tells you all that you need to know about where the great minds of the GOP are when it comes to campaigning -- it's still all about playing on race, racial history and the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways of invoking the uppity Negro in Southern politics.

    Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest senses the theme:

    A black man is runing[sic] for Senator in Tennessee. How does the Republican Party campaign? With blatant racism, what else? Basketball, white women, portraying him as a pimp... There's probably something about driving a Cadillac, but I got sick of looking at the site.

    And last but not least is Steve Gilliard, who puts up a picture of hip-hop star 50 Cent (a George W. Bush fan) and says, "When you see Harold Ford, the NRSC wants you to see him."

    It seems that among these liberals at least, there is pretty close to unanimous agreement that FancyFord.com is a vile, racist site set up with the goal of portraying Tennessee Democratic Congressional Representative Harold Ford, Jr as a pimp.

    As a southern white racist RepubliKKKan (if you don't believe that I am, just ask any of those named above), I took off my hood, put down my copy of Lynching for Dummies, and eagerly clicked over to FancyFord.com to see what all the hubbub was about.

    Boy, were the Kleagle and I disappointed.

    Try as I might to find some good, old-fashioned references to plantations, Sambo, the master-slave relationship, and the inability of black folks to swim, I just couldn't find it. (Well I could, but it was here, instead). Nor could I find any modern-day references to gangs, homies, or gats (though I did find two mentions of a Playboy Superbowl Party at Hef's that is close enough for "ho's," I suppose).

    Imagine my disappointment when the site seemed not to be about race, but a Congessman living the high life off his campaign money!

    Jesse, you got my hopes up, just to let me down.

    You didn't mention that the "NBA All Star events featuring Biz Markie" was a political fundraiser featuring such notables as Sheila Jackson Lee, U.S. Congressman Al Green and Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis. Granted, I'm sure something was being sold for all that cash, but I think it was influence, not honeys. That isn't racist. It's Congress.

    Pam got me going with all her talk about, "the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways of invoking the uppity Negro in Southern politics," But all I found was several pages showing sourced material that puts him in the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, or passing out expensive Davidoff cigars to those hosting his fundraising receptions. Now, being a dumb old racist redneck, I'm not sure how exclusive Hollywood hotels, imported cigars, and Armani suits play into "the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways of invoking the uppity Negro," but if it actually does that, can he be uppity at my place, please?

    And Dave, I tried, but I couldn't find any references to "pimped out" Caddy either, no matter how hard I tried.

    You know, I'm starting to think y'all were just putting me on…

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    More Katrina Incomptence

    Can we bring Michael Brown back? At least he has experience handling quadrupeds:

    Game wardens Wayde Carter and Roger Guay said Louisiana apparently didn't make the proper arrangements with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to guarantee them housing after Thursday night, and their supervisor, Maj. Greg Sanborn, has called them back to Maine.

    The wardens were to stay in New Orleans until March 21.

    Carter and Guay, on loan from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, arrived in Louisiana from Maine late last week.

    The story goes on to mention:

    According to FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews, the agency has paid for a block of rooms at the hotel, and she promised to follow up on the men's dilemma Thursday.

    Carter and Guay said that Tuesday night, a FEMA representative greeted them at the hotel with a disclosure form asking them to identify themselves as long-term evacuees needing financial assistance; the men said they refused.

    A canine team from south Georgia also may leave New Orleans.

    To sum up: Louisiana's government is still bumbling and incompetent and unable to handle even small-scale outside help, and FEMA is still strangling in irrelevant paperwork instead of getting the job done.

    Pathetic.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    March 09, 2006

    Brutalized, With a Smile

    Sorry, Ramstein. Mother Sheehan won't be protesting you after all.

    Sheehan is due to arrive in Frankfurt on Thursday. Despite uncertainty clouding Sheehan's visit, protesters and counterprotesters still plan to gather outside Ramstein Air Base on Saturday afternoon.

    Sheehan was arrested Monday in New York City outside the U.S. mission to the United Nations when she and other protesters attempted to deliver a petition calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Her condition raises doubts as to whether she will make the trip to Germany and France.

    "If I am there, I won't be anywhere near the air force base ... or participate in the march," wrote Sheehan on Wednesday. "I was brutalized in New York the other day by the NYPD (New York Police Department) and I need to go to the doctor today (Wednesday)."

    Perhaps Sheehan's injuries resulted from police brutality, but if that occurred, no one else seemed to have noticed, except for Sheehan ally al-Jazeera, which found something else repulsive about the event. I'll let you guess what:

    belly

    No muffin tops in Mecca, kids.

    Sheehan was part of a miniscule gaggle of anti-war activists (a dozen total), four of which were arrested Monday as they blocked the doors to U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The four were arrested for criminal trespassing and resisting arrest.

    Was Cindy Sheehan "brutalized" as she claimed to the media? She hasn't filed a complaint against the police force, nor has anyone other than Sheehan made the allegation despite heavy press coverage of the event, but you be the judge of these pictures of the arrest pulled from Yahoo!

    separated

    Sheehan is pulled away from the other protestors who have locked arms and legs with her. You can see someone's right hand grasping tightly to Sheehan's left thigh, and the same protestor locking both legs around both of Sheehan's legs. Sheehan appears to be holding on tightly to her fellow protestors with her left hand as well, as a police officer, screen by another officer, attempts to separate Sheehan by pulling on her right arm. There is a grimace on Sheehan's face, but I think it is one resulting from her determination not to let go of her friends rather than any brutality by the police.

    cuffed

    A police officer controls Sheehan and reaches for his handcuffs after Sheehan is separated from her group. Note he is not being rough on her, or using force or a great degree of leverage against her. His control consists of grabbing a handful of fabric. There is no brutality evident, except in the face of the police officers, who appear to have become nauseous for some unexplained reason.

    walked away 1

    I'm starting to appreciate the photo-editing of al-Jazeera, if not their editorial slant. As Sheehan is being led away, she has a grim smile on her face, but does not appear to be in any physical pain. Note the officer on the left escorting her only has his hand lightly looped around Sheehan's arm.

    walked away 2

    Sheehan's smile persists as she is led away by the same officer as in the previous photo, who appears to be far more bored than abusive.

    Was Cindy Sheehan exposed to police brutality as she was arrested? Not in any way that any sane or sober person would note. Could she have been injured during her arrest? Possibly, but any blame for that is surely shared by Cindy and her fellow protestors, who locked limbs and attempted to resist arrest, while police used only necessary force to disengage them and affect arrests.

    Cindy Sheehan appears to be fabricating her story of police brutality to bring herself more attention.

    Shocking, I know.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:52 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

    Shocking New Poll: Americans Don't Like Being Blown Up by Islamic Terrorists

    Anytime you get the Washington Post (home of the 1,300 imaginary dead at the Baghdad morgue) together with James Zogby (of the discredited military poll) you know that anything they come up with will be highly suspect.

    You would hope that they'd get past the first sentence, however:

    As the war in Iraq grinds into its fourth year, a growing proportion of Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam, and a majority now say that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

    The invasion of Iraq began March 20, 2003. It is currently March 9, 2006. By my count, we've been in Iraq 2 years, 354 days. "Grinding" into a fourth year? Not yet.

    But on to the rest of the story:

    The poll found that nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence.

    While this may seem shocking at first, upon reflection, this would seem to make sense. The terrorist attacks of September 11 cold be easily chalked up to a small subset of radicals. Events since then have consistently painted a darkening picture of Islam, with the defining moments for many still occurring for many right now. The "cartoon war" still echoes around the world, a terrorist organization is elected in Palestine, and Iran seeks nuclear weapons to annihilate Israel, with the much-vaunted "moderate" Islam still as rare and frequently seen as unicorns.

    Conservative and liberal experts said Americans' attitudes about Islam are fueled in part by political statements and media reports that focus almost solely on the actions of Muslim extremists.

    According to the poll, the proportion of Americans who believe that Islam helps to stoke violence against non-Muslims has more than doubled since the attacks, from 14 percent in January 2002 to 33 percent today.

    Again, we are forced to focus on the acts of Muslim extremists because any other kind of Muslim in an activist, leadership position is in short supply. Perhaps Americans believe that Muslims stoke violence because Muslims fund the terrorists, Muslims detonate IEDs, Muslims behead Christian schoolgirls, and blow themselves up to murder busloads of innocent civilians. Seeing, after all...

    ...is believing.

    Could it possibly be that the perception of Muslim violence comes from the fact that Muslims act violently, again and again and again?

    The survey also found that one in three Americans have heard prejudiced comments about Muslims lately. In a separate question, slightly more (43 percent) reported having heard negative remarks about Arabs. One in four Americans admitted to harboring prejudice toward Muslims, the same proportion that expressed some personal bias against Arabs.

    Though the two groups are often linked in popular discourse, most of the world's Muslims are not of Arab descent. For example, the country with the largest Muslim population is Indonesia.

    So did you here the one about the Cowboy, the Indian, and the Muslim?

    We are at war with Arab terrorists that profess the Muslim religion as the basis for their war against us. I think we have the right to doubt their motives at the very least, and we certainly have a right to joke about them, though they're willing to go to war even over that. Arab Muslims have proven to be the most violent towards westerners, but that does not give non-Arab Muslims a pass. It is the religion that we have reason to suspect, not a particular race practicing it.

    The rest of the article is worth a read—or not—but don't expect anything earth-shattering from it. What the Post has learned on this subject only confirms what many people figured out long ago.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:05 AM | Comments (30) | TrackBack

    March 08, 2006

    Ignorance and Congress... But I Repeat Myself

    From time to time, Democrats and Republicans come together and agree nearly unanimously in such a way that makes me wonder if any of them are capable of rational thought at all.

    This is one of those times:

    In an election-year repudiation of President Bush, a House panel dominated by Republicans voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to block a Dubai-owned firm from taking control of some U.S port operations.

    By 62-2, the Appropriations Committee voted to bar DP World, run by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, from holding leases or contracts at U.S. ports.

    Bush has promised to veto any such measure passed by Congress, but there is widespread public opposition to the deal and the GOP fears losing its advantage on the issue of national security in this fall's elections.

    "This is a national security issue," said Rep. Jerry Lewis, the chairman of the panel. The California Republican said the legislation would "keep America's ports in American hands."

    No matter how little I think of congressmen, time and again they prove I think far too much of them.

    Despite the profound ignorance of Lewis and others in Congress, America's ports have always been in American hands, the work carried out by American workers, as it has been done under foreign leadership for the last six years.

    Whatever "rational" excuses they come up with, our ports have been run, as Ed Morrissey notes, by British, Saudi, Chinese, and Singaporean operators, yet when an Arab company steps into the mix, all of a sudden we worry about security. Hypocrites.

    As I first stated on 2/25:

    Dubai is one of our better Arab allies, and if we can't work with them, it seems to send the message we are unwilling to work with any Arab countries, at least when it directly affects us. Instead of having them literally buy into America, we sell them what our enemies have been whispering the entire time, "See? They will not accept you. Come back to us..."

    I have no stake in Dubai. I know some there have had their hands in terrorism, and I know that some still may. I know they don't recognize Israel, and that bothers me.

    At this point, there aren't a lot of good "outs."

    If Bush stands his ground, then most rest of the Republican Party will break with him to chase the polls in what has become a surprise election year turkey. If Bush backs down, we could lose some of the fragile trust we've tried to develop in Arab countries since 9/11.

    That emerging trust, fragile as it was, is now perhaps shattered.

    Thanks, Congress.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:53 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    Hillary's Vision of "Police States"

    Coming from a woman who spent a significant portion of her husband's term in the in the White House under one investigation or another, I guess this kind of comment shouldn't come as much of a surprise:

    Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential White House candidate in 2008, said Wednesday some Republicans are trying to create a "police state" to round up illegal immigrants.

    Clinton, D-N.Y., spoke out on the U.S. immigration policy after largely staying away from an issue that has roiled Congress in recent months and spurred a number of conflicting proposals.

    Speaking at a rally of Irish immigrants, Clinton criticized a bill the House passed in December that would impose harsher penalties for undocumented workers.

    "Don't turn your backs on what made this country great," she said, calling the measure "a rebuke to what America stands for."

    Now feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought part of what made America great was that we are a nation of laws, not men.

    What Hillary seems to state is that breaking the law without consequence is "what America stands for." If this is indeed her position, no wonder she would find a state where the police enforce the laws so unpalatable.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:01 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    NSA Wins, Terrorists and Liberals Lose

    Senate Republicans have introduced a bill to provide oversight of the President's NSA terrorist intercept program while rejecting any further investigation:

    The measure would create terrorist surveillance subcommittees under both the Senate and House intelligence committees to oversee the surveillance program.

    The panel, meanwhile, rejected a full investigation of the program, which was acknowledged by Bush in December after it surfaced in media reports.

    Liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald is not happy:

    Nobody who has lived outside of a cave for the last five years could possibly be surprised by any of this. One of the reason we are at the point we're at in our country -- where we have a President who not only breaks the law but claims he has the right to do so, while the media barely finds any of it worthy of much attention -- is because the Congress has completely abdicated its responsibilities at the altar of cult-like obedience to White House decrees. That's just one of the many rotted roots in our government.

    Well, there is that perspective, isn't there?

    In Greewald's world, 535 members of Congress and the Republican-dominated press are complicit in Chimpy McHitlerburton's grand conspiracy (with the consent of the majority of the ignorant AmeriKKKan sheeple) against Glamourous Glenn and the Forces of Truth.

    I'm sorry, Glenn, that this reality presents a different picture than the one that you would star in.

    Top constitutional scholars, experienced federal lawyers past and present, and even the FISA Court of Review itself have all agree that the President has the power to conduct this kind of surveillance against the enemies of this country. Only Congress, with it's insatiable desire for more power, and the media with their ever-present desire to generate scandals for their advertisers brought this non-story along as far as they did.

    I admire your enthusiasm, Mr. Greenwald. I just wish you could harness your energies to fight the enemies of this nation instead of trying to antagonize those trying to hunt terrorists down.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:17 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

    March 03, 2006

    Drug of Choice?

    Presumably, we can expect a full-on rant from drug abuse expert Lawrence O'Donnell later today, after NBC White House correspondent David Gregory's bizarre behavior on the Don Imus Radio show yesterday morning which led the host to ask Gregory if he was drunk (video and transcript here).

    While I'm not an expert in speaking Drunkenese, I don't think Gregory sounded drunk. I would be interested to see the results of a drug test to make sure it wasn't something else, however.

    Bad curry, perhaps?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:12 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    March 02, 2006

    Thank You, Now Go Away

    It pained me several weeks ago when a retired veteran sent me an email, telling me bluntly, "Republicans are starting to treat veterans like Democrats treat African-Americans," pandering to them during election years, and then ignoring or undercutting them the rest of the time.

    Obviously, I cringed at the comparison.

    A quick web search turned up articles showing that healthcare costs for retirees under the military's Tricare could as much as triple in the next few years for retirees under 65, steering retirees toward their current employer's health plans, while at the same time, these same employers are pushing retirees to go to Tricare to reduce their costs. The result is that we end up with both sides trying to push veterans off on each other. It sends a great message, doesn't it?

    "Thank you for your service, sir. No will you please go somewhere else?"

    We owe our veterans their due for putting their lives on the line to protect our freedoms, and we should not drastically increase their healthcare costs, even as we recognize the fiscal fact that if left unchecked, health-care costs could balloon to make up 12% of the defense budget by 2015.

    The problem is complex, and I don't have a ready answer. Obviously, no one does, but as those who have always championed out commitment to our men and women in uniform, we should be the ones who find a way to best take care of them once they've put the uniform away.

    They've served us honorably, and we must make sure that honor is returned.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:21 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

    February 27, 2006

    This Treason Brought to You By...

    As they want to protest illegal occupations by performing an illegal occupation, I guess we should be thankful they are not protesting the clubbing of baby seals.

    UPFJ:

    Storm the White House Multi-Day Event, Beginning March 15, come when you can and stay as long as you can - we are taking over the White House until they leave. Torture, Occupation, Genocide - Must End Now. Wednesday, March 15th 2006 12:00 AM Washington, DC USA

    TAKE THE WHITE HOUSE BY STORM - Stop Genocide, Torture and Occupation

    U.N. SOS - We need your help to end the reign of international criminals.

    It is our duty and the duty of the United Nations to rescue the people of the world from the U.S. dictators. Murder for occupation and theft of land is illegal. Murder of journalists is criminal. Remove the traitors who have stolen the U.S. budget and used it to commit international crimes against humanity.

    If we were being bombed and our journalists were being murdered here in the U.S. by a foreign country's military, we would hope that the people of that country would stop what they are doing and go to their president's office and demand that it was stopped. If we were the ones burying thousands and thousands of our family members and watching the destruction of the homes, schools, churches and offices that we had worked for decades to build, we would hope that someone, somewhere would care enough to do something for us. We must stop the criminals in our government NOW. There is no meeting with Congress that is going to change what they are doing. We must put the power of the people into action and stay there until they leave!


    Inviting everyone to the White House for a protest rally to show that we do not accept the criminal government, illegal wars and the permanent occupation planned for Iraq and Afghanistan. For Nat Turner, For Martin and Coretta, For all the Torture and Assassination in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and many others - We will not allow the Slave Holders that Still Prevail in this Country to Rule us any longer. Imprisonment and torture based on race, religion, resources or region is no different than the slavery we sought to abolish years ago. The Administration is Criminal and if they will not step down, we must storm in, show them how many of us do not accept a criminal government. How can we stand by and watch them kill our brothers, sisters, journalists and friends for their dollars?

    We are calling on all citizens and governments in every country to stand with us. We are calling on all Member Nations of the U.N.; All Representatives and Justices in the World Court and International Criminal Courts; All Human Rights Advocates; All Soldiers and CIA agents and government officials who have been blackmailed or are in fear of the dictators to join us in ending this reign of corporate terror in our government. The World Criminal Courts need to incarcerate Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for admitted crimes and known crimes of international scope. The Political Cooperative will put a new, temporary government in place that is comprised of people from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and all the organizations that have finally made us aware of the truth of the savage practices and illegal policies of our government in assassinating our own officials as well as people throughout the world who oppose their criminal activity. We need all of you to save U.S. victims and global victims from their ongoing criminal activity. We are calling on the military, police, citizens and religious organizations to stand with us and help us to bring democracy back to the United States and by doing so, free the world from the wrath, occupation, theft, torture, blackmail and assassination by the Criminals in the United States Government. What they have done all over the world is much worse than what Saddam Hussein has done, so why are they not in jail too? They have admitted to international and national crimes, so why have they not been taken to Court too?


    Location:
    White House, Washington DC Starting March 15th, come for as long as you can and bring signs that say U.N. SOS and "Leave Now" or whatever you would like to say. Ride Share and Room Share Plans can be made here: http://www.citysites.com/travel/tiki-view_tracker.php?trackerId=3 1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington DC 20500

    Contact:
    Darrow Boggiano
    admin@politicalcooperative.org
    415.409.2611

    Sponsored By:
    We are requesting participation from all members of the United Nations, PFAW, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Code Pink, police, soldiers, ACLU, CIA, NSA and International Courts of Justice/World Court.

    Sweetness and Light notes UFPJ is a Teresa Heinz Kerry-supported organization calling for the illegal overthrow of the duly-elected government.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:23 AM | Comments (78) | TrackBack

    Specter's Greasy Fingers

    Paper elephant and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter is showing more of his hand than he knows regarding the NSA program created by President Bush's executive order to conduct terrorist communications intercepts, as he presents a baffling new set of rules:

    The federal government would have to obtain permission from a secret court to continue a controversial form of surveillance, which the National Security Agency now conducts without warrants, under a bill being proposed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

    Specter's proposal would bring the four-year-old NSA program under the authority of the court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The act created a mechanism for obtaining warrants to wiretap domestic suspects. But President Bush, shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on communications without such warrants. The program was revealed in news reports two months ago.

    Specter's plan could put him at odds with the administration, which has praised a rival proposal that would exempt the NSA program from the surveillance law. Specter's proposal would also require the administration to give a handful of lawmakers more information about the program than they now receive, such as the number of communications intercepted and a summary of the results.

    Self-appointed FISA expert Glenn Greenwald, like many liberal commentators, is utterly baffled by Specter's proposal:

    It is, of course, so disorientingly bizarre to hear about a proposed law requiring FISA warrants for eavesdropping because we already have a law in place which does exactly that. It's called FISA.

    Actually Glenn, you are quite wrong. Again.

    The Justice Department, the FISA Court of Review, and quite a few other learned folks have explained both in public and apparently in more detail in front of closed congressional hearings on the matter, FISA does not cover this NSA program (though it does cover others). Glenn has never been able to get his head around the fact that FISA is not all-encompassing.

    After the confidential review of the program that silenced the majority of congressional Democrats and Republicans, Specter must have also ultimately come to the same conclusion that current FISA law does not apply to program of this nature.

    Read the nature of Specter's proposal again:

    Specter's proposal would bring the four-year-old NSA program under the authority of the court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

    This one sentence tells us that this program is currently legal outside of the control and competencies of FISA. Specter wants to expand the reach of FISA with new rules so that the program created by Bush would fall under a Congressional sphere of influence.

    From the beginning, the President, White House Counsel, The Justice Department and NSA lawyers familiar with the intimate details of this program have all maintained that the program was well within the Executive's Article II powers (and outside of FISA's domain), and they also maintained that the AUMF also granted a statutory exemption to FISA as well.

    If I am interpreting this properly, the deal Specter appears to be trying to make is offering the Executive Branch a far broader range of available actions in exchange for more direct Congressional involvement. â€We'll let you do more,†the words slither forth, â€but we want to be involved, too…â€

    This would appear to be a tremendously bad deal, all the way around.

    Liberals and libertarians alike may complain about an “imperial presidency,†but President Bush has not used any more of his Constitutionally-mandated Commander-in-Chief authority than any other previous wartime executive, and the powers granted to him by Article II to capture foreign intelligence are well-established. Specter would make a deal to expand powers that don't need expanding, as long as he can have greasy Congressional fingers in the proverbial pie as well.

    The founders would not be amused.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    February 24, 2006

    We'll Have a Gay Old Time

    It looks like events are conspiring to bring us a "theme post."

    First, the bad:

    The Army has charged seven members of the celebrated 82nd Airborne Division with engaging in sex for money on a Web site, authorities said Friday.

    Three of the soldiers face courts-martial on charges of sodomy, pandering and wrongfully engaging in sexual acts for money while being filmed, according to a statement released Friday by the military.

    Four other soldiers, who were not named, received nonjudicial punishments.

    The Army has recommended that all be discharged.

    "Of course, where they were discharging was part of the problem to begin with."

    *rimshot*

    Thanks folks, I'll be here all week...

    I have always supported the idea that any able-bodied American willing to serve their country should have the opportunity. It is unfair to exclude gays from the armed forces or make them hide who they are, while simultaneously telling them they should be proud of the character the military is supposed to have helped them develop. It was and is an intellectually dishonest position.

    American soldiers who have the mettle to handle withering enemy fire can handle the sexuality of their fellow soldiers. I suspect it's the generals and the politicians who aren't mature enough to handle cope.

    It is important to note that the seven soldiers in this story disgraced in their uniforms not by being gay, but by participating in pornography and prostitution. They also embarrass the homosexual community as well, reinforcing a horrible stereotype held in some minds. They deserved to be branded with a dishonorable discharge, though odds are that anyone willing to whore themselves for petty cash on camera doesn't have much honor to loose.

    * * *

    In other news, Ohio Democratic State Sen. Robert Hagan is looking for a co-sponsor to his bill that would ban Republicans from adopting:

    Hagan said his "tongue was planted firmly in cheek" when he drafted the proposed legislation. However, Hagan said that the point he is trying to make is nonetheless very serious.

    Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by state Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption.

    "We need to see what we are doing," said Hagan, who called Hood's proposed bill blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive. Hagan called Hood and the eight other conservative House Republicans who backed the anti-gay adoption bill "homophobic."

    Hood's bill, which does not have support of House leadership, seeks to ban children from being placed for adoption or foster care in homes where the prospective parent or a roommate is homosexual, bisexual or transgender.

    To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that "credible research" shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities."

    Holding up the flashing neon "I don't get it" sign is Matt Margolis at GOPBloggers:

    For Hagan to even suggest there is any parallel between political orientation and sexual orientation is beyond absurd. Principled Republicans are trying to hinder the efforts those who seek to redefine marriage and family, and all Democrats can do and whine and accuse them of being homophobic. Hagan has taken things a step further by trivializing the debate with a ridiculous mockery of a bill.

    What Margolis doesn't to be able to grasp is that any attempted parallel between sexual orientation and good parenting is far more absurd than any comparison between sexual and political orientations. Hagan's bill rightly mocks the stupidity of a handful of small-minded homophobes that would rather children end up in a series of foster homes or in an orphanage than be adopted into an atypical but loving and supportive home environment.

    Quite frankly, I'd like to see several of Ohio's Republican senators cross the aisle and sign on as co-sponsors for Hagan's bill, as there are clearly at least eight Republican senators in Ohio that are more worried about the image of parenting than the substance of it. We should stand for family values, whatever the family looks like.

    Perhaps Hagan's bill, applied selectively, isn't such a bad idea after all.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:28 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

    February 23, 2006

    Deep Thinker

    Ninth District Congresswoman Sue Myrick (R-NC) sent a letter to the White House regarding "regarding the sell [sic] of US Ports to the United Arab Emerites[sic]" yesterday that shows the amount of thought most Congress critters have applied so far to the Ports Dubai bid.

    She wrote:

    In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just NO—but HELL NO!

    Sincerely,


    Myrick is certainly representative of most critics of the Dubai Ports bid, as she doesn't bother to grasp the most basic of facts before spouting off an ignorant opinion. Ignoring her staff's basic linguistic incompetence, ("sale" not "sell," "Emirates," not "Emirites," and 12 hours later, not a soul on her staff is bright enough to notice), we can look at the simple truth that the ports are not being sold.

    The only thing potentially changing is the port management, and if Myrick is so concerned about foreign management of American ports, she should have raised a stink six years ago when the first foreign company took control of these exact same ports.

    Instead, we get muddled thinking and bad grammar.

    Too bad only one of those is relatively easy to correct.

    Update: I'm glad to see someone is capable of acting like an adult in this situation. Unsurprisingly, once again, it isn't Congress.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:52 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    February 21, 2006

    "No One Deserves This"

    From "the Sandbox," a soldier speaks out on the false Christians of Westboro Baptist Church that protest at soldier's funerals, and the rough-and-tumble bikers that support our soldier's families during the hardest of times.

    "No One Deserves This," from Mind in the Qatar.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:22 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    "Senator Feingold Praises Benedict Arnold"

    Jason Smith is on a tear...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:35 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    February 20, 2006

    No "Free Speech Abuse"

    Paul Geary blasts those supporting the thought crime of "free speech abuse" in The New Editor:

    I contend there is no such thing as free speech "abuse." The perceived need to equivocate on free speech in order to display the appropriate sensitivities misses the point altogether. The bigot who uses racial epithets, however repugnant they may be to most of us, isn't abusing his speech freedom, he's exercising it. The pornographer isn't abusing free press, he's exercising it. The civil rights marchers who invaded southern towns in the 1960s were accused of "abusing" free speech. Thank God they did.

    Dan Riehl admonishes:

    Name it for freedom, or name it for unity, or name it as you will. But stand together nationally, with as much scope as you can, and make a clear statement against intimidation and threat and jointly publish the cartoons.

    The alternative will only be ever more editorials like the one below and a nation that won't believe you when you tell us of the value of freedom of expression, for which you especially purport to stand. If you lack the courage of conviction to stand up for the very principles upon which our free press was formed, than you relinquish the right to expect others to defend you in the face of any coming storm.

    As Benjamin Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:28 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    February 16, 2006

    Flight 93 Appeasement Mosque

    L.A. architect Paul Murdoch's controversial Crescent of Embrace seems poised to go ahead in Shanksville, PA, as a terrorism-honoring, Mecca-oriented crescent:

    The Project's last public meeting was the unveiling back in September of Paul Murdoch's winning Crescent of Embrace design, with its half-mile wide Mecca-oriented crescent. It is very likely that Saturday's meeting is to announce that Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has given final approval to Murdoch's design, based on the insignificant design changes announced in late November. The design is now called simply The Flight 93 Memorial instead of The Crescent of Embrace, but the half-mile wide Mecca-oriented crescent is still there, as are all of the other Islamic and jihadist design elements of the original Crescent design.
    Error Theory shows that Murdoch's redesign still appears to be a tribute to mass-murdering terrorists, not to the memeory of the brave passengers of Flight 93 that said "let's roll," and forced down a plane destined for Washington, D.C.

    This must not stand.

    Error Theory provides the detailed list of snail mail, email, and telephone contact information needed to make your voice known.

    Please do.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:18 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    February 15, 2006

    HillaryCare, Part II

    Somehow, this seems so familiar...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    February 09, 2006

    Recession Bias

    Thanks to the constantly impending Bushitler-Halliburton Recession, it's like 1929 all over again... isn't it?

    At a time when unemployment was at 6.5 percent, and GDP was forecasted to be 3 percent in 1994, Time Magazine wrote, "which would be no boom, but maybe something much better: a pace that could be sustained for a long time, keeping income and employment growing without igniting a new surge in inflation…. The circle (of spending, production and hiring) may not spin fast enough to produce a boom -- but who wants one anyway? Moderate, steady growth is better."

    Now compare it to the one Time Magazine article ("How Real is the Squeeze?") written about economic recovery under President Bush. Keep in mind that at the time the article was written GDP grew 3.9 percent in the first quarter of 2004 (which was subsequently revised upward to 4.3 percent) and unemployment was at 5.6 percent.

    "Jonathan Thornton finally found a job this spring after six months of unemployment...

    While economics is not my bag, the obvious bias in the tone of in economic reporting between the Clinton and Bush presidencies speaks for itself, I think.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    February 08, 2006

    A Fein Whine

    Raw Story has what it claims was an advance copy of a prepared speech Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) gave on the floor of the Senate regarding the secret NSA surveillance program authorized by President Bush in 2001 to intercept international communications between suspected al Qaeda terrorists overseas and their contacts in the United States. I sincerely hope that this is an accurate transcript, as it a damning indictment of the level of dishonesty Senate Democrats are willing to stoop to in an attempt to damage the White House, national security concerns be damned.

    It begins (My bold):

    Mr. President, last week the President of the United States gave his State of the Union address, where he spoke of America's leadership in the world, and called on all of us to "lead this world toward freedom." Again and again, he invoked the principle of freedom, and how it can transform nations, and empower people around the world.

    But, almost in the same breath, the President openly acknowledged that he has ordered the government to spy on Americans, on American soil, without the warrants required by law.


    This is not just one lie, but three blatant, calculated lies in one breath.

    The executive order signed by President Bush and implemented by General Michael Hayden was designed not to spy on Americans, but to intercept communications with suspected overseas terrorists. As Hayden himself made clear, any information identifying Americans was sanitized, meaning that information was redacted. Stricken. Not used. Destroyed.

    Nor was this program operating "on American soil." The program captured targeted, specific communications as they entered or left the country, much in the same way a customs official has the right to search luggage entering or leaving the country, also a practice that happens legally without a warrant, I may add.

    As the President, two Attorney's General, White House counsel, and cohorts of National Security Administration and Justice Department Officials have maintained and existing case law such as the FISA Court of Review's decision in In re: Sealed Case, Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld , and other evidence in this 42-page brief (PDF) strongly asserts, warrants are not required for this kind of international (occurring in more than one country, hence not domestic) surveillance.

    That's a whole lot of hyperbole and straight-up lying packed into one sentence, but the Senator is far from done.

    The President issued a call to spread freedom throughout the world, and then he admitted that he has deprived Americans of one of their most basic freedoms under the Fourth Amendment -- to be free from unjustified government intrusion.

    The President was blunt. He said that he had authorized the NSA's domestic spying program, and he made a number of misleading arguments to defend himself. His words got rousing applause from Republicans, and even some Democrats.

    The President was blunt, so I will be blunt: This program is breaking the law, and this President is breaking the law. Not only that, he is misleading the American people in his efforts to justify this program.

    How is that worthy of applause? Since when do we celebrate our commander in chief for violating our most basic freedoms, and misleading the American people in the process? When did we start to stand up and cheer for breaking the law? In that moment at the State of the Union, I felt ashamed.

    Senator Feingold is, once again, lying, so of course he should feel ashamed, if that emotion still resonates in a being so morally vacuous.

    The Fourth Amendment is not applicable to the NSA program whatsoever. The Fourth Amendment clearly states:

    The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

    What terrorist supporter on this planet that the interception of international terrorist communications does not meet the well-established exemption to the warrant requirement and the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement? Apparently, Russ Feingold.

    As stated before and stated often, this is a targeted program intercepting international communications of terrorists, and it does not exceed the President's constitutional powers.

    Once again, this is not a domestic spying program. No matter how many times shrill Democrats and their allies in the media repeat that hysteric refrain, it remains a targeted program intercepting the communications of suspected terrorists outside of this nation, trying to slip messages to their agents within our borders. These are the people Russ Feingold is trying to protect, and they are hardly loyal Americans.

    The President is not misleading the people, he has laid out his legal case as clearly as prudence will allow without compromising the program, and many scholars and practitioners of the law from all political persuasions agree. There is misdirection and misleading going on, but it is being led by Senate and House Democrats who desire a perceived temporary political advantage more than the security of America's people.

    Feingold continues with a shockingly honest (and probably quite accidental) admission:

    Congress has lost its way if we don't hold this President accountable for his actions.

    The President, in reasserting the power of the Presidency as enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, is directly challenging an overreaching Congress. They seek to hold onto a momentary illusion of power that they do not legally possess, and hope to bluster their way though against a president they see as weak, and they challenge the power of the Commander in chief to lead military surveillance against a foreign enemy during a time of war as they plot attacks on our soil, against our citizens.

    The congressional way of bluster, accusation, and usurping of executive power enabled by a weak-willed President Carter must not stand, or this nation cannot defend itself. Wars are not led by committees, but by commanders. Congress does not want to acknowledge their own limitations. Acknowledging that Congress will be exposed as having lost its way is Feingold's only accidental honesty.

    The President suggests that anyone who criticizes his illegal wiretapping program doesn't understand the threat we face. But we do. Every single one of us is committed to stopping the terrorists who threaten us and our families.

    But not if that commitment involves recognizing that the Congress has overreached. Perceived Congressional power is far more important than American lives.

    Defeating the terrorists should be our top national priority, and we all agree that we need to wiretap them to do it. In fact, it would be irresponsible not to wiretap terrorists. But we have yet to see any reason why we have to trample the laws of the United States to do it. The President's decision that he can break the law says far more about his attitude toward the rule of law than it does about the laws themselves.

    Once again, Feingold is accidentally correct.

    Defeating terrorists should be our top national priority, but instead, members of both Houses, led by Democrats have made upholding their own perceived importance to be a higher priority than enabling the President to carry out his constitutionally mandated duty to carry out foreign surveillance.

    This goes way beyond party, and way beyond politics. What the President has done here is to break faith with the American people. In the State of the Union, he also said that "we must always be clear in our principles" to get support from friends and allies that we need to fight terrorism. So let's be clear about a basic American principle: When someone breaks the law, when someone misleads the public in an attempt to justify his actions, he needs to be held accountable. The President of the United States has broken the law. The President of the United States is trying to mislead the American people. And he needs to be held accountable.

    Unfortunately, the President refuses to provide any details about this domestic spying program. Not even the full Intelligence committees know the details, and they were specifically set up to review classified information and oversee the intelligence activities of our government. Instead, the President says - "Trust me."

    Feingold is more guilty of projection that he could ever imagine. It is Democrats that have broken faith with the American people, hoping to turn a crime (government leaks) into a scandal for political gain at the expense of the security of average Americans. No Congressman or Senator-let me rephrase that-no honest Congressman or Senator can assert that the President's duty to protect this nation in a time of war is subservient to an unconstitutional statutory law.

    The President is accountable to a higher standard than the hyperbole and bombast of a shrill Senator with a track record of trampling on the Constitution.

    Being a Senator, Feingold does go on from there... and on, and on, and on, regurgitating the talking points you have not doubt already chanted a hundred times.

    Unfortunately for Feingold, this mantra of deceit is all he has, and history will remember him for the small, self-serving man he continually proves himself to be.

    Update: Reliapundit fisks Feingold's "BDS to Power" speech as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:50 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

    What the Times Should Say, But Won't

    Adam Nagorney and Sheryl Gay Stolberg have thoroughly amusing article in Wednesday's NY Times, Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities. I thought it could use some clarification.

    Democrats are heading into this year's elections in a position weaker than they had hoped for, party leaders say, stirring concern that they are letting pass an opportunity to exploit what they see as widespread Republican vulnerabilities.

    In interviews, senior Democrats said they were optimistic about significant gains in Congressional elections this fall, calling this the best political environment they have faced since President Bush took office.

    But Democrats described a growing sense that they had failed to take full advantage of the troubles that have plagued Mr. Bush and his party since the middle of last year, driving down the president's approval ratings, opening divisions among Republicans in Congress over policy and potentially putting control of the House and Senate into play in November.

    Asked to describe the health of the Democratic Party, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said: "A lot worse than it should be. This has not been a very good two months."

    "We seem to be losing our voice when it comes to the basic things people worry about," Mr. Dodd said.

    And what "basic things" would those be, Senator?

    Being able to remember an icon without turning her casket into a soapbox? Would you be referring to "basic things" such as Democrats cheering the fact they torpedoed an attempt to reform Social Security? Perhaps a shocking tendency towards behavior that helps terrorists? Do tell.

    Democrats said they had not yet figured out how to counter the White House's long assault on their national security credentials. And they said their opportunities to break through to voters with a coherent message on domestic and foreign policy — should they settle on one — were restricted by the lack of an established, nationally known leader to carry their message this fall.

    Let's be honest, kids. Democrats have done far more to assault their own national security credentials that Republicans ever could. From the false allegations of concentration camp type conditions in Dick Durbin's imaginary gulags, to John Murtha's call to retreat and statement that he would not serve in today's Marine Corps, Democrats have contributed to their own Purple Hearts and Pink Badges. It is a dishonor hard-fought, and well-earned.

    As a result, some Democrats said, their party could lose its chance to do to Republicans this year what the Republicans did to them in 1994: make the midterm election, normally dominated by regional and local concerns, a national referendum on the party in power.

    "I think that two-thirds of the American people think the country is going in the wrong direction," " said Senator Barack Obama, the first-term Illinois Democrat who is widely viewed as one of the party's promising stars. "They're not sure yet whether Democrats can move it in the right direction."

    Mr. Obama said the Democratic Party had not seized the moment, adding: "We have been in a reactive posture for too long. I think we have been very good at saying no, but not good enough at saying yes."

    Or in Senator Obama's case, not good enough at saying anything truthful.

    Some Democrats said they favored remaining largely on the sidelines while Republicans struggled under the glare of a corruption inquiry.

    I wonder why?

    And some said there was still time for the party to get its act together. But many others said the party needed to move quickly to offer a comprehensive governing agenda, even as they expressed concern about who could make the case.

    Their concern was aggravated by the image of high-profile Democrats, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, challenging the legality of Mr. Bush's secret surveillance program this week at a time when the White House has sought to portray Democrats as weak on security.

    "We're selling our party short; you've got to stand for a lot more than just blasting the other side," said Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee. "The country is wide open to hear some alternatives, but I don't think it's wide open to all these criticisms. I am sitting here and getting all my e-mail about the things we are supposed to say about the president's speech, but it's extremely light on ideas. It's like, 'We're for jobs and we're for America.' "

    Haven't you heard, Phil? There's a better way.

    To a certain extent, the frustrations afflicting Democrats are typical for a party out of power. In Congress, the Democrats have become largely marginalized by the Republican majority, depriving them of a ready platform either to make attacks or offer their own ideas.

    Who needs a platform, when you've got a casket? Not Jimmah Cartah!

    Presidential campaigns typically produce prominent party leaders, followed around the country by a cluster of reporters and television crews, but that is at least two years away.

    What? You're forgetting the Man with the Magic Hat so soon?

    Yet in many ways, the Democratic Party's problems seem particularly tangled today, a source of frustration to Democratic leaders as they have watched opinion polls indicating that the public is souring on the Republican Party and receptive to Democratic leadership.

    And the problems are besetting Democrats at a pivotal moment, as they struggle to adapt to a shifting American political landscape, and a concerted effort by this White House to make permanent inroads among once traditional Democratic voters.

    Since Mr. Bush's re-election, Democrats have been divided over whether to take on the Republicans in a more confrontational manner, ideologically and politically, or to move more forcefully to stake out the center on social and national security issues. They are being pushed, from the left wing of the party, to stand for what they say are the party's historical liberal values.

    What are "liberal values?"

    Quick 'n easy (preferably government-subsidized) abortions, no welfare or social security reform, little or no respect for the troops, snide attacks on Christianity while sharing talking points with radical Islamic fascists...

    You can have "liberal." You can have "values." Which is it?

    But among more establishment Democrats, there is concern that many of the party's most visible leaders — among them, Howard Dean, the Democratic chairman; Senator John Kerry, the party's 2004 presidential candidate; Mr. Kennedy; Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader; and Al Gore, who has assumed a higher profile as the party heads toward the 2008 presidential primaries — may be flawed messengers.

    And your first clue was what exactly?

    One of the party's most prominent members, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, has been relatively absent for much of this debate, a characteristic display of public caution that her aides say reflects her concern for keeping focused on her re-election bid. Mrs. Clinton, who has only nominal opposition, declined requests for an interview to discuss her views of the party.

    Mr. Kerry said the party's authority had been diluted because of the absence of one or two obvious leaders, though he expressed confidence that would change.

    "We are fighting to find a voice under difficult circumstances, and I'm confident, over the next few months, you are going to see that happen," Mr. Kerry said in an interview. "Our megaphone is just not as large as their megaphone, and we have a harder time getting that message out, even when people are on the same page."

    The megaphone won't work for policy mutes. Until Democrats have a message concocted on this side of 1968, then they might as well go red-faced blowing into a dog whistle. Only Kossacks will hear their call.

    Beyond that, while there is a surfeit of issues for Democrats to use against Republicans — including corruption, the war in Iraq, energy prices and health care — party leaders are divided about what Democrats should be talking about and about how soon they should engage in the debate.

    Just a quick reality check for the Times:

    Reid is said to be hip-deep in the Abramhoff scandal, and it seems likely that Jay Rockefeller may have committed a felony breach of espionage laws that put this nation in danger. Corruption? Not so good. The War on Iraq? Start by picking a side. Energy prices? John Kerry wastes more gas on ski vacations than some small nations. Health care? Uh, does anyone remember Hillary's last stab at that? They do have the market cornered on unhinged shrieking, however, so all is not lost.

    In a speech last week in Washington and in an interview, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who is considering a run for president in 2008, sharply criticized fellow Democrats who were arguing that the party should focus only on domestic issues and turn away from national security, since that has been the strong suit for this White House since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

    "I think the Republicans are ripe for the taking on this issue," Mr. Bayh said in the interview, "but not until we rehabilitate our own image. I think there's a certain element of denial about how we are viewed, perhaps incorrectly but viewed nonetheless, by many Americans as being deficient on national security."

    In his speech, to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Bayh said: "As Democrats, we have a patriotic duty and political imperative to lay out our ideas for protecting America. Frankly, our fellow citizens have doubts about us. We have work to do."

    Seantor Bayh, to paraphrase John Houseman's Smith Barney ads, "At the Democratic National Committee, we don't make our reputation on national security, we burned it." Badly. If you want to protect America, start by muzzling Pat "Leaky" Leahy and Jay Rockefeller before the Justice Department does.

    "When you bring it out early, you are going to leave it open for the spinmeisters in Rove's machine, the Republican side, to tear it to pieces," said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.

    I translate that to, “Dude, I got nothin'.â€

    "What the American people are hungry to hear from us is, what is the difference?" Mr. Edwards said in an interview. "What will we do? How will we deal with the corruption issue in Washington? How will we deal with the huge moral issues that we have at home? This is a huge opportunity for our party to show what we are made of."

    *crickets*

    Historically at least, Democrats should be in a strong position. The out-of-power party typically gains seats in the midterm elections of a president's second term. And Democrats said they had a particularly compelling case for voting out the party in power this year because of investigations centered on the White House and Congress, including the influence-peddling case involving the lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

    "We're going to keep hammering this," said Mr. Dean, the party chairman, referring to the scandals. "One thing the Republicans have taught us is that values and character matter."

    Yet some Democrats warned that it would be a mistake to talk only about ethics.

    Harry Reid, or Ted Kennedy?

    "It's absolutely required that the party talk about things in addition to the Abramoff scandal," said Martin Frost, former leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "I think the climate is absolutely right to take back the House or the Senate or both. But you can't do it without a program."

    And Mr. Bayh said, "I don't believe we will win by just not being them."

    Ms. Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, did not dispute that argument. But, pointing to the Democratic strategy in defeating Mr. Bush's Social Security proposal last year, she said there was no rush.

    "People said, 'You can't beat something with nothing,' " she said, arguing that the Democrats had in fact accomplished precisely that this year. "I feel very confident about where we are."

    And Senator Barbara Boxer, also a California Democrat, said: "We have a strategy. First is to convince the American people that what's happening in Washington is not working. We have achieved that. Now we have to, at this stage, convince people that we are the ones to bring positive change."

    Boxer's plan is working... somewhat.

    The American people have seen that what is happening in Washington isn't working.

    The way Democrats gave themselves thunderous applause for killing social security reform made that fact abundantly clear to us all.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:15 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    February 07, 2006

    Ussselesss Pressidentessss...

    Well, we can't say this is exactly a surprise:

    Former President Jimmy Carter criticized the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program Monday and said he believes the president has broken the law.

    "Under the Bush administration, there's been a disgraceful and illegal decision _ we're not going to the let the judges or the Congress or anyone else know that we're spying on the American people," Carter told reporters. "And no one knows how many innocent Americans have had their privacy violated under this secret act."

    Carter...

    Oops , wrong picture...

    Carter, however, is a lagomorph-phobic peanut farmer, and not a lawyer. He should talk to his attorney general Griffin Bell, who said that FISA, "does not take away the power of the president under the Constitution."

    Carter would also do well to read this analysis (PDF) of H. Bryan Cunningham, a "national security lawyer" and CIA officer under Bill Clinton, and the Deputy Legal Advisor to the National Security Administration in the George H.W. Bush administration. The letter absolutely guts the arguments of Democrats and libertarians, and strongly suggests that FISA may be unconstitutional as it constrains the President's Article II powers. Virginia Patriot, the shiny new blog of a William & Mary law school professor who tipped me off to the letter, has more analysis of the letter.

    He also provides one of the better Op-Eds (free registration may be required) I've read about the FISA flap and the legality of Bush's actions in signing the order to run this NSA program.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:27 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

    February 03, 2006

    Guardian Fetches A Bucket of Prop Wash

    The latest of the so-called "Downing Street Memos" is the most laughable one yet. According to a key passage in this latest theory:

    Mr Bush told Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".

    One problem with that theory: U2 high altitude surveillance aircraft typically operate near their operational ceiling of 70,000 feet, or more than 13 miles in the air. The aircraft simply cannot be seen from the ground, regardless of what paint scheme it manifests, whether it is United Nations blue, or pink with green stripes. The very concept is preposterous.

    If Bush and Blair wanted to use Iraqi anti-aircraft fire as their excuse to trigger a war, they hardly had to make up an incident.

    Iraq has a long and well documented history of firing upon aircraft enforcing the U.N.-mandated "No-fly" zones in what became unofficially known as the No-Fly Zone War which occurred more or less continuously from the end of the first Gulf War in 1991 until the Iraq War began on March 20, 2003.

    Iraqi aggression against Coalition planes carrying out U.N.-mandated missions occurred with enough severity that they warranted an armed response more than 47 times in 2001, and more than 76 times - more than once a week - in 2002. In the 3 months of 2003 leading up to the March 20th invasion of Iraq, Iraqi anti-aircraft and command and control sites targeting these same coalition planes had to be fired up in defense 33 times in just 12 weeks in the Southern Watch area alone.

    Over the course of 12 years, more than 1,100 missiles were expended in defensive actions against a minimum of 350 Iraqi targets, most of them when anti-aircraft weapons had "gone hot," committing the exact same kinds of breaches that forms the basis of the dubious Bush-to-Blair comments above.

    Blair and Bush did not have to manufacture these kinds of incidents to justify a war when Saddam was already breaching the ceasefire on his own.

    These are the facts.

    This "new, explosive memo" as some are calling it (the "Mother of All Downing Street Memos" according to others), is therefore based upon some demonstrably false information.

    Update: Dropped speculative theory of what dissiminating false info might mean. We'll stick with the facts for now.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:05 PM | Comments (101) | TrackBack

    February 02, 2006

    Mental Bondage

    Like a bitter, bigoted version of Marley's Ghost, the NAACP's chief rabble(rouser?) Julian Bond is out once again rattling his chains, taking the low road as far as it would go without crawling under the podium.

    In a vicious, hate-filled speech at Fayetteville State University, Bond spent his time impugning Republicans as “Nazis,†and named two of America's most successful black public servants "tokens" for belonging to the wrong political party.

    Julian Bond is right about one thing, however: if you are black in America you have no freedom today. He intends to make certain of that, by chaining blacks to the Democratic Party with every innuendo, invective, and slur that slithers past his lips.

    Why should blacks vote for Democrats, simply because they were born black? That is the real issue in a nutshell, and one Bond does not want discussed.

    Blacks are no more homogenous than any other ethnic group, and yet for decades they have been expected to vote Democrat simply because of their race, an expectation put on no other ethnic group in America. It is a racist ploy, pure, simple, and as evil as a burning cross.

    Like whites, Asians, and Hispanics, blacks live in every part of the country, rural and urban, across all economic layers, with differing wants, needs, and expectations.

    Black voters deserve something other than the “one size fits all†approach the Democratic Party and black community “leaders†have been pushing for the past 40 years, and they certainly deserve far better treatment in non-election years. They are individuals, and deserve to be treated as such, not relegated to the political status of a “sure thing.â€

    Someone is certainly disparaging the intelligence of the black voter, Julian Bond.

    I think it's you.

    Update: Generation Why? says it all: "NAACP Chairman Julian Bond crawled out of his hole this morning and saw his shadow, indicating 6 more weeks of racism."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:50 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    Electile Dysfunction

    Let me get this straight... we go from DeLay, to Blunt to Boehner? This isn't a House Republican leadership race as much as it is a Levitra ad. then again, I guess that is what we can expect when all the candidates are guys in their mid-50s...

    Of course, let's see what he can do with it before we talk about it too much. His position, I mean.

    His political position.

    Buncha pervs...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:48 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    February 01, 2006

    Risen into the Ether

    Is it just my perception, or has self-serving NY Times reporter James Risen all but vanished since it was announced that the Justice Department was conducting an investigation into allegations that he and his sources might have broken federal espionage laws?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    January 31, 2006

    2006 State of the Union

    STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
    As Prepared For Delivery

    Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, Members of Congress, Members of the Supreme Court and diplomatic corps, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

    Today our Nation lost a beloved, graceful, courageous woman who called America to its founding ideals and carried on a noble dream. Tonight we are comforted by the hope of a glad reunion with the husband who was taken from her so long ago, and we are grateful for the good life of Coretta Scott King.

    Each time I am invited to this rostrum, I am humbled by the privilege, and mindful of the history we have seen together. We have gathered under this Capitol dome in moments of national mourning and national achievement. We have served America through one of the most consequential periods of our history and it has been my honor to serve with you.

    In a system of two parties, two chambers, and two elected branches, there will always be differences and debate. But even tough debates can be conducted in a civil tone, and our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger. To confront the great issues before us, we must act in a spirit of good will and respect for one another and I will do my part. Tonight the state of our Union is strong and together we will make it stronger.

    In this decisive year, you and I will make choices that determine both the future and the character of our country. We will choose to act confidently in pursuing the enemies of freedom or retreat from our duties in the hope of an easier life. We will choose to build our prosperity by leading the world economy or shut ourselves off from trade and opportunity. In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting yet it ends in danger and decline. The only way to protect our people the only way to secure the peace the only way to control our destiny is by our leadership so the United States of America will continue to lead.

    Abroad, our Nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal we seek the end of tyranny in our world. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends on it. On September 11th, 2001, we found that problems originating in a failed and oppressive state seven thousand miles away could bring murder and destruction to our country. Dictatorships shelter terrorists, feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror. Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer, and so we will act boldly in freedoms cause.

    Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of freedom is the great story of our time. In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies on Earth. Today, there are 122. And we are writing a new chapter in the story of self-government with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom. At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half in places like Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom as well.

    No one can deny the success of freedom, but some men rage and fight against it. And one of the main sources of reaction and opposition is radical Islam the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death. Terrorists like bin Laden are serious about mass murder and all of us must take their declared intentions seriously. They seekto impose a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East, andarm themselves with weapons of mass murder. Theiraim is to seize power in Iraq,and useit as asafe haven to launch attacks against America and the world. Lacking the military strength to challenge us directly, the terrorists have chosen the weapon of fear. When they murder children at a school in Beslan or blow up commuters in London or behead a bound captive the terrorists hope these horrors will break our will, allowing the violent to inherit the Earth. But they have miscalculated: We love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it.

    In a time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders. If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone. They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores. There is no peace in retreat. And there is no honor in retreat. By allowing radical Islam to work its will by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself we would signal to all that we no longer believe in our own ideals, or even in our own courage. But our enemies and our friends can be certain: The United States will not retreat from the world, and we will never surrender to evil.

    America rejects the false comfort of isolationism. We are the Nation that saved liberty in Europe, and liberated death camps, and helped raise up democracies, and faced down an evil empire. Once again, we accept the call of history to deliver the oppressed, and move this world toward peace.

    We remain on the offensive against terror networks. We have killed or captured many of their leaders and for the others, their day will come.

    We remain on the offensive in Afghanistan where a fine president and national assembly are fighting terror while building the institutions of a new democracy.

    And we are on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory. First, we are helping Iraqis build an inclusive government, so that old resentments will be eased, and the insurgency marginalized. Second, we are continuing reconstruction efforts, and helping the Iraqi government to fight corruption and build a modern economy, so all Iraqis can experience the benefits of freedom. Third, we are striking terrorist targets while we train Iraqi forces that are increasingly capable of defeating the enemy. Iraqis are showing their courage every day, and we are proud to be their allies in the cause of freedom.

    Our work in Iraq is difficult, because our enemy is brutal. But that brutality has not stopped the dramatic progress of a new democracy. In less than three years, that nation has gone from dictatorship, to liberation, to sovereignty, to a constitution, to national elections. At the same time, our coalition has been relentless in shutting off terrorist infiltration, clearing out insurgent strongholds, and turning over territory to Iraqi security forces. I am confident in our plan for victory I am confident in the will of the Iraqi people I am confident in the skill and spirit of our military. Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win, and we are winning.

    The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home. As we make progress on the ground, and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels but those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C.

    Our coalition has learned from experience in Iraq. We have adjusted our military tactics and changed our approach to reconstruction. Along the way, we have benefited from responsible criticism and counsel offered by Members of Congress of both parties. In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice.

    Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.

    With so much in the balance, those of us in public office have a duty to speak with candor. A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our Iraqi allies to death and prison put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country and show that a pledge from America means little. Members of Congress: however we feel about the decisions and debates of the past, our Nation has only one option: We must keep our word, defeat our enemies, and stand behind the American military in its vital mission.

    Our men and women in uniform are making sacrifices and showing a sense of duty stronger than all fear. They know what it is like to fight house to house in a maze of streets to wear heavy gear in the desert heat to see a comrade killed by a roadside bomb. And those who know the costs also know the stakes. Marine Staff Sergeant Dan Clay was killed last month fighting the enemy in Fallujah. He left behind a letter to his family, but his words could just as well be addressed to every American. Here is what Dan wrote: I know what honor is. It has been an honor to protect and serve all of you. I faced death with the secure knowledge that you would not have to. Never falter! Dont hesitate to honor and support those of us who have the honor of protecting that which is worth protecting.

    Staff Sergeant Dan Clays wife, Lisa, and his mom and dad, Sara Jo and Bud, are with us this evening. Our Nation is grateful to the fallen, who live in the memory of our country. We are grateful to all who volunteer to wear our Nations uniform and as we honor our brave troops, let us never forget the sacrifices of Americas military families.

    Our offensive against terror involves more than military action. Ultimately, the only way to defeat the terrorists is to defeat their dark vision of hatred and fear by offering the hopeful alternative of political freedom and peaceful change. So the United States of America supports democratic reform across the broader Middle East. Elections are vital but they are only the beginning. Raising up a democracy requires the rule of law, protection of minorities, and strong, accountable institutions that last longer than a single vote. The great people of Egypt have voted in a multi-party presidential election and now their government should open paths of peaceful opposition that will reduce the appeal of radicalism. The Palestinian people have voted in elections now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace. Saudi Arabia has taken the first steps of reform now it can offer its people a better future by pressing forward with those efforts. Democracies in the Middle East will not look like our own, because they will reflect the traditions of their own citizens. Yet liberty is the future of every nation in the Middle East, because liberty is the right and hope of all humanity.

    The same is true of Iran, a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people. The regime in that country sponsors terrorists in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon and that must come to an end. The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons. America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats. And tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our Nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.

    To overcome dangers in our world, we must also take the offensive by encouraging economic progress, fighting disease, and spreading hope in hopeless lands. Isolationism would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies, it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need. We show compassion abroad because Americans believe in the God-given dignity and worth of a villager with HIV/AIDS, or an infant with malaria, or a refugee fleeing genocide, or a young girl sold into slavery. We also show compassion abroad because regions overwhelmed by poverty, corruption, and despair are sources of terrorism, organized crime, human trafficking, and the drug trade.

    In recent years, you and I have taken unprecedented action to fight AIDS and malaria, expand the education of girls, and reward developing nations that are moving forward with economic and political reform. For people everywhere, the United States is a partner for a better life. Short-changing these efforts would increase the suffering and chaos of our world, undercut our long-term security, and dull the conscience of our country. I urge Members of Congress to serve the interests of America by showing the compassion of America.

    Our country must also remain on the offensive against terrorism here at home. The enemy has not lost the desire or capability to attack us. Fortunately, this Nation has superb professionals in law enforcement, intelligence, the military, and homeland security. These men and women are dedicating their lives to protecting us all, and they deserve our support and our thanks. They also deserve the same tools they already use to fight drug trafficking and organized crime so I ask you to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

    It is said that prior to the attacks of September 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al-Qaida operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late. So to prevent another attack based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al-Qaida operatives and affiliates to and from America. Previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have and Federal courts have approved the use of that authority. Appropriate Members of Congress have been kept informed. This terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America. If there are people inside our country who are talking with al-Qaida, we want to know about it because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again.

    In all these areas from the disruption of terror networks, to victory in Iraq, to the spread of freedom and hope in troubled regions we need the support of friends and allies. To draw that support, we must always be clear in our principles and willing to act. The only alternative to American leadership is a dramatically more dangerous and anxious world. Yet we also choose to lead because it is a privilege to serve the values that gave us birth. American leaders from Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Reagan rejected isolation and retreat, because they knew that America is always more secure when freedom is on the march. Our own generation is in a long war against a determined enemy a war that will be fought by Presidents of both parties, who will need steady bipartisan support from the Congress. And tonight I ask for yours. Together, let us protect our country, support the men and women who defend us, and lead this world toward freedom.

    Here at home, America also has a great opportunity: We will build the prosperity of our country by strengthening our economic leadership in the world.

    Our economy is healthy, and vigorous, and growing faster than other major industrialized nations. In the last two-and-a-half years, America has created 4.6 million new jobs more than Japan and the European Union combined. Even in the face of higher energy prices and natural disasters, the American people have turned in an economic performance that is the envy of the world.

    The American economy is pre-eminent but we cannot afford to be complacent. In a dynamic world economy, we are seeing new competitors like China and India. This creates uncertainty, which makes it easier to feed peoples fears. And so we are seeing some old temptations return. Protectionists want to escape competition, pretending that we can keep our high standard of living while walling off our economy. Others say that the government needs to take a larger role in directing the economy, centralizing more power in Washington and increasing taxes. We hear claims that immigrants are somehow bad for the economy even though this economy could not function without them. All these are forms of economic retreat, and they lead in the same direction toward a stagnant and second-rate economy.

    Tonight I will set out a better path an agenda for a Nation that competes with confidence an agenda that will raise standards of living and generate new jobs. Americans should not fear our economic future, because we intend to shape it.

    Keeping America competitive begins with keeping our economy growing. And our economy grows when Americans have more of their own money to spend, save, and invest. In the last five years, the tax relief you passed has left 880 billion dollars in the hands of American workers, investors, small businesses, and families and they have used it to help produce more than four years of uninterrupted economic growth. Yet the tax relief is set to expire in the next few years. If we do nothing, American families will face a massive tax increase they do not expect and will not welcome.

    Because America needs more than a temporary expansion, we need more than temporary tax relief. I urge the Congress to act responsibly, and make the tax cuts permanent.

    Keeping America competitive requires us to be good stewards of tax dollars. Every year of my presidency, we have reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending and last year you passed bills that cut this spending. This year my budget will cut it again, and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities. By passing these reforms, we will save the American taxpayer another 14 billion dollars next year and stay on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009. I am pleased that Members of Congress are working on earmark reform because the Federal budget has too many special interest projects. And we can tackle this problem together, if you pass the line-item veto.

    We must also confront the larger challenge of mandatory spending, or entitlements. This year, the first of about 78 million Baby Boomers turn 60, including two of my Dads favorite people me, and President Bill Clinton. This milestone is more than a personal crisis it is a national challenge. The retirement of the Baby Boom generation will put unprecedented strains on the Federal government. By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire Federal budget. And that will present future Congresses with impossible choices staggering tax increases, immense deficits, or deep cuts in every category of spending.

    Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security, yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away and with every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse. So tonight, I ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of Baby Boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This commission should include Members of Congress of both parties, and offer bipartisan answers. We need to put aside partisan politics, work together, and get this problem solved.

    Keeping America competitive requires us to open more markets for all that Americans make and grow. One out of every five factory jobs in America is related to global trade, and we want people everywhere to buy American. With open markets and a level playing field, no one can out-produce or out-compete the American worker.

    Keeping America competitive requires an immigration system that upholds our laws, reflects our values, and serves the interests of our economy. Our Nation needs orderly and secure borders. To meet this goal, we must have stronger immigration enforcement and border protection. And we must have a rational, humane guest worker program that rejects amnesty allows temporary jobs for people who seek them legally and reduces smuggling and crime at the border.

    Keeping America competitive requires affordable health care. Our government has a responsibility to help provide health care for the poor and the elderly, and we are meeting that responsibility. For all Americans, we must confront the rising cost of care strengthen the doctor-patient relationship and help people afford the insurance coverage they need. We will make wider use of electronic records and other health information technology, to help control costs and reduce dangerous medical errors. We will strengthen Health Savings Accounts by making sure individuals and small business employees can buy insurance with the same advantages that people working for big businesses now get. We will do more to make this coverage portable, so workers can switch jobs without having to worry about losing their health insurance. And because lawsuits are driving many good doctors out of practice leaving women in nearly 1,500 American counties without a single OB-GYN I ask the Congress to pass medical liability reform this year.

    Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.

    The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly 10 billion dollars to develop cleaner, cheaper, more reliable alternative energy sources and we are on the threshold of incredible advances. So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas. To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants; revolutionary solar and wind technologies; and clean, safe nuclear energy.

    We must also change how we power our automobiles. We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We will also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips, stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years. Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.

    And to keep America competitive, one commitment is necessary above all: We must continue to lead the world in human talent and creativity. Our greatest advantage in the world has always been our educated, hard-working, ambitious people and we are going to keep that edge. Tonight I announce the American Competitiveness Initiative, to encourage innovation throughout our economy, and to give our Nations children a firm grounding in math and science.

    First: I propose to double the Federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next ten years. This funding will support the work of Americas most creative minds as they explore promising areas such as nanotechnology, supercomputing, and alternative energy sources.

    Second: I propose to make permanent the research and development tax credit, to encourage bolder private-sector investment in technology. With more research in both the public and private sectors, we will improve our quality of life and ensure that America will lead the world in opportunity and innovation for decades to come.

    Third: We need to encourage children to take more math and science, and make sure those courses are rigorous enough to compete with other nations. We have made a good start in the early grades with the No Child Left Behind Act, which is raising standards and lifting test scores across our country. Tonight I propose to train 70,000 high school teachers, to lead advanced-placement courses in math and science bring 30,000 math and science professionals to teach in classrooms and give early help to students who struggle with math, so they have a better chance at good, high-wage jobs. If we ensure that Americas children succeed in life, they will ensure that America succeeds in the world.

    Preparing our Nation to compete in the world is a goal that all of us can share. I urge you to support the American Competitiveness Initiative and together we will show the world what the American people can achieve.

    America is a great force for freedom and prosperity. Yet our greatness is not measured in power or luxuries, but by who we are and how we treat one another. So we strive to be a compassionate, decent, hopeful society.

    In recent years, America has become a more hopeful Nation. Violent crime rates have fallen to their lowest levels since the 1970s. Welfare cases have dropped by more than half over the past decade. Drug use among youth is down 19 percent since 2001. There are fewer abortions in America than at any point in the last three decades, and the number of children born to teenage mothers has been falling for a dozen years in a row.

    These gains are evidence of a quiet transformation a revolution of conscience, in which a rising generation is finding that a life of personal responsibility is a life of fulfillment. Government has played a role. Wise policies such as welfare reform, drug education, and support for abstinence and adoption have made a difference in the character of our country. And everyone here tonight, Democrat and Republican, has a right to be proud of this record.

    Yet many Americans, especially parents, still have deep concerns about the direction of our culture, and the health of our most basic institutions. They are concerned about unethical conduct by public officials, and discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage. And they worry about children in our society who need direction and love and about fellow citizens still displaced by natural disaster and about suffering caused by treatable disease.

    As we look at these challenges, we must never give in to the belief that America is in decline, or that our culture is doomed to unravel. The American people know better than that. We have proven the pessimists wrong before and we will do it again.

    A hopeful society depends on courts that deliver equal justice under law. The Supreme Court now has two superb new members, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito. I thank the Senate for confirming both of them. And I will continue to nominate men and women who understand that judges must be servants of the law, and not legislate from the bench. Today marks the official retirement of a very special American. For 24 years of faithful service to our Nation, the United States is grateful to Justice Sandra Day OConnor.

    A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research human cloning in all its forms creating or implanting embryos for experiments creating human-animal hybrids and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator and that gift should never be discarded, devalued, or put up for sale.

    A hopeful society expects elected officials to uphold the public trust. Honorable people in both parties are working on reforms to strengthen the ethical standards of Washington and I support your efforts. Each of us has made a pledge to be worthy of public responsibility and that is a pledge we must never forget, never dismiss, and never betray.

    As we renew the promise of our institutions, let us also show the character of America in our compassion and care for one another.

    A hopeful society gives special attention to children who lack direction and love. Through the Helping Americas Youth Initiative, we are encouraging caring adults to get involved in the life of a child and this good work is led by our First Lady, Laura Bush. This year we will add resources to encourage young people to stay in school so more of Americas youth can raise their sights and achieve their dreams.

    A hopeful society comes to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency and stays at it until they are back on their feet. So far the Federal government has committed 85 billion dollars to the people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. We are removing debris, repairing highways, and building stronger levees. We are providing business loans and housing assistance. Yet as we meet these immediate needs, we must also address deeper challenges that existed before the storm arrived. In New Orleans and in other places, many of our fellow citizens have felt excluded from the promise of our country. The answer is not only temporary relief, but schools that teach every child and job skills that bring upward mobility and more opportunities to own a home and start a business. As we recover from a disaster, let us also work for the day when all Americans are protected by justice, equal in hope, and rich in opportunity.

    A hopeful society acts boldly to fight diseases like HIV/AIDS, which can be prevented, and treated, and defeated. More than a million Americans live with HIV, and half of all AIDS cases occur among African-Americans. I ask Congress to reform and reauthorize the Ryan White Act and provide new funding to states, so we end the waiting lists for AIDS medicine in America. We will also lead a nationwide effort, working closely with African-American churches and faith-based groups, to deliver rapid HIV tests to millions, end the stigma of AIDS, and come closer to the day when there are no new infections in America.

    Fellow citizens, we have been called to leadership in a period of consequence. We have entered a great ideological conflict we did nothing to invite. We see great changes in science and commerce that will influence all our lives. And sometimes it can seem that history is turning in a wide arc, toward an unknown shore.

    Yet the destination of history is determined by human action, and every great movement of history comes to a point of choosing. Lincoln could have accepted peace at the cost of disunity and continued slavery. Martin Luther King could have stopped at Birmingham or at Selma, and achieved only half a victory over segregation. The United States could have accepted the permanent division of Europe, and been complicit in the oppression of others. Today, having come far in our own historical journey, we must decide: Will we turn back, or finish well?

    Before history is written down in books, it is written in courage. Like Americans before us, we will show that courage and we will finish well. We will lead freedoms advance. We will compete and excel in the global economy. We will renew the defining moral commitments of this land. And so we move forward optimistic about our country, faithful to its cause, and confident of victories to come.

    Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Blind Men

    General Michael Hayden, the former Director of the National Security Agency, spoke at the National Press Club on January 23, 2006. Read these few short paragraphs about the NSA program created by President Bush's still-unseen executive order (bold below is mine):

    The purpose of all this is not to collect reams of intelligence, but to detect and prevent attacks. The intelligence community has neither the time, the resources nor the legal authority to read communications that aren't likely to protect us, and NSA has no interest in doing so. These are communications that we have reason to believe are al Qaeda communications, a judgment made by American intelligence professionals, not folks like me or political appointees, a judgment made by the American intelligence professionals most trained to understand al Qaeda tactics, al Qaeda communications and al Qaeda aims.

    Their work is actively overseen by the most intense oversight regime in the history of the National Security Agency. The agency's conduct of this program is thoroughly reviewed by the NSA's general counsel and inspector general. The program has also been reviewed by the Department of Justice for compliance with the president's authorization. Oversight also includes an aggressive training program to ensure that all activities are consistent with the letter and the intent of the authorization and with the preservation of civil liberties.

    Let me talk for a few minutes also about what this program is not. It is not a driftnet over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about.

    This is targeted and focused. This is not about intercepting conversations between people in the United States. This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with al Qaeda.


    You know that story about the blind men and the elephant?

    The media and the blogosphere are grasping at things, swearing that from what they can feel, they have the snake in hand. But they haven't really touched a snake, have they? They just touched just something that they assume is a snake, and have proclaimed out loudly that it is a snake, and we have laws against having snakes.

    Well, the NSA story is a new animal in the zoo and I've touched ... something, part of it, far away from where everyone else is standing and yelling. I can only sense a fraction of it, but I've touched just enough to think I've got something different on my hands that what anyone else has touched so far, and a zookeeper I've come in contact with has provided a vague confirmation of, "yeah, that's something different, all right."

    I don't know what I've got. But I know it is something quite different than a snake, and I know just enough to know that the people grasping at snakes are wrong about what they are touching, and that laws against snakes do not apply.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    January 30, 2006

    Because You Wouldn't Want to See Her Cry...


    Vote Cindy For Senate

    Blog food for years...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:49 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    Moonbats on Parade

    It's only Monday, and Tom Elia is declaring this Foreign Whacko/Domestic Moonbat Week. Based upon the evidence presented, I'd have to agree.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Zawahiri Filibuster Fails

    "Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure. You are a curse on your own nation and you have brought and will bring them only catastrophes and tragedies," he said, referring to Bush. "Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses." Via Fox News.

    Really?

    Dr. Zawahiri, it seems those same "Muslim masses" think so much of you, that instead of rallying around your cause, they've left you hopping from cave to cave in what most citizens of the world would deem a wasteland. You are guarded not by the best and brightest Islam has to offer, but by illiterate brainwashed children and opium smugglers, living in a part of the world no civilized person wants.

    Enjoy your "victory."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Alito Filbuster Fails

    Via Fox News (no link yet) "It's over."

    Pour over-excited Teddy an extra couple of bottles, because the sure-to-fail filibuster of Judge Alito just did precisely that. It failed.

    Barring a miracle, he will be Justice Alito by this time tomorrow evening.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:36 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    January 27, 2006

    Flights of Insanity, Leaving From Gate 3

    Oddly, enough, they only want flights to New York, Washington. DC., and Shanksville, PA.

    Silly Mullahs.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:11 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    January 26, 2006

    That "Magic Hat" Must Be On A Little Tight...

    This is simply too bizarre:

    Kerry, in Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum, was marshaling support in phone calls during the day, he told CNN.

    Kerry said he told a group of Democratic senators Wednesday, and urged that they join him. Kerry said he has the support of fellow Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy.

    Some senior Democrats told CNN they are worried that the move could backfire.

    The junior senator from Massachusetts appears to have inhaled some sort of hallucinogic mold off the brim of his magic hat. Is he really so tone deaf as to think this is a good idea?

    As Jay at Stop the ACLU said:

    Many redstate democrats have already demonstrated that they think Alito is deserving not only of a vote, but a yes vote. Obviously Kerry didn't like the way the things were headed, and decided to be the big dog to crash the party. It is possible that the nuclear option may just have to be invoked after all.

    I can't see how filibustering an obviously qualified candidate for the court can help the Democrats in any way. The best they can hope for from the general public at large is ambivilence, while possibly scoring points with these folks at best. This is a draw-or-lose situation for Democrats that will only play to the furthest fringe, while potentially costing them votes in the middle.

    Update: Let them try. A successful filibuster is now very likely impossible. Michelle Malkin has the roundup.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    January 24, 2006

    No Patriot

    I can't wait to see what Chris Matthews will say about this:

    I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.

    I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.

    And I've got no problem with other people — the ones who were for the Iraq war — supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea, then by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic magnets and bracelets and other trinkets the Chinese are making money off of.

    But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

    I don't think I need to comment on this, other than to say it will be interesting to see which liberals defend Klein's exposure of the dirty little secret so many of them carry in their hearts.

    Coward. Traitor. Liberal.

    But I repeat myself...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:58 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

    Pushing Elephants: Part 1

    I'm not real happy with the Republican Party right now, and would like to see not just a reform, but a restructuring, with a revised GOP platform for upcoming elections. I'll present a single broad topic at a time, and present some ideas. Please discuss in the comments.

    Immigration

    • A complete, multi-layer physical wall stretching the length of the United States border with Mexico, manned by an expanded, adequately staffed, armed and trained Border Patrol. It should go without saying, but a stronger physical border makes illegal immigration more problematic to those that would enter illegally.
    • A decrease in foreign aid and revocation of Most Favored Nation trading status to countries that encourage illegal immigration. Make it financially unpleasant for nations that allow their citizens to illegally enter our country.
    • A National ID minimum threshold. This would force states to apply more stringent requirements to obtain official identification. Hiring anyone without a valid, complying ID would be against he law, and any employer violating these standards will face increased civil and criminal penalties, up to and including the forfeiture of assets for repeat offenders.
    • A punitive 20% tax on overseas wire transfers by those without a valid, complying ID.
    • A robust, interrelated immigration computer system that can track legal immigrants and revoke ID status and residency without compliance, making it impossible for illegal immigrants or visa violators to find or keep jobs or lodging.
    • Targeted immigration to help American business, particularly in technology and engineering fields.
    • Targeted education visas for students from emerging allied democracies.
    • Repeal the practice of automatically awarding citizenship to babies (so-called "anchor babies") born in this country, unless both parents are already U.S. citizens.

    The United States of America is a wonderful country that I firmly believe is the greatest nation on Earth, and I can certainly understand many reasons why people from other countries would want to come here. But America's resources, while vast, are finite. We are under no obligation to support other nations nor their citizens, and we have a duty to protect the lives and rights of our own citizens.

    Towards that end, we must be able to control our borders and know who is in our country. Illegal immigration must be stopped, illegal immigrants deported, and those that would provide illegals with employment and shelter should pay a high price for their flouting of this nation's laws.

    At the same time, legal immigration must be practical to satisfy the needs of American business and to expose Americans to other cultures, while exposing other cultures to the benefits we have to offer as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:12 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    January 23, 2006

    Operation Iraqi Children

    Go. Now.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    The "Plantation" Goes Up In Flames

    Shelby Steele, author of A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America, eviscerates Hillary Clinton's pandering MLK Day "plantation" speech in today's WSJ OpinionJournal.

    An excerpt:

    Mrs. Clinton came to Al Sharpton's MLK celebration looking for an easy harvest of black votes. And she knew the drill--white liberals and Dems whistle for the black vote by pandering to the black sense of grievance. Once positioned as the white champions of this grievance, they actually turn black resentment into white liberal power. Today, Democrats cannot be competitive without this alchemy. So Mrs. Clinton's real insult to blacks--one far uglier than her plantation metaphor--is to value them only for their sense of grievance. Mrs. Clinton's husband was a master of this alchemy, and his presidency also illustrated its greatest advantage. Once black grievance is morphed into liberal power, it need never be honored. President Clinton notoriously felt black pain, won the black vote, and then rewarded blacks with the cold shower of welfare reform. And here, now, is Mrs. Clinton sidling up to the trough of black grievance, eyes wide in expectation, but also a tad contemptuous. It is hard to fully respect one's suckers.

    Ouch.

    Steele continues:

    Precisely because Republicans cannot easily pander to black grievance, they have no need to value blacks only for their sense of grievance. Unlike Democrats, they can celebrate what is positive and constructive in minority life without losing power. The dilemma for Democrats, liberals and the civil rights establishment is that they become redundant and lose power the instant blacks move beyond grievance and begin to succeed by dint of their own hard work. So they persecute such blacks, attack their credibility as blacks, just as they pander to blacks who define their political relationship to America through grievance. Republicans are generally freer of the political bigotry by which the left either panders to or persecutes black Americans.

    No one on the current political scene better embodies this Republican advantage than the current secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

    I've been working toward this idea in past posts and comments, pushing the idea that one party cannot address the needs of all people in an ethnic group, because people within any ethnic group have different economic and social realities. Race does not equal party affiliation, or at least it shouldn't.

    I don't know if it is properly a disagreement with Steele, but I'd say that while Secretary Rice might be the most visible example of black conservativism, others are as well or better equipped to handle electoral office.

    Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell has more experience as an elected politician, and simply lacks the national stage that Rice currently occupies. If he wins in Ohio (where he is currently ahead according to Zogby), the small government champion Blackwell may be in a position to think about a 2008 run at the GOP nomination for the Presidency, precisely because unlike other GOP hopefuls, Blackwell has a solid reputation as a true fiscal conservative. If you can find any other Republican candidates with his fiscal track record, please feel free to correct me.

    Blackwell's small government leanings and his history of broad, cross-party appeal in Ohio should translate well across the country, and Rice's obvious foreign policy experience would balance the ticket. I for one would like to contemplate a Blackwell/Rice run for the GOP in '08.

    Quite frankly, I don't see a Democratic ticket that could hope to compete.

    Others blogging this topic:
    Dr. Sanity
    Austin Bay
    Kobayashi Maru
    (via Memeorandum.com)

    Update: Jeff Goldstein over at Protein Wisdom riffs along nicely. Check it out.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:13 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    January 20, 2006

    Color Me Badly

    Considering their past track record of funding "the other side" in Fallujah, protesting against wounded American soldiers (with signs that read "Maimed for a Lie" and "Enlist Here to Die for Halliburton"), and cuddling up with neo-copperhead John Murtha, I suppose it should be hardly surprising that the left wing radicals of Code Pink would appropriate and badly PhotoShop a photo of Iranian women fighting for freedom for their anti-freedom message.

    Pathetic.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:43 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

    Like Mike

    It appears that the United States of the Perpetually Offended has a new victim this morning, as the lefties have their knickers in a twist over comments made by one of their own, former Jimmy Carter speechwriter and MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews.

    When interviewing the Dumbest Man in the U.S. Senate™ Joe Biden, Matthews stated:

    I mean, he [Bin Laden] sounds like an over-the-top Michael Moore here, if not a Michael Moore.

    Predictably, various Crooks and Liars (click the link, they have the video) are upset with Matthews, including Peter Daou, who hyperventilates:

    DEMAND AN APOLOGY: "Bin Laden sounds like Clint Eastwood" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Ron Silver" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Rush Limbaugh" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Bill O'Reilly"-- "Bin Laden sounds like Mel Gibson" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Bruce Willis" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Michelle Malkin"... Imagine the outrage on the right and in the press (but I repeat myself) if a major media figure spat out those words. Well, on Hardball, Chris Matthews just blurted out that Bin Laden sounds like Michael Moore. Simple: Matthews should apologize. On the air. This has NOTHING to do with Michael Moore and everything to do with how far media figures can go slandering the left.

    Perhaps before getting all huffy, Daou should keep in mind a few facts: Eastwood never uttered, "Make my day, pull out of Iraq now," and it was your dear Mother Sheehan with her "absolute moral authority" that considered Iraq and Afghanistan "almost the same thing," advocating the same pull-out as bin Laden.

    Nor has bin Laden quoted Silver or Limbaugh, because they support the war against terrorists, and they don't protest against U.S. soldiers while they recover from combat wounds like the fanatics of Code Pink.

    Bruce Willis has million-dollar bounties on the heads of bin Laden, Zarqawi, and Zawahiri. How much does Babs have up? How about Tim and Susan?

    Malkin also makes her position on terrorists clear, so I doubt you'll find that Osama is a big fan of hers, either.

    But Mikey… well, Mr. Moore is another story entirely.

    Bin Laden pulled material from Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 for one of his videotaped rants in 2004, a fact that Moore himself bragged about:

    There he was, OBL, all tan and rested and on videotape (hey, did you get the feeling that he had a bootleg of my movie? Are there DVD players in those caves in Afghanistan?)

    And Moore himself has suggested repeatedly that there were improper relationships between the Bush and the bin Laden families, a position the fringe left echoed repeatedly, directly and indirectly as recently as yesterday.

    Lefists have no shame in associating Bush with bin Laden, but when a more logical association is made between the left and radical Islam's shared hatreds (Bush), shared goals (U.S. out of SW Asia), and shared rhetoric (Michael Moore's words), it seems to hit too close to home. Perhaps what liberals are really dealing with are their own issues of guilt-by-association.

    Perhaps they should associate with a better class of people.

    Update: Day by Day seems to concur.

    Update 2: The defense rests. (h/t K-Lo)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:48 AM | Comments (29) | TrackBack

    January 19, 2006

    Justice Dept. Declares NSA Surveillance Legal

    Raw Story has a detailed 42-page defense of the President's "inherent constitutional authority" to conduct warrantless investigations of enemy forces to dissuade attacks upon the United States.

    While I'll let the legal eagles sort out the complex nuances of the language, it appears to my untrained eyes that the document is a fleshed-out version of this five-page DoJ briefing (PDF) released December 22nd, and it seems like they're making the same points I discussed here after reading about the briefing.

    The document cites copious case law, the President's inherent Constitutional authority under Article II, and a FISA exemption granted by the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).

    It also makes the argument that if FISA is shown to conflict with the President's Article II Powers, then FISA is unconstitutional.

    This is going to be very interesting, but I'd say unless the President's detractors can come up with a new argument I haven't heard of yet, then his powers to conduct this kind of warrantless surveillance will be upheld to the great consternation of those libertarians and leftists that do not understand the responsibilities on the Executive during a time of war.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:08 PM | Comments (66) | TrackBack

    January 18, 2006

    Be Careful what you Wish For...

    Al Gore, former Vice President and Patient Zero of Bush Derangement Syndrome, responded to charges of hypocrisy by White House Press secretary Scott McClellan via left wing Raw Story:

    "The Administration's response to my speech illustrates perfectly the need for a special counsel to review the legality of the NSA wiretapping program.

    When does refuting a hysterical, error-prone and contradictory speech by a law school dropout (even a famous one) justify the appointment of a special counsel? If anything, the fact that the case laid out by Gore is full of lies and distortions undermines his credibility to a staggering degree.

    The Attorney General is making a political defense of the President without even addressing the substantive legal questions that have so troubled millions of Americans in both political parties.

    Perhaps the former Vice President should read this December 22, 2005 letter from the Office of Legal Affairs in the U.S. Justice Department which specifically addresses these legal questions.

    There are two problems with the Attorney General's effort to focus attention on the past instead of the present Administration's behavior. First, as others have thoroughly documented, his charges are factually wrong. Both before and after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was amended in 1995, the Clinton/Gore Administration complied fully and completely with the terms of the law.

    Mr. Gore, which charges are factually wrong?

    The Clinton/Gore administration conducted warrantless physical searches without implicit authorization under FISA, and asserted the Article II powers to do so, just as President Bush justified his executive order for NSA surveillance under Article II powers, with the colorable argument that the AUMF gave him statutory authorization as well. Mr. Gore, President Bush has far more legal cover than any of your administration's actions on this front. Talk to someone who graduated law school—say liberal constitutional scholar Cass Sunstein, or your own associate attorney general John Schmidt—and perhaps you'll find a more informed opinion.

    Second, the Attorney General's attempt to cite a previous administration's activity as precedent for theirs - even though factually wrong - ironically demonstrates another reason why we must be so vigilant about their brazen disregard for the law.

    Mr. Gore, who are your "many legal experts?" Further, how many of them are directly or indirectly related to the Democratic Party? The NSA surveillance operation that you have not even seen was reviewed by two Attorney's General, Justice Department legal teams, NSA legal counsel, and White House counsel. Again, who are your experts?

    If unchecked, their behavior would serve as a precedent to encourage future presidents to claim these same powers, which many legal experts in both parties believe are clearly illegal.

    As I noted here:

    What this NSA executive order matter will boil down to in the end is a separation of powers issue.

    Did Congress have the legal authority to bind the Office of the Presidency in conducting warrantless searches performed for national security reasons, stripping the executive branch of an inherent constitutional power?

    Every President from the dawn of international wire communications well over 100 years ago until 1978 assumed this right, and the courts have always deferred to this particular power inherent to the Presidency. This is supported by case law and precedent, and is summed up in the five-page Department of Justice briefing (PDF) delivered last week. In short, the Department of Justice seems willing to make the case that Bush was well within his constitutional powers...

    Even after passing FISA, Carter himself did not feel strictly bound by it, nor has any President since, from Reagan, to George H. W. Bush, Clinton, to George W. Bush. They have all asserted (and over the past two weeks, their DoJ attorneys have as well) that the Office of the Presidency has the Constitutional authority to authorize warrantless intercepts of foreign intelligence. This power has been assumed by every president of the modern age before them, dating back, presumably to the Great Eastern's success in 1866 of laying the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable. From Johnson, then, through Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland (again), McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and Taft, through Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, to FDR and on to Truman, Eisenhower, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and into the Carter administration, the Presidency has had the inherent and unchallenged power to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign powers for national security reasons.

    This is a simple, unassailable fact, not matter how loudly demagogues shriek.

    As the movie says, Mr. Gore, "reality bites."

    The issue, simply put, is that for more than four years, the executive branch has been wiretapping many thousands of American citizens without warrants in direct contradiction of American law. It is clearly wrong and disrespectful to the American people to allow a close political associate of the president to be in charge of reviewing serious charges against him.

    Again, it is Mr. Gore that has been creative with both history and facts already presented. Far from condemning the President's program, most credible legal experts find that the NSA surveillance authorized by the President is justified by both Article II of the Constitution and statutory authorization of the AUMF provided by Congress to wage war, in which foreign intelligence operations are recognized as a component of military power. It is a shame that a man just a heartbeat away from the presidency has so little knowledge about the powers and responsibilities of the office.

    The country needs a full and independent investigation into the facts and legality of the present Administration's program."

    Which we will have, Mr. Gore, in spades.

    Not only have your liberal friends in the ACLU and the terrorist-coddling Center for Constitutional Rights and their friends from the HAMAS-associated Council on American-Islamic Relations (though not those members already convicted of terrorism, I'd wager) filed suit, but the Administration is looking forward to testifying about the program in early February in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    Please, continue to "bring it" Mr. Gore. You're proving to be the best thing to happen to the Republican Party since Howard Dean.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:32 PM | Comments (39) | TrackBack

    January 14, 2006

    Gore Executed, Bush Crowned

    Former Vice President Al Gore was summarily executed by members of the Republican National Commitee just after midnight Saturday, two days before Gore was to give a speech denouncing the threat the President poses to the Constitution.

    At the same time, Democratic member of Congress were rounded up by stormtroopers of the Secret Service and shipped off to concentration camps in the darkest corners of northwest Maryland.

    The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post were closed by crack elements of the Texas Air National Guard loyal to Bush, and ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN were appointed censors reporting directly to Scott McClellan.

    -OR-

    Al and his MoveOn.org cronies are listening to the orb again.

    I'll let you decide which.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:15 AM | Comments (23) | TrackBack

    January 13, 2006

    Truthout's Accidental Truth

    Left wing truthout has breathlessly issued a press release claiming they have a document proving that President Bush authorized NSA wiretaps prior to 9/11/01.

    The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

    And what does that declassified document (PDF) reveal? Just the bottom half of the cover page alone reveals quite a bit:

    Now let me ask you the same three questions I asked at Balloon Juice:

    When was this document prepared?
    December, 2000, but deriving from NSA Manual 123 Dated February 24, 1998.

    Who was President during these dates?
    William Jefferson Clinton (January 20, 1993 - January 20, 2001).

    When was Bush inaugurated?
    January 20, 2001.

    Without even going past the cover sheet, it appears that the NSA programs covered by this particular document date to Bill Clinton's second term, from three years before Bush took office.

    I'll have to finish reading the document at a later time, but this seems to be hardly the smoking gun that truthout claims.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:57 PM | Comments (32) | TrackBack

    January 12, 2006

    Empty Suits and Empty Chairs

    Senate Democrats took the better part of four days to assault the character and moral fiber of a composed and dignified Judge Samuel Alito.

    But when seven appeals court judges came to testify about Alito's stellar qualfications, the Senators did what modern Democrats do best, as noted by Michelle Malkin:

    Chuck Schumer walked out before the judges started to speak. Teddy Kennedy showed up late, stayed for 10 minutes, then left. Pat Leahy put on a dour face for a short time, and also bailed. Dianne Feinstein, to her credit, remained for the duration and asked respectful questions.

    These four days of testimony were never about "advise and consent," nor giving Judge Alito a fair hearing, but were instead about partisan demogoguery. As John Hinderaker notes:

    ...if the Democrats were actually interested in what kind of judge Sam Alito is, these [judges] are precisely the witnesses who could tell them. If the Democrats really thought that Alito's judicial opinions reflect poorly on him, these are exactly the people who could answer their questions, and, if they are correct, confirm their fears. But the Democrats apparently knew that wasn't going to happen. The only conclusion one can draw is that the Democrats knew they were smearing a fine man and a fine judge. But the fact that they didn't even have the decency or respect to stay and listen to Alito's colleagues is disgusting.

    The Senate Democrats did not want to hear from the appelate judges. The Senators made their scurrilous attacks against a far better man than they, and having failed in their ignoble endevour, they committed to doing what Democrats do best.

    They cut and ran... again.

    Note: Though it wasn't intentional, it seems that I pretty much ripped off the title and content of this post from Hugh Hewitt through some sort of blogroll osmosis. Freaky.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:55 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    January 11, 2006

    Alito-palooza

    While I'm not super-interested in the Alito confirmation hearings ("done deal" is the phrase that comes to mind), I know a lot of folks are, and my fellow Pajamahadeen are all over it with the Mondo Alito blog.

    Update: Partisans won't be swayed, but this won't play well in Peoria.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Fired NSA Stalker Admits Role as Times Source

    Move over Bill Burkett, we've got a new player vying for "most disreputable source" status.

    Via ABC News:

    Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the National Security Agency, is now a whistleblower the agency would like to keep quiet.

    For 20 years, Tice worked in the shadows as he helped the United States spy on other people's conversations around the world.

    ...Tice tells ABC News that some of those secret "black world" operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes violated the law. He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows about the alleged wrongdoing in these programs run by the Defense Department and the National Security Agency in the post-9/11 efforts to go after terrorists.

    Now here is what ABC didn't tell you.

    Tice was diagnosed by the Defense Department with psychotic paranoia and fired for apparently violating his security clearances by taking unauthorized peeks into the background of a female Asian employee he thought was a Chinese spy.

    I wonder of James Risen realizes that the Ides of Mapes are upon him...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:32 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    January 10, 2006

    Confirming Alito

    You might notice I'm not blogging the Senate confirmation hearings for SCOTUS nominee Judge Samuel Alito. It isn't because I don't care. It's because I consider his confirmation a foregone conclusion.

    Looking at his record, I see even fewer reasons for Democrats to legitimately argue against him that they did against now Chief Justice John Roberts. I think his confirmation is a done deal without anything but a bluff at a filibuster. The only question for me is which Democrats will lose the most credibility with moderates during the proceedings pandering to the liberal "base" that keeps losing them elections.

    Volokh, and The Corner will certainly be following the hearing closely, so visit them or your other favorite blogs for more coverage as it occurs.

    In my opinion, Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court like waiting for sun to come up in the morning. It's only worth talking about if it doesn't happen.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:16 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    January 08, 2006

    Bitter Anti-Semitic Patholigical Hatred Sells, But Who's Buying?

    Some months ago when Cindy Sheehan's book Not One More Mother's Child was launched, I noted that it had an Amazon.com Sales Rank that I think (I'm going by memory here) was in the mid 3,000s.

    I'd since rather forgotten about Saint Cindy and her tome, until I noticed Goldstein mocked her latest batch of arsenic nuttiness this afternoon as he riffed of her latest post to Michael Moore's site:

    “I would say 30,000 more or less have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis,†said George on December 12, 2005. Even if one accepts this very low guess-ti-mate by George, his policies have been responsible for ten times the 3000 deaths on September 11, 2001. By his own admission, he is ten times the terrorist that Osama ever was."

    It isn't even worth the effort to rebut Sheehan anymore as she has become a sad parody of herself; the only hope I have is that the MoveOn.org/CodePink wing of the party will help her hold another March of the 29 before the '06 elections.

    But all the same, I was wondering how her book sales were doing in the wake of her latest pronouncement. I'm not sure what I was expecting her Sales Rank to be.

    I certainly expected something better than this:

    113,488 yesterday, dropping to 153,267 today. Ouch. Was it something she said?

    By way of comparison, Everyone Poops came in at 2,031 today, and The War Against Toenail Fungus came in at 41,338.

    It seems like fewer and fewer people are buying her crap these days...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:31 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    January 05, 2006

    Pat Robertson: Left Behind

    Ever hear of the very popular apocolyptic fiction series Left Behind?

    The general plot revolves around the Rapture, an End Times event where all true Christians will be carried up to Heaven and those who are not true Christians will be left behind.

    Pat Robertson make be one of the most famous ministers in America, but comments like these makes me think Pat better get ready to wave as others go by:

    US evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for "dividing God's land" of Israel, igniting his latest trademark controversy.

    As the Israeli prime minister battled for life, Robertson seemed to suggest to viewers on his "700 Club" television show that Sharon was being punished for his policies in Gaza and the West Bank.

    "The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who, quote, 'divide my land.' God considers this land to be his.

    "You read the Bible, he says, 'This is my land.' And for any prime minister of Israel who decides he's going carve it up and give it away, God says, 'No. This is mine.'"

    Robertson, who frequently provokes outrage with his remarks, said he was "sad" to see Sharon fall sick, and that he was a "very likeable person."

    "I prayed with him personally. But here he is at the point of death. He was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations or the United States of America."

    "God said, 'This land belongs to me, you better leave it alone.'"

    These comments betray a man who seems to think he personally knows the will of God.

    I think about one guy knew that, and he had a family connection. Anybody else claiming knowledge of divine will seems to strike me as a false prophet, and more than a little bit of a joke.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:33 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    Dine and Dash Pacifism

    via an email from Phin, this breathtakingly perfect analogy from Cake Eater Chronicles:

    in the restaurant of life, pacifists dine and dash. They're thieves. They eat the good food, they drink the good wine, they enjoy the ambience of the restaurant, but when the tab comes to the table, they get up and run because they won't pay the bill.

    Make sure you read it all.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:54 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    January 04, 2006

    Hello, Swanny

    This could get very interesting:

    Former Steelers star Lynn Swann declared his candidacy for Pennsylvania governor Wednesday in the city where he made his name in professional football.

    He told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday afternoon that he made up his mind to run in the fall, after spending months weighing support at events around the state.

    Swann, a Hall of Fame receiver and longtime TV football commentator, faces three other candidates in seeking the Republican nomination for governor — his first run for political office. The winner of the May 16 primary would likely face Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, who is expected to seek a second four-year term.

    If successful in his first bid for political office, Swann would become Pennsylvania's first black governor.

    According to the article, Swann is polling ahead of the other two Republican candidates, and tracks behind only current Democratic Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell.

    Swann has released very little about his proposed platform at this date and I'll withhold judgment until I see something, but one has to think that Swann's current charisma and past athletic triumphs as a Steeler are both strong assets, as well as his potential ability to cut into an black* vote that typically goes unchallenged for any Democratic candidate, regardless of actual worth.

    Swann himself thinks that Democrats have "taken the African American vote for granted," and he is indeed right, just as Republicans have taken for granted that black will not vote for a white conservative. But what about a black conservative candidate?

    If Swann can garner a significant portion of the black vote, it would make the demographic something it has not been in a long time: politically relevant.

    Why would I say such a thing? Am I saying black voters aren't relevant or that they've been wasting their votes? Not at all.

    Let me borrow from a comment I made on a another post here last month.

    The huge supermajority of blacks—over 80% in many areas—seem committed to voting for any Democratic Party candidate no matter who. There is no reason for either party to waste finite resources in trying to court a demographic whose vote is seemingly set in stone.

    The big, nasty secret here is that any group 80%-90% in lock-step with one party is politically irrelevant to both parties.

    By being so deeply in the pockets of Democrats, Black leaders have rendered their demographic irrelevant politically. Ever wonder why nobody talks about black voters in elections except in passing, while the parties are concerned with currying favor with much, much smaller Cuban, Arab, Hispanic, or Asian minorities? Now you know. Black voters have made themselves irrelevant by giving away all of their political capital to one party. "Why buy the cow" indeed.

    Simply ask yourself:

    Why should Democrats waste time and political capital to appease a group that will still vote for them no matter what they fail to do in office? Why should Republicans commit resources to those who will reject them, no matter how hard they try? This has been the “common wisdom.â€

    If Swann can make a strong showning among black voters in Pennsylvania and Michael Steele can make a strong showing in the same demographic in Maryland's racially-charged Senate race, then black Americans will no longer be able to be ignored by Democrats, and Republicans will feel that efforts to reach out to black communities are worthwhile.

    Regardless of which party retains the most influence, a less-lopsided demographic tilt that puts black back in play as a valued voting block is good for black communities not only in Pennsylvania and Maryland, but elsewhere in America.

    * I say “black†in this post because of a article I read recently somewhere online talking about the huge cultural difference between African Americans and Americanized Africans, noting that these are two very different demographics. As the issue at hand seems to cut across both groups, I think I'll stick with “black†as a general description. I'll try to link in the article later once I find it again.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:37 PM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

    January 03, 2006

    What Kos Didn't Learn From History

    Kos was in laughably rare form yesterday (h/t Byron York at The Corner):

    When our nation was founded, we had men of real character and courage fighting for their nascent America, one in which liberty and freedom trumped the authorative tendencies of the monarchy. Patrick Henry gave words to those efforts:
    "Give me liberty or give me death!" ...

    These blowhards pretend they are macho even as they piddle on themselves in abject terror from every "boo!" that comes out of Osama Bin Laden's mouth. They like to speak about how tough they are, even though they send others to fight their battles and couldn't last a day in places like Iraq, or Sudan, or the El Salvador of my youth, or any other war-torn nation....

    The breathtaking cowardice of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists knows no bounds. They hide behind the American flag and our genuinely brave men and women in uniform. It's bad enough that they wouldn't deign to join the boots in the ground in Iraq. But now they make a mockery of our Constitution, for the very values that motivated our Founding Fathers to put their lives on the line to combat the unchecked powers of the British monarchy.

    I have news for you, Kos, my little historically-retarded liberal, and it isn't just that the UTF stands for “Union of Failed Teachers.â€

    A skilled orator of his day but never a soldier, Patrick Henry was a "chickenhawk" of the first order by Kos' cheap and tawdry definition, a charter member of what would later become the "101st Fighting Keyboardists."

    Wonder if Kos will die when he discovers that Patrick Henry was the forerunner of Mark Levin?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:04 PM | Comments (65) | TrackBack

    December 28, 2005

    Cheering for the Wrong Team

    Like addicts jonesing for a fix, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of the NY Times just can't help themselves:

    Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.

    The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.

    The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.

    If I understand things correctly (and let's be honest, no blogger nor journalist has seen the executive order), the President's order was for national security-related wiretaps, not criminal-prosecution-related wiretaps.

    Odds are that all of those terrorists convicted were done so using information from criminal wiretaps obtained via 5,645 requests that were made to FISA courts. This distinction is an important one, and if accurate, utterly undermines the case made by Risen and Lichtblau.

    Woe be to Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger.

    His reporters are putting the paper in a position where casual (and many not so casual) readers are going to think that the Times utter disregard for the nation's security has morphed into grandstanding, even cheerleading support for convicted al Qaeda terrorists, while not offering any support for either the Times long-running political case against the president, nor the terrorist's attempt to slip prosecution by any means necessary.

    Karl Rove simply isn't paying him enough.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:55 AM | Comments (25) | TrackBack

    December 27, 2005

    Neo-Cops Grow Ever More Unhinged on NSA Story

    The kerfluffle around Bush's executive order to the NSA just keeps getting more and more interesting…

    On Christmas Eve, Stewart Powell of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer released a column showing that the secret FISA court that is supposed to approve government surveillance efforts was apparently exceeding its authority, forcing the Administration to go around a judicial roadblock to protect the American people:

    Government records show that the administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the court's approval.

    A review of Justice Department reports to Congress shows that the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined.

    If the FISA court was being dangerously obstructionist in the Administration's view, then the President would appear to not just have a right, but a Constitutional responsibility to go around the court if he felt American lives were at risk. To act otherwise would be criminal negligence, would it not?

    Today's neo-copperheads can't be trusted in matters of national defense, and seem more intent on proving that fact for the foreseeable future. Marshall Grossman vividly proves that point in this article today at The Huffington Post.

    Grossman—University of Maryland English Professor Marshall Grossman—apparently doesn't possess the reading comprehension needed to discern the meaning of the following sentence and apply it properly to today's world:

    "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

    The above is of course the Fourth Amendment, which Grossman goes out of his way to misunderstand.

    He breathlessly intones:

    That's it: the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution, complete and entire: One, single, gloriously clear, and grammatically explicit sentence. If some enterprising entrepreneur will put it on a tee-shirt, I'll wear it proudly.

    In my naiveté I thought a few of us wearing those tee-shirts would be enough to put an end to the inane discussion of whether or not the President has the right to order the NSA to sustain a vast, warrantless, data-mining operation aimed at the international telephone and e-mail communication of Americans. On my stupid reading, the fourth amendment says no twice: no search or seizure without a sworn warrant and no warrant without specifying the places, persons or things sought.

    But wait. On the Op Ed page of this morning's New York Times, a couple of strict constructionists from the Reagan and H. W. Bush Justice Departments are out to set me straight. These guys are lawyers. I'm just a guy who makes his living reading and understanding the English language.

    But you are not understanding the language Professor Grossman. Either you canot understand it, or you are trying to cleverly lie with it. I'll leave the reader to decide which.

    The Fourth Amendment purposefully does not outlaw all searches and seizures as Grossman would intentionally mislead readers, it only outlaws those that would be regarded as unreasonable, nor does it outlaw warrantless searches as legal precedents have shown time and time again. His entire position is predicated upon misrepresentation and ignoring the professional opinions of Justice Department lawyers from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton Presidential administrations, applicable case law, legal briefs, and judicial precedent, all of which which inconveniently seems to refute his purposefully obtuse position.

    Ever out of his depth from a legal perspective, the good professor cannot even hold his own in an honest reading of the language. Professor Grossman should stick to 17th century English literature.

    21st Century national policy matters are clearly beyond his understanding.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:45 PM | Comments (26) | TrackBack

    December 24, 2005

    Google Mocks Christ on Christmas Eve

    While trying to find a nativity image for my last post before Christmas, I did an search for "baby jesus" on Google.

    This is the result.

    Notice that the top search result is for a sex toy that mocks Jesus.

    Other results on this search results page have more link traffic. A quick review of page's code shows no HTML meta information that should give it a favorable ranking. The page itself has a raw relevance ranking (search word divided by total words) of less than five percent. The only conclusion I can draw is that this page position ranking was done manually by a Google staffer.

    Google's message to the Faithful seems obvious:

    "Merry Christmas, assholes."

    Update: Some folks have made the argument that this is the result of Googlebombing or other SEO tricks. Others say that it is merely the result of Google's search programs. They would absolve Google of all responsibility.

    I do not.

    Google's algorithms are man-made, coded by human programmers, as are any exclusionary protocols. These people ultimately decide if search results are relevant. I think it is fair to say that a butt plug is not a relevant search result for 99-percent of Google users searching for information on Jesus Christ as a baby.

    So either Google has manipulative coders, or a fouled algorithm in their baseline technologies that suggests their massive capitalization is based upon a a house of cards. I'll leave individual readers and investors to make the call.

    Update 2: Crooks and Liars calls this post 2005's Worst Post of the Year. Coming from such a den of delusion and paranoia (not to mention abject political failure), I consider it a compliment.

    Also, I guess he didn't see this, though technically it isn't a blog post, just the worst idea of the year.

    Good Friday Update: As I said previously:

    Google's algorithms are man-made, coded by human programmers, as are any exclusionary protocols. These people ultimately decide if search results are relevant.

    A current Google search reveals that Google has changed their search algorithm to exclude the sex toy site from at least their top 50 results in a unfiltered search. I was right, liberals were wrong.

    Not that this comes as a shock to anyone...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:06 PM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

    December 23, 2005

    Which Side Are They On?

    You've got to wonder just how fast today's mainstream media would have leaked the breaking of Enigma to the Germans.

    From U.S News & World Report:

    In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.

    I would certainly hope that U.S. mosques, where terrorists have already attempted to purchase surface to air missiles, are under surveillance for radiological weapons. I should hope they are being monitored for suspicious chemicals and biological agents as well.

    Perhaps not surprisingly, the main ingredient in the U.S. News story is the "surprising" fact that - get this - some suspicious Muslim sites were monitored without obtaining warrants. The rest of the story - including the "omitted details of how the monitoring is conducted" - has been public knowledge at least since June 9 of 2002 when much of this same ground was covered by the Boston Globe:

    [NEST] teams have been driving around urban areas in vans known as ''Hot Spot Mobile Labs,'' armed with instruments that detect alpha, beta, gamma, and neutron radiation. Other teams are equipped with backpacks that hold smaller detectors...

    ...

    Though the effort has relaxed somewhat since the October scare, one official said NEST units still go on random, weekly search missions in different cities, focusing on ports, warehouse districts, and other locations where a smuggled weapon might be housed.

    NEST teams may have driven their vans onto mosque property to sniff the air for radioactive isotopes. Backpack-equipped NEST team members may have walked through a neighborhood or apartment complex.

    The government holds that these sniff tests are legal. Not surprisingly, U.S. News was able to find a dissenting expert.

    Georgetown University Professor David Cole, a constitutional law expert, disagrees. Surveillance of public spaces such as mosques or public businesses might well be allowable without a court order, he argues, but not private offices or homes: "They don't need a warrant to drive onto the property -- the issue isn't where they are, but whether they're using a tactic to intrude on privacy. It seems to me that they are, and that they would need a warrant or probable cause."

    U.S. News might have also mentioned that Georgetown University Professor David Cole, "a constitutional law expert," is also the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, a far left liberal magazine.

    It gets worse.

    Cole points to a 2001 Supreme Court decision, U.S. vs. Kyllo, which looked at police use -- without a search warrant -- of thermal imaging technology to search for marijuana-growing lamps in a home.

    Because of course, sensors used for national security are the exact same thing as local cops making a pot bust. Brilliant comparison, Professor Cole.

    Perhaps because of his politics, Cole does not bother to mention the blatantly obvious fact that these radiation-sensing technologies should not violate the "unreasonable search" clause of the Fourth Amendment because of the "special needs" exception.

    Nor does Cole mention that going into publicly-accessible driveways and parking lots without a warrant is not necessarily unconstitutional.

    You would think that Cole or U.S. News would have tried to seek a more balanced approach to this story.

    Of course, if they did, there wouldn't be a story, would there?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:15 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    ConLaw Scholar: Bush has the Authority For NSA Wiretaps

    This segment of a radio talk show transcript is interesting, especially coming from self-described liberal Constitutional law Professor Cass Sunstein on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show:

    Hugh Hewitt (HH): ...First, did the authorization for the use of military force from 2001 authorize the president's action with regards to conducting surveillance on foreign powers, including al Qaeda, in contact with their agents in America, Professor?

    Cass Sunstein (CS): Well, probably. If the Congress authorizes the president to use force, a pretty natural incident of that is to engage in surveillance. So if there's on the battlefield some communication between Taliban and al Qaeda, the president can monitor that. If al Qaeda calls the United States, the president can probably monitor that, too, as part of waging against al Qaeda.

    Hugh Hewitt (HH): Very good. Part two of your analysis...If...whether or not the AUMF does, does the Constitution give the president inherent authority to do what he did?

    Cass Sunstein (CS):
    That's less clear, but there's a very strong argument the president does have that authority. All the lower courts that have investigated the issue have so said. So as part of the president's power as executive, there's a strong argument that he can monitor conversations from overseas, especially if they're al Qaeda communications in the aftermath of 9/11. So what I guess I do is put the two arguments together. It's a little technical, but I think pretty important, which is that since the president has a plausible claim that he has inherent authority to do this, that is to monitor communications from threats outside our borders, we should be pretty willing to interpret a Congressional authorization to use force in a way that conforms to the president's possible Constitutional authority. So that is if you put the Constitutional authority together with the statutory authorization, the president's on pretty good ground.

    Radioblogger has the entire transcript.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:24 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    December 22, 2005

    FISA Court Could Disband After Briefing

    The FISA Court in the center of the Bush/NSA surveillance kerfluffle just got interesting, as the presiding judge is apparently setting up a briefing for her fellow judges next month, according to the Washington Post.

    The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and government sources.

    Is it just my reading of this passage, or does this article seem to suggest that presiding judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly—attempting to assuage their concerns, as the passage states—has knowledge of the Bush executive order and it's legal justifications, and buys into it enough to sponsor a briefing for other FISA judges?

    It is also interesting to note that “protest resignation†of Judge James Robertson occurred before the briefing, lending some degree of credibility to the theory that his divorce from the FISA court was political in nature.

    Among the more interesting bits of information in this WaPo article is how the FISA judges could chose to react after the briefing, which is expected to be made by NSA and Justice Department attorneys.

    The judges could, depending on their level of satisfaction with the answers, demand that the Justice Department produce proof that previous wiretaps were not tainted, according to government officials knowledgeable about the FISA court. Warrants obtained through secret surveillance could be thrown into question. One judge, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also said members could suggest disbanding the court in light of the president's suggestion that he has the power to bypass the court.

    Bold in the above is mine.

    I would think that the step of disbanding the court would prove to be an emphatic acknowledgement of the shortcomings of the FISA law itself, and would be seen as an affirmation of the Article II powers inherent to the Office of the President.

    If this is the final decision of the court—and at this point, it is simply impossible to tell—it will have to be seen as a huge blow to the credibility of the “impeach him now, ask questions later†faction of the Democratic Party running in the 2006 elections, and to the Jimmy Carter-era “Dazed and Malaised†Congress that brought FISA into existence.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:52 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    December 21, 2005

    Motives and Madmen

    No wonder President Bush has been at ease the past few days.

    While details of Bush's NSA Executive Order to conduct warrantless surveillance on suspected terrorist operatives remains classified, the "smoking gun" case of Presidential misconduct made by the New York Times is showing signs of falling completely apart under the weight of Constitutional law and similar national security precedents made by previous presidential administrations.

    President Jimmy Carter's Executive Order 12139 approved electronic surveillance above and beyond FISA to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order as long as it was certified by the attorney general. This executive order issued by Carter has never been challenged, and seems to be very close to the content of Bush's current still classified order.

    President Bill Clinton's Executive Order 12949 expanded upon Carters provisions to include warrantless physical searches.

    So what damning new information does the Times crusading book promoter James Risen and his faithful sidekick Eric Lichtblau bring us today?

    The most evil of all horrors: the accidental surveillance of international cell phones and email addresses suspected to belong to terrorists once they've crossed into the United States:

    A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.

    The officials say the National Security Agency's interception of a small number of communications between people within the United States was apparently accidental, and was caused by technical glitches at the National Security Agency in determining whether a communication was in fact "international."

    Telecommunications experts say the issue points up troubling logistical questions about the program. At a time when communications networks are increasingly globalized, it is sometimes difficult even for the N.S.A. to determine whether someone is inside or outside the United States when making a cellphone call or sending an e-mail message. As a result, people that the security agency may think are outside the United States are actually on American soil.

    Jump to:

    But in at least one instance, someone using an international cellphone was thought to be outside the United States when in fact both people in the conversation were in the country. Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified, would not discuss the number of accidental intercepts, but the total is thought to represent a very small fraction of the total number of wiretaps that Mr. Bush has authorized without getting warrants.

    Say a Canadian al Qaeda suspect checks his email on his laptop in a flat in Fort Erie, Canada. He takes a short bus ride across the Peace Bridge to Buffalo, New York, grabs a gingerbread latte at the Starbucks on Delaware and Kenmore, and he checks this same email account again. By monitoring this same email account accessed on the same computer, the NSA committed the kind of accidental illegal intercept that Risen and Lichtblau are complaining about.

    I don't know about you, but I'm just livid with outrage... but not at the NSA, nor President Bush.

    The Times has been reduced to complaining that a handful of suspected terrorists targeted for international surveillance got into the United States and were accidentally still monitored.

    Ahem. I never suspected that NY Times reporters would ever be charged with being Administration cronies, but by advocating against the best interests of the United States over such trivial details, Risen and Lichtblau give us every reason to doubt their true motives and allegiances.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:54 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

    December 20, 2005

    Hail to the Thug

    Quadruple murderer and co-founder of the violent drug-dealing Crips street gang Stanley "Tookie" Williams was eulogized and buried today. News coverage was often as sickening as his crimes.

    ABC News runs the apologetic headline Activists, Rap Star Say Farewell to 'Tookie' Williams.

    The San Francisco Chronicle almost makes him sound like the victim, proclaiming Throng gathers in LA for funeral of executed former gang leader.

    Reuters UK proclaims, Executed Calif. killer Williams hailed at funeral.

    Fox News ran the Associated Press story and its too generous headline Hundreds Gather for Tookie Williams' Funeral, but the Fox News Web Team voiced their opinion with their Web link from the home page.

    It's nice to knew that someone remembered Tookie Williams for the craven murderous thief he really was, and not some sort of martyr.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    Bush: Roving the Times?

    With James Risen presumably off reading the galley proofs of his forthcoming book Screwing Over America (For Fun and Profit), David Sanger joined in the next installment of Eric Lichtblau's year-long fevered pursuit to tip al Qaeda to the nature of NSA-run surveillance operation authorized by a White House executive order in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

    Despite the ill will of the Times, the present administration is standing firm. Law professor/blogger Ann Althouse even notes of Bush's impromptu press conference Monday morning:

    I'm just reading, but it seems to me that he's awfully relaxed, joking like this, when he's under fire about not complying with FISA restrictions...

    And later:

    I'm watching the C-Span replay of the press conference now, and I'm even more impressed by the strength of Bush's confidence. This man is happy.

    It does seem like very odd behavior for a man that is, if the Times is correct, on the edge of not only losing one of American's most effective surveillance tools, but of facing a political firestorm that have some of his fevered foes calling for impeachment.

    As some of the nation's top legal minds spent Monday building an unfavorable case against him based upon what the Times has leaked, and what his own administration had confirmed... hey, wait just a cotton-pickin' minute.

    I think I've seen this film before.

    Indulge me, please, for just a moment.

    The NY Times discovers a top secret internal spying effort by the Bush Administration. The Times presumes that their sources are accurate (indeed they may be), and presumes to know most if not all of the facts. They then hold onto this information for approximately one year, flushing it out with information from confidential sources, before finally breaking the story last week. Bush's only known attempt to quash publication?

    As a breathless Jonathan Alter explains:

    I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president's desperation.

    Indeed. Bush was so desperate, in fact, that he gave two of his most relaxed press conferences in recent memory. Perhaps the NY Times can't see it, or perhaps I'm just a bit fevered, but the Bush Administration appears to be writing this story in the national media as much as they are starring in it.

    Let me offer up these simple thoughts for you to consider:

    The Bush administration has known for a year that the New York Times was investigating and intended to run at some point a story about the executive order NSA.

    The government probably figured out exactly what James Risen and Eric Lichtblau knew about the program within the first week of their investigation coming to light.

    The government could easily "turn" any of Risen's and Lichtblau's informants with the very real, legally valid threat of long-term accommodations of the government's choosing. It could then use these turncoats to feed "fake but accurate" information to the NY Times.

    The result?

    The release of a story with just enough truth to be thought credible by enemies both "foreign and domestic." The story causes a cascade of irregular signal activity that "paints" terror cells as clearly as active sonar on a submarine. Unwittingly, the Times contributes to the NSA project.

    If you are willing to go that far, one then has to ask this question: is the NSA program mentioned in the Times the program actually being run, or was the Times misled into being "useful idiots" for an entirely legal program out of the reach of FISA entirely?

    My contention? Military intelligence operates outside of FISA restrictions that control domestic surveillance organizations, and if the NSA is collecting intercepted information offshore and is feeding it directly to the military to kill or capture bad guys overseas, the Bush's AUMF justification is both crystal clear and perfectly legal. If this is true, teh seemingly murkey explanations the Adminstration had been giving for the past week would be perfecty accurate, as well, would they not?

    The fake civilian spying program can run its course to be "shutdown," while the real military program continues to run and provide for our safety in the cover of its own apparent grave.

    This is of course, all just wild speculation…

    Isn't it?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:20 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    December 19, 2005

    ¿Cómo se dice, "Stupid?"

    Mother Sheehan was on the whine in Madrid. via Breitbart:

    Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan led a small protest Saturday outside the U.S. Embassy to denounce the war in Iraq.

    About 100 protesters carried banners criticizing President Bush.

    Sheehan, whose soldier son was killed in Iraq, called Bush a war criminal and said, "Iraq is worse than Vietnam."

    Of course it is, Cindy. This time we're winning.

    Cindy apparently still has grass in her eyes from her last stomach-churning photo op.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:03 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    Reid: I'm not Corrupt, and I'm Keeping the Money

    How is that again, Harry?

    "Don't lump me in with Jack Abramoff. This is a Republican scandal," Reid told Fox News Sunday, saying he never received any money from Abramoff.

    Reid, like many members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, has received campaign contributions from Abramoff clients. Some lawmakers have returned those donations, but Reid gave no indication he would do so.

    He never received any money, and he won't give back the money he didn't take in the first place. What is the definition of a honest politician again?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:54 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    December 17, 2005

    Against Enemies Foreign and Domestic

    Interesting:

    President Bush has personally authorized a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States more than three dozen times since October 2001, a senior intelligence official said Friday night.

    ***

    ...Each time, the White House counsel and the attorney general certified the lawfulness of the program, the official said. Bush then signed the authorizations.

    During the reviews, government officials have also provided a fresh assessment of the terrorist threat, showing that there is a catastrophic risk to the country or government, the official said.

    "Only if those conditions apply do we even begin to think about this," he said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the intelligence operation.

    "The president has authorized NSA to fully use its resources — let me underscore this now — consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution to defend the United States and its citizens," the official said, adding that congressional leaders have also been briefed more than a dozen times.

    If true, Bush's executive order authorizing streamlined NSA surveillance procedures was not a blanket endorsement, but apparently a specific series of case-by-case authorizations designed to save American lives from specific terrorist threats. What's more, congressional leaders were updated "more than a dozen times" on the use of these orders.

    It would appear that President Bush operated well within his Constituional rights as Commander in Chief, and America's civil liberties were not threatened in any way while the ability to respond to specific terrorist threats was greatly improved. I think we call that a "win-win" situation, folks.

    The knee-jerk reaction of the political left to cry out over apparently non-existent civil liberties violations is shameful, as is their two-faced hypocrisy regarding this leak of intelligence information to news sources.

    Hinderaker called it right:

    Under the Plame precedent, this case is a no-brainer. The intelligence officials who leaked to the Times should be identified, criminally prosecuted, and sent to prison.

    Several decades in Club Fed is exactly what justice demands for those that would compromise America's national security concerns for partisan political vendettas.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:29 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    December 16, 2005

    Drudge Discovers <font FACE="ARIAL,VERDANA,HELVETICA"size="+7" color="red">

    He also discovered that according to the New York Times, President Bush didn't want to wait for terrorists to catch us with our pants down again, and authorized the National Security Agency to immediately conduct surveillance of suspected al Qaeda terrorists without waiting for a specific court order:

    The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.

    In a time of extraordinary circumstances, while the remains of murdered Americans were still being recovered from Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and a field outside Shanksville, the President decided that stopping terrorists from killing more Americans was more important than entertaining the delicate sensibilities of the ACLU.

    Thank God we have you, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times to guard our civil liberties! I just wish that you had been able to get this information when it was fresh and still of use to al Qaeda. Oh wait, it still might be, and you don't care:

    The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

    Some, but not all.

    Thank you, Pinch Sulzberger and the New York Times for putting your egos and biases ahead of our national security.

    And nice job, Matt, of missing the real story.

    Update: And for the 1984 conspiracy theorists Fox News reports that there was indeed Congressional and judicial awareness of the NSA program, despite the ACLU claims to the contrary:

    The Bush administration had briefed congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that handles national security issues.
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:08 AM | Comments (95) | TrackBack

    December 15, 2005

    Black Republicans, White Democrats


    Proud Members of the Democratic Party in Wilmington, NC
    after murdering dozens of black Republicans in November, 1898.

    Via the News and Observer, from Appendix N, page 2 (PDF) of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Report released today:

    In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were several attacks by white mobs on prosperous black communities resulting in the killing of black citizens and the destruction of black homes and businesses . Most notable among these riots are the Danville, Virginia Riot of 1883, the New Orleans, Louisiana Riot of 1900, the Atlanta, Georgia Riot of 1906, the Rosewood, Florida Riot of 1923, and the Tulsa, Oklahoma Riot of 1925.

    Although all of the above riots were devastating to their local black communities, the Wilmington Riot of 1898 was unique in America history.1 In November, 1898, an organized white mob massacred an unknown number of black citizens in Wilmington and at gunpoint forced the resignation of most of the local municipal government. This riot represents a turning point in the history of riots by white mobs on blacks because it is the first time in American history that a legal democratically elected government was overthrown by a government recognized organization, the Democratic Party, with no response by federal or state government officials.

    This inset map (PDF) shows where 42 blacks were cornered and cut down by murderous machine-gun wielding white mobs of the Democratic Party.

    I can only assume this is what Cary Tennis has in mind for today's Republicans.

    It is a good thing that these days people like Mr. Tennis no longer have the majority of the guns.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:50 PM | Comments (84) | TrackBack

    Does “Sovereignty†Translate into Spanish?

    Vincente Fox has been sampling product from the coyotes along the border again:

    Mexican President Vicente Fox denounced as "disgraceful and shameful" on Wednesday a proposal to build a high-tech wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigrants.

    Concerned about the huge numbers of illegal immigrants streaming across the border and worried it could be an entry point for terrorists, a U.S. lawmaker has proposed building two parallel steel and wire fences running from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Coast. But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has said a wall running the length of a border would cost too much.

    Mexico has expressed indignation at the idea.

    Fox, speaking in Tamaulipas state across the border from Texas, said such extreme security measures would violate immigrants' rights.

    "The disgraceful and shameful construction of walls, the increasing enforcement of security systems and increasing violation of human rights and labor rights will not protect the economy of the United States," he said.

    Immigrant's rights? I've got a news flash for you Vincente, coming into this country illegally is -- I'll type slow so you can hopefully get it -- i l l e g a l. Foreign nationals do not have the right to enter this country when and where they want, choosing to obey the laws they want, when and if it suits them.

    Only Kennedys do that.

    The fact that Fox would even back such an asinine argument also shows how shortsighted his leadership has become. By encouraging illegal immigration, Fox is encouraging the most motivated members of his society to leave the country.
    That is not only stupid policy, but long-term cultural suicide.

    If America wants to keep Mexico a strong and stable ally, we need Mexico to stay independent and viable on its own merits. Siphoning away it's most ambitious workers in not in Mexico's best interests, nor ours. For the long-term benefit of both countries, a solid border must be maintained, and that means developing walls.

    Fox should brush up on his Robert Frost.

    "Good fences make good neighbors."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:27 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    December 14, 2005

    Cindy Sheehan: Liberal Necrophilia

    Necrophiliac:

    Figuratively, the term "necrophilia" describes an inordinate desire to control another person, usually in the context of a romantic or interpersonal relationship; the accusation is that the person is so interpersonally controlling as to be better-suited to relationships with nonresponsive people...

    ...Virtually all human societies condemn abuse of the dead as a form of symbolic disrespect...

    In the analytic social psychology of Erich Fromm necrophilia is a character orientation which shows an increasing tendency toward destructiveness.

    Normal mothers don't use their children's graves for a photo op. Cindy... seek help. Now.

    More at The Corner and Protein Wisdom.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:49 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    December 13, 2005

    Blanco: Michael Brown in Liz Claiborne

    It looks like disgraced former FEMA foul-up Michael Brown wasn't the only government official worried more about fashion than folks. This gem surfaced in a an email document dump.

    Via Brietbart:

    "Gov. Blanco might dress down a bit and look like she has rolled up her sleeves," press consultant Kim Fuller of Witt Associates wrote in a Sept. 4 e-mail to aides including Bottcher, Mann and Kopplin. "I have some great Liz Claiborne sports clothes that look kind of Eddie Bauer, but with class, but would bring her down to level of getting to work."

    "She would look like a woman, but show she is MOVING MOUNTAINS," Fuller wrote.

    She can't move mountains. She can't even move buses.

    No, no matter what she wore, Blanco would look like what she still looks like today: a woman completely incompetent to hold her office.

    Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has got to go.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:20 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

    December 10, 2005

    And Then He Shot A Man Just For Snoring

    Doug Thompson of Capital Hill Blue, the liberal version of the National Enquirer, offered up this gem yesterday:

    GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

    “I don't give a goddamn,†Bush retorted. “I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.â€

    “Mr. President,†one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.â€

    “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,†Bush screamed back. “It's just a goddamned piece of paper!â€

    Thompson has cited three whole (yeah, you guessed it) anonymous figures "that were there that day" as his sources.

    Perhaps I am alone, but does anyone really buy that a single senior White House staffer or senior Republican leader would come complain to this off-kilter Kenny Rodgers wannabe, much less three of them?

    Mr. Thompson should perhaps check into a hospital. His Bush Derangement Syndrome is apparently reaching terminal levels.


    Update: Mr. Thompson himself (or one of the other 435 residents of Floyd, VA who might be interested in Technorati links to Capital Hill Blue) dropped by, and left just as quickly without a word in rebuttal.

    Apparently he couldn't think of a good reason anyone would call him, either.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:48 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    Solving the Tookie Problem

    Apparently, some weak-willed folks in California are concerned that executing a convicted quadruple murderer and failed children's book author (I've sold more bumper stickers than he's sold poorly-written books) might generate some animosity among the criminal element:

    With less than four days to go before Williams' scheduled Tuesday execution, sporadic-yet-credible threats of civil unrest have prompted the council members and representatives from the city and county human relations commissions to ask religious leaders to emphasize a message of peace during weekend services.

    "We picked up information that led us to believe that there were some planned and intentioned acts of violence that could occur in the wake of the decision or the execution planned for Stan "Tookie" Williams," Robin Toma, executive director of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, said during a news conference at City Hall.

    Toma declined to list the affected communities or elaborate on the threats.

    Councilman Bernard Parks said he spoke earlier today about potential civil unrest with Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Earl Paysinger of the South Bureau.

    Parks said Paysinger assured him the LAPD would remain "vigilant" this weekend, but there was no immediate need to put the city on tactical alert.

    I've got a better solution: Hold your own, you spineless liberal cowards. God forbid that you take responsibility for your own lives instead of counting upon over-worked, over-sued law enforcement officers to do it for you.

    I suppose Murtha will be on the tube tomorrow, calling for a full and immediate withdrawal from California. He should. California lost more people last year to gunfire than the U.S. military has done in two years in Iraq.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:24 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    December 09, 2005

    NY Times Magazine: Liberal Blogs Accomplish Little

    The top liberal blogs are up in arms over an impending New York Times magazine article by Michael Crowley that has been reported in Editor & Publisher. E&P claims the article will declare:

    ...that conservative blogs continue to best liberal blogs in political and electoral influence.

    The title of the piece by Michael Crowley in the magazine's 5th Annual Year in Ideas cover package says it all: "Conservative Blogs Are More Effective."

    Crowley, a New Republic writer, claims that with the 2006 elections approaching, Democrats are now "trying to use blogs more strategically." But he concludes by embracing the view of Matt Stoller, an activist who ran a blog for Sen. Jon Corzine during his 2005 race for governor of New Jersey, who believes that next year conservative bloggers "will certain have an upper hand." Crowley adds: "Again."

    Armando at Daily Kos wails:

    Well if you define effective as being a part of the Mighty Wurlitzer, having no respect for the facts and shilling for the Republican Party, Crowley is 100% correct.

    Markos no doubt will have some insights on this. For me, I am proud to say we will never be "effective" in the way the Right Blogs are.

    On cue, Kos adds:

    Good. Let people think that. People have always been naysayers. Instead of getting riled up about, we'll keep doing what we're doing. And at the end of 2006 we'll be able to take stock of the situation and declare, definitively, that the conservative blogosphere is merely a redundant extension of their noise machine.

    And "doing what we're doing" has been very effective so far.

    Another leading liberal blogger, Duncan Black whines:

    In a sense conservative blogs are more effective because both the massive right wing media and the mainstream media (remember Kurtz inviting Assrocket on to discuss his picked entirely out of his ass theory that the Republican Schiavo talking point memo was a Democratic forgery) are willing to pick up and retransmit their bullshit. So, the right wing wankosphere are yet another cog in the massive right wing media operation, and in accordance with the self-similiarty of the wingnut function, basically identical in all but scale.

    But the liberal blogosphere is a much greater value added for our side because we have such a shitty media infrastructure. If all the wingnut blogs disappeared tomorrow it really wouldn't have any impact on the national discourse. Sure they're there and the Right is better at using them but they don't really *need* them. They have plenty of other ways to launder their horseshit.

    Why, with language like that and such thoughtful commentary, don't you wonder why moderates aren't flocking there in droves for serious discussion?

    Not only is their language unnecessarily abrasive, but Black has certain... shall we say, believability issues when he starts claiming that the New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times, Time, Newsweek, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, the Associated Press, Reuters and the majority of the international press constitute what he crassly regards as a "shitty media infrastructure."


    Is this conservative media bias from CNN? (h/t Sister Toldjah)

    By their own freely-given, self-selected admissions, most members of the media are politically liberal. So why are liberal blogger-supported national political campaigns in America complete (0-16) failures?

    Ace-of -Spades sums it up nicely:

    Unlike the liberal bloggers and readers, conservative bloggers and blog-readers are not, as a rule, diagnosable paranoid schizophrenics and general lunatics.

    Conservative bloggers tend to discuss live, real issues. They take reasonable positions, certainly mainstream among conservatives, and reasonable even to moderates. (Even if moderates don't agree with this or that, it's not as if the position is simply absurd.)

    Liberal bloggers tend to be obsessed with conspiracy theories, criminal investigations unlikely to result in convictions (and unrelated to actual policy debate, in any event), and general moonbattery. The basic dynamic of the sinestrosphere is everyone attempting to out-crazy each other, and, last time I checked, it's a million-way tie for first place.

    Liberal belief in a right-wing dominated media plays to that most special kind of delusional behavior that the far left proudly refers to as their "reality-based" view of the world. The fact that have had to spin this alternate, fantasy-based reality is just one symptom of their underlying problem.

    Update: The author, Michael Crowley , is wrong about much of his thoughts about why the conservative blogosphere is more successful. QandO and Professor Bainbridge explain.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:31 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    December 08, 2005

    An Innocent Cop Killer

    (via Instapundit)

    Sometimes under the strangest of circumstances, the man who guns down an honest cop in the line of duty, deserves to walk the earth a free man.

    Cory Maye is one such man. I would have likely done the same thing myself...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:34 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    Parsing the Numbers

    Is is surprising to anyone that the pathologically liberal New York Times would put the worst possible spin on any rise in President Bush's poll numbers? Bush's poll numbers have "improved markedly" since the last New York Times/CBS News Poll, but far be it for the Times to let that stand unchallenged.

    According to the NY Times:

    Despite his gains, Mr. Bush's 40 percent approval rating remains among his lowest, and is still substantially lower than that of Presidents Clinton (who was at 58 percent) or Reagan (who was at 68 percent) at comparable points in their second terms.

    But is that entirely accurate?

    According to the 10/17 USA Today story that I've noted in the past:

    Every president since 1963 has had approval ratings at one time or another that were lower than Bush's current rating. Those ratings include Lyndon Johnson's 35%, Richard Nixon's 24%, Gerald Ford's 37%, Jimmy Carter's 28%, Ronald Reagan's 35%, the elder George Bush's 29% and Bill Clinton's 37%.

    A magical difference between the two polls is the highly subjective phrasing "at comparable points in their second terms." Had Bush been higher in the more polling, is their any doubt that the NY Times would change their definition of what comprises "comparable points?"

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:17 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    November 30, 2005

    Harry Reid's Intelligence Problem

    I'm sure you've heard about this story:

    Nevada Senator Harry Reid thinks Osama Bin Laden was killed in last month's earthquake in Pakistan.

    Speaking Wednesday on News 4's Nevada News Makers, Reid says he was informed today that Bin Laden may have died in the October temblor.

    "I heard today that he may have died in the earthquake that they had in Pakistan, seriously." Reid says that if that is the case, "that's good for the world."

    Is Harry Reid is basing his comments on pure speculation? He wouldn't be the first if so, but that isn't what he said.

    He stated, "I heard today that he may have died..."

    If Senator Reid's source is from the intelligence community and was given to him in his role as a Senator, his intelligence clearance should be reviewed. If (and only if) he is guilty of providing national security informaiton to the press, Senator Reid should not only lose his clearance, but lose his Senate seat and possibly face criminal charges.

    More at PJM.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:56 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    November 28, 2005

    Corrupt Scum

    I knew Marion didn't raise that boy properly, but I never thought he'd take $2.4 million in bribes.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    Sound and Fury, Pleasing No Juan

    President Bush gave an immigration-related speech today at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona today, promising...

    Nothing.

    Bush, via Bloomberg:

    "Together with Congress we are going to create a temporary worker program that is going to take pressure off the borders, bring workers out of the shadows,'' Bush told border patrol agents today at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. ``People in this debate must recognize that we will not be able to effectively enforce our immigration laws until we create a temporary worker program."

    No, Mr. President. You could not be more wrong.

    We will not be able to effectively enforce our immigration laws until we have leaders serious about protecting our borders, Mr. Bush, and you have not shown yourself to be serious in this task.

    This proposal is nothing but a smoke screen, one that does not in any serious way address the problems of stopping the illegal cross-border traffic of illegal aliens, drugs and suspected terrorists.

    Mr. Bush's guest worker program is laughable; my farcical Punjis for Peace program involving bamboo pit traps is far more likely to succeed.

    If you do not care about border security, Mr. Bush, at least have the courage to say so. Do not patronize me with empty words.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:19 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    November 27, 2005

    Yippie-Ki-Yay, Mother Sheehan

    The Washington Post is the gift that just keeps on giving today, with the post Sympathetic Vibrations telling us what we already; liberals are bad for the morale of our soldiers, and the vast majority of Americans know it:

    Democrats fumed last week at Vice President Cheney's suggestion that criticism of the administration's war policies was itself becoming a hindrance to the war effort. But a new poll indicates most Americans are sympathetic to Cheney's point.

    Seventy percent of people surveyed said that criticism of the war by Democratic senators hurts troop morale -- with 44 percent saying morale is hurt "a lot," according to a poll taken by RT Strategies. Even self-identified Democrats agree: 55 percent believe criticism hurts morale, while 21 percent say it helps morale.

    It gets worse for the Party of No:

    Just three of 10 adults accept that Democrats are leveling criticism because they believe this will help U.S. efforts in Iraq. A majority believes the motive is really to "gain a partisan political advantage."

    Roger Simon notices this shift, and also notices action star Bruce Willis is making a movie based upon Michael Yon's chronicaling of Deuce Four, First Battalion, 24th Infantry. My money is on Willis to personally play Deuce Four commander LTC Erik Kurilla.

    When this pro-democracy, pro-military film comes out, opinions on the war will continue to swing back towards supporting our troops, and the liberal special interest groups and politicians that tried to undermine the War on Terror will be hoisted on their cowardly petards.

    The DNC better hope that Willis doesn' get his movie out before the 2006 elections. If he does, the Democrats will be in for a world of hurt they assuredly deserve.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:44 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    Ms. Lonely


    Cindy Sheehan waits for people at her book signing near the president's ranch in Crawford, Tex., where she spoke to a crowd of about 100 people. Source

    Via the Washington Post:

    As in August, when she galvanized attention and made headlines for days with similar protests, there were songs and speeches and demonstrators holding signs reading "Bring the Troops Home" near the main entrance of the 1,600-acre ranch where Bush has been vacationing since Tuesday.

    Unlike then, when hundreds came from all over the country for major events at the two campsites named after Sheehan's son, who was killed in Iraq, Sheehan found herself addressing a crowd of only about 100 Saturday afternoon. The large tent where supporters had erected a stage hung with the banner "Speak Truth to Power" was only partially full. In the morning Sheehan signed copies of her new book, being published this week, for an even smaller crowd.

    Cindy Sheehan's cancerous celebrity had been built up around her belief that her son Casey Sheehan, an American soldier, "died for nothing." Cynical left wing political activists and the media immediately gravitated to her, and began distorting the war, comparing it to Vietnam. But Iraq is not Vietnam.

    In fact, Iraq is the reverse-Vietnam, and Mother Sheehan will become even more lonely as the public becomes aware of her constant, America-hating lies.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:51 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    November 21, 2005

    Aid and Comfort

    I do not begrudge Dave Johnson of Seeing the Forest his right to disagree with the present administration. Indeed he takes part in disagreeing with the George Bush with considerable passion, as is the right of every American.

    But Mr. Johnson's hatred of President Bush, not at all uncommon among liberals, is so rabid that he eagerly, and blindly attacks American soldiers for using "chemical weapons," in Iraq. This is a position soundly refuted by military experts and chemists alike, but Johnson doesn't care because, as he explains in his comments to this post:

    "The Pentagon" does not refer to "our troops." It means the political leadership of the military-industrial complex, appointed by Bush.

    "The Pentagon" as used here is the chickenhawk Republican Party leadership, every single on of whom hid out during Vietnam - advocating FOR that war, as long as others served in their place. Similarly, they advocate for war again, as long as none of THEIR families, neighbors, etc. have to serve.

    And further:

    Posted here is a link to a document in which the Pentagon describes White Phosphorus as a "chemical weapon."

    This is about the Bush Administration and the Republican Party, and you know it. Trying to deflect this by claiming that criticism of Bush is criticism of "the troops" or soldiers insults your and my readers.

    By his own admission, Johnson, a respected blogger in the liberal circles with over a million visitors to his blog, cannot discern between senior career officers in the Department of Defense, and the elected and appointed civilian officials of the Executive branch.

    Nor does Johnson have the capability to discern that (falsely) attacking the actions of troops in the field is not criticism of the Executive branch.

    Should we question the patriotism of liberals? Perhaps not.

    But we should question their understanding of American government, along with the level of danger they are willing put American soldiers under in their attempt to undermine a president.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:08 PM | Comments (24) | TrackBack

    Vonne-gutted

    Kurt Vonnegut, another leftist enamoured with terrorism:

    Vonnegut suggested suicide bombers must feel an "amazing high". He said: "You would know death is going to be painless, so the anticipation - it must be an amazing high."

    Mr. Vonnegut – again, a patriot whose dissent is being cruelly ground into the nurturing earth before your eyes – seems to think that suicide bombings literally happen in a vacuum, an unpopulated space where the bombers just pop like soap bubbles. It may be painless for them – alas – but it is not painless for the victims.

    Of course, it's Chimpy McHilterburton's fault.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    November 19, 2005

    Edited for Accuracy

    Pixy Misa has a post up called Correcting Fluid that "fixes" Liz Sidoti's Associated Press coverage of the Republicans in the House calling the Democratic bluff to turn tail and run from Iraq.

    A sample:

    Democrats, aghast that their bluff had been called, said it was a political stunt and quickly decided to vote against it in an attempt to drain it of significance.

    Read the whole thing.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    November 16, 2005

    Political Jeopardy

    A: Truth and Unicorns

    Q: Can you name a few things you won't find in the Democratic Party?

    Looking at these...

    Setting the Record Straight: The New York Times Editorial on Pre-War Intelligence
    President Delivers Remarks at Elmendorf AFB on War on Terror
    Setting the Record Straight: The Washington Post On Pre-War Intelligence
    President Commemorates Veterans Day, Discusses War on Terror

    ...it looks like Rove wasn't asleep or distracted after all, and was apparently giving the Democrats just enough rope.

    Remember: it isn't the fall, but the sudden stop at the end.

    update: James Wolcott has airly linked in and decided to pass judgement after visting from the Open Source Media blogroll. Sorry you're so touchy, James. Was it something someone said?

    ...and James, its the sudden stop at the end, not the sudden drop. In addition, the young lady in the picture was rather clearly giving a "thumbs up" gesture, not fondling her breast.

    Perhaps the fact-checking is what really upsets you?

    Update 2 Apparently his name is "Wolcott" not "Walcott."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:00 AM | Comments (32) | TrackBack

    November 14, 2005

    Dean Refuses to Apologize For Racist Democrats

    Howard Dean says the Democratic National Commitee will not apologize for racist comments made by Maryland Democrats against Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele.

    As if to prove his point, Dean then slandered John M. Kane, Maryland's Republican Party leader, falsely claiming that Kane asserted Dean was anti-Semite.

    I love Howard Dean.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    November 12, 2005

    "They're not going after tourists."

    Riots continue in Paris for a 17th straight night:

    Dozens of youths threw trash cans at police and attacked sidewalk shops in a main square of Lyon on Saturday night in the first clash between rioters and police in a city center after more than two weeks of violence in France, according to news reports.

    Youths stormed through the historic Place Bellecour in Lyon, France's third-largest city, located in the southeastern Rhone Valley region, even though the city had imposed a nighttime curfew on minors not accompanied by parents. Police fired tear gas to disperse the youths, and 10 people were arrested, officials said.

    It is surprising to most of us, I think, that these riots have continued unabated for more than two weeks. While the overall violence has tapered off it's highest point (according to the burning car metric), their seems to be some indication that the rioting may again intensify.

    Interestingly enough, at least some tourists aren't worried.

    Arjang Ahmadpour, 20, a student from Los Angeles waiting in line in a cold drizzle to take the elevator up the Eiffel Tower, shrugged off concerns about the unrest. "People asked me, 'Oh, you're going to Paris? Aren't you scared?' " he said.

    His response, he said, has been, "They're not going after tourists."

    It seems these days that the most dangerous thing to be in France, is French.

    Update: The riots seem to have ignited the pen of Russ Vaughn, as well as French automobiles.

    Paristine
    Jacques and his frères are surely weeping
    Les pauvres immigrès have caught them sleeping,
    Paysans revolt, their emotions churning,
    What's that odeur? Is Paris burning?
    Within the banlieues there's no joy
    Among les jeunes who are sans emplois
    What, take a job? Not the way to go;
    We'd rather riot, torch your Peugeot.

    Ah, Mother France you took us in,
    Then left us with no way to win.
    We're not ègal, not garçons blanc,
    We've no real chance to earn a franc.
    No, what we are, we're useful fools,
    For leftist dreams, just brown-skinned tools.
    So the Rèpublique's butt is in a crack,
    Give your merci to Jacques Chirac.

    We'll breed you into minority,
    Till only mullahs hear your plea,
    And Shari'a rules throughout your land,
    A Frenchman steals, he'll lose his hand.
    Your licentious lifestyle, long extolled,
    Will leave your women stoned, dead cold.
    But everything will turn out fine,
    In the Muslim Republic of Paristine.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:06 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    November 11, 2005

    Bush Calls Democrats On Iraq War Lies

    The President is mad ans hell, and he's not going to take it anymore.

    While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. (Applause.) Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

    They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. And many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: "When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security." That's why more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power. (Applause.)

    The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. (Applause.) These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. (Applause.) Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. (Applause.) And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.

    You can access the full text of the speech here.

    The Democrats long ago grasped the concept that a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth. They may yet discover that a "truth" manufactured in such a fashion quickly comes undone when exposed to the light of day.

    The NY Times actually appears to have played this one down the middle.

    Glenn Reynolds, Jeff Goldstein, and Gateway Pundit have more, though Scott Ott might have the most accurate comment on the day's speech yet.

    Update: George W. Bush's speech today scared Ted Kennedy so bad that his hands quite shaking.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:42 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    November 08, 2005

    Plug the Leak, And the Leaker

    Drudge reported earlier today that:

    House Speaker Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Frist will announce a bicameral investigation into the leak of classified information to the WASHINGTON POST regarding the “black sites†where high value al Qaeda terrorists are being held and interrogated.

    Within hours, Mississippi Republican Trent Lott said it may have been a Republican Senator or staffer who leaked the information:

    Lott told reporters that the existence of the secret prison system was discussed last week during the Republican policy luncheon, held on Capitol Hill the day before the Post story appeared.

    "Information that was said in there, given out in there, did get into the newspaper," Lott said.

    Asked whether he believed it was Republicans who had breached security, Lott said: "I don't know where else it came from...it looked to me that at least one of those reports came right out of that room."

    Understandably, the media and liberal blogs such as Daily Kos, Eschaton and others are having a field day as Republicans apparently set the stage to pull the trigger on a circular firing squad that may claim one of their own.

    My take?

    The leaker(s), potentially compromised real agents and intelligence operations, and have committed nothing less than some form of treason or sedition against the United States. The person who leaked the information for this article should spend a significant portion of the rest of his or her life in prison.

    I don't give a damn who did it, (Ace's suspect is as good as any); I want them held accountable.

    In that same vein, I'd like to see an inquiry into the Washington Post's involvement in this story. Freedom of Speech is not the right to endanger the lives of American intelligence officers, anymore than it is the right to endanger servicemen. There are both ethical and legal lines that Dana Milbank and the Washington Post make have crossed, and if they did endanger our nation they should be held accountable as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:49 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    November 07, 2005

    Lawyers, Guns, and Money

    On February 12, 2004, Wake County Sheriff's Investigator Mark Tucker was killed by a blast from a single-shot Mossberg 12-gauge. The shotgun was fired by Matthew Grant, a convicted felon. The shotgun was purchased for Grant by one of his friends, Van McQueen.

    These facts, as cited by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in their civil lawsuit against Cary Jewelry & Pawn, are true.

    Many of Brady's other allegations, however, are apparently untrue. The Brady Center made allegations and insinuations not supported by facts, as exposed in a previous post on the subject, and since then, new elements of the Brady Center's case have fallen apart, as two of the strongest allegations in their civil case against Cary Jewelry & Pawn now appear to be falsified.

    According to the Brady Center's October 17, 2005 press release:

    The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence today filed a lawsuit on behalf of the widow of a Wake County, North Carolina Sheriff's Investigator, charging that a gun shop's negligence helped arm his killer.

    Investigator Mark Tucker was shot in the face with a shotgun and killed on February 12, 2004, by Matthew Grant, a convicted felon. The suit seeks to recover damages from Cary Jewelry & Pawn, who supplied Grant's friend, Van McQueen, with the 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun that was used to kill Investigator Tucker. Grant is also a named defendant.

    The suit was filed in Wake County court and claims that Cary Jewelry & Pawn, of Cary, North Carolina, negligently and illegally sold the murder weapon to an obviously dangerous person.

    In November 2003, Van McQueen and Matthew Grant went to Cary Jewelry & Pawn to buy a firearm. McQueen planned to purchase a firearm as a straw buyer for Grant, because Grant was a felon prohibited from buying guns, and in return Grant promised to buy McQueen a beer. McQueen was mentally deficient and was obviously intoxicated, and the shop's clerk refused to sell him a gun. Three days later, McQueen returned to the pawn shop with Grant, again wanting to buy a firearm. Although his home address was a local mission, McQueen had $120 in cash to buy the weapon. This time, even though the same clerk who had seen McQueen intoxicated three days earlier was on duty, the shop completed the all-cash sale. McQueen then transferred the shotgun to Grant, who used it to shoot Investigator Tucker in the face, killing him. Grant was arrested, convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Investigator Tucker.

    "The evidence in this case clearly shows that the gun dealer irresponsibly and illegally sold a shotgun to a man it knew to be dangerous," said Daniel R. Vice, Staff Attorney with the Brady Center. "The gun dealer chose to make a quick buck rather than protect public safety – greed and recklessness caused the death of a brave law enforcement officer."

    Investigator Tucker's widow is represented by attorneys with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and by E. Spencer Parris of the Jones Martin Parris & Tessener Law Offices. The Brady Center represents victims of gun violence in lawsuits against irresponsible gun dealers and manufacturers who supply guns to criminals. Last year, the Center obtained settlements in three high-profile cases on behalf on gun violence victims last year, including victims of the Washington, D.C.-area snipers, totaling $4.4 million.

    In the press release above, Brady states:

    Although his home address was a local mission, McQueen had $120 in cash to buy the weapon.

    That the Brady Center would apparently try to conjure up the frightening image of a homeless person willing to buy almost anyone a gun for a beer is a disgusting, bigoted tactic, but it is a tactic the Brady Center seems comfortable in using.

    But Van McQueen's home address was not a local mission as Brady claims, at any point in the gun purchasing process.

    At the time the shotgun was purchased, McQueen resided at a Buckingham Court apartment in Cary that he shared with Matthew Grant and several other men. He was not living as a resident of the mission until much later, in 2004, well after the murder had been committed.

    Is Brady simply sloppy in their research, or are they willing to intentionally present false information? Someone should be asking the Brady Center that question, and perhaps under oath.

    The Brady Center also states twice that McQueen went to Cary Jewelry & Pawn "in November 2003" and when denied purchase for having the scent of alcohol on his breath, he came back "three days later."

    This is another falsehood, and ironically enough, the Brady Center's apparent fabrication this instance was refuted as the result of a law they helped to pass.

    According the the Federal Bureau of Investigation CJIS Division:

    In November 1993, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Act) was signed into law. The Brady Act requires Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to request background checks on individuals attempting to receive a firearm. The permanent provisions of the Brady Act, which went into effect on November 30, 1998, required the United States Attorney General to establish the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) so that any FFL may contact for information to be supplied immediately as to whether the receipt of a firearm by a prospective transferee would violate Section 922 (g) or (n) of Title 18 of the United States Code or state law.

    Documentation, including NICS records, will show that Vandorance McQueen first attempted to purchase a firearm on November 26, 2003, and was approved by the FBI. At 3:38:55 PM, the shotgun was, as far as the FBI was concerned, now property of Van McQueen.

    McQueen cleared the FBI background checks and was only turned down after employees noticed the scent of alcohol on his breath. The sale was voided by Cary Jewelry & Pawn and the firearm was technically re-entered as the property of Cary Jewelry & Pawn at 3:40:55 PM, just 2 1/2 minutes later.

    Records will further show that Van McQueen did not come back three days later to attempt to purchase a firearm.

    Three days after November 26 was November 29.

    FBI NICS records and other documentation will show that Van McQueen did not purchase the shotgun until December 29 at 4:07:23 PM, 33 days later, or more than a month after the Brady Center's claim.

    When combined with the questions raised in the previous fisking of the Brady Center's lawsuit press release, there is every reason to doubt the very credibility of the Brady Center's case.

    They do, however, manage to tip their hand a bit, perhaps exposing their real reason for bringing the case against Cary Jewelry & Pawn.

    Last year, the Center obtained settlements in three high-profile cases on behalf on gun violence victims last year, including victims of the Washington, D.C.-area snipers, totaling $4.4 million.

    I'm no judge or jury, but it sure seems like a motive to me.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:35 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

    November 04, 2005

    The "Enemy?" I Can Live with That

    Pervasive corruption in Canada, Dhimmitude in Buckingham, a ninth night of spreading revolt in France, fomenting arson in San Fransciso, cavorting with our nation's enemies in Argentina, and celebrating the deaths of American soldiers with a smile...

    But conservatives are evil, non?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    November 03, 2005

    Bush's Lowest Still Better Than All Others in Recent History

    To listen to the way it is spun in the Washington Post and crowd on the left, you'd think that President Bush's "all time low" job approval rating was the end of the world:

    On virtually every key measure of presidential character and performance, the new survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office -- the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls.

    But if you look closely, these numbers are just for Bush in his own two terms, not for Presidents in general. How does he compare overall?

    According to a 10/17 USA Today article, he compares pretty well:

    Every president since 1963 has had approval ratings at one time or another that were lower than Bush's current rating. Those ratings include Lyndon Johnson's 35%, Richard Nixon's 24%, Gerald Ford's 37%, Jimmy Carter's 28%, Ronald Reagan's 35%, the elder George Bush's 29% and Bill Clinton's 37%.

    Bush's worst to date is still several points better that the next best in President Clinton, and substantially better than all other presidents of the past four decades. Perhaps naysayers shouldn't crow so loudly when Bush is still at the top of the heap.

    Update: As Tom Elia of the New Editor shows, Bush's "lowest" polling is the result of skewed polling across several polls.

    For example, the CBS News poll, which shows that Bush's approval rating is at 35%, reports that an unweighted sample shows that 34.8% of its respondents self-identified as Democrats, while 27.6% said they were Republicans. While the unweighted sample yielded a seven-point differential favoring the Dems, a weighted sample had the spread at 11% points in favor of the Dems. This represents at least a 10-11 point swing in the electorate since the 2004 election (and perhaps as much as 14 points), when Bush won by about three points and the Repubs won the aggregate House vote by about four points.

    The AP/Ipsos poll, which has Bush's approval rating at 37%, said its respondents self-identified 49% Dem and 40% Repub, yielding a nine-point differential favoring the Dems. This represents a 12-point swing in the electorate since 2004...

    The ABC/Washington Post poll, which shows that Bush's approval rating is at 39%, saw its respondents break down thusly: 52% said they leaned toward the Dems, and 41% leaned toward the Repubs. That represents a 14-point swing since last year's elections.

    Go read the rest.

    Lies. Damn lies. Statistics.

    Update 2: I should have titled this thread "You Can't Trust the Poll-ish."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:43 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    My Little Phony

    The International Arabian Horse Association association didn't want him, and newly released emails shows that fomer FEMA director Michael Brown was more worried about his looks than a developing catastrophe in New Orleans:

    On August 29, the day of the storm, Brown exchanged e-mails about his attire with Taylor, Melancon said. She told him, "You look fabulous," and Brown replied, "I got it at Nordstroms. ... Are you proud of me?"

    An hour later, Brown added: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god," according to the congressman.

    As PunditGuy notes, "Email has a way of revealing the real person inside the suit, and in this case, it confirms everything everyone suspected about Michael Brown."

    Indeed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Dien Bien Phubar


    photo via Yahoo!

    Via The Corner:


    Let's face facts...the French are in a quagmire. This is looking like another Vietnam. The insurgents are winning and gaining support each night...

    On the bright side for the French, General Giap isn't leading the opposition this time, though the lack of centralized leadership does complicate the surrender somewhat...*

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:13 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    Kweisi's Klan

    It must be hard to figure out who the biggest nigger-hater in America is right now.

    Is it the evil Olsen twins or a bevy of black Democrats, who see a refusal to stay within the comfortable ideological chains of the Democratic Party as being a race traitor?

    God help any black man or woman who would step off the Democratic plantation, for overseer Mfume and his chattering cohorts will quickly and harshly crack a whip across your back for daring to think anything other than what they sees as acceptable black thought.

    If you are black in America you have no freedom today, but it comes not from white folks such as myself. No, it comes from the likes of Kweisi Mfume, and Lisa A. Gladden, and Salima Siler Marriott, and Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton, and other black "leaders," racists all, who know a nigger when they see one, and the easiest way to spot one is not by a scarlet letter on his chest, but by the capital "R" behind his name.

    Woe be unto him that would seek emancipation from Kweisi's Klan!

    What have black leaders done for black Americans in the past two decades, other than get fat off the sweat of working black Americans, while staying silent as the social programs of Johnson's "Great Society" ripped one black family after another apart and buried it further in defeatism and poverty? Black Americans should not be forced to vote for one party by the color of their skin, but be allowed to choose freely their own desires, based upon the content of their own characters.

    Instead, black leaders call any free black thinker "nigger" in deed if not in name if he does not think as they do, and act as they prescribe.

    The assault on Michael Steele -- "pointing out the obvious" as the race-bating Mfume would have it -- is an affront to the idea of black people in America being truly free.

    Kweisi Mfume, the Congressional Black Caucus, and other "leaders" don't care about free thought or true equality for black America.

    They just want to be the ones jingling the chain.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:15 AM | TrackBack

    November 02, 2005

    An Absence of Outrage

    I cannot pretend to be surprised to find out about the existence of "black" prisons. That every "civilized" nation has such facilities is understood by the players in this all too serious game. That these places didn't exist would come as a far greater shock.

    The existence of such operations is legal under U.S. law, and supported by legal reviews from the CIA general counsel's office, the Justice Department, and lawyers of the executive branch according to the very Dana Priest article that breaks the story. Someone deliberately exposed the existence of these specific (formerly secret) operations and facilities, in what appears to be a clear crime in this time of war. This individual or group risks the lives of not just one operative, but entire intelligence operations.

    One would think that those pundits, so offended by the exposure of one non-secret Langley operative would be outraged by the exposure of potentially dozens of agents still overseas... but one would be wrong. The lives of covert operatives, like the lives of our overt military forces, appeal to the left only when politically advantageous.

    After fours years of siding against America and with islamofascists even to the point of attempting to rewrite history, we should hardly be surprised.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:52 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    November 01, 2005

    The Toddler Option

    I woke up for this?

    No foresight. No plans. No new ideas. This is all they've got?

    Reid just galvanized any Republican moderate that wanted to work with Democrats against them, gutted the "Gang of 14," and assured that Samuel Alito will become the next Supreme Court Justice without facing even the possibility of a filibuster. Special interest groups on the far left like NARAL and MoveOn.org just had their already slim chances of defeating Alito smashed.

    In addtion, do Dems really want the public eye on the fact that a left-leaning political faction in the CIA was responsible for trying to subvert the elected government in the run up to the Iraq War? Frankly, I want this.

    Reid misplayed badly by throwing this temper tantrum.

    Other reactions:
    Stop the ACLU
    Ace of Spades
    Ankle Biting Pundits

    I'm going back to bed.

    Update:

    Via Fox News:

    ...Durbin said Democrats would stall Senate action for as long as it takes.

    "It is within the power of the majority to close down the closed session. They can do it by majority vote to return to the legislative calendar," Durbin said. "We're serving notice on them at this moment: Be prepared for this motion every day until you face the reality. The Senate Intelligence Committee has a responsibility."

    [bold mine]

    Oh really, Dick?

    You are already viewed more as obstructionists than legislators, so you know what?

    I triple dog-dare ya!

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    October 31, 2005

    "An Offer You Can't Refuse..."

    Fox News, CNN, and ABC News are all announcing that Bush will tap conservative jurist Samuel A. Alito, 55, for the Supreme Court.

    Michelle Malkin has the details, which will make judicial conservatives very happy and already has some far left liberals screaming for a filibuster.

    My prediction: Liberals will shriek themselves into irrelevancy, the "Gang of 14" will fold, Alito will be easily confirmed, and both sides will squirrel away cash and rhetoric for the '06 and '08 campaigns.

    Of course, this was the Evil Rovian Plan all along.

    Side Note: How long will it be before the "tolerant left" will try to smear Alito based upon his religion and his heritage?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:31 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    October 28, 2005

    'Bout That Scooter thing...

    So I'm still coming down off this headache and I'm still trying to understand all this:

    Patrick Fitzgerald is indicting Scooter Libby for outing Mr. Sulu?

    Indictment here (PDF)

    No word on whether or not Jeff Gannon was involved. (Actually, yes there is).

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    October 26, 2005

    This Post Intentionally Left Untitled

    I'm glad to see my favorite former Congress idiot is getting along just fine without me (h/t: Doc Paul).

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Galloway: Getting It In The End?

    If even a fraction of this Senate report (pdf) is true, blowhard British MP and left wing hero, is in for a world of trouble -- or at least two countries worth.

    If the Senate report is correct, Galloway not only commited crimes on American soil, but he commited perjury in a libel case in England that he won as well, based upon these same claims of innocence.

    Galloway appears to have counted on illegal Iraqi oil for his future.




    He might want to consider shifting his investments elsewhere.

    Update: Christopher Hitchens is having a field day with these developments.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:29 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Fitzgerald to Clear Rove?

    Yeah, I know I've been ignoring the whole Plamegate thing for the most part until tonight, but what do you take away from this 11th hour story in the New York Times:

    With the clock running out on his investigation, the special counsel in the leak case continued to seek information on Tuesday about Karl Rove's discussions with reporters in the days before a C.I.A. officer's identity was made public, lawyers and others involved in the investigation said.

    Three days before the grand jury in the case expires and with the White House in a state of high anxiety, the special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, appeared still to be trying to determine whether Mr. Rove had been fully forthcoming about his contacts with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist, in July 2003, they said.

    How would you read that?

    Digby, of Hullabaloo (according to Memeorandum the first and only blogger commenting on this story at the moment), apparently didn't read anything into that at all. He seemed more intent on trying to furtively establish links dragging in Vice President Cheney in a section future down the page.

    But I don't think the Times would bury the lead on this story; they want Rove and they're interpreting the special counsel's last-minute information gathering as tying up loose ends that could lead to an indictment of Rove.

    But there is, of course, at least one other explanation for this apparent last-minute flurry of activity: Fitzgerald might be making sure that he is justified in not bringing charges against Karl Rove at all.

    If special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has decided not to indict the man that liberal's most hate, he better have his ducks in a row and able to withstand intense scrutiny. This last second fact-checking would appear to be consistent towards that end as well.

    Time will tell.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    October 25, 2005

    Almost Over?

    According to anonymous sources in the Washington Note, indictments are coming from Plamegate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald tomorrow:

    1. 1-5 indictments are being issued. The source feels that it will be towards the higher end.
    2. The targets of indictment have already received their letters.
    3. The indictments will be sealed indictments and "filed" tomorrow.
    4. A press conference is being scheduled for Thursday.

    Will anyone else simply be happy when this is over? I'm tired of the idle speculation, the "educated" guessing, the bloviating, the bile, and leaks from the investigation that seem to dwarf the events actually being investigated.

    If folks commited crimes, they out to be help accountable, and that's about all that matter from where I sit. Give them a fair trial, and let the chips fall where they may.

    Update: Now what could this mean?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Ulterior Motives?

    Via WaPo:

    "I'll be laying down and not getting up," Sheehan said Tuesday to a small crowd in which the number of journalists exceeded the number of protesters. "When they let me out, I'll do the same thing if I get arrested."

    I wonder why....
    *sings* "I'll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places..."

    Updates: John Cole isn't impressed with Sheehan or other Left Wing Heroes. Jeff Quinton is echoed (echoed). Cox & Forkum, as they often do, peg things perfectly.

    Re-update: added the lyrics. It felt so wrong, and yet so right.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:00 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    A Defense Without Bite

    Poor Gorgeous George Galloway is have a tough time of it lately. First Christopher Hitchens ate him alive in a televised debate, and now the U.S. Senate says it can prove he took payments from Saddam Hussein totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, and lied about it under oath in front of Congress.

    Via The Independent:

    George Galloway, the British MP, was last night accused of lying by a US Congressional committee when he testified earlier this year that he had not received any United Nation food-for-oil allocations from the deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

    In a report issued here, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman and his colleagues on the Senate Subcommittee for Investigations claim to have evidence showing that Mr Galloway's political organisation and his wife received vouchers worth almost $600,000 (£338,000) from the then Iraqi government.

    The Senate subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, cites testimony from former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and wire transfers recorded by both Citibank and the Arab Bank.

    So how does that den of critical thinking, the Democratic Underground, respond to the charges against one of their favorite Saddam sycophants?

    By attacking the credibility of Coleman's teeth. Yes, the quality of your dentistry determines your credibility in DU Land.

    Now, who said that the Democrats were a party without ideas?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    October 22, 2005

    End the Quag-Miers

    For several weeks I've tried to withhold judgment of President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers. Even at the beginning of this debacle I never held the illusion that she was the most qualified of candidates, but the question for me was, would she be qualified enough.

    I have been firmly underwhelmed by the arguments of Will and Krauthammer and other pundits, just as I've annoyed by the tone deaf defenses of Miers by the administration.

    I wanted to hear from the nominee herself before I offered my opinion of her suitability for the Supreme Court.

    Now I have.

    I've had several days to digest her 57 pages of answers to Senate Judiciary Committee, and time to read commentaries from other pundits that I respect, and I have now formed an opinion that I think I can be comfortable with.

    I oppose the Miers nomination.

    I do not oppose her for her convictions; I oppose her because she appears to have none.

    I do not oppose Harriet Miers for having the wrong academic pedigree; I oppose her for not being able to write a cogent, or even a comprehensible, opinion.

    I am sure that Harriet Miers is wonderful human being and a good friend, but she does not belong on the Supreme Court of the United States.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:08 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    Stock Market Funnies

    I've never seen such a simple graph make me giggle so hard...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    October 21, 2005

    A Miered Religion

    Via LGF:

    In Alexandria, Egypt, a Muslim mob attacked a Christian church and rioted to protest the release of a DVD that portrayed Muslims attacking Christian churches...

    It is getting harder and harder to think of Islam as anything other than a poorly written and over-extended joke.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:37 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    October 20, 2005

    Change of Venue

    Is it a bad sign that Arlen Specter has requested that Harriet Miers SCOTUS hearing be moved here?


    La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, CA. source
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    October 19, 2005

    Somebody Forgot About Vince Foster

    Via (yeah, I know) NewsMax:

    "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan is urging fellow Democrats not to support "pro-war Democrat" Hillary Clinton for president, saying she sounds too much like conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh in her support for U.S. efforts in Iraq.

    In an open letter posted to Michael Moore's web site, Sheehan blasts Hillary for backing the Iraq invasion, saying, "I think she is a political animal who believes she has to be a war hawk to keep up with the big boys."

    Letter at Slugzilla's here.

    I guess that outburst answers any lingering questions about Cindy's intelligence...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    October 18, 2005

    Chain Chain Chain... Cheney Fools

    hilzoy at Obsidian Wings. Anonymous Liberal. Bilmon. O-Dub.

    The last time the left got this excited a dress got ruined, but what exactly does today's Washington Post article Cheney's Office Is A Focus in Leak Case by Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus actually tell us?

    Not a whole lot, actually.

    While full of speculation and reputed leaks from inside special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's office, the WaPo "bombshell" is using much of the same powder it has tried to fire before, only to watch it fizzle.

    But don't take it from me. Ask Kevin Drum:

    Today's Washington Post story about Dick Cheney being a target of the Valerie Plame probe turns out to have no actual new information about Cheney being a target of the Valerie Plame probe. In fact, it quotes a former Cheney aide saying that "it is 'implausible' that Cheney himself was involved in the leaking of Plame's name because he rarely, if ever, involved himself in press strategy."

    It looks like the WaPo is slinging stuff against the wall and hoping that something sticks. We'll find out soon enough if and of it does, and should the charges have it have merit, I'm sure that the White House can think of someone to step into the vacated position...

    ...but at this point, VandeHei and Pincus seem to be engaged more in wishful thinking than serious journalism. I'll take everything I hear regarding "Plamegate" with a mine full of salt until Special Prosecuter Fitzgerald lays out his case, at which point I hope justice is served.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    October 17, 2005

    Bush Lied, Grandma Fried

    Via ABC News:

    The driver of a bus that caught fire while carrying nursing-home patients fleeing Hurricane Rita was charged Monday with criminally negligent homicide in the deaths of 23 passengers.

    Juan Robles Gutierrez, a 37-year-old Mexican citizen, was taken into federal custody on an immigration violation five days after the Sept. 23 explosion near Dallas...

    * * *

    ...Sheriff Lupe Valdez said investigators also found no evidence that Robles helped several people off the bus before it was engulfed in flames, which was widely reported after the explosion.

    "After an exhausting number of interviews, we have been unable to confirm any of those claims," Valdez said in a statement.

    However, Peritz said a failure to help crash victims was not part of the charges against Robles.

    Great.

    It makes you wish that the Minutemen, or more properly the Border Patrol, had been their to intercept this coward at the border instead of not picking him up until he after stood by and watch 23 elderly people in his charge burn to death.

    Perhaps if the President gave a damn about border security, this loser wouldn't have been behind the wheel, or the motorist who tried to flag him down before the bus caught fire might have been able to communicate with him. Possibly not.

    I've had it up to here with illegals in this country, those businesses that employ and them, and enablers in the government (local, state and federal) like President Bush. This issue only gets more pressing as time goes on, and these 23 nursing home residetns are just the latest victims.

    Are you listening, '08 hopefuls?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:28 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    There Goes The Dem-Love

    John Fund in today's WSJ OpinionJournal:

    Two days after President Bush announced Harriet Miers's Supreme Court nomination, James Dobson of Focus on the Family raised some eyebrows by declaring on his radio program: "When you know some of the things that I know--that I probably shouldn't know--you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, that I believe Harriet Miers will be a good justice."

    Mr. Dobson quelled the controversy by saying that Karl Rove, the White House's deputy chief of staff, had not given him assurances about how a Justice Miers would vote. "I would have loved to have known how Harriet Miers views Roe v. Wade," Mr. Dobson said last week. "But even if Karl had known the answer to that--and I'm certain that he didn't because the president himself said he didn't know--Karl would not have told me that. That's the most incendiary information that's out there, and it was never part of our discussion."

    It might, however, have been part of another discussion. On Oct. 3, the day the Miers nomination was announced, Mr. Dobson and other religious conservatives held a conference call to discuss the nomination. One of the people on the call took extensive notes, which I have obtained. According to the notes, two of Ms. Miers's close friends--both sitting judges--said during the call that she would vote to overturn Roe.

    I'd still like to see Harriet Miers get a chance to get up in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee before I make my decision on whether I'd support her or not, but at this point...

    Let's just say things don't look too good.

    Update: Brian at TBSC discusses the relaunch of Miers and explores a bit of SCOTUS nominee history. I think the "ship of state" above pretty much sums up the extent I think relaunching the nomination will now accomplish. They've played this badly since the beginning.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:17 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    October 14, 2005

    Shakespeare and Bush

    WS: "George, have you ever read 'Much Ado About Nothing?'"

    GWB: "No, I never read the Times."

    Update: (ht:MM)

    WS: "All the world's a stage."
    GWB: "Um, No."


    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:15 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

    October 13, 2005

    Bush's Brilliant Move

    Not only is George W. Bush one of the most "misunderestimated" presidents in American history, he is also one of the most ambitious, a fact that the Harriet Miers nomination now proves.

    John Paul Stevens is 85. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 72.

    Both could conceivably serve on the court for years to come, potentially outlasting the Bush administration... if they wanted to. But what if they didn't want to?

    What if the court was stripped of its prestige and dignity, and was instead ridiculed and scorned by the press and citizens alike? What if the press ignored your contributions and body of work, and continually focused upon the capricious whims of the "new kid" on the court, a mash-note writing cheerleader that cites odd bits of scripture in her opinions?

    After years of prestigious service, retirement might start looking like quite an attractive option. With Michael Luttig and Janice Rogers Brown waiting in the wings, Bush's "trust me" nomination of Harriet Miers is nothing less than a court-packing trojan horse.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:17 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

    October 10, 2005

    et tu, Bushe?

    As previously on-the-fence conservative pundits make their decisions about Harriet Miers and others reverse course, I'm starting to feel more than a little lonely at the table marked "wait and see."

    Despite all the emotionally inflated commentary to the contrary by some very smart people, Harriet Miers is qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice. The Constitution is not the sole property of Ivy League law school graduates, and it never should be.

    Intelligent Americans can understand and interpret the Constitution without a degree from Harvard or Yale. If our system gets to the point where only elites are allowed to understand and interpret the Constitution, then it is time to re-write the Constitution (and yes, we have that legal option as Americans).

    Miers is not the most experienced, nor the most highly educated, nor the best pedigreed candidate... but she appears to be as qualified as some who have worn those black robes, and more qualified than a few. That said, while Miers seems qualified on paper, it remains to be seen if she should be confirmed. Miers, if anything, is a cypher.

    She has given up precious little in her defense, and sadly, neither has the administration. She is presented as a shoo-in conservative bysome because she is an evangelical. Kids, I got news for you; I belong to an evangelical church that saw its membership skyrocket in the 60s by recruiting California hippies. Slapping on the label "evangelical" on someone doesn't make them a lockstep conservative, and other elements of Miers' past paint her as being a potential—you know—"S"-word.

    I still want Harriet Miers to have her day in front of the Senate. That said, if the President doesn't start providing her some support soon, her experience is likely to resemble that of Caesar's.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:49 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    The Quag-Miers Deepens in the Senate

    This can't be good news for President Bush (via Drudge):

    Nearly half of Senate Republicans say they remain unconvinced that Harriet Miers is worthy of being confirmed to the Supreme Court, according to a survey conducted by The Washington Times.

    As with the nomination of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the vast majority of senators say they will not announce their final decisions about the nomination until after Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, which are expected sometime next month.

    What's troubling for President Bush, however, is that 27 Republican senators -- almost half of his party's members in the chamber -- have publicly expressed specific doubts about Miss Miers or said they must withhold any support whatsoever for her nomination until after the hearings.

    While I want to see how Harriet Miers performs in front of the Senate before I render a verdict on her nomination, it is increasingly apparent that Miers is not gaining support in the Senate, and is at best holding her own. Pro-Miers advocates have their work cut out for them.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:56 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    October 09, 2005

    Qaug-Miers: The Musical!

    Okay, so we don't really have a musical based upon George Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, but we do have buttons and other stuff.


    More

    NOTE: I'm still on the fence about Harriet Mier's nomination (kinda like Captain Ed), but I am also a capitalist.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    October 08, 2005

    What Would It Take?

    What would it take for you to vote Democrat?

    Via Protein Wisdom, I found an intersting post from Rox Populi, where she is asking moderate Republicans and moderate Independents what it would take for the Democratic Party to get your vote.

    Please head on over and let Rox know what it would take, and if you would be so kind, copy your comment here as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:54 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    October 07, 2005

    Still Fighting Vietnam

    I was asked by Swift boat veteran Tom Mortenson to pass along the following letter.

    Dear Friend,

    Last year, when my fellow Swift Boat veterans and I spoke out about John Kerry, you rallied to our side. We will never forget your faith in our cause and your belief in our honesty. It made all the difference. Together we made history.

    Like most of you, I believed our mission was over. We could all move on with our lives, return to our families and homes secure in the knowledge we had done the right thing for America, and for our children's future.

    Regrettably, that has not been the case for a distinguished group of Vietnam combat veterans who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us during last year's campaign. Their situation has become so critical that I felt compelled to break our long silence to inform you of this urgent matter.

    The Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation, an organization founded by some of the same POWs and their wives who joined with us to form Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth, has become the target of vicious legal assaults – multiple lawsuits designed to silence the voices of the POWs.

    The VVLF is being sued to punish the organization for the content of the POW documentary Stolen Honor, which contrasts their own accounts of their service in Vietnam and suffering in North Vietnamese prison camps with the claims of the antiwar movement.

    They desperately need our help and I am asking, once more, for your support. I urge you to give what you can to assist these truly noble men and women.

    It is no accident that this campaign to coerce and silence some of America's most heroic figures from the Vietnam War has intensified just as the shrill voices of the extreme Left's anti-military, blame-America-first propagandists are once again on the rise. Even Jane Fonda has resurfaced.

    You might ask why the VVLF has been targeted in this legal assault – why attack men who endured years of unspeakable torture and suffering in defense of America? The answer lies in the question. These are among the most credible, living eyewitnesses to the trail of deceit and betrayal. All are highly decorated and each bears the scars and permanent physical disabilities of his long years in captivity. One is the recipient of our nation's highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor. They paid for the right to voice their opinions with years of indescribable pain, hardship and torment. Their individual histories of perseverance under the direst of circumstances, and their fidelity to the principles of honor instilled in each American serving in uniform belie the despicable slanders laid at the feet of our military.

    The POWs' very existence and their willingness to go public threaten the foundation of the Left's propaganda, a lifetime of lies that accuse the U.S. military of being no better than the “armies of Genghis Khan.†It remains the Left's most potent weapon as they continue to undermine the efforts of our Armed Forces and provide aid and comfort to America's enemies.

    The war for America's conscience and soul rages on in the media, on the streets and quietly behind courtroom doors. In the vanguard of that battle, as they were some 40 years ago, are the POWs; some of America's greatest heroes; men and their wives, fathers and mothers, many of them grandparents, who have already paid a heavy price for their loyalty and devotion to America and, sadly, find they must do so again today.

    They deserve our respect, admiration and gratitude, but most of all our support, even as they try to protect and preserve the honor and reputations of an entire generation of American troops vilified by the extreme Left.

    Won't you stand up once more to defend our troops and veterans? Please give what you can to help the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation continue the still-unfinished task of setting the record straight about the Vietnam War and Vietnam vets.

    Thank you again and God bless you and America.

    Sincerely,

    John O'Neill

    The Lefties are still trying to silence those who would dare try to defend their service to this nation.

    I don't think we should stand for it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:25 PM | TrackBack

    October 05, 2005

    RE: Leandro Aragoncillo

    Who does he think he is, Sandy Berger?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    Ignorant, Delusional, and on the Take: Cindy Sheehan's America

    Via the Tucson Citizen:

    … Sheehan told the editorial board of The Arizona Republic that Americans who continue to support the war in Iraq fit into three basic categories.

    They're ill-informed," Sheehan said. "Next, and I think this defines a lot of people, they don't want to admit they were fooled . . . . They don't want to believe they made a mistake in supporting the war.

    "And the third is that they have a vested interest, either politically or monetarily, to keep this war going."

    No wonder she has so many fans.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    Overwrought Over Quag-Miers

    After three days of debate and conjecture from various sources, I see no way in good faith that I could either come out unabashedly in favor of, or wholly against, the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court at this time. I remain both disappointed and uncommitted, and will remain so until Miers is questioned in her Senate confirmation hearings. Then, and only then, do I think it will be time to render an opinion on her suitability for the position.

    New revelations aside, I probably will have little to say on the nominee until her confirmation hearings beyond the following observations:

    • Miers is not among the best or most obvious of nominees for the high court. That said, Miers has more of a résumé than some SCOTUS nominees that have won confirmation.
    • Fears that Miers will become a liberal justice seem baseless, and the invocation of “Souter†is hardly appropriate or even vaguely relevant.

    The overwrought hysterics of George Will aside and others, I don't think any pundit has conclusively proven she is unfit for the position, when she clearly has more experience than some past justices.

    Harrier Miers is a not a great nominee, but on paper, neither was Clarence Thomas. She at least deserves a confirmation hearing, something that The Anchoress also believes.

    I also predict that, barring a withdrawal or major misstep during the confirmation process, she will be confirmed as the replacement to Sandra Day O'Connor.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:37 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    Editor & Publisher's Wishful Thinking

    Once upon a time, Editor and Publisher, as "America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry," had a certain degree of respectability. These days, conspiratorial speculation and advocacy are every bit as important as fact, and the byline "By E&P Staff" means that anything to follow needs to be parsed very carefully to distill facts from wishful, often overtly partisan projection.

    A prime example of this concerns this August 6, 2001 AP Photo as seen in this MSNBC article:

    E&P had this to say:

    On its front page Tuesday, The New York Times published a photo of new U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers going over a briefing paper with President George W. Bush at his Crawford ranch "in August 2001," the caption reads.

    USA Today and the Boston Globe carried the photo labeled simply "2001," but many other newspapers ran the picture in print or on the Web with a more precise date: Aug. 6, 2001.

    Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, that was the date, a little over a month before 9/11, that President Bush was briefed on the now-famous "PDB" that declared that Osama Bin Laden was "determined" to attack the U.S. homeland, perhaps with hijacked planes. But does that mean that Miers had anything to do with that briefing?

    As it turns out, yes, according to Tuesday's Los Angeles Times. An article by Richard A. Serrano and Scott Gold observes that early in the Bush presidency "Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial 'presidential daily briefing' hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks."

    So the Aug. 6 photo may show this historic moment, though quite possibly not. In any case, some newspapers failed to include the exact date with the widely used Miers photo today. A New York Times spokesman told E&P: "The wording of the caption occurred in the course of routine editing and has no broader significance."

    The photo that ran in so many papers and on their Web sites originally came from the White House but was moved by the Associated Press, clearly marked as an "Aug. 6, 2001" file photo. It shows Miers with a document or documents in her right hand, as her left hand points to something in another paper balanced on the president's right leg. Two others in the background are Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and Steve Biegun of the national security staff.

    The PDB was headed "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," and notes, among other things, FBI information indicating "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks."

    Notice first how in the final two paragraphs how E&P tries to morph the documents in the photo (contents unknown) into the Bin Laden PDB, presumably to damage Bush and/or Miers. Otherwise, the infomration is largely irrelevant. this is advocacy journalism at it's worse.

    Now, I don't claim to be a first-rate investigative reporter, but given the media's proclivity towards leaking classified documents, do you really think they'd use top secret briefing documents for an AP photo op? Not surprising, this isn't the first time Editor & Publisher ran a story based on toilet-grade documentation within the past month. Whatever veneer of respectability that E&P once had seems to have disappeared.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:18 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    October 04, 2005

    Quag-Miers

    Now that we've had 24 hours to digest the Harriet Miers nomination, the reaction on the right side of the blogosphere is that the President's nominee is much better / worse that we had originally thought.

    Contrasting opinions on the Right seem to only have solidified as more information about the nominee has come to light, and neither side seems to be gaining any advantage, nor shows signs of backing down.

    Of course, you know what that means.

    What we have here, is a quag-Miers.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:52 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

    October 03, 2005

    Simcox: Mexican Government "Corrupt and Heartless"

    Chris Simcox and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps are not backing down from apparent threats by the Mexican government.

    Via KRISTV.com:

    The Minuteman group became alarmed when the following statement appeared in the Brownsville Herald on Sunday. It said, "The [Mexican] consulate will be alert for human rights violations or anything illegal, and would be disposed to sue the group for any trespasses."

    Now, the Minutemen took that as a threat and lashed out Monday at the Mexican Government, calling it 'corrupt and heartless', saying they don't blame Mexican nationals who are "voting with their feet" by crossing the Rio Grande. The Minutemen blame the Mexican government for the problem.

    Chris Simcox, the president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps also said Monday, "Rather than threatening law-abiding, concerned American citizens, the Mexican government should concentrate on making Mexico a country where its citizens want to live instead of a country their people risk death to flee by the millions each year."

    Of course, if the federal government took steps to try to protect the border and dissuade illegal immigration to begin with, this would be a moot point.

    As the Minuteman carry on being a thorn in the side of coyotes smuggling illegals and drugs, it seems to be merely a matter of time before a violent, potentially deadly confrontation occurs along the border. If an American citizen is harmed—or worse—doing the job of protecting the border that this President refuses to take seriously, George W. Bush's second term agenda may crumble, and deservedly so.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:07 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    The Consensus on Miers

    I'm not yet willing to make a commitment about Harriet Miers one way or the other as a Supreme Court nominee. I'd like to trust President Bush (he appears to have selected a sterling Chief Justice in John Roberts), but after misfires on Brown, Myers, and Mineta, I'm not 100% certain that I can.

    I'm not going to stand against her just yet, but with her meager qualifications she is not getting an unqualified benefit of the doubt.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:28 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    Libs Already Questioning Miers Sexuality

    Wow.

    It took liberals less than two hours before questioning SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers sexuality.

    At least this time they are going after the candidate, instead of their kids.

    Update: GayPatriot made the prediction at 8:49 AM. Can we call him Kreskin now?

    Welcome Instapundit fans. This is an archived page. More Miers coverage is available on the main page.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:55 AM | Comments (41) | TrackBack

    Bush a Uniter, not a Divider for Second SCOTUS Pick

    It seems that President Bush has managed to do what many would have though was almost impossible: he achieved a near-consensus from political bloggers on both the right and left, who overwhelmingly seem to agree that Harriet Miers was an underwhelming selection to replace Sandra Day O'Connor.

    Conservatives seem to think that she is poorly-qualified and lacks a sufficiently conservative background, while liberals whowould see an inherent threat to Roe with any Bush pick, can now add cronyism to their list of gripes.

    Bush finally delivers on his promise of being a uniter, not a divider, just not in a way that makes anyone happy.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:34 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    And the Punchline Is...?

    Harriet Miers?

    She may very well shake out to be a competent justice, but Bush seems to have made the conscious decision to go with someone hard to debunk rather than the most qualified peerson for the position.

    Via CNN:

    President Bush nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers on Monday to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

    Bush announced his choice in a televised Oval Office event saying, "For the past five years Harriet Miers has served in critical roles in our nation's government."

    Miers said she was grateful and humbled by the nomination. (Watch: Miers has little judicial experience -- 2:30)

    "It is the responsibility of every generation to be true to the founders' vision of the proper role of the courts in our society," she said.

    If confirmed by the Senate, Miers, 60, would join Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second sitting female justice on the bench. O'Connor became the court's first ever female justice in 1981.

    Miers, who has never been a judge, was the first woman to serve as president of the Texas State Bar and the Dallas Bar Association. She also served on the Dallas City Council.

    Miers may very well end up being an excellent justice, but running purely by her bio, color me unimpressed for now.

    On the other hand, if Democrats have pre-committed to a filibuster as some have theorized, Miers might be the perfect foil.

    I can hear Chuck Shumer now: "Rooooooooove!"

    Update: Feddie at Confirm Them is not happy, saying "I am done with Bush." David Bernstein offers up a more thoughtful analysis at The Volokh Conspiracy. Captain Ed seems to feel the same way about Miers as I do, so at least I'm in good company.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    October 02, 2005

    Great Moments in Liberalism

    Part One, from Daily Kos diarist Hunter:

    You poor, hollow, blood-painted clowns. Cheering the trials and failures of your country with the same pennants and giant foam hands that you wave at your favorite sports teams. Willing to accept the most outrageous of lies, if they are spoken from your favorite talking heads, and soothe your own notions of America for you, and only for you.

    And as for the audacity of Democrats speaking up during this process... the redfaced, flatulent fury with which you declare Republicans off-limits to that which you so gleefully hurl yourself...

    Welcome to the world of the politics of personal destruction, you tubthumping, chin-jutting, Bush humping gits. Welcome to the nasty and partisan world that Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, and a legion of insignificant lowest-rung toadies like yourselves nurtured into fruition daily with eager, grubby hands, and now look upon with dull-faced faux horror.

    I know you hate me, and anyone else who dares disturb the thin strands of alternate reality in which George W. Bush is an intellectual giant, Saddam really was responsible for 9/11, the economy is getting better by the minute, and we capture the most very important members of al Qaeda on a weekly basis.

    But here's some advice. You'd better start hating me more. This is the world you forged and, unfortunately for you, I'm beginning to take a fancy for it. Welcome to the politics of your own party, finally sprouting from the ground on which you planted the seeds and shat upon them.

    Step back from the edge? You poor boy, asleep in the back of the car the whole trip, finally waking up and wondering where you're at.

    Swift boats. Aluminum tubes. Niger uranium. "Mushroom clouds". Whitewater.

    Vince Fucking Foster.

    You can't even see the edge from here. You left it behind a hundred miles back.

    So don't give me chest-thumping crap about civil wars, if your politicians are indicted. Don't give me visions of a lake of fire, if all those who find you loathsome refuse to suck at your teats of scientific ignorance in the name of religion, racism in the name of freedom, and corruption in the name of the New World Order.

    Get used to the world you have created, and the stench your worshipped heroes have unleashed.

    Part Two, from Daily Kos Diarist Raybin:

    It's become more and more apparent to me over the past five years that all the activism and non-violent protesting in the world will do precisely squat. When you're dealing with evil people who have no shame, the old rules of the game don't and, indeed, can't apply if you have any hope for success. Hundreds of thousands of people have marched, millions of letters have been written, tens of millions of votes cast, and hundreds of trillions of electrons expended pontificating on blogs...for nothing. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change. Not unless it comes in the form of something akin to the French Revolution.

    We need terror. We need horror. We need the streets running awash in rivers of blood of these thugs and criminals and zealots. Activism didn't prevent 60,000 deaths in Vietnam. All the activism of the Civil Rights era has gotten African Americans precisely nowhere. Segregation may not be the law of the land anymore, but it's still the de facto state of America.

    When y'all want to start throwing molotovs and sniping from windows come and talk to me. Until then, I will be content to retire, be a hermit, and laugh at everyone. Even then, I may still just feel like laughing as the world falls apart around me, but at least I'll be willing to listen.

    Discuss.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:37 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    September 30, 2005

    It's Miller Time

    NY Times reporter Judith Miller is out of jail and set to testify. I'm with Orin on this. Something seems fishy...

    Just One Minute, Powerline, and Patterico have more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:26 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    September 29, 2005

    Hitting Below the Sun Belt: Miffed Brady Bunch Targets Florida Tourism

    Miffed at Florida for refusing to bow to their phobias and bad, ideology-driven science, the Brady Campaign to Control Gun Violence (and no, I won't link them) has decided to try to strike back at the state by taking out ads in foreign newspapers with the intention of hurting the state's tourist industry.

    Via the Scotsman:

    IT IS Britain's most popular transatlantic holiday destination, attracting more than 1.5 million visitors a year with its sun-drenched beaches, theme parks and wildlife.

    But Florida's £30 billion tourism industry is under threat from a campaign launched by a gun-control group which warns visitors they could be killed.

    A series of alarming adverts, to be placed in British newspapers, warns potential tourists about a new law allowing gun owners to shoot anyone they believe threatens their safety.

    [snip]

    The Brady Campaign to Control Gun Violence, based in Washington DC, has pledged to "educate" tourists by placing adverts in US cities, and in key overseas markets such as Britain.

    "Warning: Florida residents can use deadly force," says one of the adverts. Another reads: "Thinking about a Florida vacation? Please ensure your family is safe. In Florida, avoid disputes. Use special caution in arguing with motorists on Florida roads."


    [snip]

    Peter Hamm, the communications director of the Brady Campaign, said: "It's a particular risk faced by travellers coming to Florida for a vacation because they have no idea it's going to be the law of the land. If they get into a road rage argument, the other person may feel he has the right to use deadly force."

    Tourism officials in Florida are furious at the move. Bud Nocera, the executive director of Visit Florida, said: "It is sad that such an organisation would hold the 900,000 men and women who work in the Florida tourism industry, and whose lives depend on it, hostage to their political agenda."

    Can anyone point me to any other incident where a political lobby has tried to strike back against an entire state full of citizens who have rejected their ideology? I highly doubt that this will have any impact on Florida's tourism, but it shows just how pathetic some highly-charged, fact-challenged political ideologues have become over the years.

    Remember this, folks.

    After all, Sarah Brady was the Cindy Sheehan of her day.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:17 PM | Comments (53) | TrackBack

    Hating Homosexuals

    Stroll over to Memeorandum today, and you might run into this thread of posts, where a group of highly partisan ideologues are enraged that someone they think might be gay, might move into a top leadership position in Congress.

    Some derisively call the candidate a homo, and others blast him for being a closet homosexual, as though being gay was a crime.

    You might be surprised to see that every single one of these people blasting Republican David Dreier for reportedly being gay (he has never answered this rumor, nor should he have to) is a liberal blogger.

    The worst of the worst is Americablog, run by vicious bigot John Aravosis who feels it is his obligation to hunt down and politically assassinate any and all homosexual politicians, or even suspected homosexual politicians, who do not strictly toe what he considers the gay party line.

    Using Aravosis logic, all heterosexuals should be required to vote Republican because the party is against gay marriage. That is all that matters. Forget your stance on free speech, gun rights, the War on Terror, poverty, social security, education, or taxes. You are a heterosexual, and that all that matters about you as a person; as a voter your sexuality alone should define how you vote.

    His message is simple, and brutal: You are not allowed to stray off the gay plantation. If you do, overseer John will whip you unmercifully as a hypocrite.

    That so many liberals unquestioningly support this point of view, should give readers pause to wonder if all they really care about are gays as a voting block, and not as people.

    Not that they is anything wrong with that, of course.

    Note: Jeff Goldstein has more (not work safe).

    Update: Via Protein Wisdom,Prism Warden has an inside take on the politics of "outing" that is worth a read. One of his readers calls people like Aravosis and Mike Rogers at BlogActive as "gay Borg... driven by anger, envy and hatred."

    Yeah, that seems about right.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    September 27, 2005

    Study: A Belief in God Makes You Immoral

    From Ruth Gledhill in the Times Online:

    According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

    The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.


    What do you want me to say?

    Our panel of experts agrees.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:04 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

    September 26, 2005

    From the Ditch to the Big House

    How utterly pathetic:

    Police arrested anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan Monday during a protest outside the White House. Sheehan and several dozen other protesters had sat down on the sidewalk after marching along a pedestrian walkway on Pennsylvania Avenue.

    Police warned them three times that they were breaking the law by failing to move along. Then, officers began making arrests.

    Really? Did they get all 29?

    Yes, I'm aware she managed to gather a crowd of 500, including communists, anarchists, undercover officers, confused tourists and members of the media, but can anyone tell me why a misdemeanor loitoring ticket furthers "the cause?"

    The Anchoress goes further, and comes up with a disturbing prediction of where Mother Sheehan might end up next.

    Update: Now they are saying that hundreds were arrested in front of the White House. These numbers are sure to tribble into thousands by lunch time today, I'm sure.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Kos Kids Slap Around Saint Cindy

    Angry in the Great White North finds that Mother Sheehan's self-centered arrogance has finally become too much for even her fans to bear.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    September 24, 2005

    Huge Waves?

    Via ABC News:

    Opponents of the war in Iraq rallied by the thousands Saturday to demand the return of U.S. troops, staging a day of protest, song and remembrance of the dead in marches through Washington and other American and European cities.

    More than 2,000 people gathered on the Ellipse hours before the showcase demonstration past the White House, the first wave of what organizers said would be the largest Washington rally since the war began.

    2,000 protestors? That is hardly a wave; more like a trickle. The following waves must be huge...

    Major Update: Sniffy liberal "Maha" blogging from the protest says Reuters claims more than 100,000 protestors and says "The turnout was massive."

    The Reuters claim was from reporter Lisa Lambert. Reuters photographer Jim Bourg immediately contradicted that claim with the caption for the photo accompanying Lambert's article, when he claims:

    A large rally of anti-war demonstrators gathers on the Ellipse near the White House (top) as seen from the top of the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. September 24, 2005. Tens of thousands of protesters [bold added - ed.] gathered in the nation's capital in support of anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son serving in the U.S. armed forces in Iraq, and demonstrated for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and an end to the war in Iraq.

    As Bourg's photo shows, a large number of protestors near the back of the crowd decided to show up wearing grass-colored unitards.

    An unsigned AAP article also agreed with Lambert that there was something over 100,000, and even printed the protest organizers estimate of 300,000. No other reporter from any other news organization has so far claimed anything near this number.

    Interesting, because the NY Times claims only "thousands." al Jazerra, who is decidedly not pro-administration, claims just 2,000 [note: from early protest]. The BBC said merely that organized "hoped for "100,000," but would not confirm a number.

    Another Update: Other insightful commentary on today's protests from The Anchoress, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, Little Green Footballs, Jeff Goldstein, Gateway Pundit, Ox Blog.

    Yet Another Update: Protestors, or booklovers?

    Also, poor little Maha couldn't handle her numbers being exposed as cherry-picked, and so I've been banned by another liberal blog. I can't tell you how much sleep I'll lose.

    Final Update to this post:
    Via Smash, a Marine in Iraq talks about those that "Support our troops."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:03 PM | Comments (32) | TrackBack

    Court Defeats Thugs

    Of course in New Orleans, this means the police.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    September 23, 2005

    Get Out the Vote

    Newsday is conducting a poll:

    Freedom Center backers say it will help people understand 9/11 sacrifices. Victims� families say controversy surrounding the museum will dishonor the dead. Do you think it belongs at the WTC site?
    • Yes, it will be a learning tool.
    • No, the site should be used as a memorial only.
    • Not sure.
    Get up to speed. Go vote.
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:55 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    September 22, 2005

    Last Show No Sell-out on the Magical Misery Tour

    Cindy Sheehan's meager cadre of 29 protestors was outnumbered by the press covering them Wednesday, in what has now become a very familiar pattern of stage-managed performances and shameless media hype.

    The culmination of this month-and-a-half of self-aggrandizing behavior will culminate this weekend as two communist spin-off groups tries to herd what some hopefully boast will be "hundreds of thousands" of Stalinists, Marxists, anarchists, radical feminists, left-over hippies, oppressed didgeridoo players and hermaphrodite dwarves into something of a unified protest. All of these protestors support the troops, and will gladly prove it if they can get within spitting distance of the White House.

    Other sources don't seem quite as optimistic of a turnout that high, dropping that number into just tens of thousands.

    So how should one estimate just how many souls Saint Cindy might gather on the final leg of the leg of the Magical Misery Tour? A simple, but effective gauge might be to see how many hotel rooms are still available in the greater Washington, DC area. With a major political protest occurring this weekend, hotel rooms in the greater D.C. area should be few and far between.

    But they aren't.

    A visit to Orbitz or Travelocity, or other travel sites shows that rooms in the D.C. area could be had anywhere from downtown Washington D.C. out to Fairfax, VA 20 miles out, from $80.00+.

    Perhaps the D.C. area has so many hotel rooms that an influx of 100,000 people isn't that much of a problem. I find it far more plausible that Cindy Sheehan's terrorist-appeasing, America-hating rhetoric has finally come home to roost.

    Update:
    Added NY Sun's revised crowd estimate.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:05 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    September 21, 2005

    The Million Yawn March

    The AP, Washington Post, and other news sources gleefully mentioned Cindy Sheehan's march on the White House this afternoon. With the exception of Reuters, however, they were all more than willing to forego this little tidbit of information:

    Mrs Sheehan was joined by about 30 supporters in her march down Pennsylvania Avenue to deliver a letter to Bush urging him to pull the troops out of Iraq.

    Cindy Sheehan's Pitiful Party
    Source: Reuters via Yahoo!

    That's all, folks. I count 29 people. This is her entire protest party. Including Cindy.

    After a carefully stage-managed vigil by liberal PR firm Fenton Communications, and a pair of 3-week long national bus tours to drum up support for her cause, "Mother Sheehan" managed to bring with her just this tiny gaggle with her to the gates of the White House.

    The organizers backing her show hope to draw "ten of thousands" of fellow protestors this weekend, but if this sad crowd and last night's turnout of just 150 in New York are any indication, the fledging anti-war movement of Cindy Sheehan is all but dead.

    Update: Welcome lucianne.com, Little Green Footballs and Powerline readers! This is an archive post. Please visit the main page of the site for more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:03 PM | Comments (48) | TrackBack

    Screwing Over the Boy Scouts

    Do you like the fact that your tax dollars are being used to pay the ACLU to sue the Boy Scouts and Santa? Me neither.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    September 20, 2005

    Just Like Rosa Parks?

    I can't say that I'm familiar with the work of columnist Errol Louis of the NY Daily News, but if his column "She knows the game" is any indication of his work, I haven't been missing much.

    His column is a rehash of the new liberal mantra that Cindy Sheehan is a modern day Rosa Parks. He says of the comparison, "The analogy is spot on." Utter rubbish. Cindy Sheehan, if anything is the anti-Rosa Parks, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see it.

    Rosa Parks... was the figurehead of a cause that fought to free an entire race who were being oppressed in their own country.
    Cindy Sheehan... was the figurehead of a cause that fights to defeat one man.

    Rosa Parks... fought the system to obtain constitutional rights.
    Cindy Sheehan... says our constitution isn't worth fighting for.

    Rosa Parks... was "tired of giving in."
    Cindy Sheehan... wants for nothing more than for the United States to give in.

    Rosa Parks... inspired freedom-loving people around the world.
    Cindy Sheehan... inspires freedom-loathing people including neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and Islamic terrorists.

    Rosa Parks... to fight against the bigots of the Democratic Party to achieve her agenda.
    Cindy Sheehan... firmly supported from bigoted anti-Semitic elements within the Democratic Party.

    Rosa Parks... When she was successful, the cause of freedom was advanced.
    Cindy Sheehan... If successful tomorrow and U.S. troops were immediately withdrawn, the freedom of 56 million people would be jeopardized.

    Rosa Parks... is nearly universally described as having a quiet dignity and grace, was proud to be an American.
    Cindy Sheehan... has the mouth of a sailor, and calls America a "cancer."

    Cindy Sheehan is a lot of things—a grieving survivor, an estranged wife and mother, wild-eyed conspiracy theorist, and the apologist for both the terrorists who killed her son and a convicted terrorist supporter—but of all the thing she is, Cindy Sheehan clearly isn't anything like Rosa Parks.

    Rosa Parks had (and has) class, Mr. Louis.

    Cindy Sheehan...

    Not so much.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:26 PM | Comments (26) | TrackBack

    Cindy Sheehan: Unplugged

    Do not be overly surprised if history decides that September 19, 2005, was the day that the anti-war movement died in the United States.

    In a true-blue New York Metropolitan area of 22 million people, the anti-war movement's greatest star, a woman with "absolute" moral authority according to the NY Times own Maureen Dowd and branded the "Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement" by hopeful liberals, Cindy Sheehan managed to draw just 150 supporters, or 0.00068-percent of the tri-state metro area, to her well-advertised speech in Hyde Park. Even then, to this meager multitude, she didn't get to speak.

    The NYPD moved in and took away Sheehan's microphone just as she was calling upon her supporters not to lose hope in the anti-war movement. It seems that while speech may be free in the United States, it won't come without a valid sound permit in the Big Apple.

    On a day where the police seemed to outnumber the protestors, it may not have made much of a difference.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:05 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

    September 19, 2005

    Hey Kanye, Black People Don't Hate George Bush

    Or at least they don't hate the President's federal reconstruction proposal of $200 billion dollars mentioned in his recent speech:

    From Rasmussen, via Newsbusters via Instapundit:

    Fifty-seven percent (57%) of black voters support the federal reconstruction spending while just 17% are opposed. Among white voters, 49% favor the spending and 29% are opposed. This is the first Bush Administration proposal hat [sic] has attracted more support from black Americans than from white Americans.

    I'm not a huge fan of polls—the tend to be superficial, and the perceptions that drive them can turn on a dime—but I find it interesting that apparently the same people who shake their fist at Bush with one hand, are more than happy to dip their sticky fingers into the federal honeypot with the other.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:31 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    September 17, 2005

    Cindy Sheehan: The Wolves You Feed

    From Cindy Sheehan yesterday (9-16) morning of Cindy Sheehan's trip to Algiers, Louisiana on the "Impeachment Express":

    One thing that truly troubled me about my visit to Louisiana was the level of the military presence there. I imagined before that if the military had to be used in a CONUS (Continental US) operations that they would be there to help the citizens: Clothe them, feed them, shelter them, and protect them. But what I saw was a city that is occupied. I saw soldiers walking around in patrols of 7 with their weapons slung on their backs. I wanted to ask one of them what it would take for one of them to shoot me. Sand bags were removed from private property to make machine gun nests. [emphasis added]

    This is Algiers, Louisiana:

    This is a machine gun nest made as an example for an Australian Army open house.

    A machine gun nest is a kind of gun emplacement, a prepared position for siting a weapon. Pillboxes and bunkers are other, more permanent examples.

    Machine gun nests are, curiously enough, built for machine guns, big honkin' tripod-mounted, belt-fed stationary weapons used to hold a fixed position against massive onslaughts of troops. Think trench warfare, or the human wave charges of the Japanese in World War Two or the Vietnamese firebase assault from John Wayne's 1968 film, The Green Berets.

    When most Americans think of machine gun nest, they get an image in their heads of something like this example from World War II:

    While Arthur Lawson's Gretna PD might have fired shots into the air to scare New Orleans evacuees back across the bridge called the Crescent City Connection, no sane person, at any point, would suggest that gun emplacements such as machine gun nests or bunkers were being developed to fortify the west bank of the Mississippi against the citizens of New Orleans.

    Could I be wrong? Perhaps. Here is a menacing photo of the 82nd Airborne assault on Bourbon Street yesterday morning.

    Notice the aggressive posturing of the disposable cameras at the feet of the soldier on the left.

    They just scream genocide, don't they?

    Clearly, something doesn't add up between the reality Cindy Sheehan sees in the actions and intentions of the United States military in Louisiana, and what everyone else sees. That wide deviation in perceptions is because of the wolves Cindy Sheehan has decided to feed.

    Huh?

    A Cherokee elder sitting with his grandchildren told them, “In every life there is a terrible fight – a fight between two wolves. One is evil: he is fear, anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and deceit. The other is good: joy, serenity, humility, confidence, generosity, truth, gentleness, and compassion.†A child asked, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?†The elder looked him in the eye. “The one you feed.â€

    Cindy Sheehan chose her favorite "wolf" long ago, and her association with certain groups just encourages her to feed one wolf at the exclusion of all others. Each passing minute he grows more angry, arrogant, and deceitful. Each passing minute, Cindy Sheehan drifts closer to what most of us would consider insane.

    More from her latest post:

    It is a Christ-like principal to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless. That's what is happening in Algiers and other places in Louisiana...but by the people of America, not the so-called "Christians" in charge. If George Bush truly listened to God and read the words of the Christ, Iraq and the devastation in New Orleans would have never happened.

    I don't care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don't care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don't fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest. [emphasis added]

    Cindy Sheehan is a sad shell of a human being, twisted by hatred, loss, arrogance, and greed. I would pity her except for the fact that she chose the manner in which to handle her grief. She chose the wolf, and it has consumed her.

    Update:Dan at Riehl World View and Jay Tea at Wizbang has similar thoughts, as does 70s Kung-fu expert and counterculture icon Billy Jack, Ace of Spades, Lawhawk, and a bunch of other folks on Google's new blog search engine.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:23 AM | Comments (32) | TrackBack

    September 15, 2005

    The Tom DeLay Challenge

    So as I'm getting a little static on this from fan of "El Rushbo," I thought I'd ask you to:


    When you're done, tell me something: Is Tom "The Hammer" Delay a comedian so refined that only Rushophiles can handles his humor, or is DeLay a delusional loon?

    Enquiring minds want to know.

    (Inspired by the comments here)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:47 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    A Fitting Tribute to Flight 93

    I never had a chance to meet you, and if things had been different, I never would have know your names, or the heroism that you keep deep inside you. On September 11, 2001, you overcame your own certainty of death to save fellow Americans on the ground, following the firmly understated battle cry, "let's roll."

    Because of your bravery in the face of certain death, we have both of these monuments:

    White

    Without you, one of these symbols of America would not now be standing, and dozens, if not hundreds more families would spend anguished holidays with empty chairs where loved ones should be. You gave the greatest and most personal of sacrifices, dying like lions, or sheepdogs defending the flock.

    If I were asked what a fitting monument to your sacrifice might be, I would not have selected a mixed message in the field where you died, but two simple, solid tributes, one the grounds at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, and the other at the Capital Building.

    They might read:

    "LET'S ROLL"

    "Because of Their Bravery, This Building Still Stands.
    Because of Americans Like Them, This Nation Stands."

    It would then list the names of the heroes of Flight 93.

    * * *

    These heroes died defending Americans from Islamic terrorism. There was no embrace, there was no bonding, and no contemplation. The was a valiant, violent struggle to determine the fate of those on the plane and the fate of those on the ground, and in that struggle, the boys and girls next door faced the very best operatives Islamic terrorism had throw at them, and they triumphed.

    Interior Secretary Gale Norton said it well when she said:

    "As I look around this field, there is little that we can do or say or build that can be equal to the courage and sacrifice of the heroes who died on Flight 93, two years ago today," Norton said. "Our hearts tell of a need to honor and memorialize their heroism and to distinguish and identify the importance of this site and what happened here for future generations."

    update: Norton apparently remembered her words.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:23 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    September 14, 2005

    Ideology, or Diarrhea?

    "My hope is that he catches the syphilis during a blood transfusion necessary because he was gang raped by a pack of rabid herpes infected squirrels on his way home from group therapy required before he completes his sex change operation."

    So, phin, ... you're saying you don't like Ted Rall?

    I can't imagine why, with his caring ideology, and all...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Pledge Ruled Unconstitutional

    Fellow blogger Dan Riehl is hot that a federal judge has ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance containing the words "under God" is unconstitutional. I can certainly understand his frustration, but I'm hardly surprised.

    This cased was led by Michael Newdow, the same man who had his case dismissed by the Supreme Court last year. The judge on this case was more or less bound to follow the precedent laid down by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

    Personally, with John Roberts almost certain to be confirmed as Chief Justice and a seat on the Supreme Court still open for a conservative nominee, I think that the possibility exists that this case could, if circumstances unfold in a particular manner, destroy the liberal myth of a Constitutional separation of church and state once and for all.

    The "wall of separation" is a court-mandated wall, not a Constitutionally mandated one. If you doubt this, simply read the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The only Constitutional mandate is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

    It was written to make sure there was no formal U.S religion, i.e., the Church of England. It was not written to strip all religion out of American public life. For that, we have only liberals, atheists, and the ACLU.

    This case might just be the beginning of the end for those who have been steadily been rolling back American religious liberties over the past decades. Personally, I welcome the challenge and the chance to restore our rights.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:32 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

    Tom Delay: No Fat in Budget

    House Majority leader Tom Delay also announced that filmmaker Michael Moore, "has the svelte physique of a modern day Conan." *

    What. A. Tool.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:31 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    September 07, 2005

    Disaster Relief Links for North Carolinians

    If you are a North Carolina resident and would like to contribute to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund you can follow this link, which will allow you to donate for disaster releif in North Carolina and other states, including those impacted by Hurricane Katrina.

    General Information here.

    Call:

    1-888-835-9966

    Write:

    North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund
    Office of the Governor
    20312 Mail Service Center
    Raleigh, NC 27699-0312

    Email:

    ncdisasterrelief@ncmail.net

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    September 06, 2005

    Faux Body Armor?

    Many people have alternately been amused and disgusted by media hog Sean Penn's Titanic rescue performance on Sunday, where his public relations crew forgot to put the drain plug in their aluminum boat, almost sinking his entourage upon launch of "Operation Scuttle." The debacle led to this now infamous AFP photo of Penn being forced to bail out his founding craft with a red drinking cup. But is there something even more going on in this photo than meets the eye?

    If you take a quick tour of top body armor manufacturers Second Chance and Point Blank, you'll quickly learn that most body armor systems are made of two or three main components:

    • a carrier
    • ballistic panels
    • trauma pads or plates
    Large hard armor plate inserts stop high velocity rifle bullets and disperse impact pressures, and are common in military and SWAT body armor systems, while most civilian systems used by rank-and-file duty officers use either a small hard plate or a soft trauma plate. In either case, the armor plates typically ride over soft ballistic panels made of kevlar or other bullet-resistant fibers, and these ballistic panels are held in place by the actual vest portion of a body armor system, called the carrier.

    And here is where Mr. Penn's story may become even more amusing or pathetic, depending upon your point of view. In the image above, Peen is clearly shown wearing what appears to be the carrier portion of a body armor system, by the carrier bunches and wrinkles on his back, and the dense ballistic panel that should be in the front of his vest doesn't seem to be present either.

    Is Mr. Penn faking it?

    In a blow-up of this image from Getty, Penn's vest can clearly be seen. The carrier material is sheer enough for Penn's gray shirt to show through and the only hint of potential ballistic protection is the center front area, which would be consistent with another layer of fabric on the carrier that could hold a trauma plate.

    Is Sean Penn "faking it" by wearing a simple cloth carrier to look the part of a daring movie star rescuer? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd make the following observation: if you can see sweat through it, it probably won't stop a bullet.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:01 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    September 03, 2005

    Rehnquist Dead

    Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist has died. He had been suffering from thyroid cancer over the past few months. God be with his family.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    August 31, 2005

    Hurricane Blame

    Just because is a 600-mile wide natural disaster that's been happening for eons without human internvention, their's no reason we can't blame hurricanes on the neo-cons.

    The Germans think you can lay the blame on Bush. Maybe they'll only fire up one oven this time.

    Blogs for Bush catches some more Bush-bashing at NRO. I'm sure Americablog will find a way to "out" another gay Republican and place the blame on him.

    DUmmies are celebrating the demise of Trent Lott's house.

    And when there is something stupid to be said, there is always a Kennedy around.

    Now we're just waiting to hear Cindy Sheehan explain that we shouldn't mount a rescue effort, because saving brown-skinned peoples (including those in New Orleans, Mississippi, and Alabama) aren't worth risking the lives of "even one more soldier." The media, of course, will edit her comment down to blame Bush for global warming.

    And the band played on...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:42 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    August 29, 2005

    Lights, Camera...



    Cindy Sheehan Media Whore

    (picture swiped from Protein Wisdom, who swiped it from NRO)

    Media What?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:24 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    Welcome to the Rhineland, Cindy

    Did you know that the vast majority of American military mothers who have the gall to support their sons are fascists?

    But don't believe me, read it yourself.

    I finally figured out George Bush's NEW reason for staying in Iraq. This reason has also been co-opted by the Move America Forward (forward to what: Fascism?) and the poor mothers who would be honored if their sons were killed in George Bush's war for greed and power.

    So if you don't agree with Cindy Sheehan's call to abandon the 25 million people of Afghanistan, or the 25 million people of Iraq, you are a fascist.

    If you you don't agree that America is "a cancer," you are a fascist.

    If you don't believe that Iraqis were better off when Saddam was in power and the mass graves and rape rooms were open, you are a fascist.

    If you think that America still has a Constitution, you are a fascist.

    If you think that elementary school teachers should not be forcibly drafted into combat, you are a fascist.

    Well guess what, Cindy? The vast majority of Americans disagree with you on most if not all of these points.

    Cindy, as someone with Nazis protesting side-by-side with you in Crawford, against our government and very Constitution, you've got a lot of nerve calling others "fascists."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:44 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    August 28, 2005

    The Cindy Sheehan Anthology

    Instapundit points out a Dave Kopel column in the Rocky Mountain News that the national news media at large just doesn't seem to want to help Cindy Sheehan get her message out. Perhaps I can do my part to help with a compilation of Cindy Sheehan's greatest hits.

    "Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by a George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11."
    source
    CHRIS MATTHEWS: All right. If your son had been killed in Afghanistan, would you have a different feeling?

    CINDY SHEEHAN: I don't think so, Chris, because I believe that Afghanistan is almost the same thing. We're fighting terrorism. Or terrorists, we're saying. But they're not contained in a country. This is an ideology and not an enemy. And we know that Iraq, Iraq had no terrorism. They were no threat to the United States of America.

    source

    "You tell me the truth. You tell me that my son died for oil. You tell me that my son died to make your friends rich. You tell me my son died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, imperialism in the Middle East. You tell me that, you don't tell me my son died for freedom and democracy.

    Cuz, we're not freer. You're taking away our freedoms. The Iraqi people aren't freer, they're much worse off than before you meddled in their country.

    You get America out of Iraq, you get Israel out of Palestine."

    source

    When I was growing up, it was Communists'. Now it's Terrorists'. So you always have to have somebody to fight and be afraid of, so the war machine can build more bombs, guns, and bullets and everything.

    But I do see hope. I see hope in this country. 58% of the American public are with us. We're preaching to the choir, but the choir's not singing, if all of the 58% started singing, this war would end.

    I got an email the other day and it said, "Cindy, if you didn't use so much profanity there's people on the fence' that get offended"

    And you know what I said? "You know what? You know what, god-damn-it? How, in the world is anybody still sitting on that fence'?"

    "If you fall on the side that is pro-George, and pro-war, you get your ass over to Iraq, and take the place of somebody who wants to come home. And if you fall on the side that is against this war and against George Bush, stand up and speak out."

    source

    Mrs Sheehan says that the stress of the death had already led the couple, who were high school sweethearts, to separate. She admits that he does not agree with the "level of intensity" she has devoted to peace in the past year.

    She has had to dissuade her younger son, Andy, from joining the Army. "I said there was no way this Government was going to get another of my children."


    source

    We have no Constitution. We're the only country with no checks and balances. We want our country back if we have to impeach George Bush down to the person who picks up the dog sh-t in Washington! Let George Bush send his two little party animals to die in Iraq. It's OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons but we are waging nuclear war in Iraq, we have contaminated the entire country. It's not OK for Syria to be in Lebanon. Hypocrites! But Israel can occupy Palestine? Stop the slaughter!
    source
    “We're not letting them intimidate us. If we get killed out here, know that the Secret Service killed us.â€
    source

    These are hardly all of Cindy's greatest hits (Kopel has more), but it seems quit... interesting that CNN, CBS, the New York Times and other news outlets can't seem to find any of Cindy's real feelings.

    Perhaps these feelings aren't convenient for their agenda. But they don't have an agenda... right?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:04 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    August 27, 2005

    Cindy Sheehan's Neo-Nazi Friends

    Via WND:

    Members of Stormfront.org are tossing their figurative hoods into the mix, as they invite supporters to come to Camp Casey to "let the world know that white patriots were first and loudest to protest this war for Israel."

    ...

    "We want to challenge these leftists with the fact that their leftist leaders, like Hillary Clinton, are on the same war-for-Israel team as the cowardly Republicans who have been bought and paid for in the Senate, House, White House and media by the Jewish Neocon political machine."

    These of course, are be the same evil neo-cons that Cindy Sheehan so eloquently wrote of here.

    Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by a George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11.

    Obviously, Cindy Sheehan and the neo-Nazis of Stormfront are on the same page.

    I just wish it was a different book.
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    August 26, 2005

    Arab News: End the Debacle Ms. Sheehan

    From Arab News:

    Many columnists around the country have “tip-toed†around the Sheehan controversy because they have respected the loss of her son. But now Ms. Sheehan is showing her true colors: Liberal activist, not loving mother. I think it is time to fight back.

    Ms. Sheehan and other appeasers around the world provide the fuel that feeds the fire of terrorism. If not for this fuel, terrorists would realize that they do not have a chance to sway the minds of people and would end the bombing. Terrorists are not stupid, they understand that bombing innocent civilians will not change the minds of the strong, but will break the will of the weak. So they attack the weak and the weak fold.

    Spain is a good example of this reasoning. Would the terrorists have attacked Spain if the whole population stood strong against terrorism? No. What would be the point?

    Every time an appeaser voices his or her opinion against the war in Iraq terrorists gain hope that they can change the will of the people. So whether they want to admit it or not, appeasers protesting the war in Iraq are indirectly responsible for the death of the innocent. And the death of our soldiers.

    In fact appeasers are directly responsible for the death of Ms. Sheehan's son, not George W. Bush. If the whole country was united for the war in Iraq, I doubt if the terrorists would have started their suicide bombing campaign.

    Using this logic Ms. Sheehan has become the biggest terrorist in the world...

    This is from a Louisiana, USA-based Pravda columnist in the Arab News, a Saudi-based paper distributed in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Near East, North Africa, Europe and USA.

    Does this qualify as a U.N. sanction?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Hey Cindy: Bugger Off

    Cindy Sheehan's Magical Move-On.org Mystery Bus Tour has apparently decided to target House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as the first stop on her "Blame America" tour.

    I have no love for DeLay, but I think I just fell in love with his spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty, a little, becuase she said DeLay would not meet with Sheehan on the grounds that:

    "Mr. DeLay disagrees with those who believe we should give the terrorists the timeline they want and simply cut and run from the war in Iraq."

    Amen, sister.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Cindy Sheehan: All About the Benjamins

    Grief pays, and it pays well.

    Cindy Sheehan's anti-war, anti-American, Anti-Bush "Sheehanhadeen" movement has raked in over $170,000 from contributors in just the past few weeks, as public relations experts Fenton Communications carefully choreograph Cindy's scheduled daily cry in front of a wooden cross with her son's name on it.

    That cash goes a long way when left-wing corporate sponsors such as True Majority (a non-profit PAC of Ben Cohen, of Ben & Jerry's fame) pick up the tab for almost everything. Berkeley-based radicals from Moveon.org (who claimed of the Democratic Party in December, that "we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back.") and Howard Dean's Democracy for America are also involved.

    The anti-war activists in Crawford love to say that those supporting the troops and the President are merely corporate shills, yet big money contributions from the left pay for everything from catering to marketing professionals for the Cindy Sheehan's "one woman crusade."

    All she currently lacks are official corporate sponsor patches on uniforms like those worn by NASCAR teams, and one day they very well may, if Sheehan's supporters ever hear of the sport.

    I've even got her perfect primary sponsor already picked out, complete with an appropriate product to pitch. Hopefully, she can see clear to steer a few dollars from George Soros my way for the effort.

    As long as she can keep the camera's scheduled for her tears, she'll continue to have money to burn.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    August 25, 2005

    Sheehan Builds Bi-Partisan Support

    She's got convicted terrorist supporter Lynne Stewart, Code Pink, Castro-loving United for Peace and Justice pulling for her on the far, far left.

    She's got former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon David Duke and the neo-Nazis of Stormfront backing her on the far, far right.

    Say what you want about the "Friends of Cindy."

    Mrs. Sheehan can sure drum up bi-paritisan support.

    Update:
    Now with 100% more Sharpton!

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    “Cindy, How Can You Be So Cruel?â€

    Via KWTX:

    The father of a slain Central Texas Marine appears in a new TV spot that began airing Thursday, challenging anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan to a debate.

    In the spot, Gary Qualls, whose son, Marine Lance Cpl. Louis Qualls, died in 2004 in Iraq, takes Sheehan to task for calling the President a liar and for erecting a cross bearing his son's name as part of what he calls “your sick cause.â€

    “Cindy, how can you be so cruel?†Qualls asks in the spot.

    Interestingly enough, some of the very same people that have been most outspoken in their belief that President Bush should meet again with Cindy Sheehan, have a decidedly different take on Gary Qualls' request to meet and debate with her.

    I was thinking of a different 3 words... they start with "go" and end with "yourself"...

    A militant anti-war mother has absolute moral authority. A proud pro-American father is scum unworthy of basic courtesy and is a target for unbridled scorn.

    Ignore him Cindy.. But she would rip him up, I saw him on MSNBC, he's a typical southern dumbass.

    Not only is he a target for scorn, he's one of those people... you know... red staters...

    Is that the brain dead moran that I keep seeing trotted out on cable? Short kind of fat guy that always wears a baseball cap, sounds southern and appears to be learning impaired?

    The guy I am thinking of has been making the rounds on all the cable stations as a " * supporter who lost a son in Iraq" (I guess they can only find one person with a dead child delusional or greedy enough to whore themselves out for their Fuhrer) What in the world is there to debate?

    I'm not quite clear on this patriotic progressive's meaning.

    Are the parents "delusional or greedy enough to whore themselves out for their Fuhrer," in supporting their children's choice to serve their country? Or are our soldiers, sailors and Marines delusional, greedy Furhrer whores for wanting to serve and protect their America?

    And last but not least, it wouldn't be a DU conversation without the mandatory Karl Rove reference.

    His blatant grandstanding against a grieving mother who is addressing George Bush* -- whose lies & deceit is at issue -- reeks of his being bought by Karl Rove.

    But don't you dare question their ideology.

    Or their patriotism.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:46 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    But They Support the Troops?

    Well,it wasn't like they could stoop much lower. Via Drudge:

    Anti-war protestors besieged wounded and disabled soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C, a new web report will claim!

    CNSNews.com is planning to run an expose on Thursday featuring interviews with both protestors and veterans, as well as shots of protest signs with slogans like “Maimed for a Lie.â€

    As Always, anti-war protestors exhibit nothing but class and the utmost respect for the troops...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:15 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    Back to Crawford

    In case you missed it, Cindy Sheethead is going back to Crawford.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    August 24, 2005

    The Human Cost of Freedom

    On the Huffington Post, Cindy Sheehan announces her return to Crawford, Texas to the anti-war vigil she holds to protest her son's "meaningless death" in a "senseless war." She still cannot understand what noble cause her son sacrificed his life for. She laments:

    "...every death is now a meaningless one. And the vast majority of our country knows this. So why do more young men and women have to die? And why do more parents have to lose their children and live the rest of their lives with this unbearable grief?"

    I can answer it in one word: Freedom.

    John Hinderaker of Powerline wrote this morning, Some Thoughts on Casualties in Times of War and Peace, and in it he said:

    Sometimes it becomes necessary to state the obvious: being a soldier is a dangerous thing. This is why we honor our service members' courage. For a soldier, sailor or Marine, "courage" isn't an easily-abused abstraction--"it took a lot of courage to vote against the farm bill"--it's a requirement of the job.

    Even in peacetime. The media's breathless tabulation of casualties in Iraq--now, over 1,800 deaths--is generally devoid of context. Here's some context: between 1983 and 1996, 18,006 American military personnel died accidentally in the service of their country. That death rate of 1,286 per year exceeds the rate of combat deaths in Iraq by a ratio of nearly two to one.

    That's right: all through the years when hardly anyone was paying attention, soldiers, sailors and Marines were dying in accidents, training and otherwise, at nearly twice the rate of combat deaths in Iraq from the start of the war in 2003 to the present. Somehow, though, when there was no political hay to be made, I don't recall any great outcry, or gleeful reporting, or erecting of crosses in the President's home town. In fact, I'll offer a free six-pack to the first person who can find evidence that any liberal expressed concern--any concern--about the 18,006 American service members who died accidentally in service of their country from 1983 to 1996.

    The point? Being a soldier is not safe, and never will be. Driving in my car this afternoon, I heard a mainstream media reporter say that around 2,000 service men and women have died in Afghanistan and Iraq "on President Bush's watch." As though the job of the Commander in Chief were to make the jobs of our soldiers safe. They're not safe, and they never will be safe, in peacetime, let alone wartime.

    What is the President's responsibility? To expend our most precious resources only when necessary, in service of the national interest.

    His post got me thinking about what the cost of freedom really is. After hearing Cindy Sheehan announce yet again this morning that her son "died for nothing," I thought I'd crunch some numbers to see what Casey Sheehan's mortal sacrifice, his most precious resource, really bought.

    More than he wound have dared imagine.

    War# of U.S. Soldiers KilledPopulation Freed
    (approximate)
    # of People Freed Per U.S. Soldier Killed
    World War I
    (France)
    115,00039 million339.13
    World War II
    (France, Belgium)
    116,99148 million410.29
    1991 Gulf War
    (Kuwait)
    4722 million8968.60
    GWOT
    (Afghanistan)
    223*30 million 134,529.15*
    GWOT
    (Iraq)
    1,865*26 million13,941.19*
    GWOT
    (Combined)
    2,088*56 million26,819.92*
    * On-going. GWOT=Global War on Terror

    The numbers above are simplistic, but prove a point: Casey Sheehan and the other 1,800+ who have given their lives in Iraq so far have made their sacrifices very worthwhile.

    Casey Sheehan, who re-enlisted to join an all-volunteer Army and who volunteered for the rescue mission that led to his death, gave his life to bring freedom to almost 14,000 people, or roughly the size of a small town.

    He gave his life so that a few hundred teachers, a few thousand students, and couple of dozen physicians and thousands of ordinary people could taste freedom for the very first time.

    That doesn't sound like a "meaningless death" in a "senseless war" to me.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:08 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

    August 22, 2005

    Friendly Fire

    On March 23, 2003, Corporal Patrick R. Nixon was part of a Marine unit ambushed while trying to secure a bridge in Nasiriyah, Iraq. He rushed to the aid of a fellow Marine, and all Hell broke loose. Originally listed as missing, Cpl. Nixon was confirmed as the first Tennessean killed in the invasion of Iraq on March 30, 2003.

    Eight of the Marine deaths that day came from enemy fire. A remaining ten died from wounds that may have been caused by either heavy enemy fire or U.S Air Force aircraft providing close air support, so-called "friendly fire."

    Nixon's great-grandfather had served in World War I, his grandfather in World War II, his father in Vietnam, and his brother preceded him in the Marine Corps ten years earlier. Patrick Nixon was interred at Arlington National Cemetery on April 17, 2003 in Section 60, Plot 7865.

    Country music singer Trace Atkins sings a song inspired by Cpl. Nixon called "Arlington," (sample):

    Arlington

    I never thought that this is where I'd settle down.
    I thought I'd die an old man back in my hometown.
    They gave me this plot of land,
    Me and some other men, for a job well done.

    There's a big White House sits on a hill just up the road.
    The man inside, he cried the day they brought me home.
    They folded up a flag and told my Mom and Dad:
    "We're proud of your son."

    And I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property.
    I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company.
    I'm thankful for those thankful for the things I've done.
    I can rest in peace;
    I'm one of the chosen ones:
    I made it to Arlington.

    I remember Daddy brought me here when I was eight.
    We searched all day to find out where my grand-dad lay.
    And when we finally found that cross,
    He said: "Son, this is what it cost to keep us free."

    Now here I am, a thousand stones away from him.
    He recognized me on the first day I came in.
    And it gave me a chill when he clicked his heels,
    And saluted me.

    And I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property.
    I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company.
    I'm thankful for those thankful for the things I've done.
    I can rest in peace;
    I'm one of the chosen ones:
    I made it to Arlington.

    And everytime I hear twenty-one guns,
    I know they brought another hero home to us.

    And I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property.
    I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company.
    We're thankful for those thankful for the things we've done.
    We can rest in peace;
    'Cause we are the chosen ones:
    We made it to Arlington.

    Yeah, dust to dust,
    Don't cry for us:
    We made it to Arlington.

    Cpl. Nixon died while trying to save a fellow Marine. If this sounds familiar, it should. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan also died trying to save comrades-in-arms.

    Both of these brave men have suffered far too much from friendly fire. At least the fire on Corporal Nixon has stopped, and he has been allowed his eternal rest. Sadly, the assault on Specialist Sheehan continues, somehow both in and against his name.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    August 21, 2005

    A Brutal Divorce

    Via the Chicago Sun-Times.

    Last Friday, in Solano County Court, Casey's father Pat Sheehan filed for divorce. As the New York Times explained Cindy's "separation," "Although she and her estranged husband are both Democrats, she said she is more liberal than he is, and now, more radicalized."

    Toppling Saddam and the Taliban (Mrs. Sheehan opposes U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, too), destroying al-Qaida's training camps and helping 50 million Muslims on the first steps to free societies aren't worth the death of a single soldier. But Cindy Sheehan's hatred of Bush is worth the death of her marriage. Watching her and her advanced case of Bush Derangement Syndrome on TV, I feel the way I felt about that mentally impaired Aussie concert pianist they got to play at the Oscars a few years.

    Yet in the wreckage of Pat and Cindy Sheehan's marriage there is surely a lesson for the Democratic Party. As Cindy says, they're both Democrats, but she's "more liberal" and "more radicalized." There are a lot of less liberal and less radicalized Dems out there: They're soft-left-ish on health care and the environment and education and so forth; many have doubts about the war, but they love their country, they have family in the military, and they don't believe in dishonoring American soldiers to make a political point. The problem for the Democratic Party is that the Cindys are now the loudest voice: Michael Moore, Howard Dean, Moveon.org, and Air America, the flailing liberal radio network distracting attention from its own financial scandals by flying down its afternoon host Randi Rhodes to do her show live from Camp Casey. The last time I heard Miss Rhodes she was urging soldiers called up for Iraq to refuse to go -- i.e., to desert.

    On unwatched Sunday talk shows, you can still stumble across the occasional sane, responsible Dem. But, in the absence of any serious intellectual attempt to confront their long-term decline, all the energy on the left is with the fringe. The Democratic Party is a coalition of Pat Sheehans and Cindy Sheehans, and the noisier the Cindys get the more estranged the Pats are likely to feel.

    Sorry about that, but, if Mrs. Sheehan can insist her son's corpse be the determining factor in American policy on Iraq, I don't see why her marriage can't be a metaphor for the state of the Democratic Party.



    Read the whole thing
    .

    Absolute domination by one political party is not good for either party, or America. The ending of a bad marriage between the moderate Democratic majority and a radicalized left wing makes way for the possibility of forging new, potentially more satisfying Democratic Party for all America.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Cindy Sheehan: Hater

    Ace has it, go read it.

    Saint Cindy's Immaculate Antisemitism.

    Cindy Sheehan is, among other things, a proven anti-Semite. She does not like Jews, for those of you who are trying hard not to hear.

    Jews, of course, are not the only people she would have die. If you have brown skin and hail from the Middle East at all, it seems, your life isn't worth fighting for. She is not alone in Camp Casey, or in the larger anti-war movement.

    This is not exactly what they say directly, but by calling for an immediate withdrawal of all of our forces, and not caring about the power vacuum that would result, they tip their hand. In their eyes, Iraqi lives are worth less than American lives.

    They care about "peace?"

    Only their own.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    August 20, 2005

    Rummy: "Let's Make a Deal"

    Who says Don Rumsfeld can't find common cause with liberals?


    Adopt a Jihadi
    .

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    August 19, 2005

    DU: Rove Caught Strokin' It

    Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has suffered a mild stroke today, but fortunately suffered no complications and seems to be fine. We wish hims a complete and speedy recovery.

    The "reality-based community" was quick to note, however, that Reid's stroke came after the stroke of Cindy Sheehan's 74 year-old mother, and you know what that means:

    "KHANNNNNNN!!!", err, uh "ROOOOOOVE!!!"

    Luckily for democracy, we have the best and brightest of the Democratic Underground on the case.

    From long-time DU poster kilbotfactory:


    they already have drugs that cause heart attacks but don't worry, I'm sure the Bush administration would never do something illegal like that...

    Why, of course not. Not with these intrepid detectives waiting in the wings.

    This is quickly followed up by wakeme2008:


    I do not know, a lot of stokes this week and one pulled Cindy out of Crawford which does help *.


    AndyTiede
    completes the trifecta for the Party of Serious Thinking with:

    If They Take Reid Out, Do the Rethugs Pick Up The Seat?

    Yep, they're onto us.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:15 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    Definitions for Liberals

    Delusional (adj): suffering from or characterized by delusions.
    See also, Krugman, Paul.

    Of course, Goldstein does it better.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    The Ghouls of Crawford

    (h/t akijikan)

    Transcript of a call from a Camp Casey visitor to the Rush Limbaugh radio show, picked up mid-call:

    RUSH: Whoa, whoa, whoa. You spoke with who?

    CALLER: With Cindy Sheehan.

    RUSH: You spoke with Cindy Sheehan? Did she cuss you out?

    CALLER: No, but I gotta tell you: if they find out out there, they're not the nice people that CNN is showing. I saw them go over and just about attack a young girl who was very distraught because her brother had died in Iraq, and they had all those crosses up, and his name was on the cross. So the mother and the sister came out to remove that. They didn't want him to be a part of that, and so they encircled her, tried to stop her from being able to get the cross, she finally did. They were just about at the point of attacking her, told her that her brother was a murderer, that he had killed innocent people, and that he died for nothing.

    What kind of person would use the memory of a fallen soldier as a prop in a bit of political theater, and then have the audacity to attack a family member who did not want him used in that manner? Several descriptive words and phrases come to mind, but I'll refrain from using them here.

    If we look into the hearts of those protestors gathered in Crawford, what would we find? Will we find people who care about the lives of our soldiers, or will we find people more worried about other things? Are we confronted with people who truly care about Cindy Sheehan, grieving mother?

    It is a sad irony that Casey Sheehan would not be welcomed at the camp that bears his name.


    Note: The feeling of ownership of the dead by anti-war protestors does indeed exist.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:11 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

    August 18, 2005

    A Prayer For the Sheehans

    I don't care for Cindy Sheehan. That said, I'm saying a prayer for her and her family tonight. Via the L.A. Times:

    The grieving woman who started an anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch nearly two weeks ago said today she was leaving because her mother had a stroke.

    Cindy Sheehan told reporters she had just received the phone call and was leaving immediately to be with her 74-year-old mother at a Los Angeles hospital.

    Some people will be tempted to make stupid comments in situations like this. Please refrain. Keep in mind her mother is also the grandmother of adult children who've lost a brother, their parent's marriage, and to a large entent their mother over the past year.

    Thanks.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:56 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    August 17, 2005

    Another Sheehan Would Serve

    According to the The Times Online, Casey Sheehan's younger brother Andy wanted to follow his brother into the armed forces, but was rebuffed by his anti-war mother:

    She has had to dissuade her younger son, Andy, from joining the Army. "I said there was no way this Government was going to get another of my children."

    I can understand Cindy Sheehan's position. A family that has given one son in the service of their country is certainly under no obligation to provide another. And yet…

    Andy Sheehan still wanted to serve, even after his brother Casey's death.

    What would drive a young man with a vehemently anti-war mother, and a brother that died serving in the Army in Iraq, to even think about joining a nation's military in a time of war?

    I don't know for certain.

    But the fact remains that left to his own devices another Sheehan would serve in his nation's armed forces, and I think that says a lot more about the validity of America's cause in this war than mother Cindy Sheehan would like to admit.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:14 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    But Can Nazis Surf?

    So, how would you like race-based government, where the outcome of genetic markers in a blood test may determine your legal rights? If you are a Hawaiian, and Senator Daniel Akaka gets his way with bills before the House and Senate, you might just get a chance to find out.

    Akaka is sponsoring a bill, The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005, to grant native Hawaiians a sovereign race-based government, potentially exempt from the United States Constitution if certain pundits can be believed. Senator Daniel Akaka admits that his bill goes beyond the legal parity afforded to other Native American tribal governments, to the point that it could lead to Hawaii's secession from the United States. A secessionist, race-based government? Peachy.

    Call me skeptical, but I'm not a big fan of race-based governments, as the last few that I'm aware of, no mater how they tried to execute it in Germany, South Africa, or Zimbabwe, didn't turn out too well.

    You can keep your one state neo-Confederacy movement, Senator, even if it does have poi.

    Oh, and I almost forgot. The answer to the post's title question?

    Yes. Yes, they can.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:34 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    Take a Side

    Todd Beamer said, "Let's Roll."
    Knowing he was going to die, his last act was to charge Islamist terrorists in an airplane cockpit with other passengers on September 11, 2001, in an effort to save innocent lives on the ground.

    Cindy Sheehan says, "Let's Run."
    Her son Casey gave his life in Iraq in an effort to save the lives of his fellow soldiers. She would surrender the lives of 25 million Iraqi civilians and 25 million Afghani civilians to the will of terrorists.

    Ho do you want America to be remembered in history? Do you want to be part of an America that faced terrorism down, and established democracy where evil men would rule, or do you want to be part of an America that quit?

    The choice is yours.

    Take a side.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:26 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    August 16, 2005

    Cindy Sheehan: I'm Stark Raving Mad

    (h/t Michelle Malkin)

    That vast sucking sound you hear is Cindy Sheehan's last bit of credibility going down a hotel toilet in Crawford.

    Apparently, in addition to Iraq, we were wrong to invade Afghanistan to depose the Taliban and al Qaeda, and we should surrender there as well.

    From Hardball.

    MATTHEWS: Can I ask you a tough question? A very tough question.

    SHEEHAN: Yes.

    MATTHEWS: All right. If your son had been killed in Afghanistan, would you have a different feeling?

    SHEEHAN: I don't think so, Chris, because I believe that Afghanistan is almost the same thing. We're fighting terrorism. Or terrorists, we're saying. But they're not contained in a country. This is an ideology and not an enemy. And we know that Iraq, Iraq had no terrorism. They were no threat to the United States of America.

    MATTHEWS: But Afghanistan was harboring, the Taliban was harboring al-Qaida which is the group that attacked us on 9/11.

    SHEEHAN: Well then we should have gone after al-Qaida and maybe not after the country of Afghanistan.

    MATTHEWS: But that's where they were being harbored. That's where they were headquartered. Shouldn't we go after their headquarters? Doesn't that make sense?

    SHEEHAN: Well, but there were a lot of innocent people killed in that invasion, too. ... But I'm seeing that we're sending our ground troops in to invade countries where the entire country wasn't the problem. Especially Iraq. Iraq was no problem. And why do we send in invading armies to march into Afghanistan when we're looking for a select group of people in that country?

    So I believe that our troops should be brought home out of both places where we're obviously not having any success in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and that's who they told us was responsible for 9/11.

    To summarize Cindy Sheehan: Nothing is ever worth fighting for, and nothing is worth defending, except for my son Casey, and because he died, we should abandon 50 million people in two countries.

    What a sad, deranged little woman she is. Can anybody out there really still defend her?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:44 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

    Next Time Cindy, Protest in the Fall

    …Meanwhile, hitch-hiking his way to Camp Casey, David Duke starts to wish he brought his summer-weight sheets. "Oi vey".

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:26 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    Camp Apathy

    Via CBS News:

    Ten days into the anti-war seige of President Bush's driveway in Crawford, TX, news photographers are reduced to taking pictures of other news photographers taking pictures of a protestor taking pictures of them.

    One begins to wonder just how long an ADD-afflicted media wll be able to drag this one out.

    Update: Welcome Instapundit readers. We've got at least one more Crawford protestor photo (courtesy of IMAO) that you might want to see before you head for the front page.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:20 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

    August 15, 2005

    Saccharine Cindy

    The sweetness of the Gold Star mother from Vacaville is starting to disappear for many Americans, as the vicious nature, questionable alliances, and radical political leaning of Cindy Sheehan come slowly to light.

    Sheehan's popularity among bitter minor celebrities, an infamous white supremacist, and misleading, terrorist-aggrandizing filmmaker are not endearing her to middle America; instead many are repulsed by a woman who:

    How proud her family must be.

    Interestingly enough, some rats knew this ship was doomed to sink before it even dropped anchor in Crawford, and wouldn't even get on board. Anti-war heroes Ted Kennedy and protest veteran John Kerry? They're paying lip service to Sheehan but not packing their Stetsons. Harry Reid? Comfortably in Searchlight, Nevada the best I can tell, with no plans to leave.

    How about Howard Dean? Sorry, according to the far left, he's the enemy, too.

    On the upside, she's probably got the support of burnout David Crosby.

    Cindy Sheehan, for all her ability to generate media attention and mobilize the far left, is playing flat in the heartland, and is rapidly approaching a point where her bile is becoming more repulsive than her loss can generate enough sympathy to cover.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:47 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    August 14, 2005

    At Last...Her Klan Has Come Along

    (h/t Protein Wisdom via LGF)

    I guess it was inevitable, but David Duke, America's second most famous Klansman (after West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd), is endorsing Cindy Sheehan now that she's proven herself to be anti-Semetic.

    Sheehan hopes to capture endorsements from the National Alliance and the White Aryan Resistance later in the week.

    Update: as "Jen" says in the comments:

    :::breathing sigh of relief:::

    I know I'm the right side of an argument when David Duke is on the other.

    Amen, sister.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:54 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    Cindy Sheehan: Louder, and in the Original German

    Sadly, Cindy Sheehan is even more unhinged that I thought. Cindy Sheehan is blaming Israel and the United States as the causes of terrorism, saying:

    "You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism."

    Israel, of course, is Palestine; the exact same 10,000 square miles at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea has two names. A brief history of this land is available from MidEastWeb.

    Cindy Sheehan is trying to do the same thing with her words that Israel's neighbors have tired to do in 1948-49 during the Israeli War for Independence, the 1956 Sinai War, the on-going Palestian-Israeli conflict, the 1976 Six-Day War, the War of Attrition in 1967-70, and the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

    She wants to end the Jewish State.

    Well, what does Cindy Sheehan propose to do with the more than five million Israeli Jews? She does not directly say, but their welfare seems to be a very low priority for her. I think her kindred spirits in Hezbollah, Hamas, and other groups might have something in mind.

    After all, they've been planning it since 1941. See the guy on the right in this picture?

    He is a Palestinian by the name of Haj Amin al-Husseini. Like Cindy Sheehan, al-Husseini felt that further violence wouldn't be a problem if the Jews would leave Palestine, or at least the top six feet of soil. He's even pictured talking to this guy about it:

    ...who agreed on the idea in principle, but who had Jews and other problems of his own to worry about. Fortunately, his final solution didn't quite pan out in his territory either, though not for lack of trying.

    Nice ideological company you keep, Mrs. Sheehan. Nice company, indeed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:19 PM | Comments (26) | TrackBack

    The Genocidal Pacifism of Cindy Sheehan

    A very nice woman named Nancy wrote me earlier today.

    She had read the Dallas Morning News which had published some select bits from my earlier post Go to Hell, Cindy Sheehan as the lead article in a blogosphere roundup.

    She could not understand my anger at, "a poor woman who has lost her son and is expressing her frustration and grief."

    People like Nancy can sympathize with Cindy Sheehan the victim mother who lost her son in war. What they don't seem to grasp is exactly what steps Cindy Sheehan is asking our government to take, and what would result from those steps. Cindy Sheehan wants a unilateral and immediate withdrawal of all United States military forces from Iraq, asking, "How many more of our loved ones need to die in this senseless war?"

    Cindy Sheehan's cries are cynical words coated in jagged, razor-sharp malice, folks; she will not create peace, but would plunge a new nation on the brink of freedom into civil war and possibily genocide.

    The transition of power from one form or government to another is stressful in the best of times, and Iraq right now is not the best of times. A fledgling democracy that had its first elections just this past January, Iraq is facing not just a new kind of government, but the prospect of building up a new security infrastructure, including military and police units, from the ground up. While these units are larger and much better trained than they were just a few months ago, they are not yet ready to take over Iraq's security and fight a vicious insurgency that seeks to plunge the nation into a bloody sectarian civil war, pitting Shiite versus Sunni versus Kurd.

    A gradual transition of power to Iraqi police and military units can prevent this, and is possible even probable within the coming year, but the transition must be gradual to insure domestic stability.

    But Cindy Sheehan does not want the logical phased withdrawal from Iraqi that the Secretary of Defense and others said could start occurring with the coming months, she wants a headlong retreat, now. Because of her blinding hatred for George w. Bush, Cindy Sheehan either does not see or does not care that the complete and abrupt retreat she advocates would create conditions favorable for genocide.

    Remember Rwanda?

    800,000 died there because the world's pacifists did not want soldiers to intervene. Do you want even some small measure of that on your conscience if we follow Cindy Sheehan's desires? Not I.

    The false pacifism practiced by Cindy Sheehan is rooted in politics, is used as a weapon, and does not care for human life. If Cindy Sheehan really cared about the lives of people in Iraq, she would call for Congress to give us additional equipment and funding so that we could complete the transition process. Instead she calls for retreat. She calls for dangerously destabilizing a country.

    Cold as ice, she has no qualms about playing politics with 25 million Iraqi lives in her mad desire to somehow, in some small way, hurt President Bush. She says herself, "My personal agenda is to make sure someone is held accountable for Casey's death," Sheehan said. "I'm the mother, he was my son, and Bush sent him into a war based on lies."

    She wants blood for blood, and as she can't get Presidential blood, Iraqi blood will do.

    I've seen enough dead children in Iraq. We don't need the Cindy Sheehan's of the world creating any more of them through the real apathy of false pacifism.

    The immediate retreat called for by Cindy Sheehan is nothing more than a call to create a power vacuum that would create conditions favorable for civil war in a nation that has already seen enough bloodshed. I'm sure Cindy's son Casey Sheehan was a wonderful human being, but no man is so special that his death should spark the genocide of thousand or tens of thousands.

    I don't need to know him to know that unecessary deaths are not the legacy that Casey Sheehan would have wanted, even if it is the legacy his mother is inadvertently advocating.

    Update: Must be a theme night.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:35 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    August 13, 2005

    Cindy Lied, Soldiers Died!

    Michelle Malkin notes that in the 18th paragraph of this Washington Post article that Cindy Sheehan lied about her meeting with President Bush.

    In June of 2004 she said:


    "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis," Cindy said after their meeting. "I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."

    Just last week on August 7 of 2005, she said:


    "Every time we tried to talk about Casey and how much we missed him, he would change the subject. And he acted like it was a party."

    These sound like two completely different events, yet both describe Cindy Sheehan's one and only meeting with President George Bush.

    The first describes the kind of encounter with President Bush had had with grieving military families many times before. Indeed, it seems consistent with the reactions of other families that met with President Bush at the same time as the Sheehan family. Not a single parent has ever reported anything similar to Cindy Sheehan's newest recollection of that night's events.

    Cindy Sheehan will keep on lying to keep in front of the cameras until she get's her son's comrades-in-arms shot or bombed by insurgents encouraged by her message calling for a headlong United States retreat.

    She's earned this.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    Russ Vaughn: A Soldier-Poet Writes On Cindy Sheehan

    Soldier-Poet Russ Vaughn forwarded a link to the following poem he published in The American Thinker after reading some of my comments about Cindy Sheehan published in the Dallas Morning News this morning.

    A Useful Death August 13th, 2005

    A mother's anguish turns to ire,

    Her liquid tears to spears of fire,

    A useful fool for the liberal Left,

    All hatred now, no more bereft.

    The honor which her son embraced,

    Is now dishonored, now disgraced,

    As his mother stands atop his grave,

    From there to shriek, from there to rave.

    Yes, some are maddened in their grief,

    And grief can surely change belief;

    But this woman's views, her family say,

    Have long been held, long fore today,

    Enabling Leftists to use her grieving,

    For Moore deception, Moore deceiving.

    I see this mother as a willing fool,

    A useful Moorish Code Pinko tool.

    As one who fought in another place,

    I sorrow for this boy's disgrace,

    By a zealot mother grafting grief

    Stealing his brave deeds, an honor thief,

    Usurping his valor to claim her share,

    Five minutes of fame in Media's glare.

    Her platform one you don't see often:

    A dishonored, flag-draped, soldier's coffin.

    I can hear Michael Moore muttering under his breath,

    “Yeah, this was really a useful death.â€


    Russ Vaughn
    2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
    101st Airborne Division
    Vietnam 65-66

    The lines quoted by the Dallas Morning News were from Go to Hell, Cindy Sheehan.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Huffington Passed

    It is quite sad, really.

    I'd heard rumors that Ariana's celebrity blog The Huffington Post moderated comments and weeded out the majority of non-liberal viewpoints. I had the honor of experiencing that yesterday afternoon, but wanted to give them 24 hours just to be sure.

    I'd read Norma Lear's "An American Mother Loses Her Son" and was in the comments when I read a particularly ignorant comparison by Huff Post commentor "Karen."

    It read:

    "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire

    I believe in these words.

    The Right Wing in this country has completely lost their reverence for these words and the basis of the founding of our country. They slur and revile anyone who doesn't agree with them as 'unpatriotic', and 'America haters'. Rush Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, et al, ought to be ashamed of themselves. They are the antithesis of the spirit that founded this country. If they were alive in 1776, they would be in Red Coats, fighting for King George (how apt) because, after all, he was for 'Preserving our Heritage and Our way of Life'. That is, British.

    Cindy Sheehan is the embodiment of our American Heritage: the protester, the lonely voice in the wilderness that says, "NO!!" to the government, the policy-makers, the powers-that-be. Our country has a long, wonderful history of nay-sayers who defy, reject, protest and scream, "No more!!", whether it's Civil Rights for blacks voting rights for women, working rights for all labor...and now we have the most venal, lying contemptuous people in the White House that we have seen in a long, long time (Nixon comes to mind) and she's calling them out. Well done.

    Posted by: Karen at August 11, 2005 11:13 PM

    To this steaming pile I responded:

    Actually Karen, it was the Tories then, like liberals now, that advocated not rocking the boat, and were in favor of leaving the despotic governments in Baghdad and London in charge, no matter the abuses were suffered by a captive people. Then as now, the do-nothings, the appeasers, were charlatans mired in fear of changing the present, and incapable of envisioning a better future. Scared of change, they—you—are trapped to wallow in your insecurities.

    It was the revolutionaries then, and the Republicans and many conservative Democrats (including former President Clinton) now that saw that the yolk of tyranny was unacceptable, and that an uncertain war for freedom was better than to live as a slave under an iron hand.

    George W. Bush has many faults as all people do, but a lack of vision is not one of his flaws. His vision of bringing democracy to a region written off for decades by the “elite†as too backwards for progress, is no less revolutionary and radical that the decision of a brave few in 13 colonies to strike out on their own uncertain path to bring forth a new government. Very few gave those brave souls a chance 200 plus years ago, and yet they persevered, and brought for a new nation that became the greatest this world has ever known.

    Blood was spill in that war and many battles were lost, but those who believed in democracy were not deterred. They fought back against the tyranny. They did not listen to their detractors scared of change. They fought the battle all the way through, and in the end they were victorious.

    You are here today enjoying your American freedom because the brave souls of that time period did not fold at the first drop of blood, nor at the first defeat, or the second, or even the tenth. The British terrorized us, burning homes and farms and killing livestock. Tories of the time—then as now, typically coastal urban “elitesâ€â€”sued to quit and give into the tyranny, much as you do today.

    If we listened to them—you—we would not be Americans.

    For all his faults, George W. Bush knows that this war will not be easy, and that freedom is not easily won. We will not tire, as you have. We will not falter, though you have surrendered. We will not fail, as the future of 100 million people in the region hangs in the balance. We will place a steadying hand upon the torch of freedom until the Iraqis are ready to carry it on their own.

    You, however, would anoint a bereaved Judas as the leader of your headlong retreat, and you will go alone. America will stay, and because of the sacrifices made upon the alter of freedom by Americans, Iraqis and our allies, a new “noble experiment†may hopefully soon arise in the Middle East.

    Americans are proud of their history, and proud of our freedoms won by roughly ten percent of our population.

    Families proudly proclaim an ancestry to heroes that fought in our founding war. Two hundred years have passed, and no American today proudly proclaims that their ancestors were among the Tories siding with the tyranny of the British crown.

    Iraqis may hope to look back at our time from 2205, and count among them their brave ancestors who joined the Iraqi army and police to win their freedom from the terrorists and Tories within their midst. None will admit to have relatives that fought for the insurgency and for despotism. None will look back favorably to those of you in this country who would have given up on their freedom.

    Americans will proudly remember that their ancestors fought to free a foreign people and spread freedom to newfound friends.

    The liberals of our time will fade into the mists of time as a memory, like their Tory brethren before them.

    You will not be missed.

    I had a feeling the comment would hit a little too close to home for the Huff Puffers to print, and so I save a copy of my comment right before I posted it.

    I guess I was right.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Mohammed Speaks to Cindy Sheehan: "do not waste your son's blood."

    (h/t: Protein Wisdom)

    Mohammed of Iraq the Model, one of two blogging brothers from Baghdad, sends a message to Cindy Sheehan, the somewhat anti-Semetic and paranoid mother of a dead soldier, who wants us to abandon the quest for democracy in Iraq:

    I know how you feel Cindy, I lived among the same pains for 35 years but worse than that was the fear from losing our loved ones at any moment. Even while I'm writing these words to you there are feelings of fear, stress, and sadness that interrupt our lives all the time but in spite of all that I'm sticking hard to hope which if I didn't have I would have died years ago.

    Ma'am, we asked for your nation's help and we asked you to stand with us in our war and your nation's act was (and still is) an act of ultimate courage and unmatched sense of humanity.
    Our request is justified, death was our daily bread and a million Iraqi mothers were expecting death to knock on their doors at any second to claim someone from their families.
    Your face doesn't look strange to me at all; I see it everyday on endless numbers of Iraqi women who were struck by losses like yours.

    (read the rest)

    Kind of puts things in a perspective, doesn't it?

    I wish we could get Mohammed to Crawford, Texas. I want him to camp outside Cindy Sheehan's tent until she'll meet Mohammed face-to-face and tell him that he and the other 25 million people in his country aren't worth the sacrifice.

    As I've been saying all along, Cindy Sheehan does not have America's or Iraq's best interests at heart. She wants revenge for her son's death, and would poison anyone, or any hurt any cause, to try to hurt George Bush. In the end, she only hurts America, her brave son's brothers-in-arms and their sacrifices, and fine Iraqi people like Mohammed and his family, who risk their lives every day to try to bring freedom to Iraq.

    Freedom should be Casey Sheehan's legacy, not hatred spewed from the side of a dusty Texas road.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    August 12, 2005

    Cindy Sheehan: Solomon's Prostitute

    16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 One of them said, "My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. 18 The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.

    19 "During the night this woman's son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn't the son I had borne."

    22 The other woman said, "No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours."

    But the first one insisted, "No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine." And so they argued before the king.

    23 The king said, "This one says, 'My son is alive and your son is dead,' while that one says, 'No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.' "

    24 Then the king said, "Bring me a sword." So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: "Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other."

    26 The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, "Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don't kill him!"

    But the other said, "Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!" [emphasis added]

    27 Then the king gave his ruling: "Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother." (Source)

    A grieving mother, full of anger and loss, is not always the kindest or most rational of beings.

    In that famous story of Solomon's wisdom above, a mother was so distraught over the loss of her child that she was willing to steal another woman's child, or failing that, steal his life.

    Cindy Sheehan is this second prostitute in a real life parable unfolding in modern times, where her grief has turned to anger, and anger has turned to hate, until the point has come where her misguided wrath empowers the murderers of her son, and threatens the other sons on the battlefield, his compatriots.

    She is no longer rational. She is paranoid. She is broken.

    I pity her as I loathe her.

    She should not have to bury a son, and yet she should not slander the beliefs he died for in her rage. She should exercise her freedom of speech that she enjoys here, that her son died to create in a foreign land, and yet, she should not use that speech to harm the very men and women of this nation's military that would gladly lay down their lives on her behalf… and have for generations.

    More than 1,840 of our best have given their lives to create freedom where none has before existed. The vast, silent majority of these families know what their loved one's sacrifice was meant to bring. It is a travesty that the vultures of liberalism would leach from one sad voice that once gave forth life, but now only seems capable of spreading decay.

    Her usefulness will pass. Her grief will remain, after being cruelly heightened by new "friends" that encourage her suffering, but cannot help her find peace. Soon they will be gone, and she will be left, alone and broken, an Army of None.

    May God have mercy upon her weak, tortured soul.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:08 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

    August 11, 2005

    Jooooooooos!

    Why am I less than surprised to see this in her past?

    Cindy Sheehan: Antisemetic Moonbat

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:12 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    Hey... Nice Rants

    ...But I digress, again. Gee, you sure didn't complain when ol' Bill was spending 90% of his time getting his corn husked by naughty interns, were you?

    Mad Dog Vinnie is on fire.

    I bow to a master.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    August 09, 2005

    Bad Moonbat Rising...

    Via Moonbat Daily, it seems the DUers have completely flipped out because Cindy Sheehan was having trouble with her cell phone while trying to conduct an interview with Thom Hartmann, who was apparently filling in on Air America.

    I'm used to the rampant paranoia of those who post on the Democratic Underground, but have they never had spotty cell phone reception before? Please. Can you hear me now?

    It is perhaps just as likley that the break and communications came from the radio station. Now that Alzheimer's patients and inner city orphan's are wise to Air America's embezzlement tricks, AA might not be able to pay their phone bills...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    Cindy Sheehan: Cut Them In Half

    Just one.

    I challenge Cindy Sheehan, who constantly drags out the corpse of her hero son to stand upon like a bloody pulpit, to produce just one email or one letter from Army Specialist Casey Sheehan where he says he was opposed to the war in Iraq.

    I strongly suspect she cannot.

    Like the second prostitute in I Kings 3:16-27, once her child was dead, Cindy Sheehan didn't care about the deaths of other mother's sons. Her child is dead, and damn all others that would stand between her and her revenge.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    All Hail President Hastert!

    On Technorati, liberals are going all atwitter over a rumor that Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury is close to handing out indictments against President Bush and his administration:

    Although the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago is staying silent, it is well known that Fitzgerald is digging deep into an assortment of serious improprieties among many Bush administration figures based, in part, on subpoenaed testimony provided by former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

    According to federal whistleblower Tom Heneghen, who recently reported on www.truthradio.com, Powell testified before the citizen grand jury that President Bush had taken the U.S. to war illegally based on lies, which is a capital crime involving treason under the U.S. Code.

    "Regarding the Powell testimony, there is no comment," said Sanborn.

    However, sources close to the federal grade jury probe also allegedly told Heneghen a host of administration figures besides Bush were also indicted, including Vice-President Richard Cheney, Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, imprisoned New York Times reporter Judith Miller and former Senior Cheney advisor Mary Matalin.

    Oh my, this is too rich. A Bush indictment, along with indictments Vice President Cheney, and what seems to be the majority of his administration? While this is obviously a left wing dream, I think we can probably take this with an ocean or two full of salt.

    Why? For starters, "federal whistleblower" Tom Heneghen is the same credible source that maintained MI6 secret agent (and U.S. Senator) John Kerry was being blackmailed after being caught making snuff porn in England with underage girls. It wasn't bad enough Kerry was being accused of making snuff films, you see, but with underage girls. You know, because violent sex driven murder films just aren't enough of a reason to blackmail a British secret agent moonlighting as a United States Senator.

    Heneghen is also the same person that claims the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York was just a coverup for a gold heist like in Die Hard III, and that the "missile shield" over D.C. was disarmed before the 9/11 attacks. And yes, as you proably have figured out by now, the Illuminati are involved.

    So, while I'm sure you guys on the left are pre-orgasmic in your wishful thinking, I wouldn't enjoy it too much, as it is almost assuredly a bogus story...

    Unless of course, President Hastert, Karl Rove (who somehow went from being the focus of the Plame investigation for liberals a few weeks ago to completely uninvolved here), and the Illuminati might just want you to think that.

    Better put on your seatbelts and grab that protective headgear; it looks like it is going to be a long August.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:42 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

    Go to Hell, Cindy Sheehan

    Let me make this perfectly clear: I loath Cindy Sheehan.

    I despise everything she stands for, and love the ideals she stands against. I hate how she dishonors her brave son's memory. I cringe when she utters stupid talking points—“why did the president kill my son?â€â€”and I cannot stand the fact that she egotistically thinks she is more important than the tens of millions of people she would undermine in her quest for vengeance. Clearly, her arrogance knows no limits.

    The most important mother in the world.
    Cindy Sheehan thinks she is the most important mother in the world.

    She is holding a vigil to speak to the president—again—even though she has made it abundantly clear in her comments to the news media that she has nothing new to offer other than clichés. She wants the troops to pull out of Iraq now, no matter the future costs or the wasted sacrifices. She wants Bush to personally account for her son's death. She wants Bush to personally tell her why her son died. She, she, she. Well guess what Cindy?

    You are not the only mother who has sent a son off to war. You are one mother of the more than 1,800 troops who died serving their country in a military they volunteered to join, knowing that they could be sent off to war. There are thousands of other mothers who have had their sons and daughters wounded in combat. There are mothers for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, from more than a dozen nations, that have served in Iraq in an effort to bring democracy and hope to that region.

    Nor are you more important than the mothers of the 25 million Iraqis that your son Casey was trying to bring freedom. You didn't understand his courage or commitment, and you can't understand why someone who lay down their life for a stranger. That is your problem Cindy Sheehan, and you dishonor your own son's memory every time you open your mouth to fight against everything he gave his life for.

    Nor are you more important, Cindy Sheehan than the mothers of the tens of millions in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and other nations tasting freedom for the first time because of brave men like your late son.

    Despite what you think, Cindy Sheehan, you are not more important than any of these millions of other mothers, though you would make all their sacrifices in vain to bring down a President.

    Vengeance, not Justice. Hatred, not Hope.
    Your son died trying to bring freedom to an oppressed people. I can think of no more noble sacrifice. But you, Cindy Sheehan, you want revenge for your heartache, and you don't care who gets hurt in the process.

    That is why you, Cindy Sheehan, can go to hell.

    You decided, in a mind warped by your association with head cases like Code Pink and Veterans for Peace, that George W. Bush made your son patriotic and gave him the heart to serve his country, and that George W. Bush made him volunteer for military service, and that George W. Bush forced him to want to make the military his career, and it was George W. Bush that made him re-enlist. And of course, George W. Bush pulled the trigger on the RPG in the Sadr City slum that took his life.

    Cindy Sheehan doesn't give a damn about the millions of Iraqis her son was trying to bring freedom. Cindy Sheehan doesn't give a damn about the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that have rotated in and out of Iraq in that same quest. Cindy Sheehan doesn't give a damn if Iraqis are ruled by themselves or if they are tortured by tyrants. She is petty. She is vengeful. She wants revenge, and she doesn't care who gets hurt or who dies in the process.

    I am ashamed for Casey Sheehan. He understood that there are things in this world worth giving up your life to create, and he made that sacrifice. His mother Cindy, full of hate, seeks only seeks to destroy.

    I can understand her grief, but I cannot forgive the fact that she is willing to threaten the lives of others and give our enemies hope to satisfy her need for revenge.

    A terrorist RPG killed the body of Casey Sheehan. It took his mother to try to kill his legacy.

    Update: I made few minor tweaks, mostly grammatical.

    Another Update: Retired Marine and radio talk show host "Gunny Bob" Newman is apparently on the same wavelength.

    August 08, 2005

    Watch Them Dogs

    I've been sometimes amused, sometimes amazed, but always saddened by the intense media coverage surrounding Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX. If press coverage is any indication, Cindy Sheehan arrived in Texas in a bus called the "Impeachment Express" and is apparently telling everyone who will listen that George Bush killed her son.

    She was barking a far different tune a year ago. As reported by her hometown paper the Vacaville, Reporter (via Drudge):

    "'I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis,' Cindy said after their meeting. 'I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith.'

    "The meeting didn't last long, but in their time with Bush, Cindy spoke about Casey and asked the president to make her son's sacrifice count for something. They also spoke of their faith.

    "The trip had one benefit that none of the Sheehans expected.

    "For a moment, life returned to the way it was before Casey died. They laughed, joked and bickered playfully as they briefly toured Seattle.

    For the first time in 11 weeks, they felt whole again.

    "'That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together,' Cindy said."

    From thanking the President for his support of her family, to publicly accusing him of murdering her son in just over a year, Cindy Sheehan has traveled a long, tortured path. I don't believe the transformation from the mother of a proud soldier, to becoming a shrill mockery of her son's sense of duty, was a path she traveled alone.

    I fear she was dogged every step of the way.

    Reverend Dr. Bennett Walker Smith, Sr., a fellow southerner who moved to New York, once gave a sermon called "Watch Them Dogs," about the kinds of people you might want to avoid in a church congregation.

    A paraphrase of that sermon goes something like this:

    There are people like town dogs—overfed, good for nothing and so lazy they won't even scratch fleas. All a town dog does is lie under the porch all day, until late at night when he starts howling at nothing, and he'll keep howling till he has every other dog in the town howling at nothing, too.

    And then there are alley dogs, always head down in the filth, dragging rotten things out and causing a terrible stink.

    And then there are bird dogs. Bird dogs jump in the bushes and shake things out for the hunters. They won't kill nobody, but they sure will flush them out by pointing. Judas was a bird dog.

    And then there are setters. Setters will "set" around and talk and carry on, but when push comes to shove and it is time to get things done, you can't rely on a setter. He won't get behind you.

    And then we have poodles. You know poodles—pretty, pampered, always in need of special treatment and good for absolutely nothing. A poodle is a worthless dog, except maybe to other poodles.

    All this leads up to a story about the feist terrier. You've seen a feist. They ain't no bigger than nothing, all fur and bark. Well, this particular feist terrier hung out on his master's front porch behind a white picket fence, and every morning, a big Doberman would come by on his morning walk.

    Well, this little feist knows that the gate on that fence is always locked, and so every morning when that Doberman goes by, that little feist tears across the porch, down the walk, and hurtles himself up against that gate, barking his fool head of at the Doberman, who pays him no mind. That little feist follows him along the length of the fence barking and carrying on until he comes to the end of the fence, and he keeps right on barking until that Doberman turns the corner.

    Every morning this goes on—yap! yap! yap! yap!—and the Doberman ignores that little feist… at least until one fateful day, when the feist's master forgot to lock the gate. The Doberman came by on his walk, and that little feist tore of the porch, hurtled himself against the gate—the gate swung open—and he found himself standing right in front of the Doberman.

    Now, that Doberman had been waiting for this day aloooooooong time, and he tore into the feist.

    When the Doberman finally let that feist go, that feist was so happy. He dragged himself back up on the porch, battered and bloodied, with one though on his mind…

    "Who the hell left open the gate?"

    Every day it seems that the craven alleyway hounds and baying town dogs of the media get just a little louder, and bird dogs like Cindy Sheehan do more pointing that emboldens our enemies and ends up getting good people (like her son) killed. The gate unlocked in America on 9/11.

    It is time that American liberals learned to quit charging headfirst into it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    August 06, 2005

    The Lamentable Cindy Sheehan

    There are a few things in this world that really set me off, with abusing children and disrespecting our veterans near the top of that list. Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan manages to offend both of those sensibilities by exploiting the death of her soldier-son in Iraq to push her moonbat political agenda.

    Sheehan is a walking cliche of Democratic Underground-type talking points, clutching a picture of her son in uniform along with a baby picture as film crews come to make her theater, once again. After riding across the country from (where else?) California to Bush's Ranch in Crawford, Texas in a bus called the "Impeachment Express," she says to waiting cameras:

    "I want to ask the president, `Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?" she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "Last week, you said my son died for a noble cause' and I want to ask him what that noble cause is?"

    The freedom of 25 million Iraqis, for starters.

    Your son Casey Sheehan was a credit his country, Cindy. So are the 140,000+ other fathers and mothers, sons and daughters serving their country in Iraq right now.

    I don't know that we can say the same for someone who has made her goal in life the undercutting of their morale and support.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:30 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

    August 02, 2005

    Novak: A Book is to Plame

    From today's NY Times:

    One of the most puzzling aspects of the C.I.A. leak case has had to do with the name of the exposed officer. Why did the syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak identify her as Valerie Plame in exposing her link to the C.I.A. in July 2003 when she had been known for years both at the agency and in her personal life by her married name, Valerie Wilson? Mr. Novak offered a possible explanation for the disconnect on Monday, suggesting in his column that he could have obtained Ms. Wilson's maiden name from the directory Who's Who in America, which used that name in identifying her as the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador. [emphasis added]
    He's lying. It was this book that leaked Plame's identity:

    Damn you, Karl Rove!

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    July 27, 2005

    Not With a Bang

    Via the New York Times:


    The two giant unions that quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O. say their exodus will help revive the labor movement. But Greg Devereux, one of the 800 delegates at the union convention here, was not buying it.

    "A lot of people are still stunned and angry about it," Mr. Devereux, a Washington State delegate from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said Tuesday. "A lot of people view it as destructive and selfish."

    Once upon a time, unionized labor accounted for roughly a quarter of all private sector jobs. These days, that percentage has plunged into the single digits and their political power has dwindled.

    Two unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Teamsters, have split from the A.F.L.-C.I.O, after having grown tired of wasting money on lobbying and supporting political candidates.

    I should add, Democratic political candidates.

    While few mainstream media pundits or even the unions themselves are willing to admit it directly, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. breakup can very much be attributed to the failure of the national Democratic Party to win or even hold the line in elections in recent years. These elections were supported by millions of union dollars that the SEIU, Teamsters, and others felt would have been better spent recruiting new union members.

    While I think this is hardly the death knell of organized labor or the Democratic Party, it does point to a growing schism between elements of the blue collar, traditional union Democrats and a liberal leadership that seems to care more about gay marriage and than workers' rights.

    A house divided against itself cannot stand, and as one wise conservative Democrat recently said, a party that loses touch with its base is a A National Party No More.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    July 24, 2005

    Liberals Lied, Londoners Died

    Inflamatory rhetoric kills:

    ON HIS last visit to relatives in Pakistan this year, one of the London bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, boasted of wanting to die in a revenge attack over the way Muslims are treated.

    While his family in Leeds had no idea about his suicide mission, Tanweer confessed to his cousin his ambition to become a “holy warriorâ€. At his father's home village 30 miles from Faisalabad, Mohammad Saleem described yesterday how Tanweer, 22, hero-worshipped Osama bin Laden.

    Mr Saleem supported his cousin's bombing at Aldgate station which killed seven people, saying: “Whatever he has done, if he has done it, then he has done right.†He recalled how Tanweer argued with family and friends about the need for violent retaliation over US abuse of Muslim prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. [emphasis added - Ed.]

    No one died as the result of unethical U.S. military action in Guantanamo Bay. The body count due to unethical media and political actions continues to rise.

    Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom explores the impact of unethical behavior by Democrats, the media, and so-called human rights organizations in "Why Rhetoric Matters."

    Go read it.

    Update: Since Goldstein asked for it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Anti-War Heros

    I'd be willing to be the people responsible for this would agree with this crowd.

    (h/t: Instapundit)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    July 23, 2005

    This Sounds Familiar

    So, the Transportation Safety Administration is illegally compiling passenger profile information?

    This isn't the first time the government has been caught illegally collecting information on certain demographic groups. And certainly not the first time they've abused that information.

    What was that bit about "absolute power" again?


    But hey, we can trust the government...

    Right?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    July 22, 2005

    Sometimes, Even Byrd Is Right

    I came across the following Drudge headline this morning:

    U.S. Senator calls American urban centers "jungles" that are more dangerous than 'the jungles of deepest Africa!'…

    If you take the time to follow the link (which is worthwhile for other reasons than the one Drudge cites), you'll see that the Senator in question is Robert Byrd.

    Urban centers are “jungles?†Robert Byrd, America's longest serving senatorial Klansman* is involved? I'm sure Democrats cringed, and some Republicans clacked with glee—but there isn't anything to the story.

    The article reads:

    Mr. Byrd embraced the same judicial philosophy as the president in his memoir, "Child of the Appalachian Coalfields," released earlier this summer. In the book, he repeatedly blamed "liberal judges" and "activist judges" for many of the nation's problems.

    "One's life is probably in no greater danger in the jungles of deepest Africa than in the jungles of America's large cities," he writes. "In my judgment, much of the problem has been brought about by the mollycoddling of criminals by some of the liberal judges who have been placed on the nation's courts in recent years."

    He's wrong... where?

    "The jungles of deepest Africa" are not a nice place for an outsider. Ebola and Marburg are just some of the small things that can kill you there, but you don't have to worry about being eaten by lions or trampled by elephants, which are part of the circle of life in the plains, not in jungles. Your biggest danger in African jungles, other than your own ignorance, occurs on the microscopic level.

    In the jungles of Africa, as in our urban cities, the greatest predatory threat to man, is man.

    Sometimes, even a blind hog can find the acorn, and sometimes, even the Robert Byrd's of this world can be right.

    * That is a fact, I think. Sorta.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    His Dad was Gay, Too...

    With all the focus on four year-old Jack Roberts being a homosexual Nazi clone, nobody ever thought to ask about dear old dad.

    You gotta love the pants.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:48 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    July 21, 2005

    It never ends: Jack Roberts... Nazi!

    I've got to give it to the Kossacks and DUers of the world. They're determined.

    Unable to prove that a four year-old boy is gay?

    Insinuate instead that he and his sister are reconstituted Nazis!

    Hey, at least this time they're just joking when they compared Jack Roberts to Hitler.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:17 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    July 20, 2005

    Hot Air Along the Border

    Via WaPo:

    The top U.S. border enforcement official said Wednesday that his agency is exploring ways to involve citizen volunteers in creating "something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary" -- a significant shift after a high-profile civilian campaign this spring along the Arizona-Mexico border.

    Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner told The Associated Press that his agency began looking into citizen involvement after noting how eager volunteers were to stop illegal immigration.

    "We value having eyes and ears of citizens, and I think that would be one of the things we are looking at is how you better organize, let's say, a citizen effort," Bonner said.

    He said that could involve training of volunteers organized "in a way that would be something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary."

    My gut reaction is that this is a ploy to placate those that are becoming aware of just how porous and unprotected our borders are. We should not fall for it.

    If Commissioner Bonner's boss Michael Chertoff were serious about stopping illegal immigration and protecting our borders from terrorist infiltration, he would press the President and Congress for funding to hire, train and equip full-time, professional border patrol agents, and he'd actually let them arrest suspected illegals.

    Chertoff and Bush have no apparent interest in protecting our borders.

    I hope all of us live to regret it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    July 19, 2005

    No Enemy Too Small

    Perhaps one of the more pathetic early attempts to attack new Supreme Court nominee John Roberts was this gutless attack against Judge Roberts' family by Daily Kos poster mayan:


    Did You Catch His Wife

    When Roberts thanked his family, he mentioned his son, Jack...Roberts' wife's face fell. It was like a poker tell. I think we should research Jack.

    This was quickly followed by bottomdweller Geotpf:

    He's probably gay

    Of course, this is how ridiculous rumors get started, but extreme conservatives seem to have a lot of homosexual children...

    Judge Roberts has been an official Supreme Court nominee for less than three hours, and progressives are already employing two of their more repugnant tactics:


    1. Attacking a conservative through their family.

    2. Attacking a conservative though sexuality.

    In this instance, they combined the two, much as John Kerry and John Edwards did in making an issue out of Mary Cheney's sexuality in their failed 2004 political campaign.

    The difference here is that Mary Cheney is an adult.

    Jack Roberts is four years old.

    Update: And the moonbat party never ends.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:58 PM | Comments (82) | TrackBack

    It's Official: Bush Nominates John Roberts

    I think Mark Levin might summed up the choice of Roberts before word got out the best:

    "In the short period he has been on the court, John Roberts has shown he does not bring a personal agenda to his work. He follows the Constitution, and he is excellent."

    Roberts says it is an honor to be nominated...has a deep regard for the Constitution...acknowledged his family (nice touch)...seems like a warm, caring guy, for what it is worth on face value.

    And now, the battle begins...

    Update:

    Senator Leahy responds: "no one is entitled to a free pass" ... is disappointed over a non-moderate being nominated, almost choked over the word "fair" when saying he was entitled to a fair hearing.

    Senator Shumer: Attacking his limited record and unknown views, setting up the liberal Inquisition...nominee must prove he is worthy, the Senate doesn't have to prove he is unworthy.

    Perhaps I'm wrong, but since when does a nominee have to prove his worth? I'm not a lawyer, but understand the Senate's role as "advise and consent," not "judge."

    Of course, I could be wrong.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:07 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    SCOTUS Nomination Tonight

    Trying to keep up with the Supreme Court nomination guessing game? We'll find out for sure at 9:00 PM Eastern, until then, it is a guessing game.

    (Fox News is calling it John Roberts, a former Rehnquist Clerk, as of 7:45 PM Eastern)

    Be sure to visit these sites that are sure to have insightful commentary once the nominee is disclosed:

    Confirm Them
    NRO's Bench Memos
    Instapundit
    Michelle Malkin
    Powerline
    Southern Appeal

    Also sure to be fun--and for completely different reasons--the message boards at the Democratic Underground. I'm guessing the nominee will be referred to as:

    And while I didn't predict it, we have a poster looking to move to Canada by post #32. DU tends to combine posts or otherwise randomly change URLs, so these links may not last, but that's how we stand for now. Gotta love the moonbats.

    In any event, the evening promises to be great blog food. Stay tuned.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:54 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    July 18, 2005

    Cooper's Double Super Secret Source

    Matthew Cooper's "double super secret" source revealed!

    From CNN:

    In an e-mail to his boss at Time, Cooper wrote that his talk with Rove had been on "double super-secret background," a phrase that Cooper said Sunday had been intended to be a joke, inspired by the film "Animal House," in which a fraternity is placed on "double secret probation."

    The longer this story goes, the more Nadagate appears to be a another brilliant Rovian plot to discredit the mainstream media.

    Oddly enough, Rove has felt no need to attack the Democratic Party.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    July 17, 2005

    Wright, Wrong, and Rove

    About the only thing I can say with any certainty regarding Plamegate is that any lies told by Republicans on the topic have been met and possibly exceeded by the media and their allies in the Democratic Party.

    No finer demonstration of that fact can be found than former Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright's claim in his Forth Worth Star-Telegram editorial (registration or BugMeNot required) today that Karl Rove "initiated a call to Time magazine" to start an assault against Plame and Wilson.

    It is established that Matthew Cooper of Time called Karl Rove. This is recorded extensively by Editor & Publisher, National Review, CNN and other news organizations.

    But Jim Wright takes the dishonest step of changing the circumstances of the call in an attempt to establish a sinister motive for Rove. Cooper called Rove ostensibly to talk about welfare reform, and then after discussing that subject briefly, Cooper changed the subject to discuss Joe Wilson.

    But that bit of documented history fails to firmly establish Rove as a villain, and so former Speaker Wright turns to fiction, and attempts to present it as fact.

    This is irresponsible of course, but not more so than the Star-Telegram's decision to run a Sunday-edition editorial with such a major fact error in the second paragraph. Jim Wright (who knows something about ethics violations) and the Star-Telegram seem to have made the conscious decision to run an editorial based at least in part upon fabricated evidence.

    The New York Times just ran a major correction for fabricating parts of an editorial. It remains to be seen if the Star-Telegram will have that kind of class.

    Of course, you can ask them that yourself.

    Update: Cooper further discredits Wright with the very first sentence in this article in Time.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    July 16, 2005

    The Blunder Rolls

    Alphecca takes the gun-grabbing Violence Policy Center to task for shoddy policy-driven "research." Five youth gun suicides in an entire state from 2000-2002?

    It's an epidemic!

    Remember: Guns don't kill people, Garth Brooks kills people.

    July 15, 2005

    Rove On the Grassy Knoll!

    From the NY Times:

    Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said.

    Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.

    After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too."

    Why bother with facts when you can run a story based on hearsay? According to this article, all Rove essentially said to Robert Novak was, "Oh, you know about it."

    That is a leak?

    I'm pretty sure Rove heard about the Kennedy Assassination as well. Does that make him a suspect?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:08 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

    July 13, 2005

    What Does the NEA Stand For?

    Not Educating Anyone.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    July 12, 2005

    What is Classified Information?

    Looking at the media feeding frenzy, you'd have to think that George Bush was crazy to stand behind Karl Rove amid allegations in the affair dubbed "Plamegate."

    Liberal bloggers and professional journalists alike are giddy with the thought that Karl Rove may be forced out the White House door. Via to the Hotline's Blogometer, we see that Armando at Daily Kos dug up a 2003 press conference in which Scott McClellan states:

    "If someone in this administration leaked classified information, they will no longer be a part of this administration, because that's not the way this White House operates."

    Armando then goes on to make the claim:

    It can not be disputed now that Karl Rove did indeed "leak classified information."

    But there is a problem Armando, because actually, it can be disputed. As a matter of fact, it might be rather easy to prove that Rove did not leak classified information.

    Valerie Plame was a lot of things--a CIA employee, an Ambassador's wife, a socialite in the pages of Vanity Fair--but she was far from a secret agent who had her cover blown.

    In fact not one source that I've seen has ever been able to conclusively establish that she had a secret identity to blow.

    Valerie Plame was a WMD analyst who drove from her cushy estate in Georgetown through the gates of CIA headquarters at least twice a day, five days a week. "Secret agent?" I think not. Johnny English could have found her.

    Karl Rove may have told a journalist that "Joe Wilson's wife" was an analyst in the CIA, but that was hardly a breach of national security. She wasn't undercover. Period.

    I wondered why Rove so easily let Matt Cooper reveal his identity, and why Bush has made no effort to distance himself from what promises be a political hot potato. I'm starting to wonder if once again Karl Rove has outsmarted his political adversaries. It wouldn't be the first time, and unless there is more to this story than the media has been able to uncover so far, it may not be the last.

    UPDATE: I just caught a bit of Michael Medved on Larry King Live, and he seemed to agree with my contention that Rove may not have done anything wrong. If I'm off on this, at least I'm in good company.

    UPDATE2 :The beginnings of a counterattack?

    July 09, 2005

    Durbin Just Can't Stay Quiet

    Tom Elia at The New Editor catches Durbin stepping in it again.

    Hey, at least he didn't call Mayor Daley a Nazi.

    Yet.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    July 07, 2005

    Enter the Asylum

    I had hoped not to discuss domestic politics today in the wake of today's terrorist attacks in London. Sadly, paranoia and delusional behavior from some corners has poured forth, showing that they are not capable of leadership in times of crisis, nor of basic humanity.

    The sickening "reality-based" community of the Democratic Underground thinks President George W. Bush is behind the attacks:


    ...I'm praying for those hurt and injured just as hard as I prayed here on 9/11/01. They are truly innocent and undeserving of this.

    But I believe Bush and his PNAC pack were involved in 9/11 and I can't help thinking they're in on this as well. [emphasis added -- ed.] Another Pearl Harbor to help the cause.


    Michelle Malkin has far more than you will probably be able to stand of this kind of behavior, as does John Hawkins.

    This is a day to lend support to those were were injured and killed, and rally around their families. This is a day to rally around a nation, a longtime ally, that was attacked out of hate.

    This is not a day for the usual comments from the chronically unserious and unreliable members of the conspiracy brigade. They unmask themselves as sad examples of humanity.

    Again.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    London Attacked

    From various news and wire reports this morning there seems to have been a series of near-simultaneous terrorist attacks on public transportation targets in London, England. While early reports are still coming in, there seems to have been a minimum of seven attacks, all have targeted subways and buses.

    I'll attempt to sort things out as information becomes available, but so far, these seem to be the targets hit so far:


    • Russell Square subway station

    • Aldgate subway station

    • Liverpool Street subway station

    • Edgware Road subway station

    • A double-decker bus near Russell Square

    • Some sort of event on Old Street (not yet specified or confirmed)

    • An incident near the British Museum (not yet specified or confirmed)

    • And incident near Tavistock Place (not yet specified or confirmed)

    I must stress this list may not be accurate, I'm simply cobbling together what I can from various online news agencies. Attacks on a double-decker bus at Russell Square have been confirmed. Attacks on the subway lines (the British call it the “tubeâ€) at Edgware Road and Aldgate seem to be confirmed via pictures from AP.

    MSNBC.com is running a flash headline saying a â€violent Islamic groupâ€â€”can they not even say “terrorist†anymore?—is claiming responsibility.

    Early reports say that at least eight civilians are dead and close to 100 are injured. I'll be following this story throughout the day, and saying a prayer for our oldest allies.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    July 06, 2005

    "You sure got a purty mouth, boy…"

    ( h/t Michelle Malkin)

    Okay, so he isn't pretty by the standards of those of us who reside on this side of the triple barbed-wire fences, but the slightly-built, pouty-lipped Jeremy Hammond will probably be quite popular inside the cell block after lights-out.

    I hope he doesn't bruise easy.

    If convicted for his role in masterminding the break-in and theft of 5,000 credit card numbers from the server of ProtestWarrior.com, Hammond could potentially face up to 30 years in prison according to the FreeJeremy.com web site.

    Interestingly enough, Hammond's supporters seem to wrap their defense around the fact that Hammond was arrested before he was able to commit millions of dollars in credit card fraud. Their claim seems to be that if the cards weren't yet used, then there wasn't a crime. According to their logic, someone could break into their homes and steal their television, but a crime would not actually occur until the thief started actually watching television. I can only hope that Hammond's lawyers are more competent in the basics of criminal law than his supporters.

    FreeJeremy.com has a petition section where you can contribute your thoughts on the case. Please feel free to express your thoughts on what you feel might be an appropriate punishment for someone who would steal your identity and abuse your credit because he doesn't like your politics or respect your freedom to voice your beliefs.

    In addtion, FreeJeremy.com has a support page that I encourage people to visit. It has a Paypal donations button, but considering Jeremy's apparent penchant for personal identity theft, I'd advise skipping it for now.

    But I would suggest a donation of either Soap on a Rope or Preparation H to the address listed for their super secret safe house at:

    1271 Pleasant Avenue Apt #D
    Glendale Heights, IL 60139

    I have a feeling he'll be needing copious amounts of both.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:45 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

    Platoon of Potential Terrorists Penetrate Stateside Airbase

    That could be the title of this WRAL television news report out of Raleigh, as between 50-60 illegal immigrants were arrested at Seymour Johnston Air Force Base in North Carolina. According to the report, the illegals have some sort of connection to Parsons Evergreen, LLC, a company that has contracts at 19 U.S. Air Force bases. Wasn't this the premise behind Red Dawn?

    Someone please get Michael Chertoff on the phone with James Gilchrist, pronto.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Whack-A-Judge

    It hasn't been a week has it?

    Sandra Day O'Connor announced plans to retire from the Supreme Court, and advocates on the right and left are already lining up to bash prospective candidates for the vacancy.

    Ted Kennedy, who's liver also plans to retire this summer, wants President Bush to nominate a candidate he considers “mainstream.†The last time Kennedy found the mainstream was in an upside-down Oldsmobile, and it is fairly safe to assume his idea of middle of the road would be unacceptable to not only Triple A and Republicans, but also the traditional conservative Democrats that dominate middle America.

    On the other end of the spectrum, some conservatives are pushing for an extremely conservative judge, sensing that with dominance in the White House, House of Representatives and Senate, that this might now be the best chance they have of making a significant change to the basic makeup of the court.

    All of this is compounded by the fact that Chief Justice William Rehnquist, suffering from thyroid cancer, may yet retire this summer, opening a dual vacancies on the court for the first time since 1971 when Rehnquist and Lewis Powell were selected to replace Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan.

    I do not follow the courts closely enough to be able to tell you which potential candidates are the “best,†and even those sites that claim to do so are merely speculating. I can however, make the following observations:

    • President Bush's long-standing pledge not to use specific-issue “litmus tests†in selecting a potential justice is a good thing for all Americans, regardless of ideology. Whether a potential justice is for or against a specific case is not nearly as important as how they arrived at their decision. We need reasoned jurists, not ideologues.
    • Bush's desire to appoint strict Constitutionalists means that it will be harder for un-elected judges to legislate from the bench. This will ensure a long-term, even application of the law, not subject to the whims of current events.
    • Advocates on both extremes are going to blow the apparent ideology of any nominee far out of proportion, and spend far too little time based upon their actual suitability as judges. Again, we need reasoned jurists, not ideologues.
    • Democrats—the “Party of Noâ€â€”are almost certain to attempt to filibuster any nominee Bush sends for confirmation.
    • An attempted filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee would likely be the death of the filibuster itself in judicial nominations. The improper use of a filibuster by Democrats would be seen as breaking the deal made earlier this year, resulting in the so-called “nuclear option,†where Republicans can exercise the option of simply voting to do away with the filibuster. Filibustering judicial nominees, it should be noted, was an exceedingly rare practice until racist southern Democrats tried to use them to stop nominees they felt might fight segregation.
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    June 30, 2005

    No Iraq/9-11 Connection? Dems Need to Think Again

    One thing that Democrats apparently cannot stand is when facts get in the way of their ideological narrative:

    "The president's frequent references to the terrorist attacks of September 11 show the weakness of his arguments," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said. "He is willing to exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq."

    I hope Congresswoman Pelosi will be sure to relate that point to the thousands of dead Iraqi men, women, and children and coalition soldiers who have died at the hands of al Qaeda in Iraq. I want to be there when Congresswoman Pelosi tells the families of dead American soldiers that their loss was not in a war against al Qaeda's Islamic terrorists. I want to be there when she explains that the al Qaeda terrorists who killed innocent civilians in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, PA, are not allied with and commanded by the same al Qaeda terrorists currently killing innocent civilians and soldiers alike in Iraq. I want to be there.

    Pelosi is symptomatic of the myopic view of a Democratic leadership that cannot see the larger picture. To them, Osama bin Laden is the be all and end all of the War on Terror.

    "The president's numerous references to September 11 did not provide a way forward in Iraq," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said. "They only served to remind the American people that our most dangerous enemy, namely Osama bin Laden, is still on the loose and al-Qaida remains capable of doing this nation great harm nearly four years after it attacked America."


    Democrats would portray the capture or death of Osama bin Laden as the end to the War on Terror. This is decidedly not the case. Islamic terrorism did not start with Osama bin Laden, nor will it end with his capture or death. He is but one terrorist, in but one terrorist group, one of many terrorist groups fueled by poverty and oppression. Only by changing the cultures that spawn terrorism can terrorism be eliminated. George Bush and Tony Blair understand that, and seek to bring democracy in as a tool to help end poverty and oppression by creating conditions favorable for economic development and the free expression of ideas by peaceful means.

    Democrats would have you believe that with the capture death of Osama bin Laden that the world would return to September 10, 2001. That world, that age of innocence, will never exist again. The Democratic leadership is in engaged in fantasy, not reality.

    Iraq was an elective war, but a necessary war all the same.

    We looked at Saddam Hussein's history of invading neighboring countries not just once, but twice. We looked at the fact that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was not home to just one terrorist group, but four, and that Saddam paid other terrorists bounties to perform suicide bombings against our allies. We looked at the fact of his harboring of the 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin, and terrorist leaders Abu Nidal, and Abu Abbas.

    We looked at the fact that he plotted to assassinate a United States President. We looked at his use of chemical weapons, which he not only used illegally in warfare against Iran, but in the genocide of his own people. We looked at the fact that he never fully accounted for the WMDs he declared in 1991, and that he kept the technology and expertise on hand to create such weapons in mass quantities on short notice again if he so desired. We looked at the fact that for more than a decade he thumbed his nose at sixteen U.N. Security Council resolutions, and that he continuously engaged in low-intensity warfare against the United States and other peace-keeping nations in the "no-fly" zones established after the 1991Gulf War.

    After September 11, we decided that we had had enough. Saddam was not a direct threat to the United States, but he posed a threat as an enemy agent that actively supported Islamofascist terrorism. He allowed terrorist raining camps within his borders, and openly supported terrorism in other countries. He had the expertise and technology to supply al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations with chemical and biological weapons. He would not attack America directly, but was sympathetic to the cause of and capable of arming those who would.

    These are the reasons we went to war with Saddam Hussein.

    That Iraq could become a democracy and thus give 25 million people a say in how their own lives were run was a side benefit, but it was not the reason we invaded Iraq. It has however, become the reason we've stayed.

    There is something inherent in the character of Americans that makes us want to fight for and nurture the freedom of others.

    There is something inherently wrong with a Democratic Party that fought against this fine trait of American character in forcing our withdrawal from Southeast Asia thirty years ago, leading to the deaths of millions and the oppression of tens of millions that still exists to this day.

    It is a wrong only worsened by teh Democratic insistance on seeking to impose this same genocidal mistake on the people of Southwest Asia.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:11 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

    June 27, 2005

    Congressmen: Guantanamo Bay Torture Doesn't Exist

    From News Carolina 14:

    Returning from a one-day visit to the military prison in Cuba where suspected terrorists are being held, U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes said Monday that complaints about abuse at the prison are the work of people determined to "blame America first."

    The Republican congressman from Concord said his Eighth Congressional District constituents would probably be upset if they saw how well the detainees at Guantanamo live.

    "The most astounding thing to me was how nice the prisoners are being treated," Hayes told reporters during a news conference on the campus of Central Piedmont Community College." These folks are getting privileges that a prisoner of war under the terms of the Geneva Convention would not get."

    Via the Winston-Salem Journal:
    U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield believes many of the accusations of abuse of suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay "are, in my estimation, false," he said yesterday after his return from a one-day tour of the prison...

    ..."We did not see any evidence of abuse of detainees whatsoever. I know there have been widespread reports of detainee abuse, but we did not see any abuse nor did we see any evidence of abuse," Butterfield said at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. "Many of the reports you have seen about Guantanamo Bay are, in my estimation, false."

    In case someone was wondering, Butterfield is a Democrat, and a former state supreme court judge.

    There is no torture taking place in our terrorist detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There probably never was. It is too bad that so many people around the world want to think otherwise, and especially those here at home.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Ward Churchill Supports the Troops...

    ...we're just not sure for which army.

    From Pirate Ballerina:

    "For those of you who do, as a matter of principle, oppose war in any form, the idea of supporting a conscientious objector who's already been inducted [and] in his combat service in Iraq might have a certain appeal," he said. "But let me ask you this: Would you render the same support to someone who hadn't conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit?"
    The Left just keeps reminding us how patriotic they really are.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    June 24, 2005

    Duncan Whines

    Duncan Black, better know as Atrios of Eschaton mewls:
    Ken Mehlman Says Liberals Want Our Troops to Die

    So this is the nice quiet RNC chief who is so unlike that nasty Howard Dean:

    Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman, speaking in Puerto Rico, said there was no need to apologize because "what Karl Rove said is true."


    I'm with you, Duncan. I feel your pain...
    Though Mehlman never made that comment, did he, Duncan? You made it up....

    And I can't imagine where some might get the idea some liberals want out troops to die...






    No, I can't imagine where people might get that idea at all...

    Update: Welcome to all those coming in from Instapundit. If this is your first time here, please try the main page and have a look around.


    Update: Leftist Ward Churchill rears he head to suggest the fragging of officers is a more effective way to protest war:

    "For those of you who do, as a matter of principle, oppose war in any form, the idea of supporting a conscientious objector who's already been inducted [and] in his combat service in Iraq might have a certain appeal," he said. "But let me ask you this: Would you render the same support to someone who hadn't conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit?"
    I think we've got the new liberal meme well established.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    Rove Blasts Liberals

    Sorry, no original in-depth commentary on this one, but Instapundit seems to have the spread covered with an excellent selection. Go on over.

    He needs the trafffic.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    June 23, 2005

    Words of Resignation

    On Tuesday, December 10, 2002, Incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott issued a written apology over his December 5 comment that the United States would have avoided “all these problems†if then-segregationist Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948.

    Lott had made the comment on the occasion of Thurmond's 100th birthday celebration.

    In his apology, Lott said:

    "A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past," Lott said. "Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement."
    Ten days later, under pressure from Democrats and Republicans, including Colin Powell and Jeb Bush, Lott resigned.

    Fast forward to June 14, 2005.

    The second-ranked Democrat in the United States Senate, Dick Durbin, compares the actions of American servicemen to the “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings.â€

    Durbin's comments comparing the actions of American soldiers to that of the 20th centuries most genocidal regimes drew immediate fire from Republicans—and a stonewall of silence from Democrats. Two days later on June 16, Durbin revised and extended his comments, insisting he said nothing objectionable.

    Late Friday, Durbin said he was sorry if his comments had caused anyone to “misunderstand my true feelings,†but still refused to offer an apology for his outrageous rhetoric. Democrats—meanwhile, refused to comment, or tried to deflect criticism away from Durbin's slander. Not one national Democrat came out against Durbin's attack on America's military. Not one.

    Only yesterday, one week after Durbin's calculated assault, did Chicago Mayor Richard Daley finally step up to the plate and say Durbin should apologize. Later, Durbin finally gave a week half-apology, stating:

    “Mr. President, I have come to understand that was a very poor choice of words. I tried to make this very clear last Friday that I understood to those analogies to the Nazis, Soviets and others were poorly chosen. I issued a release which I thought made my intentions and my inner-most feeling as clear as I possibly could.â€
    Durbin shed crocodile tears, but he refused to shed his initial comments, offering no retraction, and instead tried to claim he was merely misunderstood with a dismissive “I'm sorry if…†speech.
    • “I sincerely regret if what I said causes anybody to misunderstand my true feelings.â€
    • “I'm sorry if anything that I said caused any offense or pain…â€
    • “I'm also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military.â€
    Weasel words without a retraction. This is the “apology†of an insincere Dick Durbin.

    2 ½ years ago, Trent Lott made a remark at a birthday party about the guest of honor and was driven out of office for his trouble. While his speech was an attempt to pay tribute to one man, it raised the specter of segregation and its racist policies. Lott had to go, and resigned as incoming Senate Majority Leader.

    Now in 2005, in a nation at war, another Senator slanders our military by directly comparing their actions to some of modern history's most murderous regimes. His speech was not an accident or a misguided tribute, but a carefully crafted assault that he vigorously defended and has yet to retract.

    Both Trent Lott and Dick Durbin have admitted to making “a poor choice of words†for obscene comments. It is only fair that they suffer the same fate.

    Like Lott before him, Dick Durbin must go.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    June 22, 2005

    NC ACLU's Rudinger Wins One For Garner Sex Predators

    Garner, NC Board of Aldermen voted 3-2 against an ordinance that would have prohibited registered sex offenders from entering parks owned by the town, saying that the ordinance was too vague and had too many loopholes.

    Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the North Carolina ACLU, apparently reviewed Garner's proposed ordinance under what appears to be a veiled threat of legal action, which the ACLU has announced it is considering against other towns that have adopted comparable ordinances.

    Rudinger said:

    "We certainly understand and support the city's interest in promoting public safety. But these overly broad laws that punish people based only on their status do not serve the goal of making the public safer."
    But here's the kicker—Alderman Buck Kennedy offered Rudinger and the North Carolina American Civil Liberties Union a chance to contribute in drafting an ordinance to protect women and children in public parks from convicted sex offenders—and Rudinger declined to help.

    I can only assume that the North Carolina ACLU viewed an opportunity to help draft a law protective of non-predators as a conflict of interest.

    ***

    In not unrelated news, Ryan Hade who survived being raped, mutilated, stabbed and left for dead in 1989 at the age of seven in a Tacoma, Washington park, died as the result of a motorcycle accident June 9. He was 23.

    Earl Kenneth Shriner, the brutal sexual predator that brutalized Hade, will sadly not be able to take advantage of the sex offender ordinance-free Garner park system, as he is serving a 131-year sentence.

    The 33 registered convicted sexual predators in Garner, and 525 within Wake County don't have that problem.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Downing Street Downer

    Voices on the political left have raised into a howl over what has become known as the Downing Street Memo (DSM), a document that claims to contain minutes of a July 22, 2002 meeting of British government officials in the build-up to the Iraq war.

    Read the original Downing Street Memo,

    A left-wing site dedicated to the DSM is available as well.

    A quick review of the DSM conspiracy site above implies something nefarious is going on, but can't quite nail it down to specifics… but they know Bush did “something†criminal.

    But what does the DSM really tell us?

    Not much. It never could.

    For starters, the document that became known as the Downing Street Memo is not a memo, or even a transcript of a conversation. It was, and has never claimed to be anything other than, meeting minutes.

    Minutes are the paraphrased summary of a meeting. Informational points are presented and summarized, decisions noted, action items are discussed, and status updates for previous action items and decisions are presented for review. Unless transcribed from audio, they are at best the selective, paraphrased recollections of the individual taking notes during the meeting.

    In practice, meeting minutes are the summary of several other summaries, filtered through one set of eyes, in fits and starts. If you have a good scribe taking minutes, he or she hopefully doesn't miss major points of the current conversation while trying to decide how to summarize what was just said. Minutes are only meant to capture high-level thoughts, and are notoriously inaccurate in the details.

    That is the truth of the Downing Street Memo, and one of its many critical failure points.

    Since the release of the original Downing Street Memo, other documents have come forth from the same source, and these documents flatly contradict the assertions some were making in interpreting the DSM. There was no early decision to go to war. There was no intention to set up a false WMD case.

    The 9/11 Commission Report and several congressional probes also investigating these and similar claims also found that they had no merit even before the “discovery†of the DSM.

    Proponents of the DSM as evidence of a smoking gun must also put aside the fact that Saddam was given a chance to comply with United Nations inspectors, and he made the conscious decision not to do so. Are we next going to hear that Saddam Hussein was in on the plan with Bush and Blair from the very beginning?

    The Downing Street Memos, as the original and following documents are now collectively known, are historically interesting as they show insight into the British view of a relationship between two old allies, but that is their only real merit.

    Someone gin up Lucy Rameriz. The Left is going to need more documents.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    International Freedom Center Lies Again

    The International Freedom Center, the left-leaning “blame-America-first†desecration of Ground Zero, has an “IFC Facts and Myths†page rife with misrepresentations misinformation ripe for a thorough fisking.

    Take Back the Memorial offers it. Here's a sample of the outrageous deception currently engaged in by the IFC and countered by Take Back the Memorial.

    From the IFC:

    Myth:
    The IFC is inconsistent with what 9/11 families want to see at the World Trade Center Memorial.

    Fact:
    The Mission Statement for the Memorial, which was crafted in 2003 and was the product of very substantial input from many family members, calls on us, through the Memorial, to “strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance, and intolerance.†That is what the IFC is about. A clear majority of family members on the WTC Memorial Foundation Board support the IFC and this Mission Statement.

    The TBTM Fisking:
    Truth:

    The WTC Memorial mission statement appears in full on the TakeBacktheMemorial home page. IFC cherry-picked from this quote, “May the lives remembered, the deeds recognized, and the spirit reawakened be eternal beacons, which reaffirm respect for life, strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance and intolerance.†See anything in there about “Freedom's Failures?â€.

    Truth:
    Three family members on the WTC Memorial Foundation Board are adamantly opposed to the IFC at the Memorial site. Here are the remaining four:

    • a board member of the LMDC, which voted to bring the IFC onto the Memorial site and to give it $300 million federal dollars
    • a personal family friend of the LMDC chairman; the only family member selected to be a Memorial design juror and who is now a Vice Chair, board member and salaried employee of the IFC
    • a Vice President of Gilbane Building Co, which was awarded a $45 million contract at Ground Zero by the LMDC
    • a former aide to Gov. George Pataki who now works for the LMDC
    Read the whole thing at Take Back the Memorial. If it doesn't get your blood boiling then you don't have a pulse.

    Make sure you sign the petition.

    Contact the IFC and let them know exactly what you think of their project. Tell them Ground Zero is about 9/11, not their transparent political agenda which even IFC President Richard Tofel admits, “will host debates and note points of view with which you–and I–will disagree.â€

    A Ground Zero memorial isn't about debate, it is about honoring the fallen.

    Tell Richard Tofel and the IFC that Ground Zero is no place for politics: theirs, ours, or anyone else's. Fight for those who can no long speak.


    International Freedom Center
    120 Broadway, 31st Floor
    New York, NY 10271

    Fax
    (212) 336-6727

    E-mail
    contact@ifcwtc.org

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    June 21, 2005

    Not Near Enough

    A Teary-eyes Dick Durbin put on an unconvincing dog-and-pony show Tuesday, delivering a careful non-apology that neither retracted his slander of American soldiers, nor admitted fault. Dick Durbin is trying to get away with apologizing for making a bad word choice, not for minimizing the Holocaust and the killing fields.

    As Ace said:

    A genuine apology would disavow the Nazi-Khmer Rouge-Soviet comparisons. A genuine apology would distinguish between those hellish regimes and our own. A genuine apology would actually confess true error, not just in clumsy phraseology (an error of happenstance). A genuine apology would confess that his words were intentionally grandstanding and slanderous, and that these words were deliberately chosen for effect, not blundered into by some sloppy draftsmanship.
    Durbin didn't issue an apology, he offered a blame-shifting feint. Infuriatingly, Durbin sought to hide behind the words of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, were he alive, would likely have throttled Durbin on the spot, while restating:

    "Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."
    Right you are, Mr. President. Right you are.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Miserable Creatures

    Illinois Senator Dick Durbin's outrageous comparison of U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the genocidal tactics of Nazi, Soviet and Cambodian concentration camps has exposed the moral equivalence and cowardice within the Democratic Party, as much for what Democrats didn't say about Durbin's remarks, as for what they did.

    While reaction on the Right was swift in defense of our military against Durbin's seditious charges, all that has emanated from the Left is a deafening silence, or even agreement with Durbin's seditious comments.

    There has been no outcry from any major Democratic Party figure, from Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, would-be 2008 presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton, or anyone else on the political left. Nor has there been any grassroots outrage of rank and file Democrats that increasingly bow to the capricious and shrill whims of the radical MoveOn.org fringe of the party. Durbin has refused to apologize for his comparison, and Democrats have not pressed him for one. Many, it would seem, agree with his off-kilter assessment.

    This leaves us to draw the frightening conclusion that the Democratic leadership really does feel that our military is on par with the Gestapo, Stalin's NKVD, and the Khmer Rouge. If this is the case—and Democratic leaders have given us no reason to think otherwise over this past week—then the Party of the People has devolved into the Party of Treason.

    Durbin's comments—attributed to a faceless FBI agent who is in every way an “anonymous government source†like those that have misled the world on so many aspects of the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility as of late—have been a propaganda victory for the enemy, and an baseless, seditious slander of our troops.

    Not one charge of anything even approaching torture has been substantiated at Guantanamo Bay, not one charge.

    At most, those interrogating the terrorists—excuse me, “illegal enemy combatantsâ€â€”at Guantanamo have on a handful of occasions improperly treated a book, and made living conditions almost as unpleasant for these terrorists as those our elite military units go through voluntarily during training or intra-service competitions. If we run a “gulag,†as Mark Steyn dryly observes:

    ...It's the first gulag in history where the torture victims put on weight. Each prisoner released from Guantanamo receives a new copy of the Koran plus a free pair of blue jeans in his new size: the average detainee puts on 13 pounds during his stay, thanks to the “mustard-baked dill fishâ€, “baked Tandoori chicken breast†and other delicacies.
    No, Democratic hatred of President George W. Bush in particular and Republicans and general have led Democrats to decidedly radical positions that threaten the lives of our military with clearly seditious charges. Democrats cravenly seek a political advantage at the expense of the safety of our men and women in uniform, and that is despicable.

    Dick Durbin joins a growing litany of hysterical Left-wing voices that will say or do anything, stoop to any level, slander any person or group, and yes, even commit acts of treason and sedition against this nation in their naked pursuit of political power. They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. So then does a blind chase for power when it consistently portrays fellow Americans as evil in a twisted bid to gain political influence.

    The bared treason and sedition of the American political left is reprehensible; they're aiding and abetting of the enemy cause unconscionable. Durbin and his allies on the left would elevate the status of terrorists and murderers to that of legitimate soldiers, while tearing down a United States military that has been the last, best hope for human dignity and freedom against the forces of tyranny on this planet for most of the past century. 50 million people have been freed from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in just the last few short years, and yet the Left would undermine it all to undermine a single man, a president that they do not like.

    Dick Durbin and his silent allies in the Democratic leadership would equate us with the most repressive regimes in history. Instead of segregating the actions of a few rouge guards at Abu Ghraib (acts brought to light by our military and prosecuted swiftly in accordance to military law, I might add) he would demonize all soldiers, sailors and airmen of the United States in pursuing his own power-mad agenda.

    Durbin and his ilk consistently downplay the threat of terrorists, and would have America forget the actions taken by terrorists on September 11, 2001. Democrats downplay the very real and continued threat of Islamic terrorism, while insisting that our nation is deeply committed to criminal acts.

    Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and Dick Durbin are among the leaders of a 21st Century Democratic Party that stands with a shrill chorus of attack-America-first radicals that rejected the will of the American people, because on November 2, 2004, America rejected them. In their anger at their rejection, bereft on anything like ideas for the future of this nation, they instead chose to attack it, and care little for the collateral damage they create in the process.

    Far from being supportive of our troops in harm's way, the party that marched under banners proclaiming “we'll support our troops when they kill their officers†would not even consider deaths resulting from their treason as those resulting from “friendly fire.†They've manifestly placed themselves on the side opposite of that of the will evidenced by the American people on November 2nd and opposite that of our men and women in uniform. Liberals have placed themselves against the families of those who perished on September 11th by trying to build a we-deserved-it “memorial†called the International Freedom Center at Ground Zero (NOTE: sign the petition against the IFC).

    American liberals have become increasingly anti-American, to the point that they themselves seem to question their own patriotism, by always fervently claiming that we shouldn't question their patriotism. Perhaps someone should tell the Democratic Party that if they feel compelled to keep bringing it up, it might be for a reason.

    John Stuart Mill, said that:

    "war is an ugly thing. . . . but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war is worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature."
    The Democrats, both by what they've said, and what they haven't, have proven to be the very "miserable creatures" to which Mill referred. Democrats care so little about the safety of American military personnel that they would embolden an insidious enemy in a pathetic attempt to score political points.

    Democrats have crossed the line from being anti-Bush to anti-American. Let's hope they can find their way back.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    A Coward's Way Out

    Some Democrats and a few fair-weather Republicans (Walter “Freedom Fries†Jones, etc) are calling on President Bush and the Pentagon to set a withdrawal date for removing our forces from Iraq, thus fulfilling the Left's goal of losing the Iraqi war to terrorists.

    While I find myself fighting (and occasionally losing) the urge to declare the American Left as al Qaeda allies, the setting of a timetable in Iraq would precisely mean that we concede the war to the insurgency. Too many good men and women, Iraqi and coalition partners, have died to allow this to happen.

    As Stephen Green of Vodkapundit correctly noted:

    …wars are generally won in one of two ways:
    1. By completely eliminating the enemy's ability to resist.
    2. By convincing the enemy that he's beaten.
    For brevity's sake, we'll call these two routes "Means" and "Will." In the first option, the enemy's means of fighting are taken away from him. In the second, it's his will to fight that you take away.
    He went on to say that eliminating the enemy ability to fight “just ain't gonna happen,†and that our other option, by default is to convince the enemy that he is beaten. He states further:

    I'm not certain how you take the Will away from people who take their inspiration from God – but I'm pretty sure that, eventually, killing enough of them in large enough numbers would do the trick. Do we have enough soldiers on the ground to do the job? Do we, as a people, have the political will? Will the Iraqi forces evolve quickly enough to help us in this vital task? Can all this be done without completely alienating the Iraqi people?
    While I generally agree with Mr. Green up to this point, I'd like to think (only history will tell, and it might prove both of us wrong) that his assessment might be a little off in his characterization of the insurgency we face in Iraq. While there is certainly a Jihadi element to the insurgency movement, it is important to recognize that there are two parts to the insurgency mix, and each has radically different goals. We may very well be able to remove the insurgents means to fight, as well as their will.

    The 72 raisin-chasing Jihadists are out to kill infidels, and most are more than willing to take out Iraqi civilians along the way; many even conclude that Shias, Kurds, and even some Sunnis are infidels. Domestic Sunni insurgents, however, are generally more secular in their demands; they had a good life under fellow Sunni Saddam Hussein, and are fighting for their secular lifestyle as much as they are for their religion.

    Iraqi Sunnis are at least as motivated by alms as Allah, and as long as they think their best option is an insurgency, they'll continue to fight. The inclusion and growing support of Sunnis within the Iraqi government will slowly but surely become the low-hanging fruit of disaffected Sunnis, and should the proposed amnesty deal go into effect, we could see many Sunni elements of the insurgency go quiet virtually overnight. We saw this happen with the Shia insurgency of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, and there is little reason to doubt that the same carrot-and-stick appraoch might work for a similar horse.

    When—and if—Iraqi Sunnis decide to try the diplomatic route, it would leave the largely foreign forces of al Qaeda in Iraq in a difficult position.

    al Qaeda has already blown any foreseeable chances it had of turning this into a Muslim vs. European Infidel war when it began purposefully targeting Iraqis. They have, in effect, driven the majority of the population (Shias and Kurds) toward the uncertain future of an Iraqi democracy and away from the murderous certainty of militant Sunni radicalism. If the Iraqi government can co-opt the majority of Sunni insurgents by giving them a role in the political future of Iraq, they may place the remaining Sunni insurgents and their al Qaeda allies in a position where their logistical supply lines are sufficiently compromised as to reduce their ability to fight an insurgency. This is hardly assured, but seems to be within the realm of possibility.

    Suicide bombers don't tend to make return trips, and if Iraqi Sunnis remove themselves from the equation, the mostly foreign fighters of al Qaeda will stand out like a sore thumb, turning them from the hunters into the hunted. Insurgencies only tend to work if they have a significant percentage of the population supporting them. If the Sunnis can content themselves within the political process, the “means†approach might work, at least, “enough.â€

    By “enough,†I'm referring to the tendency of “means†to affect “will,†and vice versa. A physically diminished force often encounters moral problems, and if the Sunnis insurgents largely abandon their al Qaeda allies, the al Qaeda recruiters might find it increasingly difficult to find people willing to join their cause. As Mr. Green correctly noted in the quote above:

    I'm not certain how you take the Will away from people who take their inspiration from God – but I'm pretty sure that, eventually, killing enough of them in large enough numbers would do the trick.

    If the Sunnis can be made to feel that the political solution is their best option, then what constitutes “killing enough†drops significantly.

    Regardless of whether the insurgency dies by “means†or “will,†it is imperative that we stay there to ensure that the death of the insurgency is the end result. We have a moral obligation to finish what we started when we invaded Iraq, and that includes not leaving until the job is done. That job entails us defeating the insurgency and setting up an environment in which Iraqi democracy has a chance to thrive.

    Because of this, setting an arbitrary date that allows the insurgency to go into hibernation until after we've left is precisely the wrong move to take. This would only create a situation where we—or even worse, the United Nations—would have to go back in later to re-fight a war we should have finished in the first place.

    Setting a withdrawal date is exactly the wrong message to send to the insurgency, giving them hope where there should be none. The 25 million people of Iraq deserve better, and it is our responsibility to finish what we started. Anything else is a coward's way out.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:30 AM | Comments (0)

    June 20, 2005

    Take Back the Memorial Rally Today

    If you're in the NY Metro area, make it a point to be there:
    Dear Families, Friends and Supporters:

    For three long years we have played by the rules as set forth by Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. It got us nowhere.

    We want a proper, fitting and respectful September 11th Memorial for the 3,000 innocent souls who perished that day. Not “a history lesson about tolerance.â€

    The planners of the World Trade Center Memorial have been put on notice that we are going over their heads to make our case to the American people. Please join us for a press conference to kick off our national campaign to enlist the American people in a Fight for Ground Zero. Our loved ones deserve no less.

    WHAT: PRESS CONFERENCE & RALLY

    WHEN: 12:00 Noon, Monday, June 20, 2005 (Please arrive at 11:45 am)

    WHERE: Ground Zero at the Corner of Church & Liberty (rain or shine)

    REMEMBRANCE: Please wear black or yellow to symbolize unity, or wear clothing that symbolizes your loved one's affiliation and bring a picture of your lost loved one to hold over your heart.

    If you can't make it, be sure to email Governor Pataki, your Congressman, and your Senator.

    Don't let the psychotic hatred of liberals for all things American screw over these people.

    Ground Zero is about honoring those we lost. Fight the IFC.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)

    Durbin-Inspired Clothing

    Thanks, Dick.

    This one's for you.

    Update: I forgot the picture of the spokesman:



    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

    June 18, 2005

    Thank You, and Pass the Rope

    Over these past few days, I've worked up quite a bit of anger over the comments of Illinois senior senator Dick Durbin's comparison of American soldiers to the Nazis, Stalinists, and Khmer Rouge. Now that I've had a chance to cool down a bit, I think that instead of castigating Durbin, we thank Durbin, Hillary, and Dean for offering us a wonderful set of tools to use over the next few elections.

    I am by no means saying that we should silently accept or ignore their comments; it is imperative that we respond proportionally and factually to each, providing a crisp, clinical dissection of their fevered rhetoric de jour as it occurs, but beyond that, we should be very judicious in our outrage.

    While outrage is the natural response to the asinine comments that make up the bulk of Democratic discourse these days, it should be noted that these Democrats are in their own way doing exactly what President Lincoln suggested:

    "Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."
    Republicans resign over morally bankrupt behavior. Democrats campaign on it.

    We simply need to allow them the rope, they are quite capable of tying the noose around their own necks. As I've mentioned in the past, you've got to love a party whose platform includes a trapdoor with a quick-release.

    We can temper our comments to generate appropriate levels of outrage, enough to let the voting public know that these remarks are beyond the pale of acceptable behavior, but we must be careful not to overplay our hand. As the last several national elections have shown, the American people are dissatisfied with the Democratic Party, and we merely need to stay out of their way.

    The voters will do the rest.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)

    Guantanamo Bay, Illinois

    "the whites of his eyes were nearly obscured by the red from blood vessels that had ruptured during the beating, and deep lacerations were held together by staples that had been applied to his scalp."

    Is this more testimony from Democrat Dick Durbin about the Nazi, Khmer Rouge, and Stalinist tendencies of our soldiers at our terrorist POW camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?

    And while you ponder on that, remember that:

    Ignorance of history destroys our judgment. Consider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), who just compared the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Stalin's gulag and to the death camps of Hitler and Pol Pot" an astonishing, obscene piece of ignorance. Between 15 million and 30 million people died from 1918 through 1956 in the prisons and labor camps of the Soviet gulag. Historian Robert Conquest gives some facts. A prisoner at the Kholodnaya Gora prison had to stuff his ears with bread before sleeping on account of the shrieks of women being interrogated. At the Kolyma in Siberia, inmates labored through 12-hour days in cheap canvas shoes, on almost no food, in temperatures that could go to minus-58. At one camp, 1,300 of 3,000 inmates died in one year.

    ...While not one single prisoner has died at the hands of soldiers in Guantanamo Bay.

    So where was this outrageous example of abuse, if not Gitmo? It must have been Abu Ghraib, right?

    No.

    For real, systematic human rights abuses, the repeated brutal beatings of prisoners by gangs of sadistic guards, the rape of inmates by their captors, and even dragging of inmates through fire, we must descend into the very bowels of Hell:

    Democratic Sheriff Michael F. Sheehan's Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois.


    Real torture, real abuse, on Dick Durbin's home turf.

    Read more of the damning Nazi-like abuse of prisoners (and subsequent cover-up) by the corrupt Democratic Cook County political machine at John in Carolina.

    (H/T Michelle Malkin)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)

    June 17, 2005

    Durbin's Comments Waking the Dead

    Illinois Senator Dick Durbin's recent comments equating the actions of U.S. soldiers with those of the Nazis, the Soviet gulag forced labor camp system and Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge may have backfired, as fully two-thirds of those deceased veterans who voted for him in 2002 have changed their voter registration to Republican.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:40 PM | Comments (0)

    June 16, 2005

    Dick Equates U.S. Military with Nazis, Pol Pot

    Our terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay has remained in the news for months over mostly-unsubstantiated allegations of human rights abuses in a military prison built for enemy combatants in the War on Terror. Allegations include incidents of prisoner “abuse†during interrogations that sound more like fraternity hazing or a bachelor party depending on the specific charge, and the mistreatment of a book.

    Instead of working up a proposal to save Social Security, or coming up with a version of an energy bill they'll support, or developing some sort medical-liability reform to save doctors from the malpractice lawyer lobby, or extending tax relief, Democrats have instead focused like a laser on a wind-borne drop of whiz that may have touched a book before an inmate flushed it down the toilet.

    When I read it in WSJ Opinion Journal's June 16 Best of the Web, I was dismayed—but not surprised—to see that Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat (big shocker, I know), had joined the hysterical Amnesty International-led chorus.

    Durbin topped Amnesty International shrill “gulag†rhetoric by comparing the actions of America's all-volunteer professional military to that of the Nazis and Pol Pot, forcefully implying that the American military has no concern for human decency, and was perhaps genocidal.

    Durbin's bile can be viewed in the Congressional Record courtesy of the SF gate (PDF).

    Durbin referenced a report from one FBI agent who had visited Guantanamo Bay:

    On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold.

    On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

    Detainees—terrorists—were shackled to the floor? Without a chair, a snack, a bottle of Evian? The rooms weren't kept precisely at a comfortable 72 degrees?

    Temperatures throughout the Middle East routinely reaching 110 degrees during the day. At the moment I'm writing this it is 111 degrees in Mecca at 4:00 PM local time, a temperature it is expected to reach every day for the rest of June.

    Forgive me if I am unimpressed if al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists are subjected to temperatures a little cooler—or a lot cooler—than those they would experience if they were left free to plot murder in the name of the Religion of Peace.

    It might also come as a surprise to Senator Durbin that quite a few Americans listen to “extremely loud rap music†around the clock. Those of us who live in apartment complexes call them “neighbors.†Providing Abdullah with some thumping bass and crude lyrics might be an uncomfortable slice of Americana, but it isn't torture, or anything remotely approaching it.

    Interrogation of terrorists who would like nothing more than to kill every man, woman, and child in the world (even you, dhimmi Durbin) who isn't enamored with Islam isn't pretty, nor should it be.

    But making terrorists physically or psychologically uncomfortable is a far cry from the killing fields of Pol Pot where people were summarily executed for the most arcane of reasons. Nor is it similar to the Nazi concentration camps that gassed or starved people to death because they weren't “pure,†and conducted the random torture in the name of “medical experiments.â€

    All of these regimes, whether Stalin's Hitler's or Pol Pot's, Were murderous and totalitarian. Americans are neither of these things.

    Perennially indignant shriekers on the political left have long maintained that making the terrorists interred at Guantanamo Bay anything less than completely comfortable during interrogation is “torture,†even though not one single charge of anything approaching torture has ever been substantiated. Leftists also continually whine about treating the terrorists according to the standards of the Geneva Conventions, despite the fact that illegal combatants such as the terrorists interred at Gitmo are specifically exempted from the convention and they fact that the terrorists were never signatories.

    All of the coverage on the left about Guantanamo is designed with one purpose in mind; to attack President Bush by carelessly and maliciously slandering the U.S. Military for feeding, housing, and educating terrorists to standards far higher than they ever would have obtained in their own countries while running around free murdering women and children.

    Dhimmi Durbin doesn't see it that way. He prattles on:

    It is not too late. I hope we will learn from history. I hope we will change course. The President could declare that the United States will apply the Geneva Conventions to the war on terrorism. He could declare, as he should, that the United States will not, under any circumstance, subject any detainee to torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The administration could give all detainees a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention before a neutral decisionmaker.

    Such a change of course would dramatically improve our image and it would make us safer.

    We have learned from history, Mr. Durbin.

    We learned that standing ideally by allowed Islamic terrorism to flourish under the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton. We learned that standing ideal or dropping a few bombs on camels and aspirin factories every few years does nothing to restrain those who would see our nation turned to ash. It emboldened them.

    You confuse image with substance Senator Durbin, and our reward for this fatal miscalculation has been ten thousand casualties on attacks against American targets dating back three decades, with September 11th, 2001 the direct and devastating result of people like you who were and are unwilling to take the escalating threat of Islamic terrorism seriously.

    Instead, you worry about terrorists suffering “degrading treatment†as if the issue of their self-esteem is even a worthwhile subject for serious discussion.

    Your speech is an attempt to score political points, but instead puts the lives of every American at risk as you pander to the extreme left of the Democratic Party.

    These are serious times, Senator Durbin. It is too bad you are such an unserious man worried more about trying to score cheap political points and get your name in the papers.

    What a Durbin.

    Update(s): Durbin won't back down, as reported by his favorite news network. Good. The only thing better than an idiot liberal is a vocal idiot liberal. I'll go ahead and pencil in that Senate seat as an "R" after '08.


    The White House responds. I guess we can sew up the military vote for the next few election cycles.

    Another Dick (actually his name is Markos, but it's close enough) has now said that torture conditions under US troops as as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein.

    The Jawa Report is all over this, showing dim-bulbs like Kos what Saddam's turture was really like. (WARNING: graphic images).

    I've always know that the relativism embraced by the left was morally bankrupt. Outbursts of incredible stupidity such as these just go to prove it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)

    Kofi Break

    An email from a one-time Cotecna officer seems to reference communications between United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the company that employed his son. Can you say, “rampant corruption†buys and girls?

    I knew you could.

    Cotecna, who employed the Secretary-General's son Kojo Annan, was awarded a lucrative contract by the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program.

    The 1998 email from Cotecna vice president Michael Wilson was addressed to the company's top three officers, chairman Ellie Massey, managing director and CEO Robert Massey, and senior vice president Andre Prinaix.

    "We had brief discussions with the SG and his entourage," wrote Michael Wilson on December 4, 1998, in an apparent reference to the secretary-general.

    "We could count on their support."

    Cotecna insists that it doubts such a meeting took place and that they would have strongly disproved of such a meeting. This seems to contradict a previous statement by the Secretary-General that Wilson was the person that he “really knew at the company.â€

    Cotecna's chairman Elie Massey twice met with the Secretary-General prior to Cotectna being awarded a $10 million-a-year contract by the United Nations, but insists that they talked of subjects other than the companies oil-for-food bid.

    I would like to give Secretary-General Annan the benefit of the doubt that he was not involved in a scandal that may well prove to be the largest example of organized crime in human history, but is becoming increasingly difficult to do so.

    It is a known fact that the Secretary-General twice met with the chairman of Cotecna, a company that his son worked for who was bidding on United Nations contracts. This is highly suspect behavior. Denials by Annan and Massey of impropriety are to be taken with the understanding that they may very well be concealing information that could lead them to be charged in a criminal court of law.

    This email was written in 1998 when oil-for-food was still active, and despite Cotecna's down-playing of the incident, indicates collusion between Annan and senior officers in the company that employed his son. Wilson's email, while no smoking gun, points to a pattern of unethical if not illegal behavior by both Cotecna's officers and the Secretary-General.

    It remains to be seen if Kofi Annan's actions and inactions in the oil-for-food scandal are illegal, but the information unearthed so far clearly establishes that his is incompetent and probably unethical.

    Annan should resign, but I won't hold my breath. He stood by and watched 800,000 die in Rwanda without lifting a finger to help.

    He is clearly a politician untainted by ethics.

    Update: A second email from the same executive expressed confidence that Cotecna would get the bid because of “effective but quiet lobbying.â€

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:45 AM | Comments (0)

    June 15, 2005

    Words, Words, Words

    Via ABC News:
    To the victims of lynching 4,743 people killed between 1882 and 1968, three out of four of them black, the Senate issued an apology Monday night for not standing against the violence.

    "The apology, while late, is very necessary," Doria Dee Johnson, an expert on the subject of lynching and the great-great-granddaughter of a victim. "People suffered. When the United States government could have done something about it, it did not."

    Two words come to mind. “Bull†is one. You can guess the other.

    The same article later continues:

    Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the Senate's only black member, said, "I do hope that this chamber also spends some time … doing something concrete and tangible to heal the long shadow of slavery and the legacy of discrimination so that 100 years from now we can look back and be proud and not have to apologize once again."
    Let me respond to Senator Obama (Or as Uncle Teddy likes to call him, “Osama bin Obamaâ€) by saying that the chamber did do “something concrete and tangible to heal the long shadow of slavery.†In fact, it did quite a few things:
    • The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and was ratified on December 6, 1865.
    • The 14th Amendment gave automatic citizenship to all former slaves, and was ratified July 9, 1868.
    • The 15th Amendment ratified February 3, 1870, ensured that a person's race, color, or prior history as a slave could not be used to bar that person from voting.
    • The 24th Amendment eliminated the poll tax, was ratified on January 23, 1964, eliminating one of the last legal vestiges of segregation.
    These constitutional amendments are of course in addition hundreds of civil rights bills, appropriations bills, federal programs, and resolutions that have been passed to help minority communities over the years.

    It might be of some historical note to Senator Obama that all four of these constitutional Amendments were necessary to counter the tendency of southern Democrats and their Ku Klux Klan confederates to try to marginalize blacks—often violently—something that still continues today.

    The ABC News article continues in the very next paragraph:

    Simeon Wright said, "Good men did nothing" as his cousin, Emmett Till, was dragged from his uncle's Mississippi home and murdered, reportedly for whistling at a white woman. Wright, who was there the night Till was abducted in 1955, said that if there had been a federal anti-lynching law, "there was no way men would have come into my house and taken him out and killed him."
    Mr. Wright, do you care to run that by me once again?

    The abduction and murder of your cousin Emmitt Till is shocking and tragic, just like the abduction and murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, the three young men murdered by Klansmen in the summer of 1964 for helping blacks in Mississippi register to vote. Both of these cases were lynching, and a federal lynching law wouldn't have averted either one of these cases, nor the 579 other lynchings that happened in Mississippi between 1882 and 1968.

    Not a single one.

    While the rhetorical flourishes are nice, the Senate apology means nothing. It is political grandstanding, three decades too late. The legislation the Senate filibustered would have meant nothing to the ignorant racist thugs that carried out these attacks and the thousands more just like them.

    Nothing.

    Both of these assaults, and probably the vast majority of other lynchings, were planned with malice aforethought. A civil rights law not would dissuade single-minded, bigoted predators already willing to commit premeditated murder and kidnapping.

    A senate confirmation of anti-lynching legislation, whether passed 105 years ago or in 1963, would have changed nothing. Mr. Wright's words are wistful and full of emotion, but they have no bearing on reality.

    This Senate apology is a resolution of words, not substance. At least one other person seems to feel the same way.

    "If you hit someone with your car, but you apologize, he's still hurt. It's (the apology) a good idea, but it's too late."
    His name is James Cameron, and he should know. Now 91, he is the only known survivor of a lynching.

    The practice of lynching came from intolerance and hatred, two things of which the Senate and politics in general are never in short supply. While Robert Byrd's favorite tool of the filibuster stalled federal legislation about lynchings, it was only changes in the greater society itself that led to the near disappearance of lynchings in American life.

    The American people have long since passed the time of race-motivated public lynchings.

    It is time the Senate does the same.


    Note: Via Instapundit, David Hardy weighs in (correctly) that is the Supreme Court, not the Senate, that should be issuing an apology.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

    June 14, 2005

    Keep Up The Pressure On The IFC

    From Men's News Daily:
    Future visitors to the 9/11 memorial that's planned for the rebuilt World Trade Center site won't learn what we learned that day. They won't learn about terrorists murdering defenseless civilians in the name of their vicious version of Islam. They won't learn about the horror, the grief or the pain we all felt, or how we came together as a united nation... at least, until we began to fight back. They won't learn how ordinary Americans rose to the stature of heroes, or the reasons for our determination to root out terrorism wherever it is found. They won't learn what we learned at all; they won't feel what we felt. That's not politically correct, you see. Instead of a memorial honoring the dead, both the innocent victims and the brave men and women who died trying to save them, visitors will "learn" that America "deserved" what we got.
    My dislike of liberal ideology is evident, pervasive, and capitalistic. I find them spineless, opportunistic, and morally bankrupt.

    So it was with very little surprise that I found that the party of bloated stupidity, self-righteous hypocrisy, and gluttonous indulgence, was virtually foaming at the mouth (and out of George Soros' pockets) to blame the victims of September 11, 2001 for their own deaths.

    We cannot let this stand; must not less this be ignored.

    Please, go to Take Back the Memorial and use the contact information there to make your voice heard.


    Your voice matters.

    Do not let the memories of these people become victims of the Left's cowardly, craven attempt to turn a tragedy into grist for their attempts at ideological indoctrination.

    Ground Zero should be politics free. It should be a place of reflection, reverence, and rememberance.


    via Globe & Mail.

    Don't let liberals play political games slandering the memories of the dead.

    Take Back the Memorial. Not for me. Not for you.


    Do it for them, and those they left behind.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)

    June 13, 2005

    Open Borders, Open Graves

    Now if only Bush will follow suit...

    I've always been a conservative first and a Republican second, and I am increasingly becoming disgusted at the Bush Administration's unwillingess to confront immigration issues, especially our all-too-porous borders.

    I'm pro-immigration, and I favor allowing more legal immigration with certain constraints (work visas, not permanent citizenship, and that includes the children of work visa immigrants born here) for guest workers from Central and South American countries.

    But by refusing to address border control issues, President Bush has severely compromised Homeland Security efforts. If we have another catestrophic terrorist attack on United States soil because the federal government refuses to do their jobs, the blood of the men, women, and children who die and are maimed will be the responsibility of the White House.

    Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate are pandering to the growing Hispanic lobbies as well, but the ultimate responsibility stops at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. President Bush, your primary duty is to the safety of this country's citizens.

    It's time to step up to the plate.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:36 PM | Comments (0)

    A Man Without Decency

    According to Drudge, Edward Klein's new book The Truth About Hillary makes the claim via an anonymous source that former President Bill Clinton made the incredible claim, "I'm going back to my cottage to rape my wife,†while on a Bermuda vacation in 1979.

    The anonymous source then claimed that the Clinton's room, "looked like World War III. There are pillows and busted-up furniture all over the place," implying that a very violent rape did indeed occur. The same source also claimed Bill Clinton only found out about Hillary's resulting pregnancy by reading about it in the Arkansas Gazette, and that President Clinton was completely unfazed that he found out about the pregnancy in the newspaper instead of from his wife, instead boasting:

    'Do you know what night that happened?"

    "'No,' I say. 'When?"

    "'It was Bermuda,' he says, 'And you were there!'"

    I have some hope that these allegations Drudge attributes to Klein's book are untrue, but if Klein does in fact make these incendiary charges in his book, then Klein has stooped to a low I've not yet seen in covering the lives of political figures.

    Klein's unnamed source is most likely lying, and even on the off chance that the story turned out to be true, it still does not bear repeating. Just when you thought the caliber of person the NY Times would hire has hit rock bottom, the former NY Times Magazine and former Newsweek foreign editor Klein tunnels feverishly toward the earth's molten core.

    This is triple character assassination, pure and simple.

    Neither Bill nor Hillary Clinton nor their daughter Chelsea should be smeared in such an irresponsible manner. Bill Clinton has a history as a womanizer dating back decades, and Hillary has been criticized for sticking around for it, but neither deserves this unprecedented, unprincipled assault upon their characters. Most assuredly, this scurrilous attack most deeply affects the very being of Chelsea Clinton, and this unnerving and unwarranted assault against her is completely unforgivable.

    I can only hope that one day Edward Klein will discover that “fist†can be a verb—and Hillary will write a book about it. As that is highly unlikely, Klein deserves to be sued—hopefully into bankruptcy—should the story prove to be without merit. Even if the story does turn out to be true, it still did not warrant publication.

    Some things you simply don't do out of a basic respect for innocent people. Apparently all those years working for the liberal Times and Newsweek stripped away any vestiges of decency Klein may have once had.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)

    Difference between Interrogation and Torture

    It is interrogation when you use Christina Aguilera music to keep prisoners awake.

    It is torture if you use this guy.

    Listening to pop music, being made to stand a long time, forced removal of clothing and facial hair, hanging pictures of scantily clad-women around their necks--were these log books gathered from Guantanamo Bay, or just a random fraternity house?



    "Torture" at Arizona State University, 1937

    I'm sorry, while this stuff it is uncomfortable, and maybe even humiliating, it isn't torture.

    It isn't even close.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)

    Overplaying The Downing Street Memo

    [06-26-05 Update: Welcome Times Herald-Record readers! By now you've likely read Beth Quinn's hysterical editorial on the Downing Street Memo. This is one of two articles I've written on the Downing Street Memo. Read the second article, "Downing Street Downer" to understand why Beth's "proof" has absolutely no merit.]

    “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war,†goes the old canard from the (relatively few) half-baked half-wits that half-finished college when I was at East Carolina in the early-to-mid 1990s.

    Like other clueless ideologues from the Berkshires to Berkley, they sincerely if only half-lucidly believed that capitulating to tyrants would somehow make the world a better place.

    These people naively held, and indeed many still do hold, the sincere, bong-induced belief that happy thoughts will solve the words ills, that it is all just a matter of coming to a mutual understanding. Much of this crowd would like us to cut our military down to bare minimum levels—just enough to stop the enemy before they make it to Beverly Hills or the Hamptons. This is the “bake sales for bombers†crowd.

    These people are fools.

    "In peace prepare for war, in war prepare for peace. The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence under no circumstances can it be neglected." –Sun Tzu, circa 500 BC
    Despite this, the Internet, especially center-left blogs, have been in an orgasmic frenzy over what is being called the “Downing Street Memo.†The memo purports to be the secret minutes of a meeting of a handful of high-level British government officials that took place July 23, 2002, eight months prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

    I'd avoided talking about it until this point for several reasons.

    Some on the right would point to the fact that there is not a single credible source confirming this memo's authenticity, and that it could have been fictitiously written just like the fake documents dredged up by CBS News. Only “anonymous government sources†have confirmed this document. Pardon me, Michael Isikoff, if I take“anonymous government sources†with a grain or two of salt.

    But even if the Downing Street Memo is fake, I certainly hope it accurately reflects what was going on behind the scenes.

    According to the memo, recent talks in Washington noted:

    “…a perceptible shift in attitude. War was now seen as inevitable.â€
    A perceptible shift in attitude? I should certainly hope so.

    Just ten months after September 11 Americans were still raw with the realization that far away terrorist regimes could indeed strike the United States. Those who kept abreast of the subject knew that Iraq played a role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by being a refuge for the bomb-builder, and Iraq had put into motions plans to assassinate President George H.W. Bush in Kuwait.

    Despite continued diplomatic pressure in the form of international sanctions, two regional wars, and a violently crushed rebellion, Saddam was still firmly in power. With little hope of a coup arising, and Saddam a continued threat to U.S. interests in the region, war was indeed inevitable at some point. The only question was, “when?â€

    After September 11 and the still unsolved anthrax attacks, taking out a rouge nation with a previous and flaunted history of using WMDs against both its own people and foreign nations became not just a matter of “when,†but “how soon?†in many people's estimations.

    Another failure point of the memo, as pointed out by liberal Michael Kinsey, is that the memo is hardly a smoking gun impeachment document liberals have been slobbering for. Liberals harp on the claim that Bush was lying over his position about the war. But the Memo doesn't come close to supporting that assertion:

    But even on its face, the memo is not proof that Bush had decided on war. It says that war is "now seen as inevitable" by "Washington." That is, people other than Bush had concluded, based on observation, that he was determined to go to war. There is no claim of even fourth-hand knowledge that he had actually declared this intention. Even if "Washington" meant actual administration decision makers, rather than the usual freelance chatterboxes, C is saying only that these people believe that war is how events will play out.
    Once again, liberal hysteria is borne out only in their “reality-based†fantasy world, not in actual reality. It is quite possible, that Bush, in preparing for war, was hoping for peace, following Sun Tsu's time-honored advice. The memo simply does not address the assertion of a pre-determined war made by the left.

    So the far left shrieks"cover-up!" and the rest of the world yawns.

    One would be tempted to think that there is no outrage because there's nothing to hide.

    Note: Also read "Downing Street Downer" to understand why the Downing Street Memo isn't the "smoking gun" liberals hope it would be.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)

    June 11, 2005

    More Dishonor From the IFC

    Yet another reason we cannot allow the Americans Deserve to Die Center to be built at Ground Zero.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)

    June 10, 2005

    Shortell's Case Not About Academic Freedom

    From the NY Sun:
    A Brooklyn College professor who described religious people as "moral retards" said he is dropping his bid to become chairman of the department of sociology after the college's president expressed outrage over his views.

    Timothy Shortell, an associate professor in the sociology department at the CUNY senior college, sent a bitter e-mail on Monday to several departmental heads saying he had decided to step down as chairman-elect and claiming he was a victim of a political attack.

    …In his e-mail, Mr. Shortell expressed anger at the treatment he received from some members of his department and at what he called the administration's "inadequate" defense of his academic freedom.

    "After witnessing the amount of venom directed at me by some members of the department during the last two weeks," he wrote, "I have come to doubt the possibility of any amicable solution."

    As my father has been known to say, “You made that bed, now lie in it.â€

    Mr. Shortell engaged in a brutal, fact-challenged rant with little intellectual merit that vilified people of faith as uneducated fanatics and escapist liars that were incapable of moral action and prone to reveling in bigotry and violence. Interestingly enough, his essay was a perfect example of the kind of narrow-minded hatred and intolerance he ascribed to others.

    Sadly, Professor Shortell seems to know as little about the limits of academic freedom as he does about the merits of religion.

    The gold stand of academic freedom, the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, states:

    A. Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties; but research for pecuniary return should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution.

    B. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.
    Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.

    C. College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.

    Let's look at these three principles as they apply to Professor Shortell's current situation.
    A. Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties; but research for pecuniary return should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution.
    Professor Shortell's essay was not the research and publication of academic findings, but a polemic. This principle clearly does not apply, as this essay was in no way an academic work.
    B. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject. Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.
    Shortell's rant did not occur in a classroom setting, and was clearly a controversial essay targeting religion. Furthermore, depending upon the stated aims of CUNY Brooklyn College, Shortell quite possibly could have faced dismissal if he had introduced his essay in a classroom setting. This second principle of academic freedom emphatically does not apply to this case.
    C. College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.
    Shortell would be within bounds in writing an essay or even an academic work condemning religion if he followed these guidelines, but the essay he created was neither accurate, nor exercising appropriate restraint, nor showing respect for the opinions of others. It flies explicitly in the face of the kind of work that would be protected by academic freedom.

    Shortell can whine about the “inadequate†defense of his academic freedom all he wants, but academic freedom does not apply to his version of a sociological Mein Kampf. Academic freedom cannot shield people from their own stupidity, an lesson Mr. Shortell is now learning.

    Furthermore, from a legal perspective, academic freedom in not a guaranteed right, but merely a quasi-legal concept. It is not precisely defined nor well-justified by legal principles. In short, it is merely empty rhetoric.

    Much like the vile anti-religious holdings-forth of one Timothy Shortell.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:32 AM | Comments (0)

    June 09, 2005

    Former ACLU Lawyer Reveals Their Hidden Agenda

    "...The ACLU played a helpful role in the civil rights movement defending these people, and I can't turn my back on that. I have to give credit where credit is due."

    "But....that being said, what they have done in the past is completely eviscerated by what they do in the present. The ACLU has become a fanatical anti-faith Taliban of American religious secularism."

    Who said that? Mr. Reese Lloyd, former ACLU lawyer.

    Read the rest of this fascinating and disturbing portrait of what the ACLU really hopes to accomplish at Stop The ACLU.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:43 PM | Comments (0)

    Take Back The Memorial

    I look at the pictures again in my mind, and I cannot find the words, not matter how long and hard I try. A walk outside is meant to help me clear my head, and the sticky Carolina June night embraces me like a steambath. Fireflies and stars fill an ink-dark sky. I am not accustomed to this. My fingers shake with a chill that comes from inside, and a cold fire smolders within.

    The images will not stop.

    Freeze-frames of bodies cartwheeling down from upon high--what were they thinking in those last terrifying seconds, when they made that terrible choice between burning and hurtling themselves into space? They knew. They knew their lives were over, that they had been robbed of all their tomorrows, of everything they could have been, or have ever wanted to be.

    They would never hold their children again, delighting in the wonder in their faces Christmas morning. They would never grow old and gray beside the one they loved; they would never delight in watching their grandchildren be born, crawl, laugh, and learn to run.

    I close my eyes and put my head in my hands, and see the second plane barrel in, full of disbelief once more, and I shudder as the towers buckle and fall again in my mind. Tears well up and I choke back a sob. It is a side I show to no one, full of anger at my own impotence, and a shame I can neither understand nor explain.

    And the anger grows, and I seek to channel it, hoping I can convey the wrongness of it all to those who would defile the hallowed ground where so many perished that bright blue September morning.

    I hear the call.

    Burlingame. Myers. Willis. Jarvis. Johnson.

    I cannot believe some Americans are so shallow and so spiteful that they would slander the dead on hallowed ground. I cannot find the words to express my shock, anger and dismay.

    Perhaps you can.

    I rarely ask anything of my readers, but this is one of those times. Go to Take Back the Memorial and take advantage of the contact information provided there to let those who would murder the memory of the 9/11 dead that you will not stand for this treason to their memories. Please write. Please call. Be polite, be firm, make your will known.

    Please, don't let another tragedy happen at Ground Zero.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)

    June 08, 2005

    Putting Kerry's Form 180 to Bed

    According to the Boston Globe, John Kerry has finally authorized his military records to be released via a form 180:
    On May 20, Kerry signed a document called Standard Form 180, authorizing the Navy to send an ''undeleted" copy of his ''complete military service record and medical record" to the Globe. Asked why he delayed signing the form for so long, Kerry said in a written response: ''The call for me to sign a 180 form came from the same partisan operatives who were lying about my record on a daily basis on the Web and in the right-wing media. Even though the media was discrediting them, they continued to lie. I felt strongly that we shouldn't kowtow to them and their attempts to drag their lies out."
    Ignoring Kerry's rhetoric (as most Americans did in 2004), the important sentence in this story to me is not what was found by Globe reporter Michael Kranish (not much), but the interesting use of ellipses in the first sentence of the preceding paragraph:
    On May 20, Kerry signed a document called Standard Form 180, authorizing the Navy to send an ''undeleted" copy of his ''complete military service record and medical record" to the Globe.
    Why did Kranish feel a need to put "undeleted" and "complete military service record and medical record" in apostrophes? Was he unsure that he was getting a full and complete collection of documents as promised?

    Kranish is sure to know that on the standard form 180 currently in use (h/t Blogs For Bush), Kerry would have had the option to release "undeleted" sections of his record for specific years or ranges of years, perhaps excluding years that may have contained information that may have raised troubling questions about Kerry's military service. At no point in the Globe article does Kranish mention specific dates of service (other than the December 2, 1968 Purple Heart incident) covered in the released documents, nor a date range, so this is impossible to verify.

    To help clear this up, it would be very interesting to know if Globe reporter Kranish or any other staffer actually saw the form 180 submitted by Senator Kerry.

    It would also be helpful if Kranish, who has been a bit too chummy with Kerry in the past for some people's comfort, would make a simple declaration that he did not find or withhold any information about Kerry's military record not already released to the public by the press.

    Toward that end, I sent a simple email to the Globe ombudsman (ombud@globe.com) asking him to please pass along the following two questions to Mr. Kranish:

    1. Did you (Mr. Kranish) or any other member of the Boston Globe see John Kerry's Form 180 before it was submitted to verify that he asked for a full and UNDELETED Report of Separation for his ENTIRE service record?

    2. Did you (Mr. Kranish) or any other member of the Boston Globe
    discover and/or withhold any new information from Senator Kerry's
    military or medical records that were not previously released by John
    Kerry or his staff regarding his military or medical service?

    Quite frankly, I hope that Mr. Kranish can say for certain that he saw all of Senator Kerry's record, and that he found nothing substantial that the rest of us didn't already know.

    I want to put this turkey to bed.

    Note: Glenn Reynolds, Mickey Kaus, Blogs for Bush, Michelle Malkin and Just One Minute are just some of the bloggers that have more coverage.

    Update: Fixed a bad word choice, putting "apostrophes" in to replace and improper use of "ellipses." My readers are too smart for me to get away with blogging before my morning coffee...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

    June 07, 2005

    Howard Dean: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

    Ku Klux Klan Rally, Montiplier, Vermont, 1927

    "It's pretty much a white Christian Party" *

    Howard Dean
    Vermont Governor 1991-2003
    Democratic National Committee Chair

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:21 PM | Comments (0)

    More Koran Abuse Allegations

    Dhimmiweek has just broken another story confirming Koran abuse by an American civilian contractor, now more than a year old.

    Unlike the story of Guantanamo Bay guards that kicked or stepped upon the Koran, these allegations claim that this example of Koran abuse was far more severe, as the American contractor in this instance defiled the Koran with blood.


    From OIC via Men's News Daily:

    "...The OIC Spokesman urged the United States Government to live up to its responsibilities and not be lenient with the perpetrators of the desecration. He also demanded that those responsible for this despicable crime should be brought to justice immediately and that urgent measures should be taken to calm the tension in the Muslim world and ensure that such detestable acts are not repeated in the future."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)

    June 06, 2005

    Hillary: Bush "Abusing Power."

    From the NY Times via Matty D:

    Senator Hillary Clinton castigated President Bush and Washington Republicans today as mad with power and bent on marginalizing Democrats during a speech to 1,000 supporters at her first major re-election fund-raiser, which netted about $250,000.

    Mrs. Clinton, who is running for a second term in 2006 and is widely described as a possible Democratic nominee for the presidency in 2008, said that her party is hamstrung because Republicans dissemble and smear without shame and the news media has lost its investigatory zeal for exposing misdeeds.

    Left unchallenged, especially if Democrats fail to pick up seats in next year's Congressional elections, she said, Republican leaders could ram through extremist conservative judges, wreck Social Security and make unacceptable concessions to China, Saudi Arabia and other nations that are needed to finance the United States budget deficit.

    "There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," Mrs. Clinton told the audience at a "Women for Hillary" gathering in Midtown Manhattan this morning.

    "I know it's frustrating for many of you; it's frustrating for me: Why can't the Democrats do more to stop them?" she continued to growing applause and cheers. "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."

    Mrs. Clinton described Republican leaders as messianic in their beliefs, willing to manipulate facts and even "destroy" the Senate to gain political advantage over the Democratic minority. She also labeled the House of Representatives as "a dictatorship of the Republican leadership," where individual members are all but required to vote in lock-step with the majority's agenda.

    Referring to Congress' Republican leadership, she said, "Some honestly believe they are motivated by the truth, they are motivated by a higher calling, they are motivated by, I guess, a direct line to the heavens."

    Now Hillary, aren't you giving George and Company just a little bit too much credit?

    After all, Howard Dean, Harry what's-his-name (from Searchlight NV, yes we know, we know...) and others have done far more to marginalize the Democratic Party than has Mr. Bush or Dark Sith Lord Rove.

    Once could even say you're adding to the Demo-hysteria with the little ditty you uttered above.

    As for:

    "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."
    ...Didn't that describe the last time you got near the White House?

    Of course, the difference is this, Hill: This time, we aren't buying it.

    Not by a long shot.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)

    June 04, 2005

    Shocking Koran Update

    It's JUST A FREAKING BOOK.

    Isn't a little perspective refreshing?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)

    Muslims Flush, Urinate On Koran at Gitmo

    Detainees at Guantanamo Bay Cuba urinated on Korans and attempted to flush them down toilets.

    Somehow, I doubt that will get much attention in the mainstream media, since they're only harmless terrorists committing these desecrations, not evil U.S. soldiers.

    Michael Isikoff, where are you?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:35 AM | Comments (0)

    June 03, 2005

    Shortell Proves His Ignorance With Eloquence

    I once told a friend of mine that the only difference between the average person and one with a PhD is that the PhD may have the ability to express his stupidity more eloquently. Brooklyn College's Professor Timothy Shortell seems intent on proving the point.

    Shortell is deep in controversy over online comments he made in an essay called “Religion & Morality: A Contradiction Explainedâ€. The basic premise of Shortell's essay is that religion is irrational, inherently violent, creates immorality, and that the human condition will only improve with the eventual shunning of religion in favor of pleasure-seeking rationalism.

    Shortell has just won an election to become the department chair of the Brooklyn College sociology department, but has not yet been confirmed to the position. Students began protesting Shortell's election as department chair once his essay became public, and now his chairman ship seems in doubt.

    According to Fox News:

    The school president must still approve the vote and has convened a committee to examine Shortell's qualifications. Members of the board of trustees at the publicly funded school are anxious to see the committee's report.

    Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, who is a member of the board of trustees, said, "He hasn't done anything within the classroom, at least as far we know and as yet that would amount to what might be called ... an impeachable offense."

    Mr. Weisenfeld is correct.

    The topic of the essay, while very controversial and confrontational, should not disqualify Professor Shortell from his duly elected chairmanship. Intellectual freedom to discuss controversial topics must be protected if higher education is to develop and encourage a new generation of thinkers.

    The excretable quality of his essay, rife with contradictions in logic, unsupported accusations, and often unintentional comedy, is another matter entirely. If this essay's quality of writing is indicative of Shortell's academic prowess, I can only hope that the Brooklyn College facilities maintenance department has tenure-track positions.

    Shortell's essay begins:

    French Sociologist Émile Durkheim observed that religion was the root of science. Religion, he said, was the first human attempt to systematically explain the world. Durkheim thought that religious rationality would wither away in modern times (for him, the early twentieth century) because scientific rationality would replace it, by virtue of its superior explanatory power. Alas, he seems to have gotten this one wrong.

    But Durkheim was right about the genealogy of thought. Modern religion is an elaboration of a belief in magic. In the absence of a scientific explanation of events and institutions, faith in magical powers, fetishization of nature, and overinterpretation of random variation are inevitable. Durkheim expected religion to fall out of fashion as the outright belief in magic had, for the same reason. For anyone with the least education, the superior power of scientific thinking is obvious. Only a willful ignorance could lead to any other conclusion.

    Scientific thinking is indeed superior for many purposes, but it is smug arrogance to proclaim that a scientific approach is applicable to all situations. Someone should remind Shortell that Durkheim's revered scientific rationality was insufficient to deal with the emotional loss of his son in World War I. Durkheim withdrew within himself and could not even bear to have his son's name mentioned in his presence, a patently emotional, decidedly non-scientific response.

    Professor Shortell further evangelizes:

    Religions have persisted, despite their inability to explain the modern world. Here, in fact, we have a stunning reversal: religions play up the "essential mystery" of modern life. Since the world is too complex to understand all at once, in its entirety—even for the scientist—all of us will sometimes shake our heads in wonder at the turn of events in which we find ourselves. Many will find this uncertainty anxiety-provoking, and will look around for a convenient escape.
    Once could presumably reverse the argument and also make the valid point that science still exists despite its inability to explain the modern world.

    Despite research going back well past the time of Archimedes, mathematicians still cannot fully compute pi, the mathematical constant that is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. Should we not believe in mathematics or circles until pi is proven?

    As social organizations, religions have a dramatic power that hides their essential irrationality. They persist today because they are so effective at constructing group identities and at setting up conflict between the in- and out-groups. For all religions, there is an "us" and a "them." All the ritual and the fellowship associated with religious practice is just a means of continually emphasizing group boundaries and hostility. It is no accident that the history of world religions is a history of violence, hatred and intolerance. The in-group has exclusive access to the truth, so the out-group need not—indeed, should not—be listened to; they can only deceive. And, being liars, and thus, evil, they forfeit their rights as equal members of the community. This is the poisonous logic of religious irrationality.

    All modern religions are ideological: they insist on a total, though contradictory, system of beliefs and evaluations. Complete acceptance is the only way to escape the uncertainty of modernity. For this reason, religion without fanaticism is impossible. Anyone whose mind is trapped inside such a mental prison will be susceptible to extreme forms of behavior. All religions foment their own kind of holy war.

    Shortell selectively targets religions as having a history of violence and intolerance, while ignoring that the greatest mass murderers of the past century were secularists. Stalin and Mao shared the good professor's dislike of religion, and Shortell seems unable to reconcile his cherry picking of the historical record with actual reality, and so proselytizes onward once more.
    The reader might point out that some believers are more bland and mild than fire and brimstone. Those whose devotion is moderate are, perhaps, only cowardly fanatics. They want the fellowship and the security but ignore the logic of the system to which they grudgingly adhere. They may be more numerous than the overt fanatics, but they will always have less influence. This is simply the operation of the rule of the lowest common denominator; in response to uncertainty, the exaggerated sense of confidence of the zealot will win over the crowd. If you doubt that this is true, consider modern politics. The same dynamic applies. This is why our political system has given birth to the "war on drugs" and "family values."
    Shortell preaches that anyone faithful to the tenets of their faith—no matter which faith—is a fanatic, while those who are less adamant in their religion are cowardly fanatics. Once again, Shortell shows a cultish divisiveness of his own, insisting that you must believe fully as he does or face being labeled an infidel.

    One might also be amused to note that Shortell seems to be counting on his own zealotry to “win over the crowd†that he rails against.

    Faith is by definition not rational—that is, it is belief in the absence of verification. (If you do not think this is a fair definition of faith, look it up. I got this from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, item 2b.)
    Perhaps not surprisingly considering his track record thus far, Shortell "accurately misquotes" Merriam-Webster's item 2b, which defines faith as a “firm belief in something for which there is no proof .â€

    I find it every much as interesting that he chose that particular definition, as faith is also defined as an allegiance to duty or to a person, and also as loyalty, fidelity, and a sincerity of intentions.

    Shortell seems against loyalty and suspicious of fidelity, and it isn't hard to see this in disturbing detail. In addition to the text of this essay, Shortell also includes a collection of original artwork he created.

    In the majority of these pictures, we see the same solitary, dark, limbless human silhouette about to be crushed by elements of his environment.

    In one image the figure is in the path of giant dominoes about to fall; in another, it sits helplessly in front of boulders careening down a hillside. Yet a third shows the torso about to be overrun by an oncoming pair of headlights. Shortell seems obsessed with stark loneliness, feelings of abandonment, helplessness, and impending death.

    To put it mildly, he's got "issues.â€

    If every assertion were subject to question, the faithful would have to admit that they hold their beliefs without rational basis. If the public sphere were to promote the free contest of ideas, religious belief would wither under the scrutiny of scientific rationality, just as Durkheim expected. As with nationalism, faith is secured by appeals to emotion, not critical thinking. Emotion in crowds tends toward panic or violence.
    While I'm sure the good professor finds it infuriating, the marketplace of ideas has been around for quite sometime, and scientific rationality seems to have done religion no harm. Faith isn't based on science, or pseudo-science, but upon a core human desire for something greater than this plane of existence, which is found in the vast majority of cultures in human history.

    Shortell seems hell-bent on stripping us of humanity in a mad pursuit of cold objectivity. Perhaps he has spent a bit too much time imagining life as a Vulcan.

    His comments about the tendency of crowds may or may not have a degree of merit, but I would think that if his theory is correct, then there should be bloodbaths during every NASCAR race, Broadway show, and PTA meeting. I remain unconvinced.

    In order to be protected from the harsh light of rational argument, the faithful want to make religion a taboo subject. Orthodoxy is supposed to be beyond question. Just like in totalitarian states, where criticism of the government is a capital offense, the faithful would like to enforce an intellectual gag-order so that the barbarity of their regime goes unchallenged.
    Professor Shortell does not desire a rational discourse. He dismisses the merits of religion out of hand. Nobody has censored him nor put him in prison for his views, but neither has he the courage to stand up for his accusations. He claims, "we should be able to debate the issue in the public sphere without fear of retribution," but refuses to debate. He hits and runs, making me suspect he does not desire the rational argument he claims, but instead simply wishes to stand alone on his soap box inside an echo chamber.

    This only addresses roughly the first half of Shortell's essay, and the rest is as agonizingly tiresome. He bloviates on, making one unsubstantiated statement after another. Feel free to read the rest, but you won' t miss much other than more projections of Shortell's apparent insensitivity and insecurity.

    His thesis is simply this, “Can there be any doubt that humanity would be better off without religion?â€

    I think we can answer quite honestly that, "Yes sir, after thousands of years finding comfort in religion in every corner of this world, and on others, there is obviously quite a bit of doubt."

    Religions are well established worldwide, and the bulk of humanity seems to think we are better off with them as an intrinsic part of our collective social fabric. What is not so readily apparent is the value of Professor Shortell's relatively new cult of scientific rationality.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:47 PM | Comments (0)

    June 02, 2005

    Amnesty Confrontational

    One-time human rights organization Amnesty International is having a tough week.

    A scathing attack on the U.S. administration's handling of enemy detainees in the War on Terror compared the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Stalin's “gulag†system of prison work camps. Amnesty International further strained their credibility by calling Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and other top administration officials "architects of torture," and suggested that other countries could file war-crime charges against the top officials and arrest them.

    This kind of political grandstanding is expected from rouge regimes like North Korea or even the worst kind of partisan domestic politics, but it hardly befits an international human rights organization.

    At the time these stories broke, I said that it was sad to see an organization such as AI lose so much of their credibility virtually overnight. I truly believe that. Generations of people have worked very hard for Amnesty International, trying with true sincerity to help the oppressed people of the world by placing a blinding public spotlight on the tyrannical regimes of the world.

    Instead, because of what were quite frankly stupid comments by AI officers, the spotlight is now on Amnesty International, and the jagged cracks in its claimed impartiality have been exposed.

    Publius Pundit has done a quantitative analysis showing that Amnesty specifically targets the United States for ridicule, releasing almost as much copy claiming U.S. human rights abuses as for all other nations combined.

    Saudi Arabia, whose religious police forced girls to burn to death because of a sadistic adherence to radical Islam, deserves less scrutiny from AI than the United States?

    Extending unwarranted rights is more deserving of Amnesty's limited resources than the ongoing genocide of tens of thousands of African Christians and Muslims by racist Arab militias in Darfur?

    Unsubstantiated, often contradictory reports from imprisoned terrorists carry more weight with Amnesty than the anguished wails of those women and children, sons and daughters killed by al Qaeda bombs and bullets?

    Amnesty International has no shame.... and it gets worse.

    Amnesty claims:

    AI is independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion. It does not support or oppose any government or political system, nor does it support or oppose the views of the victims whose rights it seeks to protect.
    If Amnesty truly "does not support or oppose any government or political system" as they claim, then its leader would not have contributed the maximum amount possible to John Kerry's presidential campaign.

    Amnesty International seems to have decided to forego being a human rights organization and instead seems focused upon becoming another empty vessel for leftist propaganda.

    The world is a sorrier place for the ideological betrayal of their leaders.

    Note: Rusty shows the dunces at AI what a real gulag looks like.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)

    Felt Sponges

    “Grandpa, I Love You To Death... But I've Gots Bills To Pay†Was anyone else more than slightly creeped out by the Felt family's enthusiasm to cash in on their doddering 91-year-old grandfather's mysterious legacy as Deep Throat before he dies?

    ...Felt's daughter Joan, who persuaded her 91-year-old father to go public as "Deep Throat," lamented that the Post's Bob Woodward would get all the credit -- and profit--if Felt went to the grave with his secret.

    "We could make at least enough money to pay some bills like the debt I've run up for the kids' education," she told Felt, according to the article. "Let's do it for the family."

    Yes, you have to love a family that pimps out their pre-mortem grandpa.They might as well be humming some of Stephen Lynch's Grandfather
    A stroke would be nice
    Disease would be cool
    I'll scatter his ashes
    In my new swimming pool
    I'll party with Hef
    I'll dine with the Queen
    So what say we unplug that machine?

    Oh Grandfather, die
    Before the fiscal year
    Oh Grandfather, I
    Wish Kevorkian were here
    Oh Grandfather, die
    Just take your final bow
    Oh Grandfather, die
    Family hates you anyhow...

    Such behavior should be hardly surprising. Felt simply taught his kids to take the advice he gave to Bob Woodward as Deep Throat.

    "Follow the money".

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)

    Footnotes

    An excerpt of John Dean's comments regarding W. Mark Felt, who has recently come forward as the famed informant known for 33 years only as “Deep Throat.â€

    “I never thought he was in the loop to have the information," John Dean, counsel in Nixon's White House and the government's top informant in the Watergate investigation, told The Associated Press. "How in the world could Felt have done it alone?"

    Dean said he couldn't see how Felt, then in charge of the FBI's day-to-day operations, could have had time to rendezvous with reporters in parking garages and leave clandestine messages to arrange meetings. Perhaps FBI agents helped him, Dean suggested.
    I don't much care about whether Deep Throat was only W. Mark Felt, or a composite character Woodward and Bernstein made up of several sources. As I mentioned briefly in Ace's comments last night, a 33-year old story doesn't suddenly become newsworthy simply because a character's name changed. It would hardly matter if Lee Harvey Oswald's real name turned out to be Chippy the Wonder Squirrel; the historical record remains the same, only the footnotes change.

    What really matters is that a free press (with help) was able to help rein in criminal behavior at the highest levels of American government. What matters is that in this nation, reporters don't have to fear a knock at the door in the middle of the night if they publish a story the government doesn't like. What matters is that Deep Throat, Woodward, and Bernstein were able to help depose a corrupt government using the truth, the law, and the press instead of a bloody coup. That is the legacy of Watergate.

    All the rest is footnotes.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)

    June 01, 2005

    The Illinois House passed a

    The Illinois House passed a bill Tuesday banning the sale of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors. The bill passed with an overwhelming 106-6 vote in favor of the ban. The bill now goes to Governor Rod Blogojevich, who proposed the ban last year after hearing of a game called JFK Reloaded which allows players to play the role of Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

    The bill passed the Illinois Senate earlier this month.

    Other states and municipalities have tried similar bills, but they have repeatedly been struck down on First Amendment grounds. Under the impending law, clerks that knowingly sell adult video games to minors face a $1,000 fine, but the bill leaves it to the stores to determine which games are too violent or too sexually explicit for minors.

    The proposed law has almost no chance of standing up to federal scrutiny. Not only does it place an undue burden upon stores to determine which games contain inappropriate content; it also fails to provide a significantly narrow definition of what constitutes violent or sexually explicit behavior, placing an undue burden upon store owners to make that determination without sufficient guidelines.

    Two thoughts came to mind as I read of this proposed bill:

    • That there are some similar problems between this bill and the practical failure of the “Assault Weapons Ban†embedded in the 1994 Crime Control and Prevention Act ( more commonly known as the “Assault Weapons Banâ€) that expired last year, and;

    • Illinois lawmakers must have known that this bill would not pass federal scrutiny based upon similar laws previously defeated… so why did they pass a bill that will almost certainly be challenged and struck down by federal courts once it becomes a law?

    The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban signed into law by President Bill Clinton banned some specific firearms, but also attempted to ban similar weapons by banning certain features they felt were common to assault weapons. A partial list of these features included flash-hiders, pistol grips, and bayonet lugs.

    The ban, while legal, was a practical failure. Firearm manufacturers simply removed the offending features and were then able to sell the exact same firearm type with only minor cosmetic changes.

    It is a battle between the specific and the vague. The AW Ban failed because it tried to limit firearm access using specific but vague criteria, and the Illinois ban follows a similar path.

    In the former, the 1994 Crime Bill was an attempt to get the desired result while ignoring the basic engineering truth that these firearm operating systems were identical to those of sporting guns. The lawmakers knew they could not pass a law that was a direct assault on the Second Amendment, and attempted a work-around that failed.

    In the latter case , Illinois is attempting to get a desired result by while ignoring a basic truth that free speech, even speech we don't like, cannot be unreasonably constricted without just cause. They only compound their problems by unfairly placing an undue burden upon stores to determine what constitutes inappropriate content in an attempt to bypass the First Amendment.

    So why are Illinois lawmakers so enthusiastically supporting a law that is destined to fail?

    I have no easy answers, but suspect that it is a combination of some lawmakers trying to seriously address what they feel is a serious problem in our society, and others that calculated an immediate political gain from supporting such legislation with little or no political downside.

    In any event, it will be interesting to see what Illinois lawmakers decide to once the law is signed and then almost certainly struck down. Will they go back to the proverbial drawing board and try to draft a constitutionally sound proposal, or will they simply throw their hands up and say, “we tried.â€

    Their response to a torpedoed law will go a long way towards telling us just how serious they really are.

    Note: The bill that passed the House seems to be different that the version of the bill I discussed here in December.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)

    Cheney's Estimation May Be Conservative

    Vice President Dick Cheney made a prediction Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live" (transcript) that the Iraqi insurgency will end before the Bush administration leaves office in 2009.
    "I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," Cheney said. "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
    Critics of the Bush administration have been quick to point out that attacks by the insurgency have not declined since the Iraqi elections, and that the numbers of attacks have actually increased. While technically accurate, this criticism misses the larger context that seems to bolster Cheney's that the insurgency is in its "last throes."

    The number and type of insurgent attacks have changed substantially since the conventional war ended just three weeks after the U.S.-led invasion began.

    Early insurgent attacks were typically ambush attacks by groups of Saddam loyalists against coalition combat troops. These attacks often consisted of coordinated rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) supported by small arms (RPD, RPK machine guns, AK-type rifles) fire from fixed ambush positions. Despite the initial element of surprise enjoyed by the insurgents, the superior weapons, training, and tactics used by coalition combat forces typically reversed the ambushes, turning the insurgent's fixed ambush positions into funeral pyres. Superior armor and close air support assets decimated the insurgents, leading to many instances of the entire attacking force being captured, wounded, or killed.

    Because of their decidedly lopsided defeats in early engagements against frontline coalition combat units, insurgents quickly changed their targets to "soft" targets, such as resupply convoys. While the insurgents were able to inflict more damage in their assaults on these more lightly armed and armored vehicles, the rapid response capability of coalition air and ground combat units once again led to high casualty rates among the insurgents during these attacks. (Note: These early insurgent attacks led to the widespread armoring and up-gunning of supply convoys).

    In response to better coalition defense against these fixed-position attacks from both combat and combat support forces, insurgents once again tried to shift tactics, foregoing their near-suicidal fixed position engagements in favor of quick hit-and-run attacks that they hoped would increase their survivability, while also relying more heavily on the use of mines and IEDs.

    Rapid response convoy escort units and UAV surveillance soon proved that insurgents fleeing the scene of ambushes in vehicles were just as vulnerable to coalition counterstrikes as they were in previous attacks from fixed positions. As the coalition forces became more and more adept at countering and often reversing most forms of enemy ambushes, force-on-force ambushes have largely gone away, and the insurgents have reverted to the use of mines, IEDs, and vehicles driven by suicide bombers.

    While these IED and mine attacks in particular still continue to inflict casualties on coalition forces on a nearly daily basis, tactics and platforms are being developed to neutralize IEDs and mines. Coalition soldiers can and will continue to die as a result of these insurgent attacks, but these usually isolated attacks have little chance of viable long term tactical or strategic success.

    As a result of their near complete failure to significantly impact the goals of coalition forces on either the strategic or tactical levels without sustaining heavy casualties of their own, the secular pro-Saddam elements of the insurgency are becoming marginalized and reticent to fight.

    The insurgency that remains is now a force increasingly made up of non-Iraqi Arab Islamist fighters as the (largely Sunni) natives that made up the core of Iraqi insurgents seems to be less inclined to fight as the war continues without a weakening of coalition and Iraqi resolve.

    These foreign fighters have united behind an al Qaeda terrorist leader named al-Zarqawi, and have in the past two years shifted their tactics several times, and each tactical decision has compounded the threat to their position. It is precisely because of these shifts that Vice President Cheney's prediction of the end of the Iraqi insurgency by 2009 is not only probable, but a conservative estimate of the actual timetable.

    It is quite likely that any widespread insurgency in Iraq will fall apart well before the end of the Bush administration. It is possible that the insurgency will collapse by early 2007, and it could conceivably devolve from its current level of operations into local, cell-level operations with little or no widespread planning and coordination capabilities by as early as late 2005.

    When this occurs, the disintegration of the insurgency will come as a shock to many, but it should really come as hardly a surprise at all.

    The insurgency learned early on that it could not fight even a semi-conventional war against even the most fragile elements of coalition military forces. Once it became apparent through the elections of John Howard in Australia and George Bush in America that coalition nations would not capitulate to the anti-involvement Left's desire to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the insurgency turned upon the Iraqi people and its government as their only remaining soft targets.

    When the insurgents began attacking Iraqi targets, any slight chance they had of winning a stalemate (their only real hope) turned to ash. When al-Zarqawi's loyalists began assassinating political and community leaders, murdering police officers, and detonating car bombs in crowds of civilians, they not only lost and credibility they had had with the Iraqi people, they steeled Iraqi resolve.

    The al-Zarqawi-mandated attacks against polling places before and during Iraq's January elections proved that al-Zarqawi and his supporters were anything but freedom fighters; they were enemy of the Iraqi people. They were not insurgents or Michael Moore's minutemen. They were--and are--terrorists.

    Any lingering sympathy for the terrorists evaporated with the recent spate of suicide bombings in April and the al-Zarqawi announcement that the killing of Iraqi civilians was justified, as al-Zarqawi considers them "collaborators" under his radical fundamentalist version of Islam.

    Because of the actions of al-Zarqawi and his followers, few Iraqis are willing to suddenly join a terror organization that may call upon them to murder their families, neighbors, and friends. It is becoming increasingly apparent to even the most disenchanted Sunni Baathists that the terrorists are far more of a threat to them than are coalition forces or the newly-formed Iraqi government.

    The terrorists will lose the war in Iraq; it is simply a matter of when they will lose. Vice President Cheney predicts by 2009. Based upon al-Zarqawi's ability to galvanize Iraqi opinion against the insurgency, it may be far sooner than that.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:38 AM | Comments (0)

    May 31, 2005

    Amnesty's International Disappointment

    Amnesty International once arguably chronicled the effects of policies on people. This was useful, as it provided a sort of a benchmarking mechanism to tell the truly horrible regimes from the merely odious. This is all Amnesty International can do.

    Somewhere along the way, Amnesty began to think that they mattered more than those they claimed to represent. They began to be as worried about fundraising dollars as much as they cared about accuracy, and by then accuracy wasn't as important as projecting the right message.

    When I read of Amnesty International's William Schulz slamming the United States as, "a leading purveyor and practitioner of the odious human rights violations," I rolled my eyes, and lost what little respect that I still had for the organization.

    Vice President Cheney rightly called Amnesty on their falsehoods and exaggerations, and cited a long and distinguished record of the United States freeing more people than any nation in the 20th Century, including 50 million just during the past four years.

    Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, the individual in the best position to know what is actually occurring at Guantanamo Bay, flatly rejected Amnesty's characterization of the U.S. detention facility as a "gulag." Either Amnesty does not know what a gulag is, or they simply don't care to be accurate. Whether their excuse is ignorance or apathy, their image as an honest broker is now broken, their only true capital, credibility, destroyed in many eyes.

    Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B Myers, called the Amnesty report "absolutely irresponsible."

    I call it an end to credibility.


    Austin Bay, Red State, and The Conservative Voice have more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Buried Alive By Illegals

    Quite an accurate title, don't you think? Sadly, that title could describe dozens, if not hundreds (or thousands, or tens of thousands) of situations across American today.

    "Buried alive by illegals" applies literally in this case, and figuratively when discussing the gutting of American hospitals of billions of dollars by illegals swarming across our poorly controlled borders in an unchecked invasion divisions strong. The threat to the healthcare of legal American working men and women and legal immigrants became so overwhelming that taxpayers like you and I are paying a one billion dollar bailout of local hospitals nationwide.

    This is money taken away from our children; money that could have been used to vaccinate our rural and inner city poor against crippling, potentially fatal childhood diseases, money that could have helped our working and middle class parents find quality affordable childcare so that they can be sure that their kids are in a safe and supportive environment while the parents work hard to give them a better life.

    Every illegal alien crossing the border to abuse our overburdened public assistance programs is stealing from out poor, our weak, our needy--and many illegals steal far more than social services.

    Among the legions pouring over our poorly defended borders are all manner of criminals, from shoplifters and petty criminals to rapists, murderers, brutal narcotics organizations and human slave-traders.

    American jails are overflowing with the flotsam and jetsam of other nations. Attacks on Border Patrol agents are increasing at a record pace, and public safety for increasingly in doubt along the border. The situation is so bad that the U.S. State Department has been forced to issue warnings because of heavily-armed narcotics traffickers running drugs across the border.

    What's worse is that the internal policies within government agencies hamper the apprehension of illegals to such an extent that Border Patrol agents are rarely allowed to pursue and capture illegal aliens in almost any situation.

    “If anyone runs from us, we don't chase them,†said one California-based border patrol agent who requested anonymity. “We could have information that there is a nuke in the back of a van but we don't have authority to chase them,†the agent said. “We've had radiation pagers go off and we're still not allowed [by our supervisors] to give chase,†he said. “They are scared to death something will go wrong and there will be a huge liability.â€
    Shades of Norm Mineta.

    Government bureaucrats and lawyers are so worried about liability lawsuits that they open the borders not only to criminals flowing over the borders, but terrorists potentially armed with vanloads of just about anything.

    Bioweapons like anthrax, chemical weapons like cyclosarin, radiological "dirty" bombs--all of these can easily be driven into the heart of San Diego or other American cities and detonated, because elements of the government from the Border Patrol, to the Department of Homeland Security, to the House of Representatives, to the Senate, to the White House, have all made a conscious decision not to pursue illegal aliens, not to pursue potential terrorists, not to pursue vehicles even when they set off radiation detectors.

    Please tell me what your threshold in dollars and blood is, Uncle Sam.

    How much money should we allow illegals to siphon away from our childcare and education system, Senator Clinton? How many hospitals must close under the weight of illegal's unpaid medical bills, Dr. Howard Dean? How many Criminals are you going to allow to waltz across our borders and either sell drugs or detonate in our schoolyards, Director Chertoff?

    How many Americans need to be literally and figuratively need to be buried alive by illegals before you'll act, President Bush?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 26, 2005

    And Finally, They Came For Our Sporks

    The English, long since too cowardly to trust their citizenry with firearms, have determined that in the interest of safety, citizens should also give up their kitchen knives:
    A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

    They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.

    The research is published in the British Medical Journal.

    The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.

    They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen.

    None of the chefs felt such knives were essential, since the point of a short blade was just as useful when a sharp end was needed.

    The researchers said a short pointed knife may cause a substantial superficial wound if used in an assault - but is unlikely to penetrate to inner organs.

    In contrast, a pointed long blade pierces the body like "cutting into a ripe melon".

    So now the English are going to be forced to do without melons?

    Then again...

    that may not be much of a change...

    Update: While I mock the English on one hand, American doctors seem to agree with the knife control theory... at least for this one blogger... okay, maybe two.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Confirming A Suspicion

    Just one more bit of evidence proving that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms shouldn't be responsible for anything more threatening than recommending what kind of wine goes with well with a nice Cuban cigar after a nice day in the field with your L.C. Smith.

    At least Laurence didn't end up like some of their victims.

    This is an archive post. Please visit the main page for more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Crapperquiddick : Fake, But Accurate...But Fake?

    So we've gone from Newsweek's flushed Koran story being a supposed true story of religious intolerance that started a riot that left 15 people dead, to a fake story that didn't cause the riots that left 15 people dead, to a fake story that didn't cause riots that left no one dead.

    I supposed all that is left is to tell us that Afghanistan itself was made up... Yup. It figures.

    This is an archive post. Please visit the main page for more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Republicans Back Off Restricting Women in Combat

    Last week I wrote about a Republican-sponsered plan to limit the role of women in combat service and support positions. The House has now thoroughly defeated that proposal, 390-39, leaving those decisions in the hands of the Pentagon. I'm starting to have mixed feelings about this entire issue.

    I had originally said:

    Democrats rightly highlight that this could limit military flexibility, but I'd opine that their real reason for opposition to this bill is the inability of some of the American public to handle female losses in a combat zone. Republicans want women out of the combat zone for exactly that reason, as Rep. McHugh notes. It's about PR, not competency.
    I concluded the post by saying:
    American women want to serve. Some have died. More will die, whether we want them to, or not. If we've learned anything, it is that there is no frontline in modern warfare, and the enemy can strike a brigade-level base with mortar and rocket fire, as easily as they can a support convoy, or an infantry combat patrol.

    My advice to Congress? Let them fight. America's female soldiers earned that right, even if you don't have the stomach for it.

    As you can imagine, I got a few responses to this post. All of them were polite, but none of them were supportive of my position.

    Several people responded in the post comments or in email with comments condemning the concept of women in combat positions on for several reasons. Some claimed a respect for femininity or motherhood, and others seemed to combine those feelings with a longing for more genteel times.

    While I'm sensitive to those closely held beliefs, and realize that are probably shared by a majority of Americans, I find these sentiments to be a kind of soft, sweet bigotry.

    It is a form of discrimination, and no less wrong than the once firmly-held beliefs that other minorities couldn't fight. It was wrong to be prejudiced against the "Fighting 99th" and the 332rd "Red Tails, " that never lost a single escorted bomber to enemy fighters. It was wrong to be bigoted against the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the highest decorated military unit in all of U.S. military history.

    Some female soldiers can perform to the same level of physical and mental standards as their male counterparts. Admittedly, the number of female soldiers that can physically compete with men is just a fraction of female soldiers, but some can do it, nevertheless. With modern physical training methods, some female soldiers will undoubtably be in better physical condition than many frontline soldiers of previous wars.

    For these reasons, I feel that female soldiers should be given the opportunity to serve as equal members of not just combat service and support units, but frontline combat teams. I just don't think that the military has thus far provided a sufficient level of training for female soldiers to carry out any of these roles competently on the modern battlefield.

    There seems to be lesser physical standards and a general lack of advanced combat training for women, which would put them at a severe readiness disadvantage in the event of enemy action (I'm basing these on anecdotal evidence from a handful of veterans. Feel free to confirm or deny these in the comments if you have supporting evidence).

    Othr anecdotal evidence shows that female soldiers are capable of performing well in combat, but until the military and politically correct collection of incompetents in Washington decides to present a uniform level of training standards and allow access to all military specialties based on ability instead of gender, they won't be able to.

    You see, I was wrong. It is about compentecy. And we're standing in the way of it.

    This is an archive post. Please visit the main page for more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 25, 2005

    An Interview With Zell (Part 2)

    Part 2 of Red State Rant's multi-blogger interview with Zell Miller is up.

    Go read it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 24, 2005

    An Interview With Zell

    Red State Rant was able to secure an interview with famous (or infamous, if you're liberal) Senator and former Georgia governor Zell Miller, and graciously offered several influential bloggers (and me, believe it or not) the opportunity to ask him questions. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first multi-blogger interview of a political figure on the national stage.

    Read it.

    Part 2 will be posted at Red State Rant tomorrow.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 23, 2005

    My Congressman Is--Well, You Know...

    The problem with having a Congressman like Maurince Hinchey is that you can title just so many posts, "My Congressman is an Idiot."

    Check out Federal Review to see Hinchey once again blame Karl Rove and the evil Republicans for something stupid he's done. Hinchey's $160,000+ in questionable travel junkets makes Tom Delay's "scandals" (all of which have proven baseless so far, I may add) look like child's play at corruption.

    Perhaps Delay could take notes from Hinchey...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 19, 2005

    Give Them Equality

    Via CNN:
    ...In a nearly 15-hourlong committee hearing, the most contentious issue was the role of women in combat.

    The language would put into law a Pentagon policy from 1994 that prohibits female troops in all four service branches from serving in units below brigade level whose primary mission is direct ground combat.

    "Many Americans feel that women in combat or combat support positions is not a bridge we want to cross at this point," said Rep. John McHugh, R-New York, who sponsored the amendment.

    It also allows the Pentagon to further exclude women from units in other instances, while requiring defense officials to notify Congress when opening up positions to women. The amendment replaced narrower language in the bill that applied only to the Army and banned women from some combat support positions.

    The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps currently operate under a 10-year-old policy that prohibits women from "direct combat on the ground" but allows the services discretion to open some jobs to women in combat as needed.

    "We're not taking away a single prerogative that the services now have," McHugh said.

    Democrats opposed the amendment, saying it would tie the hands of commanders who need flexibility during wartime. They accused Republicans of rushing through legislation without knowing the consequences or getting input from the military.

    "We are changing the dynamic of what has been the policy of this country for the last 10 years," said Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Arkansas.

    Added Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the committee's leading Democrat: "There seems to be a solution in search of a problem."

    The Democrats are right in opposing this bill, but more than likely for the wrong reasons.

    Democrats rightly highlight that this could limit military flexibility, but I'd opine that their real reason for opposition to this bill is the inability of some of the American public to handle female losses in a combat zone. Republicans want women out of the combat zone for exactly that reason, as Rep. McHugh notes. It's about PR, not competency.

    Nobody wants women coming home in body bags (or men, for that matter), but Democrats and Republicans alike are simply using this bill as a weapon in political infighting. Cynical anti-war Democrats want women in combat, because their deaths (and assured overblown media hype surrounding the same) can be used as political pressure against the war effort.

    Republicans in Congress know this, and, being just as cynical as their foes across the aisle, seek to limit enemy contact so that women in the military so that can't be used as political pawns against them. The American public doesn't like the thought of women being wounded or killed in combat. Perhaps more importantly, we saw with the Jessica Lynch incident that the American public cannot stomach the depraved treatment that women face if captured alive.

    Gang rape, sexual torture... these are some of the horrors that people do not want to directly mention by name, but flow through the dark recesses of our minds when we think of women in combat--and it is a risk. Yet while we prefer not to think of it, many of these same dangers are also faced by male American combat forces.

    For how many years have we been told that rape is about power and domination more than sex? Women are perceived as being more at risk for this kind of treatment, and with just cause, but the fact remains that all of our soldiers know that this is a risk if they are captured, and yet they still lace up their boots, armor up, and do their duty.

    And never, ever forget, women can fight.


    For example, Raven 42.

    On a Sunday afternoon in March, a convoy of 30 civilian tractor trailers ran into an ambush by an estimated 40-50 heavily-armed insurgents at Salman Pak, Iraq. Three armored HMMWVs of MPs from the Kentucky National Guard that had been shadowing the convoy, charged into the kill zone, upset the ambush, and turned the tables on the Iraqi forces despite intense return fire.

    Seven Americans (three of them wounded) killed a total of 24 insurgents and captured 7 others. The ambush was completely routed; the vast majority of the attackers wiped out. Of the 7 members of Raven 42 who walked away, two are Caucasian Women, the rest men-one is Mexican-American, the medic is African-American, and the other two are Caucasian.

    One female E5 claimed four killed terrorists killed directly with aimed shots, and the other sergeant claimed she killed another with an aimed M-203 grenade. Who wants to be the one to tell her that she did, "all right... for a girl." Not I.

    And it isn't as if American women in combat are a brand-new phenomenon. They've been there, from the beginning. And women have ably served well in other countries, in other wars, both in support roles and on the front lines.

    Large numbers of women served in the Soviet Army during World War II--nearly one million-- to great effect. Most did not see front line combat duty, but many did. They flew bombers, performed as snipers, and fought a guerilla war behind German lines. They served, and they served well.

    But this isn't about other countries. This is about America.

    American women want to serve. Some have died. More will die, whether we want them to, or not. If we've learned anything, it is that there is no frontline in modern warfare, and the enemy can strike a brigade-level base with mortar and rocket fire, as easily as they can a support convoy, or an infantry combat patrol.

    My advice to Congress? Let them fight. America's female soldiers earned that right, even if you don't have the stomach for it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 18, 2005

    Trump Must Build

    When Daniel Libeskind's Freedom Tower design was accepted as a replacement for the World Trade Center, I felt a kick to the pit of my stomach. It was an impressive piece of architecture, but could not contain what the World Trade Center was, and should be again. The Libeskind design, though sincere, lacked even it's own soul. It was an empty shell, a skeleton, nothing more. If the WTC site has anything, it is souls--thousands of them.

    Only one profile deserves to occupy the hallowed ground in lower Manhattan. No substitute, no matter how impressive, could ever be appropriate for all that was won and lost that day.

    Thousands died that bright blue September morning, many of those because they simply got up, kissed their children goodbye, and went to work. Other's died in the most noble of human efforts, placing their very lives on the line in a gamble to help those who could not help themselves. For those victims that never had a chance, and for those brave men and women who turned toward the fire and ran into the inferno, there is only one fitting monument. There has only ever been one fitting monument.

    Trump gets this visceral truth.

    The people of New York and America at large, all wounded to some extent that day deserve, no demand, than a new Twin Towers rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the old; bigger, stronger, and better than it was before. The City That Never Sleeps should be home to nothing less than the Towers Than Would Not Die.

    Manhattan can never move forward with a lesser skyline. Trump must build.

    Note: Added to the Beltway Traffic Jam. Ace and Scott also have takes on the issue.


    Update: Father Jim Chern also has a moving argument for rebuilding the Twin Towers.

    Update: More details of the Twin Towers II design.

    Further Update: Lawhawk has lots more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Defending Robert Spencer

    Via a link from Instapundit, I find a post titled "Tiananmen, Uzbekistan?" from Bidisha Banerjee, which a Slate roundup of today's blog news with the inspired title of "today's blogs: The latest chatter in cyberspace."

    Uzbekistan has been in crisis since protestors raided a prison and government offices over the arrest of 23 men in Andijan, and the government apparently responded with Stalinist tactics, shooting hundred of people, seemingly at random according to some reports. If you noticed, I've provided very few links, as truly credible information is very, very difficult to come by due to a near press blackout.

    Among the bloggers mentioned in the report is Robert Spencer, a Muslim scholar and founder of Jihadwatch.org, a site dedicated to:

    ...bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts. By shedding as much light as possible on these matters, we hope to alert people of good will to the true nature of the present global conflict.
    Robert gets ripped by blogger Serdar Kaya at Socioeconomics for this post, in which Mr. Spencer opines:
    Learned analysts have long insisted that Uzbekistan was a bastion of Islamic moderation. I have responded the way I always do: by asking how these moderates counter jihadist recruitment. The response: silence or abuse. But it looks as if the answer these learned analysts did not want to give was: they don't, and they can't -- except by force of arms.
    Kaya states:
    Robert Spencer (of Jihadwatch.com), who devoted his site to the loathing of Muslims in every possible way, preferred to call this a 'Muslim riot'.

    Because, to him, a Muslim, first of all, is a Muslim; and Muslims are people who do only wrong; and if a Muslim is involved in a violent incident, then he must definitely be the one who is responsible for it - since Muslims never suffer; they exist only to make others suffer.

    This is quite an analogy to run a web site.

    It would be... if Kaya's description of Spencer or Jihadwatch was true. But these descriptions are false, verging on outright lies.

    I've been a reader and commenter of Jihadwatch for over a year, and Kaya's heavily-biased description of Mr. Spencer could not be further from the truth. Robert Spencer, and by extension, Jihadwatch, are dedicated to counterbalancing the Muslim holy war doctrine known as jihad.

    Jihad takes many forms. On a personal level, jihad is a struggle within the self to live a devout Muslim life, and is in many ways analogous to the personal struggle within many faiths to lead a more pure life. The another type of jihad has become synonymous with the word "jihad" in western eyes, and that is the militant struggle for Islamic domination of the world at the expense of all other world religions and secular governments.

    This theofascist jihad is Spencer's chief complaint, which has been thoroughly documented in a substantial body of articles and books in addition to his web site that would , if Kaya took the time to read them, clearly show Spencer is against the radical Islam of terrorists and tyrants, and clearly for an Islamic moderate Reformation.

    Spencer has not "devoted his site to the loathing of Muslims in every possible way;" quite the contrary, Spencer's family has roots in Islamic countries, and Spencer's first book Islam Unveiled was written to counter some of the misconceptions about the religion after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America.

    Does Spencer hate Islam, as Kaya intones? Spencer's FAQ answers that question directly:

    Q: Do you hate Muslims? A: Of course not. Islam is not a monolith, and never have I said or written anything that characterizes all Muslims as terrorist or given to violence. I am only calling attention to the roots and goals of jihad violence. Any Muslim who renounces violent jihad and dhimmitude is welcome to join in our anti-jihadist efforts. Any hate in my books comes from Muslim sources I quote, not from me. Cries of "hatred" and "bigotry" are effectively used by American Muslim advocacy groups to try to stifle the debate about the terrorist threat. But there is no substance to them. It is not an act of hatred against Muslims to point out the depredations of jihad ideology. It is a peculiar species of displacement and projection to accuse someone who exposes the hatred of one group of hatred himself: I believe in the equality of rights and dignity of all people, and that is why I oppose the global jihad. And I think that those who make the charge know better in any case: they use the charge as a tool to frighten the credulous and politically correct away from the truth.

    Q: Do you think all Muslims are terrorists? A: See above.

    Q: Are you trying to incite anti-Muslim hatred? A: Certainly not. I am trying to point out the depth and extent of the hatred that is directed against the United States, because I believe that the efforts to downplay its depth and extent leave us less equipped to defend ourselves. As I said above, the focus here is on jihad; any Muslim who renounces the ideologies of jihad and dhimmitude is most welcome to join forces with us.
    Spencer's comment in the disputed article, is entirely correct, in context:
    Learned analysts have long insisted that Uzbekistan was a bastion of Islamic moderation. I have responded the way I always do: by asking how these moderates counter jihadist recruitment. The response: silence or abuse. But it looks as if the answer these learned analysts did not want to give was: they don't, and they can't -- except by force of arms.
    But Kaya prefers to take Spencer's statement out of context in order to practice a bit of taqiya.

    Spencer does clarify his point in an update:

    The presence of jihadists in Uzbekistan, which is still disputed by some, does not justify the brutal and bloody response of the Karimov regime. Uzbeks are between a rock and a hard place. My condolences to the victims.
    Perhaps Spencer is unclear and imprecise in his skepticism towards a situation with decidedly uncertain facts and unclear press coverage, but for Kaya to says Spencer, "looks quite OK with the Muslims being indiscriminately killed when all they want is a better life," is not only intellectually dishonest, but a full and willing misrepresentation of Spenser's body of work and the educational goals of Jihadwatch.org.

    Note: I'd further add that Mr. Spencer's educated hunch about a militant Islamic jihad arising in Uzbekistan appears to be correct on some level.

    Update: Serdar Kaya has now linked in with a response (via trackback) on his/her blog that is anything but an actual targeted response to the points I made in this article about his criticism of Spencer, specifically refusing to support Kaya's five contentions that:

    • Spencer devoted his site to the loathing of Muslims in every possible way;
    • Spencer thinks Muslims are people who do only wrong;
    • Spencer thinks if a Muslim is involved in a violent incident, he triggered it;
    • Spencer thinks that Muslims exist only to make others suffer;
    • Spencer is okay with Muslims being killed when all tehy want is a better life.
    These were all Kaya's constructs, not mine, and once again he refuses to make a case for any of his arguments, though his refusal is rather long-winded, off-topic, and tedious.

    Kaya's defense for his apparent libel of Spencer is a series of emails he says he sent to Spencer--though he never explains why his opinion of Spencer, expressed to Spencer, matters. At best, this would establish a nonsensical, "You're guilty becuase I sent you a letter saying your guilty" defense of his accusations.

    Kaya never establishes any sort of credible defense for any of his five claims.

    When someone makes a claim such as those above, he has a duty to provide evidence to support his claim. Kaya provides no factual support of the five key claims he made above.

    Period.


    This is an archive post. Please visit the main page for more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Hinchey: "Castro is harmful to no one"

    The New York Sun carries a report of Cuban-American anger at six New York Democrats who were among 22 Representatives who voted against a measure expressing American solidarity with Cuba's democratic activists. The resolution, H.R. 193, passed 392-22.

    Among the Congressional boneheads was my favorite communist-coddling congressmen Maurice Hinchey, who last graced Confederate Yankee when he was the keynote speaker for a Marxist anti-war group on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

    What did gems of wisdom did Hinchey have to offer?

    Mr. Hinchey, too, said he objected to the language of the legislation, which he said "originates with the descendants of the Batista regime, who trace their origins back to the 1950s."

    "It does nothing to improve the situation in Cuba ... it just continues the same old worn-out, tired, silly policies," the upstate Democrat said.

    "Castro is harmful to no one," Mr. Hinchey said.

    "To the extent that any harm is being done, it's the continuation of this policy over the last five decades now," he said, referring to the American embargo. An aide to Mr. Hinchey later called to clarify the congressman's statement, saying the Cuban strongman had done no harm "in a national security sense."

    Three words: Cuban Missile Crisis.

    In 1962 Castro and Khrushchev plotted to place Russian ICBMs with nuclear warheads within 90 miles of the U.S. mainland, which led to a standoff that nearly ended in global thermonuclear war. Perhaps Congressman Hinchey might have come across this tidbit of information at some point in his life?

    But beyond the possible incineration of billions by nuclear fire that Castro almost triggered, we can look to the very real tens of thousands of deaths caused by the man Hinchey claims is "harmful to no one."

    NoCastro.com lists the following in a November 27, 1998 Washington Post Letter to the Editor:

    In a book in progress by Dr. Armando Lago an attempt is being made to list Castro's deaths. With Castro still in power, obtaining information is very difficult, but, so far, the deaths of 97,000 persons have been counted, each confirmed by at least two sources. Some 30,000 executed by firing squad, 2,000 judicial assassinations, 5,000 deaths in prison due to beating by guards and denial of medical care and 60,000 deaths while trying to escape Cuba by sea.

    Among the victims are 20 US citizens: Armando Alejandre, Jr., Howard Anderson, Rudolph Anderson, Jr., Leo Francis Baker, Carlos Costa, Mathew Edward Duke, Robert Ellis Frost, Robert Otis Fuller, Wade Carrol Gray, August K. McNair, William Alexander Morgan, William Horace Patten, Bill Paterson, Mario de La Pena, Rafael del Pino Siero, Mike Rafferty, Thomas Willard Ray, Anthony Salvard, Riley W. Shamberger and Allen Dale Thompson (the remains of some are on display in Cuban museums). He has also found 6 Spaniards, 1 British, 1 Dane and 1 Haitian.

    NewsMax reports that Castro was not only a Cold War threat to the world, but also a major supporter of international terrorism, and participated in a war against at least one U.S. ally:
    Since very early on Castro has been involved in arming, training and offering sanctuary to terrorists from all over the world. Dr. Ehrenfeld says in her paper that the 1979 edition of the "Soviet Military Encyclopedia" recommends "the use of biological weapons, narcotics, terrorist activities, poisons and other methods. This definition accords with a decision made at the Tri-Continental Conference of world revolutionary groups held in Havana in January 1966. The decision called for the planned destabilization of the United States and explicitly detailed such activities as the exploitation and undermining of American society through the trafficking of drugs and promotion of other corrupting criminal activities."

    According to Irving Louis Horowitz's Preface of David J. Kopilow's 1985 paper "Castro, Israel and the PLO," this Tri-Continental Conference, heavily attended by more than 500 delegates from radical leftist groups and terrorists, led "a series of moves ranging from Cuban co-sponsorship of the U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning 'Zionism as Racism' to manifest training and support for PLO efforts." Castro provided tank crews that fought alongside the Syrians against Israel in the 1973 Syrian-Israeli "war of attrition." At a point, Cuba had 3,000 troops deployed in Syria.

    Wikipedia offers:
    Cuba supported communist movements throughout Latin America (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia and Chile, among others) and Africa (Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia). In Angola alone, Cuba had over 50,000 troops.
    Please explain, Mr. Hinchey, how a man who once nearly triggered a global thermonuclear war, who was and is a major state sponsor of terrorism, and has provided material support and soldiers to communist insurgencies across Latin America and Africa is "harmful to no one" or as your aide later backtracked, "no harm, in a national security sense."

    We know you don't have the correct answers, Mr. Hinchey.


    You never do.

    Note: Slant Point is also providing coverage of this story.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 17, 2005

    Olbermann Establishes His Stupidity Credibility

    Newsweek runs a story with flimsy factual support, and 15 people die as a result of the riots that every major news organization agrees was triggered by the Newsweek story. Obviously, someone should be fired for this travesty of journalism.

    Only a pseudo-blogging pseudo-journalist could be stupid enough to insist that the person fired should not come from Newsweek, but from the White House.

    Only a buffoon would call the White House "treasonous" for not stopping journalistic flops, as if there was a First Amendment exception so that the White House could countermand the freedom of the press, in just those instances that freedom might make the press look bad. Or in Olbermann's case, perhaps it was just wishful thinking, coming far too late in his career.

    In any event, thank you, Keith Olbermann, for further cementing America's dwindling respect for the credibility of the liberal media.

    Remember kids,

    "Guns Don't Kill People. Reporters Kill People."
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 16, 2005

    Michael Isikoff: the MSM's Lyndie England

    Newsweek's liberal--oops, I meant libel--has managed to kill 15 people so far as a reporter intent on tarring the government and the US military ran a story that now seems rooted in...

    Almost nothing.

    According to Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, a "trusted source" told him the Qur'an, the Muslim holy book, was defaced in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Two other sources Isikoff asked about the incident did not support the allegation, so what did Newsweek do?

    They ran the story.

    In the resulting uproar, 15 are dead, and westerners in the Muslim world are now at a heightened state of risk, all because of a half-baked rumor in an incomplete draft report that someone might have heard about. Great sourcing, guys. Glad to see you learned a lot from Mary Mapes.

    When an idiot by the name of Lyndie England exhibited foolish, unprofessional behavior that embarressed people, she was charged with crimes that could eventually land her in prison for a decade or more. As Michael Isikoff's foolish, unprofessional behavior got 15 people killed and scores wounded, I can only assume his prison term will match that of any other person who incites multiple murders (h/t: Austin Bay).

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 14, 2005

    A Letter to His Sons On the War

    This was written by a retired attorney, to his sons, May 19, 2004. My father forwarded it to me earlier this year, and it bears re-reading.

    Dear Tom, Kevin, Kirby and Ted,

    As your father, I believe I owe it to you to share some thoughts on the present world situation. We have over the years discussed a lot of important things, like going to college, jobs and so forth. But this really takes precedence over any of those discussions. I hope this might give you a longer term perspective that fewer and fewer of my generation are left to speak to. To be sure you understand that this is not politically flavored, I will tell you that since Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led us through pre and WWII (1933 - 1945) up to and including our present President, I have without exception, supported our presidents on all matters of international conflict. This would include just naming a few in addition to President

    Roosevelt - WWII:
    President Truman - Korean War 1950;
    President Kennedy - Bay of Pigs (1961);
    President Kennedy - Vietnam (1961);
    eight presidents (5 Republican & 4 Democrat) during the cold war (1945 -1991);
    President Clinton's strikes on Bosnia (1995) and on Iraq (1998).

    So be sure you read this as completely non-political or otherwise you will miss the point. Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII).

    The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means.

    First, let's examine a few basics:

    1. When did the threat to us start?

    Many will say September 11th, 2001.

    The answer as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001, with the following attacks on us:

    • Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979;
    • Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983;
    • Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983;
    • Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988;
    • First New York World Trade Center attack 1993;
    • Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers Military complex 1996;
    • Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998;
    • Dar es Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998;
    • Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000;
    • New York World Trade Center 2001;
    • Pentagon 2001.
    (Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide).

    2. Why were we attacked?
    Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms. The attacks happened during the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2. We cannot fault either the Republicans or Democrats as there were no provocations by any of the presidents or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter.

    4. Who were the attackers?
    In each case, the attacks on the US were carried out by Muslims.

    5. What is the Muslim population of the World?
    25%

    6. Isn't the Muslim Religion peaceful?
    Hopefully, but that is really not material. There is no doubt that the predominately Christian population of Germany was peaceful, but under the dictatorial leadership of Hitler (who was also Christian), that made no difference. You either went along with the administration or you were eliminated. There were 5 to 6 million Christians killed by the Nazis for political reasons (including 7,000 Polish priests).

    Thus, almost the same number of Christians were killed by the Nazis, as the 6 million holocaust Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom heard of anything other than the Jewish atrocities. Although Hitler kept the world focused on the Jews, he had no hesitancy about killing anyone who got in his way of exterminating the Jews or of taking over the world - German, Christian or any others. Same with the Muslim terrorists. They focus the world on the US, but kill all in the way - their own people or the Spanish, French or anyone else..

    The point here is that just like the peaceful Germans were of no protection to anyone from the Nazis, no matter how many peaceful Muslims there may be, they are no protection for us from the terrorist Muslim leaders and what they are fanatically bent on doing - by their own pronouncements -killing all of us infidels.

    I don't blame the peaceful Muslims. What would you do if the choice was shut up or die?

    6. So who are we at war with?
    There is no way we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists. Trying to be politically correct and avoid verbalizing this conclusion can well be fatal. There is no way to win if you don't clearly recognize and articulate who you are fighting.

    So with that background, now to the two major questions:
    1. Can we lose this war?
    2. What does losing really mean?

    If we are to win, we must clearly answer these two pivotal questions.

    We can definitely lose this war, and as anomalous as it may sound, the major reason we can lose is that so many of us simply do not fathom the answer to the second question - What does losing mean? It would appear that a great many of us think that losing the war means hanging our heads, bringing the troops home and going on about our business, like post-Vietnam.

    This is as far from the truth as one can get. What losing really means is:

    We would no longer be the premier country in the world. The attacks will not subside, but rather will steadily increase. Remember, they want us dead, not just quiet. If they had just wanted us quiet, they would not have produced an increasing series of attacks against us over the past 18 years.

    The plan was clearly to terrorist attack us until we were neutered and submissive to them.

    We would of course have no future support from other nations for fear of reprisals and for the reason that they would see we are impotent and cannot help them.

    They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed
    their train and told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else they want Spain to do, will be done. Spain is finished.

    The next will probably be France. Our one hope on France is that they might see the light and realize that if we don't win, they are finished too, in that they can't resist the Muslim terrorists without us. However, it may already be too late for France. France is already 20% Muslim and fading fast.

    If we lose the war, our production, income, exports and way of life will all vanish as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us if they were threatened by the Muslims. If we can't stop the Muslims, how could anyone else? The Muslims fully know what is riding on this war and therefore are completely committed to winning at any cost. We better know it too and be likewise committed to winning at any cost.

    Why do I go on at such lengths about the results of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the costs of losing, we cannot unite and really put 100% of our thoughts and efforts into winning. And it is going to take that 100% effort to win.

    So, how can we lose the war? Again, the answer is simple. We can lose the war by imploding. That is, defeating ourselves by refusing to recognize the enemy and their purpose and really digging in and lending full support to the war effort. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. If we continue to be divided, there is no way that we can win.

    Let me give you a few examples of how we simply don't comprehend the life and death seriousness of this situation.

    - President Bush selects Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation.
    Although all of the terrorist attacks were committed by Muslim men between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously? This is war.

    For the duration we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights we have become accustomed to. We had better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently.

    And don't worry that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII and immediately restored them after the victory and in fact added many more since then. Do I blame President Bush or President Clinton before him? No, I blame us for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political Correctness and all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words apply to war. Get them out of your head.

    - Some have gone so far in their criticism of the war and/or the Administration that it almost seems they would literally like to see us lose. I hasten to add that this isn't because they are disloyal. It is because they just don't recognize what losing means. Nevertheless, that
    conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are divided and weakening, it concerns our friends, and it does great damage to our cause.

    - Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by the politicians and media regarding the treatment of some prisoners of war perhaps exemplifies best what I am saying. We have recently had an issue involving the treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of war by a small group of our military police.

    These are the type prisoners who just a few months ago were throwing their own people off buildings, cutting off their hands, cutting out their tongues and otherwise murdering their own people just for disagreeing with Saddam Hussein. And just a few years ago these same type prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for the same reason. They are also the same type enemy fighters who recently were burning Americans and dragging their charred corpses through the streets of Iraq. And still more recently the same type enemy that was and is providing videos to all news sources internationally, of the beheading of an American prisoner they held.

    Compare this with some of our press and politicians who for several days have thought and talked about nothing else but the "humiliating" of some Muslim prisoners - not burning them, not dragging their charred corpses through the streets, not beheading them, but "humiliating" them. Can this be for real?

    The politicians and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the Secretary of Defense. If this doesn't show the complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the seriousness of the enemy we are fighting, the life and death struggle we are in and the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing can. To bring our country to a virtual political standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look like Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burned - totally oblivious to what is going on in the real world.

    Neither we, nor any other country, can survive this internal strife. Again I say, this does not mean that some of our politicians or media people are disloyal. It simply means that they absolutely oblivious to the magnitude of the situation we are in and into which the Muslim terrorists have been pushing us for many years. Remember, the Muslim terrorists stated goal is to kill all infidels. That translates into all non-Muslims - not just in the United States, but throughout the world. We are the last bastion of defense.

    - We have been criticized for many years as being 'arrogant.' That charge is valid in at least one respect. We are arrogant in that we believe that we are so good, powerful and smart, that we can win the hearts and minds of all those who attack us, and that with both hands tied behind our back, we can defeat anything bad in the world. We can't. If we don't recognize this, our nation as we know it will not survive, and no other free country in the World will survive if we are defeated. And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the Press, equal rights for anyone - let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the World.

    This has been a long way of saying that we must be united on this war or we will be equated in the history books to the self-inflicted fall of the Roman Empire. If, that is, the Muslim leaders will allow history books to be written or read.

    If we don't win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less. They will continue to increase the Muslim population of France and continue to encroach little by little on the established French traditions. The French will be fighting among themselves over what should or should not be done, which will continue to weaken them and keep them from any united resolve. Doesn't that sound eerily familiar?

    Democracies don't have their freedoms taken away from them by some external military force. Instead, they give their freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct piece. And they are giving those freedoms away to those who have shown, worldwide, that they abhor freedom and will not apply it to you or even to themselves, once they are in power.

    They have universally shown that when they have taken over, they then start brutally killing each other over who will be the few who control the masses.

    Will we ever stop hearing from the politically correct, about the "peaceful Muslims"?

    I close on a hopeful note, by repeating what I said above. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. I believe that after the election, the factions in our country will begin to focus on the critical situation we are in and will unite to save our country. It is your future we are talking about. Do whatever you can to preserve it.

    Love,
    Dad

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 13, 2005

    Dereliction of Duty

    Jerry Seper of the Washington Times is reporting this morning that the federal government has ordered Border Patrol agents to avoid making arrests of illegal aliens, because higher-ups felt that an increase in the number of apprehensions would prove the effectiveness of the Minuteman Project.

    Seper writes:

    More than a dozen agents, all of whom asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, said orders relayed by Border Patrol supervisors at the Naco, Ariz., station made it clear that arrests were "not to go up" along the 23-mile section of border that the volunteers monitored to protest illegal immigration.

    "It was clear to everyone here what was being said and why," said one veteran agent. "The apprehensions were not to increase after the Minuteman volunteers left. It was as simple as that."

    Another agent said the Naco supervisors "were clear in their intention" to keep new arrests to an "absolute minimum" to offset the effect of the Minuteman vigil, adding that patrols along the border have been severely limited.

    If true, these allegations by veteran law enforcement field officers of the Border Patrol point to actions by Border Patrol management that is almost certainly criminal in intent.

    Answers.com provides the primary definition of "dereliction" as:

    Willful neglect, as of duty or principle.
    By ordering field agents of the Border Patrol to willfully neglect their duties as law enforcement officers, Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar and other senior staff of the Border Patrol have asked law enforcement officers to commit a crime to cover up the incompetence and apathy of the Federal government towards illegal immigration.

    It takes no great stretch of the imagination to think that this conspiracy runs in a direct line from the Border Patrol though the Department of Homeland Security, directly to the White House and George Bush, a man who once called the Minutemen volunteers peacefully and legally planning to watch the border for illegal activity "vigilantes."

    The article added:

    ...Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, yesterday said "credible sources" within the Border Patrol also had told him of the decision by Naco supervisors to keep new arrests to a minimum, saying he was angry but not surprised.

    "It's like telling a cop to stand by and watch burglars loot a store but don't arrest any of them," he said. "This is another example of decisions being made at the highest levels of the Border Patrol that are hurting morale and helping to rot the agency from within.

    "I worry about our efforts in Congress to increase the number of agents," he said. "Based on these kinds of orders, we could spend the equivalent of the national debt and never have secure borders."

    Mr. Tancredo, chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, blamed the Bush administration for setting an immigration enforcement tone that suggests to those enforcing the law that he is not serious about secure borders.


    "We need to get the president to come to grips with the seriousness of the problem," he said. "I know he doesn't like to utter the words, 'I was wrong,' but if we have another incident like September 11 by people who came through our borders without permission, I hope he doesn't have to say 'I'm sorry.' "

    That is my fear as well. The Bush administration, starting with President Bush himself, is setting a horrible example for border security; one that may cost American lives. It amazes me to think that a man who has such a vision on Middle Eastern issues could be such an incompetent clod in securing his own nation's borders against foreign invaders.

    President Bush is proving to be a Winston Churchill abroad, and a Neville Chamberlain at home. His acquiescence to the will of Vincente Fox and Mexico's government-sponsered illegal invasion is the untalked about Munich Agreement of American/Mexican politics.

    As I've mentioned before in Border War:

    1.1 million illegals were captured along the 2,000 mile southern border last year, with half of those captured coming through Arizona. Among the majority millions of illegals that crossed successfully last year were violent Central American gang members and 25 suspected Chechen terrorists in July that to this day have not been captured...

    ...In 2004, the equivalent of 160 12,500 military divisions simply walked northward across the U.S.-Mexican border to disappear into our country's interior. Opposing them is an apathetic federal government, a complicit media, an overworked Border Patrol, and now, the militia the Constitution intended.

    The Minuteman Project is firing a very public media shot across the bow of an apathetic, perhaps complicit, White House and Congress. Hopefully this negative exposure will force the government to shore up our borders.

    Apparently not, or not yet at least. Instead, Bush lends support to illegals with a medical supplement (in order to quiet calls for reform from a medical sector being bled dry by illegal aliens), and John McCain partners with Ted Kennedy to champion a law that includes an amnesty program that encourages more illegal immigration.

    Quite frankly, if we suffer a second 9/11/01 because of President Bush's apathy towards the issue of border security, I will be among the loudest of voices calling for his impeachment.

    When George W. Bush took his oath of office both times, he spoke these words as laid out Article II, Section I of the Constitution:

    "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
    By willfully neglecting to protect the borders of the United States, George W. Bush is dangerously close to breaking that oath.

    Update: This Blue State Conservatives article on the same topic is worth a read, as is this attempt at "Mexicanizing" America.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 12, 2005

    Roger & Me (and the United Nations), Part Deux

    A wonderful quality of stupid people (from a blogger's perspective) is their inability to shut up when they've already lost the argument.

    The folks at UN Dispatch come back for more abuse as they attempt to save face for their disastrous attempt to go after blogger Roger L. Simon for his attention to the UN Oil-for-Food Scandal.

    The John Kerry fanboys write:

    Not surprisingly, our previous post about Roger L. Simon's hyper-focus on the Oil-for-Food controversy elicited a strong response from the UN's blog critics.

    And not unexpectedly, the responses were largely dismissive, derisive, and betrayed a shallow reading of the original post.

    One is forced to remind UN Dispatch that their original post was dismissive (of the gravity of the Oil-for-Food scandal), derisive (of Roger and his choice of subject matter), and betrayed a number of shallow spots at UN Dispatch, including an understanding of the magnitude of the Oil-For-Food Scandal and its newsworthiness, and understanding of the way the news cycle works, and a general misunderstanding of the workings of the blogosphere.

    Simon and literally hundreds of other bloggers and members of the international news media are on the Oil-For-Food scandal because it is perhaps the greatest example of international organized crime in the history of the world. Period.

    This crime spans the world, potentially breaches thousands of laws in dozens of countries, and trades billions of dollars for power, at the expense of who-knows-how-many thousands dead.

    20% of his time is too much? I'd argue the rest of us aren't paying enough attention to the scandal.

    The authors then go on to condemn this blog among others:

    Finally, an unfortunate reaction from some bloggers is their willingness to simply shrug off the examples of UN-related issues listed in the original post. It's clear that many of these bloggers have become accustomed to knee-jerk attacks and are unwilling (or unable) to engage in a reasoned debate.
    Want a reasoned debate? Name the topic, and fire the opening salvo. I'm waiting.

    Notice that UN Dispatch does not attempt to debunk any of the comments made by any of the bloggers they disagree with, Confederate Yankee included. Apparently, readers of UN Dispatch are supposed to simply believe them and disagree with us, simply because they...

    Well, they don't exactly say why we should see things their way (perhaps they have a plan?). We just should, you know?


    UN Dispatch ends this sad post with:

    For the record, we'll re-post the issues we think warrant attention and let readers decide:
    Newsflash: They already did.

    Once again, the UN turns a blind eye to things they would rather not see.

    Update: I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Bronx Coward Convicted

    Via Michelle Malkin, I found out that Navy deserter (and Bronx native) Pablo Paredes has been convicted and now awaits sentencing. For those of you not following the story, Petty Officer 3rd Class Paredes was in the Navy when he refused to honor his commitment and report to his ship in San Diego for a tour. Because of his selfish act, another sailor was required to take Paredes tour.

    Citizen Smash, a San Diego Naval Reserve officer/milblogger who has already done a tour in the region, wrote this open letter to Paredes (who responded), and later had a few words with him in person.

    I hope Paredes enjoys his Chomsky in prison.


    Update: This observation by Lawhawk is too good to leave buried in the comments:

    The ship that Paredes was supposed to be on was on the vanguard of the US tsunami relief. Instead of helping save lives of tens of thousands of people affected by the tsunami, Paredes could think only of himself.

    Now, he'll have a year to think about his actions. In prison. Where he belongs.

    I'm sure that the sailor who took Paredes place was pissed to have to be called upon to do the work of Paredes, but will probably remember this particular mission with honor and a sense of pride of being there to help people far less fortunate than himself.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Democrats Claim Political Balance on PBS is ILLEGAL?

    According to Rep. David Obey, D-Wisconsin, and Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Michigan, attempting to have political balance on PBS should be illegal. Obey and Dingell are accusing Center for Public Broadcasting Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson of "pushing a Republican agenda."

    Tomlinson has taken the "disturbing" and "extremely troubling" steps of trying to add balance to PBS programming, such as when he added Journal Editorial Report to counterbalance Now With Bill Moyers, a show with a notoriously biased liberal bent.

    From an Tomlinson in On the Media:

    "I don't want to achieve balance by taking programs that are the favorites of good liberals off the air. I want to make sure that when you have programs that tilt left, we also have some programs that tilt right so the viewer can make up his or her own mind...

    "...I am for good investigative journalism in the tradition of "Frontline" and "60 Minutes." I have no objection to politically tilted programs. Will there be times when reporting supersedes the issue of balance? Absolutely. The public understands what it is. People here in Washington understand what it is. They can see the tilt. And what I want to do is, I want people not to regard public broadcasting as the voice of one particular ideological side in this country. I want them to hear the voices of America, the diverse voices of America on the public television." [ed.--emphasis added]

    Tomlinson was an appointee of President Bill Clinton to the Center for Public Broadcasting board, after serving as the Director of the Voice of America from 1982-84 under President Reagan, and was confirmed as a member of the CPB Board in September 2000.

    This is not the first time Democrats have looked to restrict free speech in recent memory.

    I'm rather certain it will not be the last attempt, either.

    Update: The LA Times now has an article up on the subject.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 11, 2005

    Roger & Me (and the United Nations)

    Poor Roger L. Simon.

    Screen writer, blogger, and one of the founders of Pajamas Media (full disclosure: I've signed on to PJ Media as well), Roger is being attacked by a United Nations blog run by a couple of John Kerry fanboys.

    Simon's crime?

    20% of Roger L. Simon's blog entries during the month of April make reference to the Oil-for-Food controversy.

    0% of Roger L. Simon's blog entries during April make reference to the following UN-related issues:

    They then go on to list a bunch of issues that that think build the case for how successful the United Nations is, apparently in an attempt to show that Roger is unfair. Let's look at some of these, shall we? I'll use their links of "successes" from their blog, and then comment as it seems appropriate.
    Tackling the threat of transnational organized crime
    After reading of the massive amounts of corruption I've read about involving the Oil-For-Food scandal and kickbacks involving the French, the Russians, and various UN diplomats and hangers-on including the UN chairman's own family, I think the UN could rightly be defined as "trasnational organized crime" itself, couldn' it?

    Are they trying to debunk Simon's claim, or are they piling-on themselves?

    Shipping supplies to millions of Iraqi schoolchildren
    This was instead of shipping freedom to Iraq, which the United States eventually did (against UN wishes). Unfortunately, the delay left more than a few Iraqi schoolchildren in mass graves still being discovered.

    Controlling the Marburg virus
    If UN peacekeeping was worth a damn, perhaps Angola wouldn't have been at war for decades and their hospitals might have been better prepared to handle a disease easily contained by basic protective measures. Through apathy, the UN helped create conditions that made the outbreak so severe.

    Again fanboys, you aren't helping your cause too much...

    Building thousands of homes for tsunami victims
    The UN contributed $36 million to build (they haven't actually built them mind you, but they will) 9,000 homes. That is nice, but the victims are still homeless five months later while UN officials live in air-conditioned hotels and drink imported wine with local teen hookers. Doubt that? Read The Diplomad, blogged by men who we actually there to see the UN's ineffectiveness and corruption among the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

    BTW, how much do you want to bet that the bulk of that $36 million was part of the more than $500 billion contributed by the people of the United States?

    Partnering with the private sector to meet humanitarian needs

    I didn't actually read this link, but it sounds like it could be describing more UN sexual abuse of children. I can see Pierre crying out, "Hey Lay-deez... I'll give you twenty francs and a food voucher if you'll let me borrow your daughter to satisfy the "humanitarian needs" of my "private sector."

    Reducing child mortality rates

    Again, didn't read the link, but the answer is simple.

    Keep children away from AIDS-infested UN pedophiles.

    Of course, it might also have been nice if the UN stepped in in Rwanda, or Darfur, or Bosnia, or... well you get the picture. Stopping genocide (which involves children) is a pretty effective way to combat child mortality rates. Perhaps they should try it sometime.

    Rehabilitating Iraq's marshlands

    Yep, just as soon as they dig up all those Kurds that Saddam gassed, shot, and bombed while the UN turned a blind eye, the marshes can return to its pristine natural state.

    There are more examples provided by the fanboys, but you get the picture. You can splash all the perfume you want on a turd, but it doesn't change it's basic composition.

    U.N.-Loved Update: The UN stooges actually decided to spoonfeed this gem of a story to more established bloggers via email. Can you believe their stupidity? I had to find out about it on my own. I guess I need to get more famouser.

    And yes I was an English major... why do you ask?

    Update: They just keep coming back for more.


    This is an archive post. Please visit the main page for more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Bush Attacked By Complaints Dept

    A grenade found near where President Bush gave his speech in Tblisi,Georgia was found to be a non-active training grenade with neither explosives nor a detonator. CNN reports that the device was merely placed in the crowd, and not thrown, and that it was most likely placed in the crowd to scare people and attract media attention.

    A suspect was quickly apprehended based upon videotaped footage of the crowd.

    The would-be assassin was asked for a statement as he was whisked away by Georgian Security forces, but could only be heard mumbling something about "my stapler."

    *****

    When asked for comments about the apparent assassination attempt, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Lusional) simply muttered, "The loser."*

    It was unclear who he was referring to.

    Some liberals were quick to place the blame on--you guessed it--Karl Rove. Yet other Democrats were outraged that someone might have threatened the President's life overseas, when they'd prefer to have him assassinated at home.


    * Accurate, but not necessarily true.

    This is an archive post. Please visit the main page for more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 10, 2005

    Moveon.org Starts New Voter Registration Drive

    They're recruiting the same voter population as always, it appears (h/t: Drudge).

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Sooner Than Expected

    I knew it was only a matter of time before the moveon.org wing of the Democratic party would start to show their socialist roots, but I must admit that I didn't think that they would start openly supporting socialists so quickly after running moderate Democrats out of the party (h/t: Drudge).

    After making the endorsement of Bernie Sanders, Howard Dean pointed out that that "We've got a few things to work out with Bernie", but Sander's radical socialist politics were apparently enough for a Dean endorsement.

    I wonder which part of Sander's platform Howard Dean liked best:

    • National socialized healthcare
    • Military disarmament (ours)
    • Higher taxes on the wealthy and businesses
    • Pro-abortion
    • Against death penalty
    • More social program spending
    You can almost hear the economy crashing with those ideas, can't you?
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Lies by Omission

    In a syndicated article aptly titled "Final Insult," liberal NY Times columnist Paul Krugman proves once again why he is a columnist, and not a reporter or an economist. Reporters are supposed to present facts, and economists are supposed to be good with numbers. In this column Krugman proves he is good with neither facts nor figures.

    Krugman writes:

    Before I take on this final insult to our intelligence, let me deal with a fundamental misconception: the idea that President Bush's plan would somehow protect future Social Security benefits.

    If the plan really would do that, it would be worth discussing. It's possible - not certain, but possible - that 40 or 50 years from now Social Security won't have enough money coming in to pay full benefits. (If the economy grows as fast over the next 50 years as it did over the past half-century, Social Security will do just fine.) So there's a case for making small sacrifices now to avoid bigger sacrifices later.

    It is certain that Social Security will not have enough money to pay full benefits to retirees. For Krugman to deny this is either transparently dishonest, or it displays a pathetic ability to do basic math. There is no "protection" under the current system.

    When Social Security was set up, more than a dozen people were paying into FDR's Social Security Ponzi Scheme for every person that drew benefits. As the Baby Boomer Generation retires, and lives far longer after retirement than previous generations, as few as two people will be paying into the system for each person drawing out, and each person drawing out will be pulling out far more money than the two working people put in. The system is unsustainable, based purely upon the hard numbers of those working versus those drawing on the system.

    Krugman's not-so-artful dodge using the red herring of historical economic growth does not support his position. Economic growth is irrelevant to the hard numbers of people paying into the Social Security system versus people drawing for the Social Security system. Good economy or bad economy, people are going to grow old and retire. His argument is completely irrelevant to his position...

    ...But it provides excellent support for Bush's plan to allow people to privitize part of their savings and invest it into the economy through conservative investments. The economy has not only grown over the past fifty years, but over the past 100, including the Great Depression. Long term investments in government bonds, index funds, and other diversified investments will yield a much higher rate of return that pouring money into the hole of Social Security. How much would it mean to you? Figure it for yourself.

    The difference for my decidedly-middle class family is a net gain of $1,570/month more under the Bush Plan, which throughly trumps my projected benefits under Social Security's current guise. Of course, the current Social Security program will be out of money by the time I retire, so actual returns under Bush's plan look far better than the calculator would indicate.

    Krugman then goes on a disingenuous attack, claiming that Bush's plan would cut taxes, but cut benefits far more. But Krugman only provides part of the story, and lies by omission; he doesn't apparently include in his calculations the private accounts that are a key component of the Bush plan. In short, he presents all the negatives of the plan, without any of the positive.

    When all you tell someone is that you are going to cut out their diseased heart, you are telling them they are going to die. By leaving out the key fact that you are going to put back in a stronger, more vibrant heart, you give them a prognosis 180 degrees away from the truth. Yet this is exactly what Krugman does, while have the gall to say, "I'm not being unfair."

    You're not only unfair Mr. Krugman, you're blatantly dishonest.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 09, 2005

    America's Weakest Terrorist Targets

    The TSA keeps us safe from breasts, corkscrews and old Methodists in wheel chairs when we fly. Government databases hassle those trying to rent moving trucks. The Department of Homeland Security keeps a close watch on the bord--well, let's not go there.

    But if you want to infect 100,000 or more with chemical or biological weapons, take your WMD-armed RV to America's #1 spectator sport, and you can pay for VIP parking to the slaughter without any significant hassle at all.

    Welcome to super-terrorism, NASCAR-style.

    NASCAR is America's fastest-growing spectator sport, and the massive, high-banked superspeedways are the largest sporting events in the United States. Crowds far in excess of 100,000 screaming fans fill many of the larger venues. Many of these venues also encourage speciality vehicle parking: RVs and colorful, customized buses of hardcore NASCAR fans willing to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars in passes and tickets to park either close outside the track, or even in the track infield (area enclosed by the race course).

    From Daytona to Charlotte and eventually Staten Island, NASCAR encourages fan attendance, and tracks profit handsomely off infield parking access for RVs and buses, with such speciality vehicle parking spaces garnering $750-$900 each at some venues.

    But there seems to be little or nothing done to screen these infield vehicles for hazardous materials, even though they are large enough to easily hide enough chemical or biological agents to infect hundred of thousands, if not millions of people. Ever heard one bit about this potential threat from the TSA or Homeland Security? Me neither. I doubt they've even considered the possibility. Sadly, these infield vehicles are far from the only threat.

    One or more RVs and buses parked outside of the track and upwind of the facility stand a chance of exposing far more people than an infield device, with a much smaller chance of the terrorists getting caught. With the incubation period of many biological threats being measured in days, millions of people could be exposed to bioweapons released at a NASCAR race and dispersed throughout the country by a hundred-thousand infected carriers before anyone really knew what was going on.

    Homeland Security is doing a wonderful job of guarding us against minor threats. Too bad Bubba bin Laden isn't even on the government's radar.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 06, 2005

    Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part IV

    Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part I Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part II

    Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part III

    Part 4 of a series.

    In the previous post in this series, I ended by saying:

    ...Liberal logic seems to almost function like this:

    Bushilter's war is for oil, because gas prices are higher.
    Republicans are racists, because they believe in equal rights.
    Conservatives are imperialists, because they spread democracy.

    Is this logical? Of course not, and at a deeper level of consciousness,
    liberals must know this. The inherent illogic of this mindset contributes to
    another not-so-startling conclusion...

    Almost on cue, the very first comment to the article was this from a poster identifying himself as azboh20:

    hey im glad you hate liberals so much. Republicans should rule the US alone, then it could be a true democracy, right? Why dont you put aside your hatred of liberals and understand that they can be patriots too. Remember we are all Americans and all of us believe in democracy, your intolerance of liberals and liberal ideology is both un-democratic and anti-American. Learn your basic American political theory, then you can write back...
    As I was alluding to at then end of the previous post, and so wonderfully articulated by azboh20, the inherent illogic of liberal philosophy is always there under the surface, chafing at them like the proverbial burr under the saddle. This constant chafing that contributes to anger and isolation (examples of which are so obvious and self-evident they don't merit rehashing here), and other characteristics:
    In addition to anger and isolation, liberals thrive on a stew of misrepresentation, indignation, and victimization.
    Of course, we have our fair share of misrepresentation and indignation on the right, but victimhood is a daily specialty of the left, as our (un?)willing participant provides. I was going to link to a few examples instead of using original reader commentary, but when they leap right into your lap...

    Let's dissect these very typical liberal comments by azboh20:


    hey im glad you hate liberals so much.
    Right away, our liberal goes for the misrepresentation that I hate liberals. I clearly explain in the opening paragraphs of this series that is far from the case. They do occasionally make me feel a bit like Dian Fossey, however.

    Republicans should rule the US alone, then it could be a true democracy, right?
    An intriguing house-blend of self-pity, arrogance, indignation, and sarcasm. Tasty. He of course leaves out that conservatives do recognize and value a strong two-party system, as do the millions of Democrats who voted for Bush.

    Why dont you put aside your hatred of liberals and understand that they can be patriots too.
    Misrepresentation, indignation and victimization, the trifecta of liberal sentence construction. Bravo! By the way, has you liberal patriot signed his promised Form 180 yet?

    Remember we are all Americans and all of us believe in democracy, your intolerance of liberals and liberal ideology is both un-democratic and anti-American.

    Again, he continues to try to establish the easily discredited "intolerance" meme, and goes for more victimization with the "remember we are all Americans" appeal. The comment that a dislike of liberal ideology is undemocratic or anti-American is simply absurd, and another weak, fading try at victimization... though his indignation seems to be wearing thin.

    Learn your basic American political theory, then you can write back...
    Gibberish, really. I'm not even sure that he knows what he means with that one.

    So thank you, azboh20, for a wonderful lesson in how liberals immerse themselves in misrepresentation, indignation and victimization. Of course to see this work on a truly masterfully level, you have your choice of sites to choose from. My favorite is the Democratic Underground (any article or message board thread), the rank and file diaries of Daily Kos, or just about any other liberal outpost will do.

    Next time, we'll examine how progressives create a narrowly-defined ideological demographic, and rigorously police groups or individuals who would stray from the cult that is the Left Branch Davidians.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 05, 2005

    Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part III

    Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part I Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part II

    Part 3 of a series.

    So far, we've established that liberals:

    • really do live in a "reality-based" community, as advertised
    • practice taqiya, just like the terrorists they sometimes seem to support
    Now on to another conclusion about liberals:


    Liberals are inherently and illogically contradictory about their opponents.
    In addition to liberals having a plethora of their own contradictions (discussed in some detail here and here so far), they also ascribe contradictory attributes to their opponents.

    According to the far left, moderates and conservatives that disagree with liberals are widely viewed as buffoons, cretins, fools, idiots, morons... you get the picture. These are some of the milder comments they have for conservatives. Some aren't so nice (ed: nor intelligent. Site comments throughly debunked here).

    And yet these same conservative buffoons, cretins, etc keep winning elections and tricking the American people at every turn. This is due in part, apparently, to the vast right wing conspiracy that somehow is completely idiotic and capable of world-class Machiavellian scheming at the same time.

    The incongruous statements about their political opposites never seems to raise an eyebrow among liberals, and in some odd way, seems to simply reinforce the ability of liberals to thrive in a contradiction-filled, reality-based world.

    From the outside looking in, it would appear that in their minds, the existence of so many contradictions, is evidence that their reality should be based upon contradictions. Liberal logic seems to almost function like this:

    Bushilter's war is for oil, because gas prices are higher.
    Republicans are racists, because they believe in equal rights.
    Conservatives are imperialists, because they spread democracy.

    Is this logical? Of course not, and at a deeper level of consciousness, liberals must know this. The inherent illogic of this mindset contributes to another not-so-startling conclusion about liberals covered in Among the Left Branch Davidians, Part IV.


    Update: Political Yen/Yang riffs very nicely of the ideas in this post and provides a much-needed historical refresher.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 04, 2005

    Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part II

    Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part I

    Part 2 of a series.

    So we have firmly established that Liberals are indeed part of a "reality-based community," and that by admitting that, they are conceding (whether they know it or not) to living in something of a fantasy world.

    Once you begin to understand this basic concept, we can begin to understand a tiny bit about their psychological makeup, but we also need to understand some of the other obvious truths of liberalism, including one that is more an extension of reality-based thinking than a separate concept:

    Liberals thrive on taqiya.

    The philosophies of liberalism are in constant contradicting themselves, even to the point of using conflicting self-descriptions ("liberals" and/or "progressives") that they use interchangeably. This is somewhat analogous to the Shi'a practice of taqiya, which is concept best explained to American audiences as the idea of lying to protect your faith. The faith in question here, of course, is liberalism, which for starters, lies by calling itself "liberal."

    Dictionaries tell us that a "liberal" is someone:

    "characterized by broad-mindedness" and is personified as "having political or
    social views favoring reform and progress," and is a person "tolerant of change;
    not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition." (source)

    These are the dictionary definitions, but when applied to liberal political ideology, these words--as they relate to their definitions--become their own antonyms. In present day politics, liberals are notoriously conservative, even regressive in policy.

    Practical examples are legion.

    "Progressives" in Congress are seeking to reinstate the "Fairness Doctrine," a barrier to freedom of expression killed in the 1980s that would enable government to threaten broadcasters (as my liberal congressman Maurice Hinchey reportedly did during a radio station break, to conservative radio and television host Sean Hannity) with revoking their broadcast licenses for speech they do not like. In practice this effort is targeted squarely at censorship of talk radio, hardly what one would consider a mark of broad-mindedness or tolerance, and is certainly an example of intruding authoritarianism, the very thing a true liberal should be against.

    Liberals are also supposed to value "political or social views favoring reform and progress," but instead they have attempted thus far to stonewall any attempts to reform Social Security. Not only are they blocking moderate and conservative attempts at reform, (moderate private investment, as championed by Democratic centrist President Bill Clinton), but they have yet to offer any plans of their own.

    Today's liberals offer very little in the way of reform or progress, instead spending most of their time fighting either against change (Social Security, the Middle East, the United Nations, etc), or for reverting to ideas previously discarded (the so-called assault weapons ban, the "Fairness Doctrine" for broadcasters, etc). Instead of a progressive ideology, today's liberals are actually regressive in policy, offering little or nothing new while attempting to subvert any change proposed by moderates or conservatives.

    The far left has frequently had an unseemly relationship with Islamic extremists. Perhaps they get along with one another so well because they both speak the same common language of taqiya. That is just one more sad contradiction of many among the Left Branch Davidians.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 03, 2005

    Among The Left Branch Davidians

    Part 1 of a series.

    Despite the Fiberals article (and store), and a tagline that reads "Because liberalism is a persistent vegetative state," (and store) I don't hate liberals. If I did, I wouldn't spend so much time trying to figure out how and why they think the way that they do.

    I've spent many hours surfing liberal blogs, holding email discussions with a few of the more coherent (to a point) liberal bloggers, and lurking at the Democratic Underground, Daily Kos, and other liberal online strongholds. I've also spent my fair share of time reading liberal columnists, watching liberal pundits and politicians on television, or listening to them on radio.

    I want to understand them, becuase I've always felt that if I could understand the way that they think, then I might be able to understand why we are so very far apart on so many issues. After many months of trying to understand liberals I've come to a several disturbing conclusions, the first of which is this:

    Liberals really do live in a "reality-based community."
    On a strict linguistic level, "-based" simply means something similar to, but other than. Water-based paints have water in them, but the paints are hardly water. In this same way, the "reality-based community" has some reality in it, but reality is only a small component of their constructed world. This construct takes certain elements of the real world and blends them with strongly-held and rigidly self-reinforced liberal ideologies. In short, liberalism is exactly as advertised: not reality, but something loosely based upon reality, with plenty of fantasy included.

    It is in this world of non-reality that the mainstream media has a nuetral or even a conservative bias, despite the fact that in the reality the rest of us inhabit, the media readily admits to its liberal bias.

    In the reality-based community, the "evil conservatives," are uneducated white southern NASCAR-loving blue-collar idiots, who somehow find the time to balance their plate by being rich, imperialistic "rethuglican" fascists who rape the world as they run huge oil-guzzling multinational corporations.

    Moderates are hardly viewed as being much better, with moderate Democratic and Republican voters derisively referred to as "sheeple," unable and unwilling to think for themselves.

    To you and I, it would seem nearly impossible for someone to be an illiterate redneck and a rich corporate CEO, but the liberal conception of conservatives seems to be just that.

    These strongly-held, unquestioned beliefs will be discussed in later articles in this series, and amount to a cult-like faith. Welcome to the reality-based confusion that is life among the Left Branch Davidians.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 02, 2005

    More DU Class: Calls Both Bushs Murderers

    The repulsive liberals of the Democratic Underground posted this sickening graphic of First Lady Laura Bush today, supposedly holding the severed head of an Iraqi child:

    The vast majority of DU posters on this thread were unintelligent enough to realize that their "news" source was in fact satire from a well known satire web site, The Swift Report.

    Update: DU moderators finally realized the article was satire and locked the thread, but did not find the graphic objectionable, and did not remove it.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Old Hippies Protest, Are Ignored

    There was a protest yesterday in New York City against the war in Iraq and against nuclear weapons organized by Marxist front group United for Peace and Justice. Did you hear about it? Did you care about it?

    Judging by the lack of media attention, neither did anyone else.

    I only found out about it from local television news, which seemed to highlight a graying attendence demographic more suitable for a free Metamucil giveaway than a thriving protest movement. The attendence numbers varied wildy based upon the source, with Fox claiming up to 40,000 while the NY Times story puts the number at just "several thousand."

    National cable news channels CNN, CNN Headline News, and Fox News have all but ignored the story, (I found the link buried in the sidebar of the Fox News site). Even that seething bed of progressive indignation, The Democratic Underground managed only ten anemic comments about the protest; in contrast a demonstration in Kathmandu, Nepal garnered more attention.

    Perhaps the media finally sees these protests for what they are; the ramblings and rantings of aging hippies that no longer warrant our attention.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    May 01, 2005

    The End of the Beginning for the Minuteman Project

    Sunday morning, the month-long first phase of the Minuteman Project officially ended. At least 857 volunteers claimed a 98% reduction in illegal border crossings along the 23-mile stretch of the Arizona/Mexico border. At last count, 335 criminals were captured by the Border Patrol as a result of Minuteman calls, and an estimated 60,000 criminals were prevented from flowing over the border. Not surprisingly, the vigilante acts of violence foretold by the faulty oracles of (illegal) immigrant's rights organizations (and a cowardly federal government) never occured.

    The only threatening act of the entire monthlong exercise was a death threat made against the Minuteman by a Santa Clara County (CA) Social Services employee from his work computer. Not surprisingly, the death threat was not reported by ACLU "legal observers" in the area, presumably because they couldn't see to report it through all the smoke.

    The stoner ACLU volunteers were apparently the only Americans in the Naco/Douglas corridor over the past month who broke the law.

    The Minuteman Project, which has now grown to an estimated total of 20,000 volunteers ready to patrol both our northern and southern borders, now heads to California.

    Update: Welcome back, Charles and LGF! This is an archive post; be sure to check out the main page, and consider blog-rolling or bookmarking the site. FYI, I also think you'll really like the "Among the Left Branch Davidians" series of articles starting Monday.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Time for Review?

    I like Stephen Bainbridge, and think he's often one of the more thoughtful bloggers out there. I was therefore saddened to see this post from him:
    My post on Gov. Schwarzenegger's sudden decision to run to the nativist right on immigration drew the usual hostile emails and trackbacks. Give it up folks; I'm pro-immigration, legal or otherwise. Why? Because I'm a pragmatist on this issue. As long as illegals can make more money here than there, they'll keep coming. So my bottom line message is: Wake up and smell the coffee; California's future is Latino:

    [chart]

    The California GOP can either accept the demographic reality and start thinking about how to attract Hispanic voters - many of whom started out as illegals or children of illegals but share our social conservatism - or it can be seen as a party of apartheid. My preference would be for the former; my bet is that the California GOP will opt for the latter and once again deserve its name as the stupid party. And so I'm very sorry to see Schwarzenegger pissing away our best chance in years to turn California from blue to purple.

    "Party of apartheid?" "Pro-immigration, legal or otherwise?" Bainbridge also referred to the peaceful Minuteman Project volunteers as "nuts" and "racists."

    His comments are both illogical, and in open support illegal activity. His comments about the Minutemen also seem to have been made on a whim, with no supporting evidence. I expect this kind of commentary from others, but not from someone like Professor Bainbridge.

    Perhaps Professor Bainbridge should take a step back and review the merits of his position, as it is not pragmatic as he claims, nor even well-reasoned.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 29, 2005

    Immigrant Called "Racist" For Supporting Legal Immigration

    It looks like the Governator has chimed in on the Minuteman Project, praising its effectiveness in slowing illegal immigration from Mexico, and adding that the federal government isn't doing its job. "It's a shame that the private citizen has to go in there and start patrolling our borders," Schwarzenegger said.

    Other, more clueless folks saw it differently. From the Los Angeles (California) Times:

    The leader of a Mexican American group called the governor's comments "shameful" and "nothing short of base racism."

    "I think we're seeing the real Arnold Schwarzenegger. The mask has now fallen," said Nativo V. Lopez, state national [ed: "state national"? glad to see those editors are up to the task at the Times] president of the Mexican American Political Assn. "Those of immigrant stock should have no illusions about what his real sentiments and feelings are toward them."

    Yes Mr. Lopez, Gov. Schwarzenegger, himself an immigrant, made his point perfectly clear. He wants people to follow the law and immigrate legally, and for the federal government to provide adequate border security.

    It is too bad, Mr. Lopez, that your organization and others like it are apparently more for breaking the law, against co-operating with law enforcement, and against hiring police officers, than you are interested in coming up with intelligent solutions to a problem that costs legal citizens of this country, including Hispanic-Americans, billions each year.


    Update: Outside the Beltway is all over this as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 28, 2005

    Rumor-mongering

    Some are speculating that Bush's impromptu prime-time address tonight might be more than about Social Security.

    Actually, I have sources that tell me that "he" was actually captured. Alive.

    My guess is that they'll reveal that he snuck over an unguarded U.S./Mexican border (you know, before the vigilantes shut part of it down) and has been "in country" for three years picking cucumbers in California, plotting the destruction of the Clinton Library as revenge for the cigar jockey blowing up his favorite asprin factory in Sudan.

    He was only picked up when a Wendy's employee reflectively swung a butcher's knife at him as he swiped a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger, severing a finger that curiously, was never recovered.

    Cops followed the blood trail to Tim Robbin's house, where "he" was arrested.

    The ACLU is now suing Wendy's.

    Or at least that's how I heard it.

    Update: False alarm. No OBL, dead or alive,was mentioned. That aside, Bush was as good tonight as I have ever seen him. He was articulate, laid out his cases on Social Security and other policies well, and handled the White House Press Corps with grace.

    A very strong showing. Tigerhawk live-blogged it, and is well worth the read.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Make Money, Screw Your Friends

    We get letters, we get letters, we get lots and lots of...

    Well, we don't actually gets lots of letters, but we do get more than you'd expect for a "B" list blog, including this gem on behalf of the California GOP.

    To Whom It May Concern:

    My name is [name withheld] and I work for a company called Mohre Communications [sic] we have been hired by the Republican Party to get out there new rewards Credit Card. You can read more about the program at www.cagop.org <http://www.cagop.org>. The GOP needs the help of conservative bloggers to place advertisements on their sites. You can read more information and get link to sign people up at <http://posse.mohre.com/>.

    Thank you,

    [name withheld]

    Isn't it delicious?

    Republicans just pushed through a pro-shareholder bill which strips away bankruptcy protection from most Americans in favor of a predatory industry, and then asks bloggers such as myself to shill for them to apply for more credit card debit.

    Yes, nothing says lovin' like putting you in a hole and pulling away the ladder.... at least according to Buffalo Bill.

    What's next, the National Right to Life Committee selling RU-486 as a fundraiser?

    Sorry, California GOP, but I'm not buying (or selling) this one.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    A Parent's Right to Know

    You've got to give it to the NY Times and the Associated Press; they don't waste any time going for spin in an early version of the lede of this story:
    The House passed a bill Wednesday that would make it illegal to dodge parental-consent laws by taking minors across state lines for abortions, the latest effort to chip away at abortion rights (emphasis added) after Republican gains in the November elections.
    Perhaps this is just the reaction of a father, but I viewed this bill (and apparently so did the House by a 270-157 vote) as an issue of parental rights, not so much a strike against Roe v. Wade. It really is that simple: if my minor child is having surgery, any surgery, it is my right as a parent to know about it.

    Period.

    Perhaps what we should be asking is why 145 Democrats, 11 Republicans and 1 Independent feel that it should be acceptable for strangers to smuggle our minor children over state lines to perform elective surgical procedures.


    Update: The NY Times changed their original story and lede on this subject from an AP piece (lede above, full story used here) to this one:

    The House passed a bill on Wednesday making it a federal crime for any adult to transport an under-age girl across state lines to have an abortion without the consent of her parents. A vote on a similar bill is expected in the Senate later this spring or early this summer, and backers says its chances are good.
    Perhaps they were concerned they were exposing their bias a bit too early?

    Update 2: The AP has followed the NY Times in dumping the original lede. Apparently, AP writer Laurie Kellman's original lede was too biased for both the AP and the NY Times. I wonder how often that happens?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 27, 2005

    Gun Nuts

    Liberal calls for violence against the President never seem to end. This excerpt of an audio clip directed at President Bush is from The Randi Rhodes Show on Air America, and has the Secret Service investigating:
    The announcer: "A spoiled child is telling us our Social Security isn't safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us. Well, here's your answer, you ungrateful whelp: [audio sound of 4 gunshots being fired.] Just try it, you little bastard. [audio of gun being cocked]."

    The audio production at the center of the controversy aired during opening minutes of The Randi Rhodes Show.

    "What is with all the killing?" Rhodes said, laughing, after the clip aired.

    I wonder if Rhodes would be laughing if someone had made threats against Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, or other liberal politicians. I doubt it. If a conservative uttered such sentiments against John Kerry, Randi Rhodes would be screaming bloodly murder.

    Instead of screaming bloody murder, Rhodes seems to be promoting it, and this is not the first time (h/t: Michelle Malkin). Rhoes is just part of a liberal cycle of violence. The liberals keep upping their hate-filled rhetoric and soon enough, they'll spur another liberal assassin like they have so many times in the past.

    This isn't an issue of freedom of speech, this is an issue of incitement to murder, one that prosecutors and courts should take seriously.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Maurice Hinchey: The New Tom Delay?

    Sometimes, it is simply better to point out those who said it best rather than trying to say it yourself, though GOP and the City has a great take on it as well. According to the Post:
    U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey is New York's king of comped travel — racking up a stunning $161,393 tab footed by special-interest groups, the fifth most of any federal lawmaker.

    The Ulster County Democrat has taken 25 trips during the past five years to such far-flung, chic locales as Prague, Rome, Moscow, Shanghai and Morocco — courtesy of private groups intent on influencing the congressman.

    That sounds every bit as suspect as the charges Democrats are leveling at Tom Delay, who has been blasted by Democrats on a string of supposed ethics violations, incuding some that were legitimately questionable (Hinchey-like junkets) and some that are plainly assinine, such as using family members for political work.

    Uh, Bobby Kennedy working for JFK, anyone?

    One of these days politicians are going to learn that pigs shouldn't squeal, especially if they happen to be the pigs deepest in the slop.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 26, 2005

    The Contract On America

    Via Just One Minute (h/t Instapundit) we see that the Democrats have finally decided that they must attempt to stand for something, which would seem to be a welcome relief from their previous "Bushitlerjoooos!" platform. Harry Reid's Promise of America offers a platform based on nine bills the Democrats have introduced to the Senate. Let's take a quick look at the Democrats Contract on America, shall we?
    1. Women's Health Care. “The Prevention First Act of 2005†will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions by increasing funding for family planning and ending health insurance discrimination against women.
    The key words of this plan to watch are "increasing funding" which means increasing taxes. If Democrats really wanted to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions, perhaps they should quit supporting recreational abortions: those abortions due to those too lazy, too stoned, or too stupid to use birth control knowing that they can easily get an abortion later. Of course, this would require personal responsibility, so don't look for any Democratic support.
    2. Veterans' Benefits. “The Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2005†will assist disabled veterans who, under current law, must choose to either receive their retirement pay or disability compensation.
    Sounds great, the concept of taking care of our disabled troops. Of course, if the Democrats haven't consistently fought against military spending for decades on end, then some of these veterans may not have been disabled to begin with. Again, this plan would almost certainly involve a raise in taxes.
    3. Fiscal Responsibility. Democrats will move to restore fiscal discipline to government spending and extend the pay-as-you-go requirement.
    Reid forgets to mention that a Democrat's idea of "fiscal discipline" is to raise your taxes as much as it takes to pay for all their new proposed entitlement programs.
    4. Relief at the Pump. Democrats plan to halt the diversion of oil from the markets to the strategic petroleum reserve. By releasing oil from the reserve through a swap program, the plan will bring down prices at the pump.
    This will not bring down prices at the pump. What will reduce prices at the pump it to build new refineries and allow more exploration and drilling at sites where exploration has paid off, both of which the Democrats are against.
    5. Education. Democrats have a bill that will: strengthen head start and child care programs, improve elementary and secondary education, provide a roadmap for first generation and low-income college students, provide college tuition relief for students and their families, address the need for math, science and special education teachers, and make college affordable for all students.
    Making college affordable for all students, including those of illegal aliens, Mr. Reid forgets to mention, which is what Democrats are pushing in several states as we speak. If the Democrats want to improve the quality of education, they should push to an end of teacher's unions and tenure. This plan, as you may guess, involves throwing more of your federal tax dollars down a hole.
    6. Jobs. Democrats will work in support of legislation that guarantees overtime pay for workers and sets a fair minimum wage.
    When an artificial minimum wage goes up, inflation goes up to match it. Democrats have never been very good at economics.
    7. Energy Markets. Democrats work to prevent Enron-style market manipulation of electricity.
    Democrats are for more bloated, non-functional bureaucracy in the Department of Energy.
    8. Corporate Taxation. Democrats make sure companies pay their fair share of taxes to the U.S. government instead of keeping profits overseas.
    Democrats will force even more companies completely offshore, further hindering economic growth and therefore increasing the current deficit.
    9. Standing with our troops. Democrats believe that putting America's security first means standing up for our troops and their families.
    Since when?

    Under Harry Reid's plan, the Democrats plan to raise taxes, increase bureaucracy, and throw more money at already failing Democratic initiatives from previous sessions of congress. The Democrats aren't providing us with an new ideas.

    At least they are consistent.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 20, 2005

    Minutemen Open Second Front in War on Illegals

    The great thing about the concept of the marketplace of ideas is that good ideas spread.

    From the Minuteman Project to the Yuma Patriots to the Friends of the Border Patrol (and the Border Patrol does indeed count these groups as friends), citizens watch programs along the U.S. Mexican border are growing in popularity.

    Building on that momentum, James Gilchrist, one of the founders of the Minuteman Project, is opening a second front in the battle against illegal immigration, taking the Minuteman name and some volunteers to California to protest businesses that employ illegal aliens.

    This is very cagey timing and a quite intelligent move.

    Make no mistake: the workplace is where the battle against illegal immigration will be won or lost. If citizens groups such as the Minuteman Project can use their current popularity to focus the ire of the underemployed American worker on the idea that their jobs are being outsourced in America, then there is a serious chance of creating an environment where hiring illegals (or doing business with companies htat hire illegals) is seen as an unsupportable position by most businesses.

    I've got to hand it to the Minutemen; they came to play hardball, and by the time the opposition takes them seriously, supporters of illegal immigration may already be on the ropes.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 19, 2005

    D.U. Response to Pope Benedict XVI: Maybe we'll get lucky he will "die in his sleep"

    It is always fun (well, disturbing) to watch the Democratic Underground respond with paranoia to the world event de jour, and the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the new pope is no different. What follows is a selection of choice tidbits in two threads from the group voted "most likely to flatline an EEG."
    he was head of the Inquisition. Enough said for me.

    Kind of makes you wonder if cardinals vote on Diebold machines.

    Wrote a document in 2000 that denounced other faiths... Great. Just what we need. Warns of the "EVILS" of liberalism. Rigid, intolerant...it just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? The only plus here is that he is 78! Ed: You've got to love DU. Not pope for a day, and they already can't wait for Pope Benedict XVI to die.

    Yeah, we got the John Ashcroft of new popes. Ed: Among liberals, being compared to John Ashcroft, a respectful, God-fearing man, is an insult of the highest magnitude.

    He is the Grand Inquisitor...No fooling. He heads the Office for Enforcement of the Doctrine of the Faithful, which is the direct successor office to the centuries-old Grand Inquisition. He is therefore the leading hardliner, enforcer and book-censor of the Church, and was JP2's right-hand man...

    He used to be a hitler youth.. and practically endorsed GW in his statements on "catholic voting" during our elections... Ed: Hitler Youth = GW Bush support. Why didn't I get that?

    Oh goody. Another neocon in power... Ed: Yep, Karl Rove rigged this election, too...


    This is BS. Maybe we'll get lucky he will "die in his sleep" like our 33 day "Progressive Pope" John Paul 1st, did.

    It's a sad day when the best aspect of a new pope is that he's likely to die soon.

    This is very sad news, indeed, for the Catholic church. Once again, the forces of evil triumph...

    Hopefully, they'll all die off soon. Ed: Who, Catholics?

    Look on the bright side... this ensures that Bush** is not the most fascist leader in the known universe. Berlusconi (out-and-out fascist Fini in cabinet) might have had the edge, but this makes it official.

    Whatever else may have been going on in there, I'm reasonably sure that God was not speaking to them, saying "Hey, guys, why not shake things up a little bit? Go for the Nazi!"

    And the "Nurse, we need to up his meds" award goes to goclark for:

    I knew he would be named. The rest of the names were just ROVE tricks to throw off everyone. He was placed there by the likes of BushCO. It sends a STRONG signal to the non white people of the world that "WHITE POWER" is the name of the game.

    It was also a strong signal for WHITES to return to the church and be welcomed with open arms. They don't care about the Hispanics and Africans that are devoting themselves to the church.

    It is a sad day for the world in my opinion.

    Sad perhaps, but not for the reason you think...

    Update: Thanks to Powerline for picking this thread up, and for showing me the Carpe Bonum bio of the new pope that is actually worth reading.

    Update 2: More coverage of "Papa Ratzi" here with a bit more mirthful spin to take your mind off the bile of the D.U.


    Update 3: WuzzaDem finds that the Kos kids have their own name for the new Pope.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Aiding and Abetting

    While enjoying a nice case of insomnia last night, I flipped over to Scarborough Country on MSNBC and found paleocon Pat Buchanan interviewing the Lynyrd Skynyrd-looking founder of a Minuteman Project-type group called the Yuma Patriots and his son, and the smarmy founder of Border Angels, an illegal alien assistance group.

    Flash Sharrar (I couldn't make up a better name) started the Patriots after his son was carjacked and robbed of $700 at gunpoint by a group of illegals when he returned home after eleven months of combat duty in Iraq.

    Enrique Morones founded a nonprofit called Border Angels, a group that helps illegal cross dangerous stretchs of the U.S. Mexican border by providing assistance in the form of water stations (in the summer) and clothing drops (in the winter).

    Morones was rather smug and self-righteous, and actually had the gall to insist that illegals had the right to cross the border as we wrongly took (I can't remember the exact phrasing) Mexico's land (meaning California, Arizona, etc). Buchanan was quick to call him on this ("Hey Buddy, Mexico invaded us," again not an exact quote).

    While watching the segment I began to wonder; why do we provide tax-exempt status and other types of government assistance (through the form or permits) for groups that assist in committing crimes such as Border Angels?

    The express goal of Border Angels is to help illegal aliens penetrate this country successfully by easing their illegal entry. We would certainly frown on groups that assist in other forms of human smuggling, so why does group such as Border Angels get a pass?

    Border Angels exists to help facilitate a criminal practice, and in doing so assists in making it easier to carry out other illegal enterprises, such as drug and human smuggling. According to the dubious definition provided by the Wikis, this would appear to be racketeering.

    It's time to shut them down.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 18, 2005

    Michael Moore, Here's Your Country

    USMC_Vet at The Blue State Conservatives gives us a wonderful example of the kind of law-abiding observers deployed by the ACLU to keep an eye on the very successful Minuteman Project.

    And yes, there are pictures:

    That isn't a Marlboro being lit and shared by this pair of ACLU-uniformed "Legal Observers" (which is what these shirts say in English and Spanish). The source for this and other pictures is available here. Note that these brilliant people are not not even smart enough to try to conceal their blatantly illegal activity; they are sitting on the side of the road getting high, presumably waiting for a snack truck.

    Having these clueless stoners patrol the Mexican border is like having Sean Penn teach gun safety. Michael Moore once asked, "Dude, where's my country?"

    Judging by these photos, it must be on the side of the road dreaming of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    No Winners Here

    A lot of media attention has been focused on The Minuteman Project, a volunteer neighborhood watch-type effort along the U.S. side of the Arizona/Mexico border. Most of the early MSM/DNC coverage was negative at first, but the coverage has shifted to begrudging respect as the Minutemen have peacefully and effectively shutdown illegal immigration and drug smuggling in the 23-mile zone. The Minuteman Project so far has been an overwhelming success.

    Unfortunately, some of that success is being overshadowed by the actions of a Army Reservist almost 300 miles away, who pulled a handgun on seven illegal aliens at an Arizona Interstate rest stop. Sgt. Patrick Haab has been charged with seven felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

    There are a lot of details in question in this case, many of which can be reviewed by reading the articles and op-eds here, but a few facts are beyond dispute.

    The first fact is that you are not legally justified in pulling a firearm on another person unless that pose a credible threat to your life, or the life of someone else. In none of the descriptions of the situation provided by Haab or local authorities did the illegals pose what most people would consider a credible threat to Haab or to anyone else.

    The second fact of justifiable self defense with a firearm (and exact laws vary from state to state) is that the use of the firearm should be defensive in nature, not offensive.

    The second the illegals moved away from Haab and entered a nearby vehicle without any threat to Haab, he lost any legal right to use a firearm again them, in any way. The fact that Haab then used his vehicle to block the vehicle occupied by the illegals, and then forced the illegals out of the vehicle and onto the ground, were examples of unjustifiable force using a firearm.

    He broke the law. Period.

    Perhaps as disturbing as his illegal detention of these seven criminals (and yes, these men were just that, lest that fact be forgotten) is the fact that Haab was armed at all. Haab is apparantly not mentally stable at this time in his life, and is being treated for bouts of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a resulting depression. The very Maricopa County jail holding him had apparently turned him down when he applied for a job as a detention officer because he was "mentally disturbed."

    I appreciate the fact that Sgt. Haab served his country in both Kosovo and Iraq, and that he was going to deploy on a volunteer tour of Afghanistan in just a few weeks. I thank him for his service, but if he is still suffering the effects of PTSD and depression, his mental health is compromised and he has no business carrying firearms, at home in defense of himself, or abroad in defense of his country.

    A lot of people seem to think Sgt. Haab is a hero. Others, including Haab himself seem to feel he is a victim in a politically-charged case. There is enough room in this case for him to be both, and guilty as well.

    In any event, Haab's actions as described were aggressive, illegal, and potentionally deadly, considering his questionable mental health. I'd like to know why our military hospital system thinks it is acceptable to send a soldier suffering from PTSD back to a combat zone when he apparently poses a threat to himself and others. It could be that this Arizona arrest ends up saving his life, or the lives of others.

    There are no winners here, but at least there are survivors. Considering what could have happened considering Haab's military training, weaponry and alledged instability, I guess that will have to be enough.


    Note: Added to Monday's Beltway Traffic Jam.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    April 15, 2005

    Only A Matter of Time: Gov't Goes After Minutemen

    It took longer than many thought it might, but the government has finally found a way to inconvenience the overwhelmingly successful Minuteman Project.

    USMC_Vet of Blue State Conservatives scoops darn near everyone with this breaking story. Read the whole thing, and be sure to make use of the contact numbers to ask what laws or ordinances are being violated.

    Update: Curiouser and curiouser. Cochise County Planning Director James Vlahovich told Dr. Melvin E. Harter, President, Miracle Valley Bible College that he would not issue special use permits (in front of witnesses) before Harter filed for permits, and now Vlahovich is basing his fines on a lack of permits that he categorically rejected in advance of their submittal.

    Read the official letter to Miracle Valley Bible College from Cochise County here.

    Cochise County is well within their legal rights to levy a fine for non-compliance for zoning violations in most instances, but might be in a bit more dubious position in this particular case if they did, in fact, reject the application before it was even submitted as multiple witnesses alledge. A Catch 22, anyone?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    "We Can't Man, Those F***ers are Everywhere!"

    The Minuteman Project, a large-scale volunteer neighborhood watch program along 22-23 miles of the U.S./Mexican border, has completed over two full weeks in operation.

    The results so far have been disappointing... at least to the bulk of the MSM/DNC and the ACLU, along with illegal immigration advocacy groups such as the White House and Congress.

    All of these groups claimed there would be widespread vigilantism by overzealous volunteers, which has not occurred. These groups also claimed there would be potentially violent confrontations with both law enforcement and illegals, none of which has happened since the project started March 30 (one claim was made, and dismissed by local law enforcement).

    In fact, the arrest of illegals along the section of border patrolled by the MMP has dropped from approximately 1,000 a day to less than 20 in the past week according to front line border control officers, and the MMP is claiming 268 arrests as the result of watchful volunteers calling the border patrol. CNN is reporting potentially higher numbers, citing the Border Patrol as responding to 317 calls from the Naco and Douglas area netting 846 arrests, though they will not say which of these calls and arrests were made as a result of volunteer activity.

    The drop in attempted illegal border crossings and number of volunteer-related apprehensions speaks volumes of the success of the MinuteMan Project, but perhaps the best testimony so far was this two-way radio conversation in Spanish overheard by MMP volunteers between drug dealers in the mountains near Sierra Vista, AZ:

    "We've got to get down, to get our loads down!" [Meaning drug loads]
    Reply: "We can't, man - those f***ers are everywhere!".
    Obviously, Minuteman Project volunteers are not only succeeding in helping an underappreciated and underfunded Border Patrol, but a besieged Drug Enforcement Agency as well.

    The tone of media coverage as shifted markedly since the project began, as well. In the days leading up to the start of the volunteer effort, much of the media coverage resembled this two weeks out-of date article crying out against vigilante justice, interference, and potential racism. This view, once dominate in the media, is increasingly giving way to comments such as these:

    "Hundreds of Minuteman Project volunteers have done what the president has refused to do: They have helped to effectively halt illegal crossings in a 23-mile section of the Arizona-Mexico border. Volunteers have shown how easy it would be for the U.S. government to do the same." --USA Today

    "The chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus yesterday declared the 'Minuteman Project' border vigil a success and invited its organizers to Washington next week to meet with members of Congress." --Washington Times

    "The controversy surrounding the Minuteman Project is a poorly crafted red herring.

    "The simple, empirical reality is the Minuteman Project has been hugely successful. Illegal border crossings along the stretch of Arizona/Mexico border have virtually been stopped." --American Daily

    The Minuteman Project has been so successful in fact, that the Minuteman Project has been swamped with applications by more volunteers than they can handle, forcing them for the time being to encourage volunteers toward similar organizations while the volunteers consider expanding to other areas in border states.

    A clueless President Bush, instead of taking steps to strengthen the Border Patrol, instead has ordered a review of a simple requirement to require passports that might impede legal travel across out nation's borders.

    Amazingly, he and most other politicians can't seem to be bothered to address illegal travel.

    That is certain to change, as illegal immigration is rapidly turning into a major campaign issue for the 2006 mid-term elections. Illegal immigration and the unwarranted amnesty of illegal aliens are emerging, defining issues where voters may very well be willing to cross party lines to regain control of the border and their nation. Members of the House and Senate would be wise to heed their constituents if they hope to remain in office.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 14, 2005

    Inciting Murder

    Enough is enough.

    Liberals are growing increasingly violent. They've gone from rude and boorish behavoir, to petty assault, to calls for suicide, to subtle calls for murder (read as "end Bush," see note below), to outright calls for politically-motivated homicide. These people are tacitly and sometimes enthusiastically accepted within their reality-based community, but they should not be allowed to function in real reality.

    The people behind these examples of hate speech (and make no mistake, that is exactly what these examples are) must be found, investigated, and if necessary, prosecuted before they finally incite some mentally unstable person to commit murder, no doubt in the name of "peace."

    These people are going to get people killed, most likely innocent bystanders. It is time for the Secret Service and the FBI to stop being politically correct and put an end to the rising tide of violence from the reality-challenged community.


    Note: The owner of the Cafepress.com site with the "End Bush" HTML-style code not-so-cleverly tries to call this a "Closing Bush" tag, which in addition to not making grammatical sense, doesn't even follow good HTML form. HTML tags are noted as "start and "end" tags according to the W3C.

    Update: Over at Right Thinking Girl's Tom Delay post (linked above), we've come up with quite the comparison of left vs. right violence. I first chimed in with an partial listing of assassinations and assassination attempts by political leftists in the United States:

    ...Hey, Sara... you're right.

    As a matter of fact, the majority of political assassinations in America have come from the left or other variations of the mentally ill (as you will see below, many are both, liberalism and mental illness apparently run hand-in-hand), with the exception of RFK, who was killed by a long-standing lefty friend, the Jew-hating Muslim, in this instance Sirhan Sirhan.

    The list goes on: John Wilkes Booth was a cross between Robert Byrd and Alec Baldwin, Charles J. Guiteau was a John Edwards-type lawyer who was told by the great beyond (perhaps channelling?) to murder President Garfield, Leon F. Czolgosz, who shot William McKinley was a lefty anarchist. Guiseppe Zangara who tried to kill FDR was a whacked-out anti-capitalist, and we all know Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist sympathizer.

    Wannabe white Black Panther Sam Byck got himself killed trying to take out Nixon, and a year later, loonie lefty cultist Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme tried to take out President Ford, who was the target of lefty counterculture loser Sarah Jane Moore just 17 days later.

    The evidence is pretty convincing Sara, that if there is a political assassination attempt in America, that either the left or the mentally ill are behind it (I'm not sure I see the distinction between the two, but some do).

    Back to Andrew Mickel, the latest lefty political assassin in the link above. Not surprisingly, this guy was a graduate of Evergreen State College, home to bomb-tunnel speedbump Rachel "St. Pancake" Corrie. He has been convicted of murder, has been recommended for the death penalty, and will be formally sentenced two weeks from now.

    Yeah, you guys love peace...

    That was followed up by RTG poster "tex" reminding us to:

    toss in stalin, lenin, pol pot, castro (including che)...they killed non-politicians until the cows came home, and not just at clinics...
    (next post)
    kim jong il...whoever the fuck is running china today...and venezuela...
    But to be fair, the lefty visitors on RTG did come up with a list of right wingers that are guilty of political assassinations. I'll present it in its entirity (as of the most recent posting at RTG) here:

    1. Eric Rudolph*
    2. Hitler
    They forgot Tim McVeigh, but you get the point.

    * Rudolph's abortion clinic bombings were based on (bad) religious beliefs, not politics, so I'm not 100% certain he should even be included.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 13, 2005

    Shiavo and Pope are Not Real News for the American Left

    You can always count on the Democratic Underground to be consistently out standing in a field, especially if a caretaker isn't there to usher them back inside the home. Mary Shaw's April 12 op-ed "Mind Control and the American Media" is a wonderful case in point.

    Shaw wants us to consider the fact that the Terri Shiavo case occupied the media for a significant segment in March, and then the media transitioned rapidly into near 24-hour coverage of the last days, death, and burial of Pope John Paul II. This was apparently an unacceptable use of media time for Shaw:

    "...the media has had very little to say about Iraq, where several more U.S. soldiers have been killed, the Abu Ghraib prison was attacked by insurgents, and a Belgian soldier died from "friendly fire" by U.S. troops.

    "While the Schiavo case and the papal passing were certainly interesting and poignant stories, did they really merit 23 hours of coverage per day on the cable news channels, while other events that more closely impact the lives of the average American citizen went unreported?"

    Cleary, Shaw's opinion of what constitutes "events that more closely impact the lives of the average American citizen" is the real topic of this article.

    Shaw would apparently like to have more focus on events in Iraq. She calls for more media coverage of solider deaths, the Abu Ghraib prison attack, and a friendly fire event that killed a Belgian soldier. Do you notice a theme?

    Shaw seems focused only on the negative events in Iraq, and apparently would waste no words on the successful capture of high-ranking Baathists and terrorist leaders, the increasingly rapid pace, scale, and success of raids by Iraqi forces against criminals and terrorists, nor would she mention the truly historic appointment of a former dissident Kurd to the Iraqi Presidency. No, Shaw is focused on dead soldiers, terrorist attacks, and U.S. troops killing a Belgian soldier.

    There are a few problems with her proposition, starting with the simple fact that there are no Belgian troops stationed in Iraq.

    One can only assume that she must have been speaking about the March 7 death of a Jr. Sgt. Gardev, a Bulgarian soldier tragically shot by U.S. forces in a friendly-fire incident while on patrol southeast of Diwaniya, Iraq.

    Shaw fails to mention that just an hour after Gardev's death, a communist journalist by the name of Guiliana Sgrena was wounded, and a Italian security officer killed, when their driver ran an American checkpoint in Baghdad. That incident dominated the media for days, until physical evidence started contradicting Sgrena's hysterical claims, at which point the story quickly fizzled out in the liberal media.

    The other two incidents, while tragic, don't measure up to the immediacy standard that Shaw herself wants to impose with her "events that more closely impact the lives of the average American citizen" criteria.

    Sadly, over 1,500 brave men and women have died in combat in Iraq, but after two full years of combat, these loses are viewed by the media and American public as a routine, if tragic, fact of war. There are only so many ways to say that an American soldier was killed in combat, and these deaths are mentioned consistently and dutifully across all media, even if the MSM doesn't linger on these deaths as long as Shaw would apparently like. The Shiavo case, half a world closer than Iraq, was also much more immediate; as any American may one day be forced to rely on another to determine whether they should live or die. It does not get any more immediate or personal that contemplating your own demise, so by Shaw's own standards, the Schiavo case was more newsworthy for most Americans than any event in Iraq over the past month.

    Which brings us to the final event Shaw would drum up airplay for, the Abu Ghraib prison attack. This was a complete tactical defeat for the terrorists, freeing not one prisoner, nor killing a single Coalition or Iraqi soldier, while heavy casualties were inflicted upon the attacking terrorist forces. This was not overlooked in the media, but with no American losses, the liberal MSM was more than willing to allow this story to become a footnote instead of a defining event. The death of the nearly three-decade leader of a religious group that has a billion followers worldwide and millions of followers in the U.S. is far more immediate and newsworthy than any event in Iraq of the past year. Once again, Shaw fails her own test.

    These events are also have more immediacy than the other events Shaw would have the media focus more time on, specifically inquiries into Tom Delay's ethics, and lawsuits against Donald Rumsfeld. Both of these events are long-horizon, which could drag on far into the foreseeable future (or as long as they have merit).

    Shaw says further:

    "The media are in business to make money. Sensational stories like the Schiavo case and the death of the pope can easily be spun into headlines that sell papers. But the media have a moral responsibility to give us all the news of the day, even if the truth hurts."
    Did Mary Shaw find out about military deaths in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib attack, and the friendly-fire death of a Bulgarian (not Belgian) soldier thorough her own private news sources? I suspect not. She obtained this information from news media, or from sources who interact with the news media. Obviously, Mary Shaw is getting the news she seeks, just not with the spin or in the amount she desires.

    Perhaps she should be more straightforward and admit that what disturbs her is insufficient amounts of negative news about the Iraqi War, though I can think of better uses of Mary Shaw's time.

    I'd suggest she start by learning the subtle differences between Bulgaria and Belgium.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 12, 2005

    Tweety's Revenge

    More than one blogger got a wicked glint in his eye when he first heard reports of plans to legalize the hunting of feral cats in Wisconsin, and as can be expected, many cat lovers are in an uproar over the proposal. Despite the outrage, the proposal making cats an unprotected species does not come without scientific merit, nor is it an unknown practice; the hunting of cats is legal in at least two other states, and is quietly practiced by hunters in other states worried about the depredation of game species.

    In Wisconsin alone, feral cats kill an estimated minimum of 47 million songbirds; estimates run as high as 139 million dead songbirds each year in the state, and the carnage doesn't stop there. They also kill millions of other small animals like rodents, amphibians and reptiles that are prey species for other creatures, such as owls and hawks, martens, weasels, and other small native predatory species.

    The simple fact of the matter is that Fluffy is wired to be a hunter, and when you put her out at night she is looking to kill, no matter how well fed she is. They do not kill for food, they kill becuase that is what they are designed to do. The broken necks of baby ducks and punctured skulls of baby bunnies tend to show a darker side of domesticated cats that cat owners are determined not to see.

    Personally, I'm not morally opposed to the proposed law, but would hope it goes hand-in-hand with feline leash laws. The millions of truly feral cats may only be practically controlled via hunting, but enforced leash laws would significantly cut down on feral birth rates and bring the population down to a point where cats aren't a threat to native species.

    As a matter of pure ballistic interest to the gun geek in me, what would be the best cartridge for cats? I'm thinking the new .19 Calhoon would be almost perfect... hypothetically, of course.

    Now, should I submit this post to the Carnival of Cordite, or the Carnival of the Cats?


    Update: Simon Bond must be loving this...

    Update 2: Wisconsin citizens have voted 6,830-5,201 in favor of allowing the hunting of feral and untagged free-running domestic cats. The Dept. of Natural Resources now must gather support in the Wisconsin Legislature, which would then need to pass a bill and have Gov. Jim Doyle sign it.I give this proposal a very slight chance of becoming law anytime soon.

    Animal rights groups such as the Humane Society of the United States are sure to oppose this legislation, and cat people will almost certainly seek to drown out biologists, environmentalists and others who support this reasonable legislation, which is the most economical, practical and effective way of controlling feral cat populations.

    I am all for people having domestic cats as pets, but not at the expense of native and endangered species.

    Sorry, Sylvester.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Freedom of (Some) Speech

    It was recently announced that Kevin Sites, freelance war videographer, will be awarded a Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism. Editor & Publisher covered the award announcement by saying:

    Kevin Sites, a freelance photojournalist for NBC, will be awarded the 2005 Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism on May 12 for his decision-making process after he witnessed and taped a U.S. Marine killing an unarmed Iraqi man in a mosque.

    Sites decided to share the tape with the military, then he worked with NBC to create a "well-nuanced story that aired 48 hours after the incident," according to the Payne announcement. Since he was working as a pool photojournalist at the time, Sites shared the tape with the other news organizations in the pool.

    When Sites was criticized after other outlets used the footage, he answered the critics and explained his decisions in detail on his Weblog, www.kevinsites.net.

    In response, one of my favorite blogs weighed in by calling Sites a traitor, while another was surprisingly reserved, though his comments section made up for it. These blogs, of course, were hardly the only ones with this general viewpoint.

    From both legal and ethical standpoints, calling Kevin Sites a traitor is ignorant. Not stupid, mind you, but ignorant of the law. It isn't a matter of "I think" or "in my opinion," they are quite simply, technically, wrong in calling Kevin Sites a traitor.

    One cites Article III, Sec. 3 of the U.S. Constitution:

    "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." (his bold. --C.Y)
    Kevin Sites shot a video of real events, unedited, and undoctored, and even ran it by the U.S. military before release. That is not treason. Furthermore, the assinine "logic" of some people that "well, he knew if could be twisted against us, so he's guilty" would not only stifle the First Amendment, but completely eviscerate it to a totalitarian extent. These people don't support the freedom of speech, just the freedom of some speech, that of which they personally approve.

    I'll tell you what, my friends: go ahead and start a movement to prosecute Sites for your understanding of treason. You will of course also charge the journalists and producers, writers and editors who furthered this travesty by mentioning it in network broadcasts, cable news shows, and in national, regional, and local newspapers. I won't personally miss Olbermann, Dowd, or Krugman much, but I will miss Hannity, Krauthammer, and Will.

    While you are at it, of course, you'll also have to charge the career Marine officers who released the tape for publication. I think that is a pretty short chain of command, just a few PR officers and maybe a general or two. Probably only a dozen or so all told. As active duty military, they will of course face the possibility of execution for their treason. Do they still use firing squads at Leavenworth, or does the military now allow lethal injections for enemies of democracy?

    Nothing like the idea of putting a Few Good Men to death to underscore your shaky understanding of the Constitution, right guys?

    Guys?

    There are higher allegiences more important than the United States, and that if you honor these higher ideals, the best interests of the country are served as a natural consequence.

    I'm sorry, but we disagree on this one.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    An Interesting Life

    I happen to be in the middle of a fascinating book called Right Turns, an autobiography by former 60s student leftist Michael Medved and his eventual transition to becoming a conservative cultural critic. So far I've read from his childhood up to his marriage at 23, and it is amazing not only what he had done by that age, but who he met along the way. He's quite an interesting character, and I'm not quite halfway through.

    This book is worth a look if you get a chance.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 11, 2005

    The Law is not the People's Choice Awards

    Mark R. Kleiman wants to know what conservatives think about Mexico City's mayor facing minor criminal charges that may keep him from running for the presidency. Klieman is hardly alone in feeling that the current Mexican government may be trying to pull a fast one here, but I think he and several other bloggers right, left, and center are hitching their cart to the wrong proverbial horse.

    Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is subject to the same constitution as all Mexican nationals, and therefore he must play by those same rules. "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time," I have always heard. Lopez may be being legally railroaded, but he is being treated in accordance with Mexican law. If the law is broken, then the people should push their elected officials to try to change it, but advocating a separate and more equal application of the law becuase of his popularity seems as least as much of a threat to Mexican democracy as is this selective application of charges, if not more so.

    How does this conservative feel about this situation, Mr. Kleiman? I feel that the same people who didn't want the American government to intervene on behalf of one citizen in Florida, shouldn't suddenly want us to to reverse course and intervene on behalf of another single citizen in another land where our meddling is even less wanted.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 08, 2005

    Sneak Attack on the Border?

    I almost couldn't believe this when I read it on Blue State Conservatives.

    While Minutemen Project volunteers are busy doing the work in Arizona that President Bush refuses to allow the Border Control to do, Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and Ted Kennedy (D-Tox) may cravenly try to sneak in backdoor de facto illegal alien amnesty language (S.359, the Craig-Kennedy Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2005) into an emergency spending bill to supply our troops.

    The Craig-Kennedy bill would not only allow amnesty to any invading illegal who can prove he worked on a farm for three months, it would also grant amnesty to their families, even if they have never been to the United States.


    Need I say more?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    A Few More Good Men

    At a time when enlistment is low and the military has been forced to open up age restrictions, Army Sgt. Robert Stout, a Purple Heart recipient and veteran of the Iraq war wants to continue to serve his country, but a Pentagon trapped in the past may not let him. Why?

    Stout is openly gay.

    This brings him into direct conflict with the antiquated "don't ask, don't tell" policy still in use by the Pentagon, even though the bulk of our allies--Great Britain, Australia, Israel, etc--have had openly gay soldiers in their ranks for years. There are an estimated 65,000 gays currently serving in the U.S. military.

    I'm rather disappointed in our Petagon leadership both for the obvious discrimination against a minority group willing to serve this country, and in their underlying belief that our soliders are so immature and homophobic that they cannot function with openly gay soldiers in their units. American soldiers are among the best trained, most disciplined, and professional military forces in the world. To think that they cannot cope with homosexuality when they can cope with the vastly more intense emotions of combat is assinine, and selling our soldiers short.

    We've seen this kind of discrimination before from our military, but it is past time for it to stop. Our soldiers are better than that. It is time for their leadership to catch up.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Chickenhawks and Vultures

    Thanks to Charles, we know that Pittsburgh IndyMedia will be meeting this weekend in Pittsburgh. Their topic is:

    How can the U.S. be stopped? Lessons from the Vietnam war

    Mass protests, GI refusals and a powerful "insurgent" movement - the same things that led to the end of the war in Vietnam are what can stop the U.S. slaughter in Iraq today...

    I found the concept of "stopping the U.S. slaughter" very interesting, as even if you agreed with the idea in theory at one time, the facts show that the supermajority of offensive actions killing civilians are being conducted by the insurgency, not by coalition forces.

    Saddam's conventional military forces have long since been defeated, and Saddam himself just watched a Kurd elected to his former position from his prison cell. The insurgency itself has failed prevent free elections, and it's recent behavior is far more criminal than revolutionary. By trying to "stop the U.S." by supporting a powerful insurgency, these "peace activists" actually advocate extending an insurgency that only currently exists as a terrorist and criminal force.

    In other words, these "peace activists" are actually encouraging far more continued slaughter by supporting the insurgency.

    I've accused liberals in the past of so blindly hating President Bush that they don't seem to care who gets hurt; these people hate our president, one man, so much that they would sell tens of millions down the river hoping to cause him to fail.

    When you combine this blind hatred of Bush with the complete lack of any sort of changeover plan by the left, or even an acknowledgement of the fact that the immediate withdrawal they favor would plunge an fledgling democracy into chaos and potential civil war, then you see that IndyMedia and their far left supporters are long on rhetoric and hatred, and short on well-reasoned or even remotely strategic long term planning.

    IndyMedia and other liberals are against George Bush beyond logical constraints. Their heated rhetoric and short-sighted ideologies shows that they don't care who dies, American soldier or Iraqi civilian, as long as they get their desired result of an diminished George W. Bush.

    Liberals have taken to calling conservatives "chickenhawks."

    In return, liberals have given us vultures.

    Update: Donald Sensing happens to have a post up this morning about how the liberal's hoped for powerful insurgency is giving us lessons on how not to conduct guerrilla warfare (via Instapundit). Sensing in turn, points to must-read articles by Austin Bay, Bill Roggio and Wretchard.

    On a separate but related note, "Hanoi Jane" Fonda is still widely viewed as a traitor by many Americans for supporting the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. It will be very interesting to looks back to the present from 5, 10, or 20 years in the future at today's crop of pro-insurgency leftists and see if they earn an even more tainted legacy than Fonda for supporting an enemy who are fighting against the common dream of the Iraqi people.


    Update 2: Allen at Cox & Forkum reminds me that they've covered this ground before.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 07, 2005

    Liberalism Kills

    The left keeps ramping up their paranoid delusions and their rhetoric and actions get more and more violent. It was only a matter of time before they started murdering people "for the cause."

    In this instance, frequent Indymedia poster and Evergreen State College graduate (yes, that Evergreen) Andrew Mickel murdered a 31-year-old policeman, shooting the new father in the back and then bragged about it on more than a dozen Indymedia web sites in a ranting manifesto.

    Read the whole sickening thing. Mickel is hardly the first leftist assassin in American history.

    (hat tip and comments: LGF)

    Note: This murder was in 2002. Mickel was convicted and is now in the sentencing phase of is trial, and stands to face the death penalty. At least he has a chance. It is more than he gave Officer Mobilio.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Delusions of Supremacy

    Tom Elia at the New Editor dug up this self-parodying gem in response to Paul Krugman's smug post "An Academic Question" in the NY Times:

    To the Editor:

    Paul Krugman ("An Academic Question," column, April 5) is correct that the lack of conservative faculty members in college is caused not through bias but by deficiencies in conservative ideology.

    From the laissez-faire, anti-unionism of late-19th-century Republicans to the melding of those trends in today's neoconservative movement, the result of conservative ideology has almost always been deleterious for the majority of Americans.

    Academics look at evidence and come to conclusions. Today's conservatives start with a conclusion and then try to find anything to support that conclusion to the exclusion of all contrary evidence. Their arguments tend to fall apart under the lightest scrutiny.

    It is no wonder that the vast majority of well-educated academics are "liberal."

    Brandon Bittner

    Royersford, Pa., April 6, 2005

    I have another explanation, Mr. Bittner: If you can't do, teach. Academia may not only attract liberals, but it is the only practical area in which it can exist.

    Mr. Bittner may assume liberal superiority all he wants, the fact remains that though liberals dominant the university, this ideological domination is quickly destroyed by real world market forces once students leave the academy. If liberal ideology were as superior as both Mr. Krugman and Mr. Bittner haughtily opine, then college graduates would not only emerge from universities with a liberal ideology, they would retain that ideology far after graduation and would be quite successful in the professional world.

    But that supremacy doesn't exist, does it? The vast majority of industry leaders are capitalists, not marxists. In fact, the vast majority of most businesses, from industry leaders down through the "tail" are capitalists, rejecting liberal egalitarian theology out of hand.

    In addition to not surviving contact with the business world, liberalism doesn't well tolerate contact with the ballot box. Liberals holding a supermajority in academia, and therefore, this "superior" ideology should then dominate American life and politics across the board. Yet, conservatives and moderates dominate every level of government as voters consistently reject liberalism across the vast majority of the country.

    Mr. Krugman and Mr. Bittner are welcome to fondle their delusions of liberal supremacy in the academy. It is the final place it exists.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Reasons for Fear

    I've been mentioning the "high end" problems with illegal immigration, mostly in the terms of economic impact and national security. Thousands of miles from the border, I can't feel what the illegal invasion feels like, nor can I imagine feeling the need to arm my spouse when I leave home.

    Unfortunately, this feeling is a fact of life for some Americans who live the Mexican border. Country Store finds this odd and unsettling example in this Christian Science Monitor coverage of border life for a Naco, Arizona family:

    The Garner family on Purdy Lane doesn't know exactly how many chickens, roosters, Guinea hens, or geese they own on their 5-acre farm in this dusty town on the US-Mexico border. But they know the number is smaller than the number of illegal immigrants who can be seen daily in groups of three, 10, 40, 60, and more on their property. They are often huddled in centipede form (hands on the hips of the person in front), kneeling under windows, crouched behind trees, and sleeping in their egg house.

    Mr. Garner, a carpenter, his wife, and three daughters (age 10, 12, and 15) tell countless stories that are as alarming to outsiders as they are matter-of-fact to them. Theirs is a life dominated by self-defense lessons, family practice drills to huddle in the master bedroom, obligatory two-way radios for kids who walk to school, and a handgun on the hip for mom.
    Although violent encounters are relatively rare, their stories tell a narrative of how surreal - and spooky - life can be for families that straddle the 1,400-mile Maginot Line known as the US-Mexican border. "You'll be weeding in your garden and turn around to see 20 of them standing in front of you, demanding water and food," says Dawn Garner, the mother.
    "I come out to go to school, and they are changing their clothes under my bedroom window," says daughter Shayne.
    "They leave backpacks filled with drugs on the lawn," says sister Ciara. "It's scary and creepy."


    This is their daily existence, thanks to a federal government that doesn't feel that our border, or this family's lives, is worth their effort or resolve.

    Update: A Mexican radio reporter was shot nine times in front of her radio station in Nuevo Laredo, a city on the Texas/Mexico border known for drug smuggling related violence. Dolores Guadalupe García Escamilla was the fourth journalist shot by Mexican drug gangs in the past year; more than 30 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Nuevo Laredo so far this year.


    Update 2: Two illegal aliens in New York City were just arrested for plotting to turn themselves into suicide bombers. Is the threat illegal aliens pose starting to sink in yet?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 06, 2005

    Rational Ways

    "I am against vigilantes in the United States of America; I am for enforcing law in rational ways." --George W. Bush
    I am against vigilantism, as are most Americans. I am also for a government that protects its people, and this government is failing. As I mentioned yesterday (and previously here, and here, and less seriously here), we have a major security risk in this country which defies explanation.

    We've spent billions destroying the Taliban in Afghanistan for harboring al Qaeda, and to attempt to establish a democracy there for the first time. We've spent billions more in Iraq removing a dictator that sponsored four terrorist groups (ANO or Fatah, al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al-Islam, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, and the Palestine Liberation Front, or PLF ), invaded two neighboring countries, paid bounties to the families of suicide bombers to murder women and children. Saddam also gave sanctuary to the 1993 World Trade Center bomb-builder, used massed chemical weapon assaults not seen on a scale since World War I, and broke the terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire literally thousands of times.

    We're spending billions more to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure to a level better than what it was before the war, while simultaneously (and as time goes on, apparently more successfully) building a fledgling democracy that held free elections in less than half the time it took us in Japan and Germany after World War II. I support both of these invasions and nation-building projects, which give 50 million people a chance to decide their own destinies for the very first time.

    Further, I support and understand the need to spend millions if not billions more to overtly and covertly destabilize dictatorships in Middle Eastern, Eastern European, and Asian countries that support or allow terrorism. These expenditures are long term investments in global stability. They make sense.

    What doesn't make sense is to spend lavishly on proactive measures overseas without supporting even minimally reactive defensive measures for our country here at home. I am, of course, talking about our anemic border security efforts, one area so far in two terms where George Bush's presidency has abjectly failed by any rational standard.

    A group of concerned citizens calling themselves the Minutemen Project, frustrated by the failure of our government to address border security issues, is now stationed along 23 miles of the most porous section of our border with Mexico, a stretch of arid Arizona desert so poorly defended that somewhere in excess of 2/3 of those who criminally intend to enter our country succeed in their criminal effort. In real numbers, this translates to two million illegal aliens flowing over the border northward each year unchecked, with un-inspected cargo (certainly drugs, possibly weapons conventional or otherwise), unknown criminal background (a favorite ingress of violent central American gangs), and unknown intent.

    The Department of Agriculture is more responsive and better equipped for their duties than is the Border Patrol. It is harder to get a guava into this country than a Guatemalan. That should tell you something, and that "something" isn't good. In fact, it's downright frightening.

    So frightening, in fact, that American citizens, feeling abandoned (and rightly so) by their government, are staging an intervention. Hundreds of volunteers set up lawn chairs every few hundred yards, armed with binoculars, night vision scopes and occasional small arms for protection from violent border smugglers known as coyotes that traffic in people and drugs. These volunteers, in what was widely seen as a bit of political theater, are accomplishing something George W. Bush has not done (nor apparently tried to do) since 9/11: they are stopping or at least hampering illegal border crossings along the 23-mile stretch they are patrolling. So far, they've detected and lead authorities to a minimum of 118 illegals.

    In addition, they've forced patrolling actions on the other side of the border by a Mexican government seeking to avoid confrontations (and no doubt, bad P.R.) between its illegally-acting citizens and the U.S. volunteers. This patrolling action, may I add, would almost certainly not occur otherwise.

    The MSM/DNC reaction largely echoes Bush's irrational cry of vigilantism, though that reaction is hardly uniform among regional and local media who actually deal with these issues on the community level. A growing amount of media coverage is actually positive.

    No, the peaceful, rational and practical action of the Minutemen Project is exactly the kind of intelligent (and surprisingly effective) protest needed to force our government to live up to its responsibilities.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 05, 2005

    Border War

    Yesterday, The Minuteman Project began in ernest, with hundreds of volunteers spreading out at quarter-mile intervals in the Arizona desert along the U.S.-Mexican border. Their stated goal is to function as a neighborhood watch along the most-vulnerable part of the U.S. border. Arizona Monthly said in November that "the most important nexus for international jihad outside of Pakistan and the Middle East has been Arizona," in their cover article "Al Qaeda Among Us."

    1.1 million illegals were captured along the 2,000 mile southern border last year, with half of those captured coming through Arizona. Among the majority millions of illegals that crossed successfully last year were violent Central American gang members and 25 suspected Chechen terrorists in July that to this day have not been captured.

    The national MSM/DNC has predictably taken the side of the illegal aliens. The NY Times is running an article this morning by Eduardo Porter claiming (with no supporting hard facts and evidence that can be described as circumstantial at best) that illegals pump "as much as" $7 billion into Social Security each year. Porter completely, and in my opinion dishonestly, avoids mentioning the tremendous burden illegals place upon social services programs, such as the $200 million each year illegals cost hospitals in New Jersey alone.

    Interestingly enough, local media is hardly as monolithic as their national counterparts, with some news organizations already claiming some success, and another claiming that the Minutemen are exactly that; a militia doing exactly what Article 1 of the Constitution requires, "suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions."

    In 2004, the equivilent of 160 12,500 military divisions simply walked northward across the U.S.-Mexican border to disappear into our country's interior. Opposing them is an apathetic federal government, a complicit media, an overworked Border Patrol, and now, the militia
    the Constitution intended.

    The Minuteman Project is firing a very public media shot across the bow of an apathetic, perhaps complicit, White House and Congress. Hopefully this negative exposure will force the government to shore up our borders.

    I'd hate to see another 9/11 take place because terrorists were able to walk unmolested across the border. I can only hope President Bush and Congressmen up for reelection in 2006 have that same concern.


    Update: As mentioned above by the NY Times reporter Eduardo Porter, illegals put a maximum of $7 billion into Social Security. Riehl World View comes through with data to show that illegals create a net loss of $10 billion a year that the U.S. taxpayer has to make up for, putting $16 billion into the system in taxes, and taking out $26.3 billion. Read the whole thing. You won't find this in the Times.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    April 04, 2005

    And the Banned Played On

    It is past the point where the ineffectual Gomery Commission publication ban into Adscam can be taken seriously as a deterrent. It now only exists as an apparent abuse of power by an already corrupt government.

    In what could easily be called "Captain Ed vs. Canada," a lone American blogger, Ed Morrisey of Captain's Quarters blog (latest update here), has done something quite extraordinary; he's helped turn a little known (in the States) north-of-the-border corruption scandal into a major freedom of speech issue.

    For those of you just catching up (and I readily admit to being one of those myself), a massive and apparently widespread kickback scheme may have been in effect at least since the 1990s, where tens of millions of dollars were funneled from members of the ruling Liberal government in Canada to advertising agencies for little or no actual work. At this point, some of the money may have been diverted back to the Liberal party in some form of kickbacks. A nice scam, to be sure.

    This scandal has been ongoing for two years, but the defining moments seem to be breaking in the past week. The Gomery Commission was formed over a year ago to formally investigate the scandal, and most of the investigation has been open to the public, but Judge Gomery decided there would be a publication ban on the testimony of three key witnesses.

    This was done under the auspices of protecting the rights of the three witnesses, but the Liberal Party, perhaps fearing what the results of the investigation may show, seem to be trying to force a snap election so they will not have to answer for their actions to the voters.

    It was in this environment that Captain's Quarters brought to light the apparent testimony of Jean Brault, president of the ad agency Groupaction, one of the three witnesses that had their testimony covered by the publication ban.

    The Liberal Party and the Canadian government, of course, cannot touch an American citizen, but ridiculously still seems to think that they have some control over the information. Gomery is apparently still threatening Canadians who not only publish the banned material, but those who simply utter which American blog (now blogs) are discussing the banned material.

    The Gomery assault on Canadian free speech has the potential of becoming every bit as big a story as Adscam.

    I just hope the Canadians realize how fruitless this ban is, and what a threat is poses to their freedoms. The Internet was designed to withstand nuclear war. Somehow, I don't think Gomery is much of a threat to it.

    He is far more a threat to Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Not Banned In Canada

    So click here already for Canada's Adscam updates.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Lame Canada

    I hear such wonderful things about our northern neighbor, Canada, and what it has to offer the world: free government-sponsored healthcare (if you survive the wait), hockey (well, most years), and uh...

    Anyway, freedom of speech is not apparently one of the wonderful things Canada has to offer. If you are Canadian and dare link to American blog Captain's Quarters, you could face legal action from your government. Shockingly enough, liberal message board Democratic Underground failed to mention freedom of speech issues in Demotopia when they advocated fleeing northward after November 2.

    Who the hell does Canada think they are restricting free speech, San Francisco?

    If you've missed the backstory, tens of millions of dollars of government contracts were funneled into advertising firms connected to the Liberal government for little or no work, and the money apparently went right back into the pockets of Liberal politicians. There is a corruption investigation, but there has been a publication ban in Canada on the testimony of three witnesses whose testimony maybe damning enough to threaten the entire Liberal government.

    Being American, Captain's Quarter's is not subject to the publication ban, and so ran an expose on some of the testimony that the Liberal Canadian government doesn't want the world to see, testimony saying that the corruption ran to the highest levels of the government.

    Now Canadian bloggers who merely link to Captain's Quarters are being threatened with legal action for simply linking to those trying to expose the truth.

    Massive amounts of web traffic are now flowing southward to Captain's Quarters as Canadians trying to find out what their government is trying to hide.

    I'd expect this kind of behavior from China or Cuba, but to have such a restriction on free speech in a theoretically free Canada is unsettling, to say the least.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    March 31, 2005

    Robble-Robble


    Oh wait, that's the other burglar.

    According to the Associated Press, Former Clinton national security advisor Sandy Burglar, uh, Berger, will take a misdemeanor plea deal for taking top secret documents from the national archives.

    It's nice to know one can steal top secret documents, plead it was an "accident," and get away with a slap on the wrist instead of significant jail time.

    Chinese spies in Los Alamos will assuredly sleep better tonight.


    Note: This could have alternately been titled, "Stuffing Berger, Hidden Sentence."

    Update: Added pre-sentencing pic.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    March 30, 2005

    From Hero to Whore

    I'm getting more than a little confused.

    When black senator Barack Obama endorses former Klansman Robert Byrd, a man who denounced the Rev. Martin Luther King as a "self-seeking rabble rouser," Democrats trumpet this as an example of their diversity and inclusiveness.

    When Rev. Jesse Jackson (surely another "self-seeking rabble rouser") reaches out to conservative Christians over the Shiavo case in Florida, on just one issue on a near spotless record as a Democrat, he is immediately denounced as an Uncle Tom and a whore.

    I don't think you can still refer to Democrats as the "big tent" party, but at least they are resourceful enough to find other uses for their sheets.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Strange Bedfellows

    More than a few people are reveling in the fact that Rev. Jerry Falwell is in a Lynchburg, VA hospital in critical condition with his second case of viral pneumonia in just over a month.

    Falwell, the outspoken, often boorish founder of the Moral Majority, is blamed for claiming AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality and societies who tolerate them, and was the butt of many jokes (look, there goes one now!) for his odd crusade against Tinky Winky, a children's show character that Falwell blasted for being a gay role model. Among his most controversial statements was this one assigning blame just days after 9/11:

    "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say: you helped this happen."
    Not surprisingly, Falwell has made plenty of enemies who would like to see him out of the picture. What is surprising is that liberal gay activists who have long been his greatest enemies are now using oppressive tactics the Rev. Falwell would doubtlessly approve of to silence their own critics.

    Despite his laundry list of homophobic comments over the years, Falwell was apparently unable to turn the other cheek (hey, another one!) himself when someone else made comments at his expense, leading to charges of libel, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress against Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt in what led to a First Amendment Supreme Court case immortalized in the movie, The People vs. Larry Flynt.

    Now, a prominent politically liberal gay activist named Michael Rogers is using Falwellesque claims of defamation and intimidation to stifle free speech on conservative blogs GayPatriot and LimeShurbert because these blogs claimed that Rogers and fellow liberal activist John Aravosis were "gay terrorists" for their practice of "outing" campaigns targeting closeted gay Republicans. LimeShurburt went so far as to create a poster from GayPatriot's comments, which is being picked up and promoted by free speech advocates around the web.

    Jerry Falwell and Michael Rogers both use their political influence to attack gays, and both have tried to stifle the First Amendment rights of those who disagree with their radical views.

    Blind fanatical hate makes strange bedfellows indeed.


    Notes: I first heard of this issue from this Instapundit post, and also found this followup on Instapundit as well. An impressive list of bloggers right and left is developing that are supporting AlphaPatriot and LimeShurburt, including: Classical Values, Gay Orbit, Haight Speech, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Yippe-Ki-Yay!, The Jawa Report, and many more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    March 29, 2005

    Right Up There With Pickle Stem Research

    They're LIBERAL? You don't say...

    College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says.

    By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.

    The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.

    Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author of the study, will next author a study determining the political leanings of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Diplomats to Bolton: I Said I Loved You But I Lied

    Fifty-nine former American diplomats have sent a letter to the Senate challenging President Bush's nomination of John Bolton to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

    After considering the resumes of these esteemed diplomats and their expansive foreign service records, I can only come to the conclusion that the condemnation of retired bureaucrats from stagnant posts decades old should largely be ignored.

    With the possible exception of Arthur A. Hartman, the four other minor luminaries cited by CNN's coverage held assignments that seem more like purgatory than public service, and some of these assignments happens so far in the past as to have little relevance in today's rapidly-evolving political climate.

    Quite frankly, does the former deputy ambassador to the United Nations under Ford and Carter have an opinion relevant in today's global political environment? Do we really need the opinion of an Arms Control Agency leftover from the Carter Administration, or Clinton's ambassador to Nigeria?

    Bolton's nomination is controversial, to put it mildly, but it would be a refreshing change to have someone in the United Nations who would freely speak his mind without first needing to secure immunity from investigators.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    March 28, 2005

    An Angry God, a Stupid Liberal

    One day after Easter, Sumatra has experienced another major earthquake today, a shallow (19 miles deep) 8.2 (update: 8.7) magnitude event roughly in the same area hit by the December 26 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that killed 150,000 and left another 100,000 missing.

    Perhaps not surprisingly, liberals at the Democratic Underground have wasted no time blaming President Bush.

    Note: Hello to all my visitors from Ace of Spades HQ, Michelle Malkin, Outside the Beltway, Say Anything, and Grapevine's Ramblings. Please be sure to visit the main page.


    Update: Democratic Underground change the link, and so it is now updated. In case they decide to disable or remove the post at a later time, I have a screen capture.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    March 25, 2005

    In the Shiavo Case, Even the Doctors Are Having Cerebral Issues

    Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan states:

    "While we at American Council on Science and Health have been determined to remain on the sidelines of the raging national debate about the fate of Terri Schiavo (this is largely a legal and ethical issue, not a scientific one), we cannot remain silent about the outrageous misrepresentation of scientific facts about this case that has been occurring in the past ten days.

    "The medical reality of Ms. Schiavo's case is this: She has been in what is medically referred to as a "permanent vegetative state" for the past 15 years, ever since her heart temporarily stopped (probably due to the severe effects of an eating disorder), depriving her brain of oxygen. Brain scans indicate that her cerebral cortex ceased functioning -- probably just after she experienced cardiac arrest in 1990. Ms. Schiavo's CAT scan shows massive shrinking of the brain, and her EEG is flat. Physicians confirm that there is no electrical activity coming from her brain. While the family video repeatedly shown on television suggests otherwise, her non-functioning cortex precludes cognition, including any ability to interact or communicate with people or show any signs of awareness. Dozens of experts over the years who have examined Ms. Schiavo agree that there is no hope of her recovering -- even though her body, face and eyes (if she is given food and hydration) might continue to move for decades to come.

    "Those are the harsh facts."


    Some more "harsh facts" seem to indicate that Dr. Whelan might need a refresher course at the closest available medical school. The part of Dr. Whelan's statement above in bold(my bold, not the author's) simply isn't true.

    EEGs--electroencephalograms--measure electrical activity on the surface of the brain only. She cannot categorically state there is no deeper brain function because of EEG results, as EEGs do not measure such.

    In addition, without any electrical activity coming from any part of her brain, Terri Shaivo's body would not have a heartbeat, or know to breathe. In layman's terms, she'd be brain dead. The very fact that Terri Shaivo has been breathing without the aid of a ventilator for the past 15 years proves that she has some electrical activity in her brain, even if the amount or quality of activity is debatable.

    If Dr. Whelan is going to throw around charges of misrepresentations, perhaps she should start by correcting her own.


    Update: As Ed noted in the comments, Dr. Whelan is a Sc.D... a Doctor of Science. She isn't a medical doctor. he Evangelical Outpost adds that Dr. Whelan is quite a dubious character in her own right.

    Note: Posted at the Blogger News Network

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    March 24, 2005

    Eviscerated: The Betrayal of Our Southern Border

    In general, I've been a strong supporter of the current administration's foreign policy initiatives, particularly the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as I understood and accepted the arguments of the threats each of these counties posed.

    Afghanistan was the unabashed and de facto home of al Qaeda and its Taliban supporters, and Iraq, though a harder sell to the American people, made sense on a number of levels for our national security.

    And so I'm stunned that President Bush has taken the extraordinary step of weakening our nation's security by advocating a loosening of immigration restrictions, a move that makes sense neither from the perspectives of commerce or security.

    Our porous borders are this nation's single greatest national security threat, particularly our southern border with Mexico. 2 million of the estimated 3 million people that cross the border illegally each year do so without getting caught. We're not talking just a handful of illegals, but the equivalent of 160 12,500-man military divisions, larger than Saddam's Army at the height of full mobilization. Red Dawn, anyone?

    Even when peaceful in intent, these huge numbers are over-burdening parts of our country's infrastructure, particularly our social services. In California alone the cost of treating illegals has shut down 60 emergency rooms, and in New Jersey, the state estimates it hemorrhages $200 million each year treating illegals. With astronomical health costs and the re-importation of previously vanquished and newly emerging diseases, the cost of supporting 10-25 million illegal aliens far outweighs any "cheap labor" arguments.

    In addition to illegal aliens, terrorist groups are thought to be using the poorly guarded southern border as an entry point, and Central and South American street gangs are using the border to smuggle in gang members for violent drug operations, such as MS13, which has rapidly expanded to 31 states.

    I've supported President Bush and much of the Republican Party platform, but by enabling and even encouraging the exposure of our southern border, he is preparing the United States to be eviscerated by forces both accidental and intentional.

    Note: Cross-posted to the Blogger News Network.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Agreed

    Rusty sums it up perfectly for me:

    "...federalism is an abstraction. Life is not."
    Home
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    Payback

    When did Greenpeace form an alliance with the Dutch? I guess this evens the score.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    March 23, 2005

    Not Selling Well in the 'Burbs, Heartland

    I don't get it. When the new marketing campaign was pitched to Howard Dean, he seemed so crazy about it (MP3)...

    Update: The Country Store has similar thoughts.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    March 22, 2005

    Do Liberals "Own" Gay Voters?

    The Democratic Underground and other unsavory corners of the Web are all atwitter about the unconfirmed rumor that Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlmann might be gay.

    In all seriousness; does it matter?

    To most conservatives and libertarians I know, it doesn't. While it may bother some of the very old or very far right members of our side of tehpolitical spectrum, most conservatives don't care all that much about someone's sexuality, and many of us have gay friends.

    Despite that, liberals, particularly in the blogosphere, have consistently pounced upon (figuratively) suspected gays within the Republican party, demonizing as traitors to their community. What gives them the right to make that determination? What gives liberals the arrogance to determine which community someone belongs to merely on the basis of sexual orientation?

    Should a lesbian businesswoman be ideologically bound to vote for higher corporate taxes because she loves another woman? Of course not. Should a gay gun nut have to give up his love of shooting sports because Republicans are more gun-friendly? No.

    Liberals, gay liberals, in particular, are guilty in this instance of pigeonholing and stereotyping and entire group of people based one aspect of their personality. Militantly liberal gays like John Aravosis at Americablog seem to imply that if an American is gay, he or she is obligated to vote for liberal candidates.

    I'd like to know why liberals seem to think they own homosexual voters, and almost uniformly consider gay conservatives, as one long-time Democratic Underground poster put it, "Destructive, treasonous, hypocritical, cynical opportunists," that "deserve no mercy."

    Sounds mighty arrogant to me.

    Update: Shamelessly added to the Beltway Traffic Jam.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    A Note on State-Assisted Homicide

    I don't care what the doctor thinks.

    Just becuase she's been in a "persistant vegatative state" for 13 years does not mean we should allow her to starve.

    Even animals are afforded a merciful, quick and relatively painless death. People, even those we don't like, deserve the same protections.

    Update: The Jawa Report is in a similar mood... and apparently, so is Liberal Larry.


    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    A Note on State-Assisted Homicide

    I don't care what the doctor thinks.

    Just becuase she's been in a "persistant vegatative state" for 13 years does not mean we should allow her to starve.

    Even animals are afforded a merciful, quick and relatively painless death. People, even those we don't like, deserve the same protections.

    Update: The Jawa Report is in a similar mood... and apparently, so is Liberal Larry.


    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    March 21, 2005

    Ouch

    Gather around kids, and learn: Tigerhawk shows us what a good fisking really is, at the expense of a fluff piece by James C. Goodale in the New York Review of Books.

    I'll warn you in advance that it isn't pretty.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:32 PM | Comments (0)

    March 19, 2005

    A Cruel and Unusual Punishment

    Understandably, a lot of folks are extremely distraught over Terri Shiavo's feeding tube being removed on Friday.

    Starving a person to death does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment as outlined in the Constitution? It is so terribly obvious. Just because she cannot cry out doesn't mean that she is not suffering a horrible, lingering death.

    I've been asked to link to a story asking Jeb Bush to step in and be a hero, and so I shall, even though my heart isn't in it. Quite frankly, I don't think it would do much more than delay the inevitable.

    The Florida legislature, disgracefully, refused to pass a law that may have saved the life of Mrs. Schiavo, and I'm not hopeful that Congress will come through.

    Michael Schiavo has gone to extraordinary lengths to see his wife killed, and found a willing judge to pass sentence. If no one will step forward to stop this execution, I sincerely hope someone, perferably a physician, will at least have the courage to end Terry Shiavo's life before her suffering becomes too great.

    Florida has already shown it contains little compassion. One can only hope it can salvage mercy.

    Update: Late Saturday evening Congress worked out a compromise that will allow Federal courts to decide Terri Schiavo's fate.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)

    March 18, 2005

    The End Begins for Shiavo

    Someone please explain to me how we can live in a country where a man can get a court order to legally starve his wife to death, when there are people literally begging for chance to help her.

    And we have the nerve to call these people savages...

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)

    Hate has a Home in New Paltz

    Driving through, you'd never expect this tiny upstate New York college town was all that different from dozens of other college towns across this country, but something about New Paltz attracts hate.

    In June of 2001, it took place in the form of an hours-long shooting rampage by Jared Bozydaj in the name of Timothy McVeigh.

    Last year in early April, vicious radicals from the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas met there to scream:

    "God hates fags!"
    "God hates America!"
    This was in protest to New Paltz Mayor Jason West's decision to perform illegal gay marriages.

    Tomorrow, hate rears its head again.

    International A.N.S.W.E.R., an anti-Semitic blanket organization including radical Marxists that support convicted terrorist supporter Lynne Stewart, and the national Muslim Student Association, a Saudi Wahhabi-funded, rabidly anti-Semitic group that has been identified as a pro-terror organization that has raised money for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups, is conducting a so-called anti-war protest tomorrow, March 19 in New Paltz.

    But what is it, really? It is a rally of hate against our involvement in toppling a bloodthirsty dictator. Another rally of hate against soldiers trying to bring peace to a war-torn land.


    Even after successful Iraqi elections and the establishment of a fledgling democracy in the Middle East, they protest. Even though the Iraqi war is the catalyst for other democracy movements in the region which can free of tens of millions more people, they protest.

    They do not protest for freedom. The do not protest for the millions oppressed under Middle Eastern tyrants. They protest against President Bush. They protest against emerging calls for freedom.

    These people hate our president, one man, so much that they would sell tens of millions down the river hoping to cause him to fail.

    That is a lot of hate contained in a town of barely six thousand.

    What a terrible, terrible shame.

    Note: Sadly, the New Paltz protest is just one of many against Arab democracy this weekend. Pathetically, my conspiracy theorist congressman, Maurice Hinchey, will be a featured speaker.

    Note 2: The pictures above were taken at previous protests in different cities, and have appeared on so many web sites, I'm not sure who can claim credit for them.


    Update: Welcome, Little Green Footballers!

    I'm often there ( A daily read), but it's nice to have you guys over here to visit once in a while. As you well know, our good friend Congressman Hinchey will be the guest of dishonor at this event. I know if was an LGFer who taped his audio last time, so anyone can get a transcript of his comments, or an MP3, I'd appreciate a copy (confederateyankee-at-hotmail-dot-com) very much.

    Be sure to click the "Home" link below and look around. There's plenty of stuff here that you'll like, and consider bookmarking the site as content is updated daily.

    Update 2: Carpe Bonum has a nice angle covered from the college town where Hinchey will be speaking.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

    Boxer Blows the Charade

    We've suspected for a long time now that liberals felt that a different set of rules applied to them as opposed to the rest of us, but we never had proof. Now we do.

    Radioblogger caught liberal California Senator Barbara Boxer in the truth as she spoke of the Democratic attempt to change the Senate's advise and consent role in judicial nominations:

    ...California's very own Barbara Boxer, took to the podium next, and did something remarkable. She forgot to keep up the lie. She told the truth about the strategy of the Democrats. She let what their view of the Constitution truly is. If Rose Woods, Richard Nixon's legendary secretary, worked at either MoveOn or C-span, the following part of the tape would be missing...
    Click to Listen (MP3) or read the transcript.
    ...The truth of the matter is it is the Democrats who indeed are changing the Constitutional requirement, because Democrats like Barbara Boxer don't think the current political makeup is fair. Not only should there be a supermajority, which is clearly unconstitutional, but appointed judges should stand for elections. I wonder if that weathered, pocket-sized edition of the Constitution did backflips in Robert Byrd's shirt pocket when she said that.
    Boxer let slip the simple truth that Senate Democrats don't like playing by the rules this country was founded upon, if the Constitution don't directly and immediately benefit them.

    Is anyone really surprised?

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)

    March 17, 2005

    Why are the Italians on the Defensive?

    The Guiliana Sgrena case just keeps getting stranger.

    First of all, few of Sgrena's stories about her kidnapping or the shooting during her rescue matched one another. One would almost think she was a bitter old communist with an axe to grind who was making up things on the fly to try to damage a country she dislikes.

    Then, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called for a full investigation into a Baghdad checkpoint shooting by U.S. soldiers that took the life of agent Nicola Calipari, but now doesn't actually want to cooperate.

    Why are the Italians stonewalling the investigation of Sgrena's kidnapping?

    Call it just a hunch, but perhaps after the Italians had a chance to debrief Sgrena, they discovered that they may have lost a good man over a terrorist sympathizer, and don't want the kidnappers caught, fearing they might corroborate that under interrogation. It was tragic to lose Nicola Calapari to a horrible mistake in communications and planning.

    It would be even worse if they lost him trying to save someone who had sided with the enemy.

    (Hat tip: The New Editor)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)

    Capital Punishment, Up Close and Personal

    I spent a long time lying awake last night thinking about the latest missive from Eugene Volokh. It is fairly rare in my experience to find people who are not only pro-death penalty, but who feel that the families of the victims should be allowed to participate in the execution.

    It is strange in these times to hear such comments from learned men, and upon reflection, refreshing.

    The condemned subject of the Volokh article was an Iranian who lured at least twenty children into the desert, sexually assaulted them, and then murdered them. they method of execution was brutal. The condemned was tied to a post flogged 100 times with a whip, stabbed once, and them slowly throttled by tying a cord around his neck and lifting him from the ground with a crane to strangle.

    It was truly a horrible way to die, and not something to be easily dismissed from the mind once you really understand how it was done, and how the condemned murderer suffered.

    As horrible as his death was, I find it hard to argue that the punishment did not fit the crime. Considering what this man did, I feel no pity for him, nor his manner of execution.

    I know that this kind of execution would never be sanctioned in the United States, and I'm not going to argue that it should. It is an untenable position. Volokh says in an update that this kind of execution would most likely violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. I'm pretty sure that is the case as well. He suggests a constitutional amendment to make an exception to the clause for some sorts of mass murder. Not that it matters, but if you are going to go that route, I think certain violent sex crimes should be added as well.

    What I did find thought-provoking was the idea of letting victim's family participate in some (if not all) government-sanctioned executions.

    It violates no constitutional rights to allow a family member to participate in current forms of legally recognized execution. It would be just and fitting to have them push the button, or through the switch.

    Volokh is right, I think, and the more I think about it, the more I support the idea of an exception to the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause.

    I find that a firing squad made up of members of victim's family members would be a quite appropriate and a very fitting, if somewhat still unsatisfying, act of justice.

    Update: Upon doing a little more research, an amendment to the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause would be difficult to add, but it may not be as difficult as you think, and may not even be necessary.

    While some states feel it is cruel and unusual, firing squads are still legal in Utah, Idaho, and Oklahoma, and hanging is still legal in Washington, Delaware, and New Hampshire, according to this 2002 CNN article:

    I don't think it unreasonable, considering that these forms of execution are still practiced, to allow members of victim's families to participate in either one.

    Granted, it may not be a punishment to fit the crime, but it might be a step closer to both justice and closure for the surviving families. The tough part would be expanding this to a national scale, but if a few states could be pursuaded to allow victim's families to participate, victim's rights groups would probably push for a nationwide law, wouldn't they?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)

    I Told You He Was A Real Journalist.

    Shocking information at a White House press conference yesterday has proven that Jeff Gannon is every bit as competent and credible as other White House correspondents.

    No, Gannon didn't say anything new, but Bush's press conference yesterday not only showed the existence of harsh bias in the White House Press Corps, but that it is far deeper and wider among liberal reporters, prompting Powerline to ask, "Where is Jeff Gannon When We Need Him?"

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:38 AM | Comments (0)

    March 16, 2005

    Corrie's Parents, Seeking Profit, Sue Wrong Foe For Her Death

    Rachel Corrie's parents are suing the IDF, the State of Israel, and Caterpillar, Inc. because Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist, stood in front of a bulldozer where the operator has severely restricted line-of-sight and decided to play "chicken." Guess who won?

    LGF has all the relevant links and so I won't repost them here, but I'm surprised that Rachel Corrie's parents aren't suing Evergreen State College, a fourth-tier, radically liberal college in Olympia, Washington. This is where Corrie developed the radically liberal ideology that led her to join up with and be used by terrorists, and this ideology she acquired at ESC appears to be the most culpable suspect in swaying Rachel Corrie's impressionable young mind to the point that she would put her life in such danger.

    As Dennis Prager said in March 23, 2003:

    Anyone with a heart must extend the deepest condolences to Rachel Corrie's parents. But anyone with a conscience must regard Rachel Corrie's activities with contempt. One hopes that it is not asking too much of people to entertain simultaneously two conflicting emotions -- grief for the parents and contempt for the daughter.

    Rachel Corrie chose to side with a society that breeds some of the cruelest murderers of innocent people in the world. Rachel Corrie gave her life trying to protect people whose declared aim is to annihilate another country. In the name of saving children's lives, Rachel Corrie chose to defend a society that teaches its young children to blow themselves up and which deliberately targets children for death. And Rachel Corrie went to America's enemies to burn her country's flag.

    She was one of the many fools our colleges annually produce. Evergreen State College is reputed to excel in such production. Is anyone aware of a single student or faculty member who repudiated her activities?

    Rachel Corrie's death was a needless one, based upon blindnesses ideological and practical. If Corrie's parent are going to sue Caterpillar for building bulldozers that protect their operators from terrorists, they should also sue the college that indoctrinated their child to side with murderers.


    Update: Apparently the illogical, rabid moonbattery of the far, far left isn't isolated to obscure colleges in Washington state; it also trickles down to the high school level. Pathetic.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)

    March 15, 2005

    Scalia Shows His Mettle

    If there was any doubt Justice Antonin Scalia is qualified to be Chief Justice, that doubt was erased yesterday in a 35-minute speech where he blasted the recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision to overturn the juvenile death penalty based on "evolving notions of decency."

    Scalia noted that since the Warren Court, Justices have been all too willing to interpret new rights not included in the Constitution, at the expense of our democracy.

    Constitutional law expert Mark R. Levin appears to agree in his current New York Times best-seller, Men In Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America. Levin goes further back than the Warren Court to the Marshall Court citing Marbury v. Madison as the tipping point where the court granted itself the power to declare acts of the other branches of government unconstitutional, which had the immediate effect of upsetting the balance between the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

    David Price has an excellent explanation of the current living Constitution theory, and why you should care.

    If you are pro-choice, you need to understand that you do not have an inherent Constitutional right to abortion, that was a decision granted by activist jurists, just as was the recent juvenile death penalty case. While Rehnquist's impending retirement is almost assured and not necessarily going to change the overall tenor of the court, John Paul Stevens is 80, and both Ginsburg and O'Conner (a liberal and a "swing" justice) are into their 70s.

    All it takes if for a moderate or liberal justice to retire, and a strong conservative to replace them, something that is growing not only possible but probable as Democrats continue to grow weaker in Congress. If that conservative justice is also a believer in the living Constitution theory, you can expect decision such as Roe v. Wade, the juvenile death penalty case, and literally dozens of other standing examples of Court decisions to be retried and overturned based upon new "evolving notions of decency."

    While this would no doubt thrill conservatives in the short-term, it shows the weaknesses of the living Constitution theory, providing us with a shaky foundation for our nation which could again tilt the other way when another justice or two retires.

    The Constitution is not a document created on a whim to be changed lightly, but an effort of brilliant men who struck a delicate balance between judicial, legislative and executive branches. That balance has been steadily eroded by a self-important judiciary, and it is important, no vital, that our next Chief Justice understands that wrong and redresses it.

    It appears Antonin Scalia may be that man.

    Note: More about the current and future makeup of the court via History.net.


    Update: More commentary can be found at Outside the Beltway, Penraker rips WaPo's Dana Milbank in his coverage of the speech, Ankle-Biting Pundits focuses on the Roe v. Wade implications, Patterico agrees strongly with Scalia's comments, and QandO weighs in on activist jurists.

    More updates as they develop..

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:56 AM | Comments (0)

    March 14, 2005

    Wanted: A Little Truth in Protesting

    As I've mentioned before here and more recently and in more detail here, Congressman Maurice Hinchey, a conspiracy theorist from New York's 22nd Congressional District, will be the featured speaker for International A.N.S.W.E.R.'s March 19 rally in New Paltz, New York.

    International A.N.S.W.E.R. is a anti-Iraqi freedom umbrella organization made up of alledged Islamic terrorist-supporters, Marxists, Communists, and those who love cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

    In short, Hinchey will be speaking to his base.

    What I'd really like to see at this rally is some truth in protesting; signs that actually portray what is going on in the protestor's mind as an individual, instead of the empty-headed slogans brought back by Vetnam-era burnouts.

    I'd love to see the typical dyed-hair teen angst-filled Green Day-loving New Paltz "rebels" hold up honest signs like this:

    No to War In Iraq!
    Stop America's imperialist aggression against peace-loving dictators who only kill, rape and murder their own people.

    Bring Our Troops Home Now!
    Well, not our troops, your troops, but... whatever.

    Stop American Imperialism!
    If you don't, freedom stands a chance.

    No Blood For Oil!
    Dude, you got enough gas to get to Starbucks?

    Make Love, Not War!
    Or at least that's what my English professor told me last night over a bottle of wine.

    Granted, I'm not expecting that from a bunch of stoned teen-agers with zero-life experience, nor the Woodstock burnouts that never went home, nor SUNY-New Paltz's closet Churchillesque faculty, but a man can dream.

    Update: Think you'll see these guys at the anti-Iraqi freedom protest? My guess is "yes."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)

    March 12, 2005

    The Jeff Gannon Challenge

    A little friendly challenge to the tolerant left:

    • Please provide a link to any law, security policy, or rule Jeff Gannon broke in applying for a White House press pass.
    • Please provide a link to any law, security policy, or rule broken by providing Gannon a White House press pass.
    • Please a link to any law or policy citing how much experience you must have to be a member of the White House Press corps.
    • Please show why why the Secret Service should have singled out Jeff Gannon's personal life for extra scrutinty over all other White House reporters, and tell me why that isn't discrimination.
    I await your intelligent, well-reasoned, and validly-sourced responses.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)

    March 11, 2005

    Loan Shark Protection Act Passes

    I am not amused.

    The new bankruptcy bill passed the Senate yesterday, ensuring hugely-profitable predatory lenders can continue their gluttonous ways with even higher profit margins. I usually support Republicans, but to be quite frank, the companies helped by this bill are often little more than legalized loan sharks.

    I am very disappointed.

    Update: Yes, I do note the irony of pimping Amazon's Visa while slamming credit card companies. Isn't irony wonderful?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)

    A Larger Loss, Revisited: Our Christian Nation

    Earlier in the week I corrected Michele at ASV for not understanding that Judge Roy Moore was correct in his comments made to Christianity Today that:

    "The acknowledgement of God is basic to our society, to our law, and to our morality. Christianity is in a prime position to wake them up. I can't do it alone, and Christians need to be awakened to what's going on in our country. If we continue to let this happen, what will happen is a complete departure from our constitutional form of government. The basis of our morality is being destroyed. We have no morality without an acknowledgment of God."

    While she is entitled to her own opinions about faith and is free to practice (or not practice) her freedom of religion as she chooses, she isn't entitled to get the facts of American History wrong.

    Needless to say, this became a bit of a hot topic in the comments, and Alex Knapp of Heretical Ideas came over and thought we were entitled to his logical fallacies on the subject, including the whopper that the Bible was against the American Revolution. He didn't get any better, or any more coherent.

    Finally he says:

    "Alright then, enlighten me.

    How is the Constitution of the United States a Christian document?"

    The sad fact of the matter is that Mr. Knapp, like Michele and many othere secularists, don't know their American History. I answered thusly in the comments:
    The Constitution came well after the founding and creation of our country.

    Written in 1789, the Constitution came 12 years after the American Revolution started, and indeed 7 years after we became an independent, God-fearing nation.

    The Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, was our Founding Document, and it is decidedly Judeo-Christian in nature, invoking the Judeo-Christian conception of God five times.

    As the Supreme Court ruled in 1897, the Constitution can only be understood in the context of the Declaration of Independence, and indeed, dates itself from the Declaration of Independence, and therefore, you cannot read the Constitution with regarding the Declaration as the thought and spirit of the Constitution.

    All governmental acts of our founders are dated from the Declaration, and in the Declaration of Independence, the Founders established the foundation and the core values on which the Constitution was to operate.

    As the Declaration is Christian document, the United States of America is a Christian nation.

    This fact was not lost on Chief Justice Moore, who, after all, was a Constitutional Scholar and an excellent jurist, not something we can claim about at least five members of our current federal Supreme Court, which as recently as last week used laws from other countries as the basis for deciding an American Constitutional case.

    I predict that we will soon see an end to judicial tyranny, Alex, and you and other poorly-educated secularists will not like what that holds in store for your recent and curiously convoluted interpretations of the Constitution.

    As it has been almost 48 hours since Mr. Knapp found out that we were founded a Christian nation, and he has not responded, I can only assume that he has little remaining logical reason to dispute American History.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)

    Journalist as Rube: A New Editor Article

    I missed this column from Tom Elia of The New Editor when it first went up, but if you've been following the Guiliana Sgrena story, it's a must read.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

    March 10, 2005

    Breaking: Torture Report May Exonerate DoD, Rumsfeld

    Kevin McCullough has a contact at the Pentagon that says that report expected from Admiral Church in Congress this morning will find that:

    1. There was no policy that condoned torture.
    2. There was no policy that encouraged abuse.
    3. There was a lot of inconsistency across interrogation techniques. Many of those techniques were developed in the combat theater and migrated to other areas.
    4. There was a general lack of military command guidance in dealing with the CIA. He found 30 ghost detainees. One such detainee was in that status for 45 days.
    5. There were missed interrogation opportunities in part because the military failed to take account of lessons from prior conflicts.
    6. There was no guidance to CENTCOM or by CENTCOM on interrogations.
    This takes the wind out of the proverbial sails of many on the left, decimating their primary argument against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

    Winds of Change has more on this story, as does Captain's Quarters, and GOP Bloggers, while left-leaning veteran Blue Collar Blog seems to think the report is a whitewash, while The Common Ills, which claims the L.A. Times broke this story yesterday, blasts the NY Times coverage of the story unmercifully.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

    March 09, 2005

    Somebody Else Can Pay the Piper: CU's Hoffman Runs from Responsibility

    The Denver Post is reporting that University of Colorado President Betsey Hoffman has resigned under pressure. Two major scandals have erupted at CU under Hoffman's leadership, and apparently, a third is on the way.

    The first is an on-going battle over the use of sex, drugs and alcohol in recruiting high school prospects for CU's Division I football program rife with allegations of rape and sexual assault. The second scandal revolves around Ward Churchill, an ethnic studies professor who wrote an essay comparing 9/11 victims to Nazi Karl Adolf Eichmann, who sent three million Jews to concentration camps between 1941-45.

    Hoffman had no problem standing up for Churchill, ignoring his false academic credentials, or his fraudulent artwork in support of his terrorist supporting comments, but apparently couldn't stomach real diversity from Professor Phil Mitchell, who had the temerity to quote from a respected black conservative, and in another instance, used a book on 19th century text on liberal Protestantism in his history class.

    Because of these outrageous practices of including actual versus imagined diversity (far worse than calling victims of the Trade Center attacks "little Eichmann's wouldn't you agree?) Mitchell, one of the top-ranked instructors in the history of his department at CU and 1998 SOAR teacher of the Year, is being fired, or as the radical liberals at CU prefer to call it, "not having his contract renewed."

    Hoffman spoke in her in her letter of her "view of principled leadership." Hoffman's principles, if she indeed had any, do not included leadership, only a subservience to radical leftist ideologies. She is grossly incompetent, proving once again that so-called "progressives" are nothing of the sort. It is hardly surprising that Hoffman is running from her mistakes, leaving others to clean it up.

    She is, after all, a liberal.

    Note: Dr. Mitchell, the fired Teacher of the Year from Colorado, will be on Kevin McCullough's radio show at 3:20 EST(links to audio stream).

    Update: The blogosphere seems to be heating up to this one. Wizbang is on this, as is Outside the Beltway, Villainous Company, the Blue State Conservatives, and a whole host of smaller blogs. The "tail"--the vast majority of smaller blogs that make up the bulk of the blogosphere-- seems to be ahead of the larger blogs on this one.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)

    March 08, 2005

    Terry Kerry with Today's Dumb Thought

    Via Drudge:

    Teresa Heinz Kerry is openly skeptical about results from November's election, the Seattle Post Intelligencer reports, particularly in sections of the country where optical scanners were used to record votes.

    "Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as "hard-right" Republicans. She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."

    Heinz Kerry did not offer any specific evidence that votes on the machines were altered.

    "We in the United States are not a banana republic," added Heinz Kerry during a fundraiser in Seattle.

    "I fear for '06," she said.

    Kerry does not acknowledge, and probably didn't have enough information to know, that these voting machines were never networked, making hacking a near impossibility. A hack could only be accomplished, by requiring each and every machine to be individually hacked, in person.

    As Bugs would say, "What a maroon."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)

    March 07, 2005

    A Small Victory, A Larger Loss

    Michele at A Small Victory is all fired up over this article in Christianity Today from former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.

    She selects this quote from Moore as particularly offensive to her sensibilities:

    "The acknowledgement of God is basic to our society, to our law, and to our morality. Christianity is in a prime position to wake them up. I can't do it alone, and Christians need to be awakened to what's going on in our country. If we continue to let this happen, what will happen is a complete departure from our constitutional form of government. The basis of our morality is being destroyed. We have no morality without an acknowledgment of God."
    Michele responds:
    "To say I strongly disagree is a vast understatement."
    She then gets bogged down in pitting one religion against another in the wonderful world of moral relativism:
    "Who is judging the validity of this source? There are some "higher powers" that promote death to non believers. So if someone says they get their sense of absolute right or wrong from that higher power, who are you to argue with it? That's their morality, as much as "turn the other cheek" may be yours. With more than one God hanging around, there is more than one absolute morality. Who's to say that yours is right and theirs is wrong? Using a higher power as the grounds for determining what's moral or not is sometimes a cop out, sometimes an excuse."
    First, Michele is horribly skewing the argument. Let's hook the red herring above before proceeding.

    Moore is explicitly talking about the United States (he says "in our country"), not the rest of the world as Michele seems to imply by her comments. She seems to be trying to place this argument into a global context, which is explicitly wrong if this is her intent.

    Moore is speaking about the United States, and he isn't saying that other religions, or the absense of all religion, cannot occur here. He is simply stating that we were founded as a nation by those who overwhelmingly believed in a Judeo-Christian God, and that belief system is the cornerstone of our nation.

    Once again, Moore said:

    The acknowledgement of God is basic to our society, to our law, and to our morality.
    That statement is true in a historical sense. True in a cultural sense. True in a legal sense as far as the evolution of where our laws came from. True in a moral sense.

    I'm not sure Christianity can or should be singled out as the only "right" religion as Moore seems to imply here, but our morality, laws and societal norms in America all do derive their basis from Judeo/Christian beliefs. That is incontrovertable fact.

    Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, acknowledges the existence of God no less than five times: God as supreme Lawmaker and Judge, God as Creator of all men, God as the Source of all rights, God as the world's supreme Judge, and God as our Protector on whom we can rely.

    Michele can disagree with Judge Moore all she wants on a personal level, but it won't make her any less wrong on the larger cultural level.

    "The acknowledgement of God is basic to our society, to our law, and to our morality."
    Correct on all counts, Judge.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)

    IMAO: The Dark Cloud of Glorious Reality

    Sometimes, you simply have to admit that the best comments are sometimes made by others.

    Sometimes, satire slams head-on into reality.


    This is one of those times.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)

    March 04, 2005

    Hinchey Proves Media Interference By Example

    Hinchey staffer Daniel Ahouse admits to purposefully spiking a poll in Hinchey's favor by lobbying liberal Web sites to vote in the congressman's favor about Hinchey's theory that Karl Rove was behind the CBS News fake documents scandal.

    Blogs on both the left and right were apparently responsible for greatly increasing the sample size of the poll, but only Hinchey's staff was caught trying to manipulate the data.

    The normal sample size for online polls at the Kingston NY Daily Freeman is normally 500-2,000 responses over the course of a week. This manipulated Hinchey poll tallied 41,281 total responses.

    Now that his staffers admit culpability, will Hinchey launch an investigation upon himself?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:41 PM | Comments (0)

    Hinchey Featured Speaker For Pro-Terrorist Group

    It has been almost two weeks and Maurice Hinchey still apparently feels that he doesn't owe any explanations to this constituent for his rash of conspiracy theories in the past weeks. Throughout this series of events, the real scandal has been Hinchey's willingness to irresponsibly spread conspiracy theories without the support of so much as a single concrete piece of evidence. Now, he intends to embarrass his constituents even more.

    On March 19, Maurice Hinchey will be the featured speaker at an antiwar rally held by International A.N.S.W.E.R. in New Paltz, New York.

    International A.N.S.W.E.R. is a blanket organization including radical Marxists that support convicted terrorist supporter Lynne Stewart, and their national steering committee includes the national Muslim Student Association, a Saudi Wahhabi-funded, rabidly anti-Semitic group that has been identified as a pro-terror organization that has raised money for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups.

    Are we clear on this?

    Maurice Hinchey is speaking on behalf of terrorists and terrorist supporters, in a rally against our troops. I can think of few actions more disgusting or disturbing that this obvious swipe at our soldiers on the second anniversary of their invasion of Iraq, only weeks after Iraq's first free elections.

    There are congressmen who serve their constituents with class and distinction... and then there is the abomination that is Maurice Hinchey.

    Update: Credit where credit is due. Scott Sala of Slant Point first alerted me to the fact International ANSWER was holding a protest, which he picked up from Free Will. LGF also ran with the story.

    Update 2: Thanks to Lawhawk, I corrected the convicted terrorist supporter's name from Lynn Stewart to Lynne Stewart. Lawhawk also said,

    "Oh, and you ought to include mention of Ramsey Clark, who is one of Saddam's defense lawyers and Stewart's icon. He was one of the founders of ANSWER and his other activities include defending cop killers, the PLO in the Leon Klinghoffer case, and called for George Bush to be impeached."
    What a lovely group of people Congressman Hinchey considers like-minded souls.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:01 AM | Comments (0)

    March 02, 2005

    Something Amusing Finally Happens at "The Rat"

    I loathe Chuck E. Cheese the way liberals hate objectivity in the White House Press Room, so I'm slightly amused over this incident (Hat tip: Drudge).

    A few things we should all take away from this story:

    • Stay in school and you probably won't end up as a Chuck E. Cheese manager
    • Abstinence is the only way to ensure you will never have to go to Chuck E. Cheese
    • Even if it is Chuck E. Cheese, if they have guns and Tasers, they are probably real cops
    • The preceeding point should be confirmed after the first Taser shock drops you to the ground
    An upside of this story is that if Mr. Gale likes the Chuck E. Cheese salad bar, he'll love prison food.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)

    March 01, 2005

    For Better or Worse

    I've been avoiding commenting on the Terri Schiavo case, but since Phins says exactly what I want to say, I'll let him do that talking for me on this one.

    Note: Fox News is reporting that Terri's parents have filed for divorce against Michael Schiavo on the grounds of adultery and not acting in his wife's best interests. As Michael Schiavo has had two children with another woman since he has been married to Terri the adultery charge is solid beyond doubt, and there would seem to be strong grounds that Mr. Schiavo is not acting in Terri's best interests by wanting her dead (trying to kill someone is usually considered against their best interests).

    Quite frankly, I'm surprised this approach hasn't been tried before, though I don't know the legal rights of parents to conduct a divorce on behalf of an adult child under these circumstances.

    The divorce proceedings, if allowed to continue, would cast a most critical light on Michael Schiavo.

    If he only wants out of Terri's life so he can continue with his new family, a divorce gives him that option. If, however, he is after the remaining money from the 1992 malpractice case, then he will be revealed as the calculating killer many suspect that he may be.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

    Play it again, George

    In the wake of these events in Lebanon and this development in Egypt, President Bush should consider the possibility of seeing another note like this one in the future.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:07 PM | Comments (0)

    February 28, 2005

    Conspiracies Abound

    Unfortunately the conspiracy theory wing of liberalism isn't just confined to my geographical location or my tinfoil hat-wearing Congressman (who has still not answered either of the letters from this constituent, one now a week old). As David Rogers of The New Editor finds out firsthand, the conspiracy theory mindset is spreading among liberals.

    This is not good for our republic, and only Democrats can stop it. I hope they can, or they will so self-marginalize themselves as to make this an effective one party government, and that serves none of us well.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)

    Oliver, meet Vladimir

    It is pathetic when someone who works for an organization devoted exclusively to promoting liberal media bias says there is no such thing, and deludes himself into believing it. These are the kind of reality-challenged people that think our president controls our entire media.

    It is even scarier when someone who is that ignorant and clueless is in a position to have enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on earth.

    It is a frightening world when Vladimir Putin is as clueless about America as Oliver Willis is. Hopefully, Vlad at least can be educated. We've already given up on Oliver.

    (Hat tip: Drudge)

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)

    February 26, 2005

    The World Ted Rall Can't See

    Ted Rall, a reputed cartoonist, has a challenge posted on his web site:

    "Several Bushist blogger types have written to assert that there are as many violent and threatening remarks and insults coming from liberals online as there are from conservatives against liberals. I've spent many sadly-lost hours online, and I say: no way.

    "So here's my challenge: Please email your worst, most vicious examples of liberal/leftie blogger vitriol (with links, natch), and I'll post 'em right here. If they exist, obviously.

    "If not, let's take as a given what we already know: that Republicans' first impulse is to punch people whose arguments they can't defeat with logic and to bomb countries whose people know something we don't.

    "Come on, righties: my server is standing by at..."

    You get the idea. But who is Ted Rall?

    According to his blog (which I will not link to), he claims to be "America's BS Detector." I googled his name and after several eye-widening links, I think I found out what he does with the BS he detects. He wallows in it.

    Some of Rall's work appears racist. Some of it appears as a hatred of patriotism. After viewing several of his more controversial strips online, I realized that Rall has to make controversial statements; his talent alone won't sustain a career. And it hasn't.

    And so Rall is reduced to making incendiary statements to try to retain his dwindling relevancy. He claims he can't see liberal hatred, threats and insults.

    I'd say he sees everything just fine, except his future. Ted sees and generates plenty of liberal bias.

    He just can't see how he's going to pay the rent.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)

    February 25, 2005

    Did Congressman Maurice Hinchey Threaten a Radio Talk Show Host?


    According to reports from listeners, New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey threatened conservative radio talk show host Sean Hannity during the 5:20 PM (EST) break on Thursday's show, apparently while tape was still rolling and recording.

    Hinchey has been under intense and growing media scrutiny since last weekend when he made an unsubstantiated claim that Karl Rove and the White House were responsible for tricking CBS News into running a story based on false documents.

    I am currently trying to track down a transcript of Thursday's Sean Hannity Show, and will update this story as events develop.

    Update: WuzzaDem has hilarious (and typical) experience with the apparent political bias at Google trying to find out about our unhinged congressman.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

    February 24, 2005

    When Awards Don't Matter


    (Hat tip: LGF)

    Wired.com has given combat journalist Kevin Sites the 2005 Wired Rave Awards for Blogs, though apparently "relevancy" was not one of the criteria for judging.

    Why? According to Wired, Sites, "pioneered the new new journalism of war-blogging." Really? Someone please tell that to the many milbloggers that came before him, such as Lt. Smash or Argghhh!. Sites was not the first war-blogger, and his writing, though often quite good, rarely held the tension of Armor Geddon, or intelligence of Austin Bay. He was pedestrian, sometimes better, but never near the best of the military and war-bloggers.

    Other blogs had far more national and international impact.

    Powerline and Little Green Footballs exposed the fake documents scandal at CBS News that brought down Dan Rather and shook professional journalism to the core, and Powerline was named Time Magazine's Blog of the Year, based upon "The Sixty-First Minute," an article that is arguably the most important single post in the history of the blogosphere.

    While Sites does not publish his blog's traffic statistics, it probably wouldn't rate in the top 250 for traffic, nor in the top 100 for links, according to a comparison of selected sites in the TTLB Ecosystem rankings against blog search relavancy results at Technorati.com.

    Sites doesn't appear to score well for overall relevance, nor impact, nor traffic, nor linkage.

    One would be forced to believe that the only reason Sites was chosen for this award was because of a single incident of relevance, when Sites released and blogged about controversial footage of a young Marine killing a wounded terrorist in a Fallujah mosque. Ultimately, even that had little relevance, as the Marine is not likely to face charges. Bad things happen in war.

    That news, and the otherwise insignificant blog covering it, hardly seems worthy of an award.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)

    The Commies are Coming

    The Commies are coming...

    International A.N.S.W.E.R., a Stalinist terrorist-supporting group will be coming to New Paltz, NY on March 19 to protest the anniversary of the liberation of Iraq.

    A.N.S.W.E.R.'s last major protest was a February 12 "Day of Outrage" in support of convicted terrorist collaborator Lynn Stewart.

    Oh, did I mention Rep. Maurice Hinchey is scheduled as this group's featured speaker?

    (hat tips: Slant Point, Free Will)

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)

    HincheyWait Continues

    So it has now been four days since I sent an email to Congressman Maurice Hinchey, asking him to explain his conspiracy theory that Karl Rove and the White House tricked CBS News into running a story based on false documents. I don't think the congressman plans to answer his constituent.

    For those of you who might need a refresher, CBS News jumped at a chance to run a false story they thought would be damaging to President Bush's reelection, even though three of their own experts told them that there were major problems with the documents before the story ran.

    The story's sole apparent source was a Bush-hating conspiracy theory-addicted man named Bill Burkett. The blindly partisan story with direct ties to John Kerry's presidential campaign was discredited within 24 hours, leading to the firing of one CBS News producer, the call for resignation of three other CBS News executives, Rather's replacement as the network's anchor, and the destruction of the credibility of CBS News.

    This past weekend, in front of a crowd of partisan supporters in the leftmost major city in his district (politically and geographically), Hinchey made claim that Karl Rove was behind this incident.

    What makes this story extraordinary is not that a politician played to a partisan crowd.

    What makes this story extraordinary is that once caught in this tall tale and pressed for evidence, Hinchey admits that he has no proof for his allegations, but that he plans to continue making the slanderous statements, regardless any evidence supporting his position.

    When pressed to defend his statements, Hinchey instead tries to redirect attention elsewhere.

    We aren't buying it, Mr. Hinchey.

    Nobody else made outrageous unsubstantiated claims here. You did. When offered chances to support your claims with facts, you flatly turned them down.

    Mr. Hinchey, you are an embarrassment to New York's 22nd District, and are now the butt of jokes literally halfway around the world. Back up your conspiracy theories with cold hard facts, admit you were wrong, or resign.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)

    February 23, 2005

    "A Host of Political Dirty Tricks"

    I think I can understand why my congressman, Maurice Hinchey, hasn't found the time to respond to either of my emails concerning his seemingly slanderous comments about Karl Rove and the Bush administration. He's been too busy on television and the radio trying to spin his version of events and portray himself as an everyman hero.

    Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Hinchey, but that dog won't hunt.

    On CNN's Inside Politics on Tuesday, Congressman Hinchey said:

    "And then the issue of the CBS Dan Rather event came up, and I said that there were false documents or documents which were falsified and presented as being accurate and there was a question as to where those documents came from. And in the context of the discussion I suggested that -- my theory was that I wouldn't be surprised if it came from the White House political operation, headed up by Karl Rove."
    But is that quite how it happened, Mr. Hinchey? There was no question about where the issue came up. Hinchey went on a rant, of which this is just a small sample:
    "They've had a very very direct, aggressive attack on the, on the media, and the way it's handled. Probably the most flagrant example of that is the way they set up Dan Rather. Now, I mean, I have my own beliefs about how that happened: it originated with Karl Rove, in my belief, in the White House. They set that up with those false papers."
    Hinchey went on during the CNN interview with Judy Woodruff that he based his beliefs upon, "a great deal of circumstantial information and factual information. Mr. Rove, for example, has been involved in a host of political dirty tricks that are traceable back -- all the way back to the 1970s, '80s, '90s, right on up to the present."

    I am sure then that Mr. Hinchey can provide us with concrete examples if he has three decades of "factual information." I await his timely release of such information. Surely Congressman Hinchey would never make up such allegations.

    According to The Forest for the Trees Hinchey appeared on the Ed Shultz radio show and told their listener, "the forging of these documents and the shopping around of these documents, that was a well executed setup to destroy the issue of Bush's draft evasion."

    Again, I'm sure Congressman Hinchey will be forthcoming with the truth in extremely short order. Does Friday sound reasonable to you, Congressman? You have three decades of evidence, according to your claims. It shouldn't be too hard to throw together eight or ten pages of well-sourced, corroborated allegations in that amount of time.

    Hinchey apparently stated at one point during his radio interview that, "If we had a Congress that cared about this country we would see something done about this".

    Congressman, that is expressly why you are there.

    If you can't handle the job, I am certain we find someone who can.

    *****
    Credit where credit is due. In one of my earlier threads on this topic, I criticized the local newspapers harshly for missing this story, believing they may have been stonewalling. Since then, three of the four papers cited written articles on this topic, and the Times Herald-Record has created a section on its home page specifically dealing with this issue, including blog coverage and a message board. So far, of the four papers mentioned, only the Poughkeepsie Journal has failed to address this story.


    Update: Mr. Hinchey was on Hannity & Colmes tonight. I missed most of it, but tuned in just in time to see Hannity ask Hinchey point-blank to provide his evidence against Rove within what I thought was a very generous two weeks, or if he couldn't provide evidence to donate $1,000 to a charity Hannity supports.

    At a critical moment where he was quite literally asked to put his money where his mouth is, Hinchey declined. He claims to call for media accountability, but refuses his own. No wonder Hinchey is a punchline as far as half a world away.

    Maurice Hinchey is an embarrassment to the Hudson Valley.

    Update: Blogs and Media Coverage
    Little Green Footballs broke the story over the weekend and has been following it closely.
    Michelle Malkin thinks that Hinchey is "unhinged."
    Powerline notes that other Democrats rarely criticize this kind of behavior.

    Tim Blair goes iowahawk on Hinchey.
    GOP and the City has commentary, a roundup, and visual aides.
    Carpe Bonum has a take on Hichey's appearance on CNN's Inside politics.
    Slant Point is developing a list of additional blog coverage of "Hincheypalooza."
    Sounding the Trumpet is another 22nd District blog covering this story.

    IMAO rips into Hinchey, among others.
    Empire State Conservatives comments on the scene of the crime.
    Lance Minnion defends Hinchey.
    Musing Minds has comments and another collection of blog links.
    Myopic Zeal has a good roundup that highlights selected bits of commentary from the top blogs and provides what is probably the a rundown of a lot of the smaller blogs.
    Random Observations makes the observation that the Left is in a self-perpetuating cycle.

    phin's blog thinks Hinchey's outburst constitutes abuse of power. My brother might be on to something, at least from the moral side of things.
    The Forest for the Trees captured Hichey's appearance on Air America radio and was not impressed.
    Wizbang notes that you don't have to be insane to be a Democrat... but it helps.

    Technorati, the blog search engine, currently has 207 posts for "Hinchey+Rove."

    If I missed your blog (and I know I missed at least a few), and you commented on this topic, please track back to this post.

    Media Coverage:
    Binghamton's Press & Sun-Journal ran the first web-accessible 22nd District local news story on the subject.
    Middletown's Time Herald-Record is giving this story serious attention, with a section on the home page dedicated to the story.
    Ithaca's Journal, which blew the original story, finally weighed in.
    Kingston's Daily Freeman also has an article.
    Poughkeepsie's Journal still has its head in the sand.
    CNN's Inside Politics had a segment with Hinchey.
    Air America's Ed Shultz did a segment with Hinchey as well.


    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)

    February 22, 2005

    A Second Letter to Maurice

    I have now sent and received confirmation of delivery of my second email to my Congressman, Maurice Hinchey. It reads:

    Representative Hinchey,

    You have said in the local print news that even though you have no evidence proving a connection between Karl Rove and the CBS News scandal, you will not stop making these allegations. I am issuing a challenge to you: either conduct an investigation to prove your slanderous comments, or quit making them.

    Hinchey's office has still not responded to my first email, even though I specified that I wanted a written response.

    I can only assume that the concerns of his conservative constituents are of low priority.

    Update: Little Green Footballs, which broke the original story, has this excellent piece on cognitive dissonance from Scylla & Charybdis.

    "Yeah, that the ticket..."


    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)

    Maurice Hinchey: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

    Congressman Maurice Hinchey is finally talking to the local media about his charge that Karl Rove masterminded the fake documents scandal at CBS.

    Far from issuing a retraction, Hinchey maintains the theory that Rove is behind the story that led to "RatherGate," despite the fact that he has no proof. In addition, Hinchey maintains that he will continue to make these charges against Rove and the White House despite any evidence to support his baseless accusations.

    When we elect officials to go to Washington, they represent us and have a certain responsibility to hold their office with a certain degree of maturity, class, and decorum. Maurice Hinchey instead plays to extremists by repeating conspiracy theories that he admits as having no supporting facts.

    Congressman Hinchey needs to do one of two things.

    Option one is that Congressman Hinchey can shelve his slanderous accusations. Quite frankly, I don't expect the apology this situation warrants. I think that by furthering these accusations when he admits they are groundless, Congressman Hinchey has proven he doesn't have that kind of class. But I think we should expect him to at least stop repeating lies based upon outlandish conspiracy theories.

    I actually prefer the second option on the table: Let's give Congressman Hinchey and supporters of this theory a chance to make their case.

    I challenge Maurice Hinchey, New York's 22nd District Representative, to launch a Congressional Investigation into the accusations that Karl Rove and the White House were behind the CBS fake documents scandal.

    Have both houses of Congress subpoena witnesses, and build your case. Prove to us who was behind this scandal. I'm quite certain that the White House would like to get to the bottom of this story as well, and if you were doing more than just pandering to highly partisan crowds, you would feel the same way.

    So put your money where your mouth is, Rep. Hinchey.

    Quite frankly, I don't think you have it in you.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)

    Maurice Hinchey: You Can Run...

    If Maurice Hinchey didn't so obviously mean to slander Karl Rove and George Bush, I might be able to generate a bit of sympathy for him. Sadly, audio of the event and the accompanying transcript leave little room for confusion; Hinchey was radically pandering to a partisan crowd, espousing wild, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that Karl Rove was responsible for setting up Dan Rather with faked documents of Bush's Texas Air National Guard service.

    Congressman Hinchey happens to be my representative, and I sent him an email roughly 24 hours ago asking him to explain his statements. So far, I have received no response.

    Congressman Hinchey is now in the middle of what has been dubbed a "blog swarm." At the time I'm writing this, at least 131 blogs have written about Congressman Hinchey's outburst, up from a mere handful the night before. In addition, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News have already interviewed Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs who brought the audio and transcript to the Web, and hopefully the efforts of a concerned constituent that were picked up by many other bloggers have helped generate enough email to the print media in New York's 22nd District (Hinchey's district) to get the story treated locally.

    You cannot hide, Rep. Hinchey, and this will not blow over. I think you desperately need to get and read this book today, and act upon it. We don't want your job, nor your head on a silver platter, but we do deserve an explanation, and an apology.

    I don't think that is too much to ask.

    Late Update: The Binghamton Press & Sun Journal appears to be the first 22nd District newspaper to break the press blackout.

    "I have no proof," Hinchey said Monday night. "But if the documents originated at the White House, then it would fit the pattern of the White House manipulating the media. And if it did originate in the White House, then it must have come from the most brilliant, most Machiavellian of all of them, Karl Rove."
    Some people aren't blessed with the common sense to know when to shut up.


    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)

    February 21, 2005

    Partisan NY 22nd District Newspapers Bury Hinchey Outburst

    Not surprisingly, no one from Rep. Maurice Hinchey's office has so far replied to my email request to explain his outlandish claim that Dan Rather was duped by operatives of Karl Rove, even though I am a 22nd District constituent. I only mention that because Congressman reputedly like to use the dodge, "Well, you're not in my district so..."

    Well Rep. Hinchey, I am in your district, you work for me and the other taxpayers of the 22nd District, and I think we have a right to know why you would make a comment, that if it did not involve a political figure, would likely constitute slander.

    Not surprisingly, the local print news media, all with consistent liberal bias, have not felt this story warranted coverage. The Times Herald-Record whiffs, as do the three Gannett-owned papers in the District, the Poughkeepsie Journal, the Ithaca Journal, and the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin.

    I am quite certain that if a New York Republican (say, Stephen Minarik) made a controversial statement about a nationally prominent Democrat, (say, Howard Dean) that even the national news media, such as the Associated Press would find it newsworthy, though it would take a blogger to prove the connection.

    Should anyone desire to contact executives at these fine news organizations and ask them why they are ignoring this story, their names, titles, and email addresses are provided below.

    Times Herald-Record
    Mike Levine, Executive Editor: mlevine@th-record.com
    Meg McGuire, Managing Editor: mmcguire@th-record.com
    Joe Dowd: North Orange/Ulster Editor, jdowd@th-record.com
    Bob Gaydos: Editorial Page Editor, rgaydos@th-record.com

    Poughkeepsie Journal
    Margaretta Downey, Executive Editor, newsroom@poughkee.gannett.com
    Richard L.Kleban, Managing Editor, rkleban@poughkee.gannett.com
    John Ferro, City Editor, jferro@poughkee.gannett.com
    James Konrad, News Editor, jkonrad@poughkee.gannett.com

    Ithaca Journal
    Jim Fogler, President, jfogler@ithaca.gannett.com
    Dave Bohrer, Asst. Managing Editor, dbohrer@ithaca.gannett.com
    Bruce Estes, Managing Editor, bestes@ithaca.gannett.com
    Joe Swartz, Editorial Page Editor, jschwartz@ithaca.gannett.com

    Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin

    Rick Jensen, Executive Editor, rjensen@binghamt.gannett.com
    Christopher Kocher, News Editor, ckocher@binghamt.gannett.com
    Frank Roessner, Editorial Page Editor, froessne@binghamt.gannett.com

    P.S.--Oliver Willis: Here is your media bias.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)

    My Congressman is an Idiot

    I'm too ashamed (and tired) to say more at this point, other than that I didn't vote for this genius.

    Listen to the Hinchey in his own words.

    Update: I just sent my esteemed Congressman the following letter:

    Dear Rep. Hinchey,

    I have felt that you have always been a reasonable congressman, despite our differing political viewpoints (I am a conservative). I was highly troubled, however, to listen to your outrageous claims that Karl Rove orchestrated a grand deception to dupe Dan Rather. I think they award tin hats and DNC Chairmanships for that kind of behavior, but I like to think we have higher standards in the 22nd District.

    If you have forgotten your exact words, I have both the audio and transcripts of your statements that I downloaded off the internet, ironically enough, from on of the sites that proved the CBS documents fake.

    Would you please care to explain your commentary to one of your constituents?

    I eagerly await his response.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:22 AM | Comments (0)

    Gonzales Will Set Tone with CNN Gun Story


    Alberto Gonzales will now have a chance to set the tone for his term as U.S. Attorney General, thanks to a CNN story that apparently violated several federal gun control laws.

    A CNN reporter in the pursuit of a story apparently committed multiple violations of the Gun Control Act of 1968. This act was brought about by the murders of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy.

    The Smallest Minority is bringing attention to a CNN expose on .50 BMG rifles that may have led the CNN reporter in the segment and a Texas buyer to commit federal felonies (hat tip: Instapundit).

    CNN, apparently ran a story trying to show that it was easy for someone to buy a .50 BMG rifle without a permit and suggest it could be used it to bring down a civilian aircraft. We'll leave the disreputable fear-mongering of the "most busted name in news" aside for now, and focus on the apparent felonious acts committed in the story.

    Triggerfinger.org describes a clip from the video:

    Cut to the reporter in his SUV, taking about how the only paper involved in the transaction will be the cash. He flashes what looks like about 5 bills to the camera. Since the price of the gun was about $3000 new, he's not exactly representing the amount accurately. Cut to the reporter walking into a building, then walking out again with a carrying case. More inane comments in voiceover. Cut to an airport baggage claim, where he picks up the gun case. Voiceover about how it's perfectly legal to transport the gun on an airplane on your baggage (never mind the paperwork).
    Let's look at this simple series of event described in the three paragraphs above.

    The CNN reporter based in Atlanta, Georgia finds a .50 BMG rifle for sale from a private owner (not a licensed dealer, this is a crucial detail) in Texas. He then flies to Texas. He is filmed going into a building, and returning with a carrying case which he claims holds the rifle. Let's stop right there.

    Two apparent felonies occurred inside this building.

    If the private seller in Texas sold the gun to the Georgia-based reporter, he committed a felony, and the reporter likewise commited a felony by illegally purchasing the firearm.

    The reporter then compounded the apparent intitial felony by transporting an illegally-obtained weapon across state lines, which is another federal felony on its own. All of these crimes fall afoul of the Gun Control Act of 1968 as covered in specific as it relates to this event here.

    There is little the reporter can say to vindicate himself at this point. He not only apparently committed a crime, but videotaped and broadcast it.

    The professionalism and fairness applied to this apparent crime captured on film will establish Gonzales' credibility with Americans on both sides of the political aisle, and determine if Gonzales has the courage and conviction to investigate crimes not popular with the press.

    The ball is in Gonzales' court. Let's see how he plays it.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

    February 19, 2005

    Guckert/Rove "Link" From CBS News

    I'm afraid I'm going to have to apologize to my liberal friends. They were right about a huge conspiracy by the White House to allow gay men to ask questions. CBS News Senior Political Analyst Dotty Lynch said Friday:

    "But Rove's dominance of White House and Republican politics, Gannon's aggressively partisan work and the ease with which he got day passes for the White House press room the past two years make it hard to believe [emphasis added] that he wasn't at least implicitly sanctioned by the 'boy genius."'
    Yep, a CBS News staffer has based an anti-Administration story on gut-level feelings that something was amiss. Luckily, we know that CBS News would never trump up a bogus story about President Bush (hat tip: LGF).

    Interestingly enough, real members of the White House Press Corps see the Guckert story as far less of an issue than does the dotty Ms. Dotty above (hat tip: Instapundit).

    Update: Powerline has come forward to give their opinion on the Gannon/Gucket non-story. It isn't pretty, but then, there isn't anything pretty about this witchhunt.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

    Such Class


    The Party of Hissy Fits seems to be at it again. The damage was repaired within hours, as this kind of behavior, sadly, was expected of liberals and the sign company was ready to make the repairs.

    Democrats vandalized the White House in the 2001 transition to the tune of $15,000-$20,000 in damage according to an independent GAO Report, so this far less sacred venue was obviously fair game in what passes for morals on the left.

    As no industrial cranes were spotted in the area at the time of the act of liberal vandalism, Michael Moore is not regarded as a primary suspect.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

    February 18, 2005

    Den of Hypocrisy

    From my favorite den of wild accusation and paranoia, the Democratic Underground:

    "This week is our first quarter 2005 fund drive. Our goal is to bring in 1000 individual donations before midnight on Sunday, February 20. There is no minimum (or maximum) donation. Whether you can spare $5 or $500, your contribution will bring us one step closer to our goal. So please take a moment to donate right now!"
    Did you see that?

    They only seem to want the evil American dollar-the same currency preferred by Halliburton, BusHilter, and the Evil NeoCon Cabal. These are the exact same dollars and cents used to pay military contractors, defense contractors, and anti-abortion lawyers.

    They very Franklins, Lincolns, and Washingtons that they so crave, also go in church offering plates and might be used (gasp!) to bankroll religious holiday events... when they aren't used to buy Ohio voters.

    Do you know who else insists on being paid in dollars? Sean Hannity. Anne Coulter. Karl Rove.

    I, for one, can't stand the hypocrisy.

    Update: If I'm going to tell you about where you shouldn't send your donations, I guess I should probably provide an alternative of where you should. While I'm always greatful, I can think of someone who has given quite a bit more to the blogosphere.

    Glen Harlan Reynolds

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)

    February 17, 2005

    More Crunchy Social Security Goodness

    The New Editor looks at the numbers and wonders if today's liberals are trying to make Democrats look foolish on Social Security.

    My Answer?


    Well, duh... It's all part of that new image they're shooting for.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)

    Boxer/Stewart/Dean Connection Verified

    Howard Dean, who garnered 100% of Republican support to become the head of the DNC, has been in office less than a week and as we expected, he is already stepping hip deep in liberal stupidity.

    Dean called for New York's Republican chairman Stephen Minarik to apologize or step down for remarks linking Democrats to radical leftist lawyer Lynn Stewart, who was just convicted of aiding terrorists.

    Minarik said Monday that:

    "the Democrats simply have refused to learn the lessons of the past two election cycles, and now they can be accurately called the party of Barbara Boxer, Lynne Stewart and Howard Dean."
    Dean says Minarik's remarks were offensive, and that Minarik should apologize or resign for making the link. There is just one problem with Howie's argument:

    Minarik was right.

    There is a link, a very big one, between Barbara Boxer, and Lynn Stewart, and Howard Dean.

    His name is George Soros, who not only famously backs the Democrat Party, but also bankrolled Lynn Stewart's defense (hat tip LawHawk, via LGF), gave MoveOn.org $5 million to benefit Howard Dean, and gave money to Barbara Boxer.

    Stephen Minarik should not apologize for the truth. Liberal Senator Boxer, radical terrorist supporter Stewart, and DNC Chairman Screamin' Dean all readily took money from convicted criminal and anti-American billionaire George Soros.

    Minarik's comments might be offensive to Dean, but they were on the money.

    Update: Instapudit notes "This is mostly an example of why finding 'links' between people and organizations is an overrated activity."

    Prof. Reynolds is correct, of course. Just becuase I was able to find an easily proven and politically uncomfortable link between these four people doesn't necessarily mean that the connection was fair.

    That said, it doesn't make it any less entertaining.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)

    February 16, 2005

    The Hivemind Falls Short

    It has been alledged that if the liberal side of the blogosphere could learn to gather information from outside of their closed community, that they might indeed become a force. Unfortunately, they have a tendency towards groupthink.

    This of course leads to the parroting of ideas not throughly vetted, and so the hivemind runs a risk of propogating a story that may or not be true, based upon fervent belief instead of facts.

    The Brit Hume quote of FDR is a wonderful case in point.

    Brit Hume, of Fox News quoted part of FDR's January 17, 1935 speech to Congress proposing Social Security. Here is the relevant paragraph of the Hume article:

    In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, "Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age," adding that government funding, "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."
    Liberals such as Al Franken and James Roosevelt Jr. are now shrilly crying for Hume's resignation, saying that, "he rearranged those sentences in an outrageous distortion, one that really calls for a retraction, an apology, maybe even a resignation."

    Keith Olbermann chimed in, along with your expected deluge of liberal parrot blogs, and it was off to the races for the "me, too" crowd on the left to see who could call for Hume's resignation the fastest.

    But what, exactly, did Hume actually "rearrange?"

    Here is the exact two-line quote from the January 17, 1935 speech address from FDR that Hume abridged:

    "Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."
    Compare that to Hume's abridged version:
    "Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age," adding that government funding, "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."
    Could you easily spot the difference? Here is the FDR quote again, this time with the part Hume left out highlighted in bold:
    "Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."
    So we can see that Hume's "great sin" against FDR was to leave out the clause which states that the government would assume one-half of the cost of what would become known Social Security. If FDR wanted the government to absorb 1/2 the cost, then by default, the remaining 1/2 would then be private, correct?

    And isn't the fact that FDR spoke of private investment exactly what Hume was referring to in the first place?

    Sometimes a little research is more important than simply shouting, "me too!"

    Liberals should try it some time.

    Update: Cassandra has more in-depth coverage of the "tempest in a teacup."

    Update 2: While both the right and the left have been focusing on the text of FDR's speech A Little Reason compares the speech against the context of the actual bill and discovers that if Al Franken should call anyone a "lying liar," it should be Franklin Delano Roosevelt.


    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:38 PM | Comments (0)

    WMDs , Or A Bottle Of Stoli?

    And we wonder why the much vaunted UN Weapon Inspectors didn't find the WMDs that every major intelligence agency in the world says were in Iraq:

    "UN inspectors in Iraq spent their working hours drinking vodka while ignoring a shadowy nocturnal fleet believed to be smuggling goods for Saddam Hussein, a former senior inspector told the US Senate yesterday.

    "In a move that provoked fury from officials of the Swiss firm Cotecna, an Australian former inspector detailed a picture of incompetence, indifference and drunkeness among the men acting as the frontline for UN sanctions."

    They were apparently more interested in getting bombed than finding bombs.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)

    Reality Bites

    An Italian Communist anti-war journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, starred in a "Mujahideen Without Borders" video released to the Associated Press today, calling (in French, appropriately enough) for the "end of the occupation of Iraq."

    A vigorous anti-war protestor, Sgrena's video was shown just hours before Italy's Senate started voting on extending the nation's 3,000-member military mission in Iraq until June.

    I'm a tiny bit skeptical.

    A mention in the MSNBC version of the story made it sound like she was not only starring in the video, but directing it:

    At one point, her eyes watering as she struggled to recite her message, she waved the camera to stop. [my emphasis]
    An unknown group snatches a terrorist-sympathizing journalist, presumably for ransom, and the video just happens to show up in time to try to influence a vote? Is this timing the idea of the abductors, or hers? They both have similar political agendas, so the possibility should not be ruled out, and while no one in the Italian government would mention it, I'd be very surprised if that possibility had not been discussed internally.

    It is quite possible, however, that Sgrena is experiencing a rude awakening. She very well may have been jarred with the reality that her captors are the occupiers in Iraq, not American troops, and that they are not the nice revolutionaries she may have liked to believe that they were.

    Maybe if more armchair leftists got the full hostage experience firsthand, then they would understand that they have been cheering for the wrong side. Education is sometimes a brutal experience that I think Sgrena is unfortunately finding out firsthand.

    Note: The BBC seems to share a bit of skepticism as well over the timing of the release of the video. The video, by the way, did not keep the Italian Senate from extending their presence in Iraq.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)

    February 15, 2005

    The Left Comes Out

    Thanks to Instapundit, we see that Democrats.com is running a story, "Did George W. Bush Have Sex with That Man, James Guckert?"

    Guckert is the real name of a former Talon News reporter who called himself Jeff Gannon, and who was "outed" by ever-tolerant liberals as the owner of several gay-themed web sites. Liberal "news" sites such as Democrat.com, RawStory.com, and Americablog.org have gone on to say that Gannon didn't only own a couple of gay-themed web sites, but that he was also an escort, or something worse.

    According to the author of this piece (of what, I'll let you decide), Bob Fertik, gays are apparently sashaying out of the woodwork in Bush's White House. He claims White House spokesman Scott McClellan is gay, that Bush is gay, that Bush's former Yale classmate was gay, that GOP Ken Mehlman is gay... did he leave anyone out?

    He uses the word "gay" in each instance like a pointed finger of accusation, with an implied "but there's nothing wrong with that" hanging in the air like a stale fart. Apparently, in Fertik's world "Gay" is the new shorthand for "Republican."

    The lefty blogosphere, constantly touting itself as inclusive and accepting of minorities such as gay men, is not only outing Gannon/Guckert, but humiliating him in any way possible, and taking great delight in it.

    Is this how the left displays tolerance and acceptance of gays? Posters on the Democratic Underground delighted in bashing Guckert. When Guckert announced he was no longer talking to the press, a liberal poster to the Democratic Underground message boards gleefully asked, "I wonder if he'll 'talk' for $200?" Another said, "Don't slander him by implying he was a cheap prostitute. He was a very expensive one." So much for the myth of a gay-friendly left.

    I feel sorry for my gay friends having their sexuality batted around by their so-called "tolerant" liberal party. As more liberals pile on to this story, and gays find out what the liberal wing really feels under their sheets, I'll be at the lumber yard.

    We're planning on adding rooms at the Log Cabin.

    Update: I'm not the only blogger that seems the think the left is showing their homophobia while bashing Gannon/Guckert.


    Weapons of Mass Discussion says that "the liberal blogosphere seems to think this is a story, but all it really is doing is exposing their hatred for a constituency they say they support."

    Insulted.org adds: "To the Left, it's great if you're gay. Unless, that is, you're a conservative gay man who works in the White House Press Corps. Then, you're fair game for a public outing, followed by reprisals, harassment, and eventual hounding from your job."

    Cynical Nation says that: "This kind of behavior is ugly, no matter which side does it (and both sides do!) Nevertheless, it's worrisome to see how exploiting homophobia has become a standard political weapon in the arsenal of the left these days. And I think if you were to ask Dick Cheney's gay daughter, who's a lesbian homosexual, she'd agree."

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

    A New "World" War

    Thanks to fellow New York blogger Scott Sala and his blog Slant Point, I think I know which self-important junior member of the old media is next to be engulfed in a blog swarm.

    Tulsa World, of Tulsa Oklahoma, has threatened Tulsa blogger Michael Bates of BatesLine with copyright infringement because BatesLine:


    "...has reproduced (in whole or in part) articles and/or editorials from the Tulsa World newspaper or has inappropriately linked your website to Tulsa World content.

    "The Tulsa World copyrights its entire newspaper and specifically each of the articles and/or editorials at issue. The reproduction of any articles and/or editorials (in whole or in part) on your website or linking your website to Tulsa World content is without the permission of the Tulsa World and constitutes an intentional infringement of the Tulsa World's copyright and other rights to the exclusive use and distribution of the copyrighted materials.

    "Therefore, we hereby demand that you immediately remove any Tulsa World material from your website, to include unauthorized links to our website, and cease and desist from any further use or dissemination of our copyrighted content. If you desire to use (in whole or in part) any of the content of our newspaper, you must first obtain written permission before that use. If you fail to comply with his demand, the Tulsa World will take whatever legal action is necessary to assure compliance, Additionally, we will pursue all other legal remedies, including seeking damages that may have resulted as a result of this infringement."

    I do not claim to be a legal expert. Anyone who is has probably had a nice chuckle over some of my previous articles.

    But even I understand fair use doctrine, which explicitly allows the reproduction of copyrighted content for "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research" which clearly covers the use of material by most bloggers.

    In addition, there are legal precedents Bates found saying that links do not constitute violation of copyright laws. On even a common sense level, how can they? The simply direct a web site visitor to the original Web site, and do not copy anything. It sends the visitor to the original work (or at least the online version of such).

    This heavy-handed threat by Tulsa World reeks of local political cronyism in an attempt to intimidate a blogger and stifle free speech. The last I checked, the Constitutional Right to Free Speech still applies, even in Tulsa.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:25 AM | Comments (0)

    February 14, 2005

    The Seditious Mr. Jordan

    You didn't actually this the Eason Jordan affair was over because he resigned, did you? No, this is just the beginning. Admitting to a act of wrongdoing (or taking steps that look like a confession, as a resignation surely does) does not equate punishment.

    If Jordan actually said what he is accused of-namely, that U.S. soldiers purposefully targeted journalists-then his resignation from CNN should be the least of his worries. Mr. Jordan should either provide evidence to support these claims, along with his November claim that U.S. soldiers tortured journalists, or he should face criminal charges. He almost certainly seems a viable candidate for a charge of slander, and possibly for more serious offenses.

    The U.S. Sedition Act of 1918 states:

    Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall willfully make or convey false reports, or false statements, . . . or incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct . . . the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, or . . . shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States . . . or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall willfully . . . urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production . . . or advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both....
    I am not a lawyer and do not know if the referenced act has been rescinded or superceded, but this charge, or something similar, may be warranted if Jordan actually said what so many credible witnesses say he did. Which witnesses? Christopher Dodd. Barney Frank. David Gergen, who moderated the panel at which Jordan spoke. These are just some of dozens of witnesses.

    What exactly did Eason Jordan say, and how did he say it?

    Our soldiers defend us with their lives. We should at the minimum seek to preserve their reputations.

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)

    February 13, 2005

    Same Thong, New Verse

    Why even run this, Matt?

    Drudge seems to have his panties in a bunch over Barbara Boxer's briefer-than-briefs.

    Drudge Reports:

    Supporters of California Sen. Barbara Boxer have launched an underwear line -- with liberal radio network AIR AMERICA hyping the goods!

    The next presidential race may be years away, but the race is already tightening up. Introducing: Boxer Classic Thong 2008!

    100% Ultra-fine combed ring spun 1x1 baby rib cotton; Size up for a looser fit.

    AIR AMERICA's website has been featuring a link to the Boxer merchandise.

    [A staffer to Boxer said the senator had "absolutely" nothing to do with the merchandise. "These are not official."]

    "This under-goodie is 'outta sight' in low-rise pants... This product is designed to fit juniors," reads the pitch.

    Let the campaign begin!

    Matt fails to mention that the thong is one from Cafepress.com, where anyone could have posted a design of their own without any permission from Boxer or her campaign.

    A liberal supporter does something stupid and unsanctioned, and a liberal media outlet is dumb enough run with it unquestioned.

    Since when is this news?

    Home

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)

    February 12, 2005

    Accountability

    Eason Jordan has resigned. I guess CNN decided to duck after all. I'd still like to see the video from Davos, but I feel pretty comfortable that we know what we would see, at this point.

    Sooner or later, the "professional" media is going to realize that there is a new accountability for those would would radically reshape the perception of the world we live in.

    I just wonder how many more Dan Rathers and Eason Jordans it will take before that message finally sinks in.


    Update: Michelle Malkin has an excellent thread titled Easongate: A Retrospective which has links to many of the power players in this episode.

    You're living history in the making, folks, and in real-time.

    Ain't it a rush?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)

    February 11, 2005

    Iran Promises "Burning Hell" Either Way

    It seems that Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has promised a "burning hell" for any invaders, obviously referring to the United States and Israel, the two countries most likely to attack Iran and their suspected nuclear weapons production facilities.

    Please, Mr. Khatami, tell me how this burning hell is any different than the nuclear attack your top clerics seem intent on unleashing against Israel if we don't act against you?

    It seems to me, based upon the words of Iran's mullahcracy, that taking them out now is the only sensible course of action.

    Better a little burning Hell now than a purpetual glow later.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

    What Are You, Nuts?

    A Public Service Announcement (sorta) From Confederate Yankee:

    Valentine's Day is Monday, and you still haven't ordered her anything. Do you have a death wish?

    Get her some flowers, you bum (click the picture).

    Normal political blogging returns this afternoon, but I want to make sure my readership survives...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)

    February 10, 2005

    Back in the Sewer: The DU Responds to the Lynn Stewart Conviction

    Please, tell me again how liberals are patriotic, and don't sympathize with terrorists.

    Liberal lawyer Lynn Stewart was just convicted for smuggling messages of violence from terrorists arrested for the 1993 World Trade Center attack, which, for the record, did have terrorist ties to Saddam's Iraq.

    As you might expect, many posters on the Democratic Underground think that Stewart was framed, (despite 85,000 audio and video clips of Stewart and her clients) and that the government must have destroyed evidence exonerating her.

    DU poster Just Me claims the Steart conviction, " is worse than jailing political dissidents!"

    rooboy calls this, "one of the darkest days in the history of the American legal system."

    He was apparently unfamiliar with Dred Scott.

    Interestingly enough, DUers were even flaming their own over this one, attacking trail lawyers and law students who actually went to the trial who said the outcome was fair and just.

    I really must wonder if these people would have voted to convict the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

    New DNC Fundraising Book

    Daily Kos is fielding questions about donations to the DNC after Dean is officially promoted.

    I think you're a little late, Kos.

    Fundraising has started on Amazon already. Nothing like a good book sale, especially when the book is so relevant to the future of the party.

    (hat tip: an email from the lead guppy at phin's blog)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:15 PM | Comments (0)

    Conscientious Objector, or War Criminal?

    While browsing my blogroll this morning, I noticed an interesting post at The Museum of Left Wing Lunacy about Sgt. Kevin Benderman. Sgt. Benderman is a ten-year veteran of the U.S. Army, where he is a mechanic. He served one tour in Iraq, including the assault on Baghdad. Facing a second tour of duty in Iraq, Sgt. Benderman applied for conscientious objector status in December of 2004. The Army has charged him with desertion, and his commanding officer called him a coward.

    I have never been in combat, and am loathe to call a veteran a coward without having been put to the test myself, nor do I feel comfortable commenting on whether or not charging a conscientious objector with desertion is legal or right. I'm simply don't know enough to feel I have an educated opinion to offer.

    I do however, have a huge question regarding Sgt. Benderman's claim that his outfit was under orders to open fire on children who were throwing rocks at his unit. Either Sgt. Benderman lied about the event, or someone committed a war crime. We need to get to the bottom of this.

    One thing I have learned from reading "mil-blogs" (blogs from military personnel) such as Lt. Smash, Armor Geddon, and Blackfive, is that soldiers have very rigidly defined rules of engagement, which strictly limit the situations where they are authorized to fire a weapon.

    I am certain that no unit in any branch of the U.S. military is sanctioned to fire upon rock-throwing children. We aren't French.

    If such an order was given, it would be illegally issued and illegal to follow. If so much as a single bullet was fired at these children, a war crime occurred. If Sgt. Benderman fired a shot at these children, he is a war criminal. If anyone else fired, they are also war criminals. The person who issued such an order would also be a war criminal.

    Based upon the circumstances described, I would also expect them to be charged with murder as well. Children can't throw rocks very far, perhaps thirty yards at the outside, fifty for a healthy teen. At this ranges the standard M-16s and M-4s will not miss, and children have almost zero chance of surviving a center-mass hit from these weapons at that range.

    If Sgt. Benderman is right, his unit is most likely guilty of war crimes. If he is lying, he is guilty of far more serious crimes than desertion.

    So which is it, Sgt. Benderman?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)

    February 09, 2005

    Jordan Leads CNN into No Man's Land

    Easongate continues. One must begin to wonder about the basic intelligence and awareness of CNN and Time-Warner executives at this point.

    Eason Jordan said American soldiers tortured journalists. Eason Jordan, the top news executive at CNN, a Time-Warner company, claims that American soldiers targeted--murdered--a dozen journalists. And yet somehow CNN and Time-Warner executives apparently think that if they stonewall the incident long enough, that the matter will just go away.

    A decade ago, even a few years ago, they may have been able to get away with it. Unfortunately for CNN and Time-Warner executives (and did I mention Time-Warner shareholders?), that was then. They do not comprehend the now.

    Media executives remind me of the generals of World War One. They were tangentially aware of new technologies on the field of battle, but were unable to grasp their significance. As a result, they marched troops at a walk across a barren No Man's Land into nests of machine guns firing 600 rounds/minute. The carnage was unbelievable, the casualties catastrophic; and yet the generals, clinging to tactics best suited for the wars of single shot rifles forty years earlier, sent their troops to a grisly, almost certain end, time after time.

    We're watched similar slaughters take place in the world of journalism.

    CBS News thought they could get away with running a story about George Bush using faked documents. They were mown down mercilessly by the blogosphere within hours, and several prominent journalists with long careers were disgraced. The damage to the integrity of CBS News was immeasurable. It will take years for CBS News to recover their credibility.

    CNN is walking across the field into the guns, and doesn't understand the carnage about to ensue. Eason Jordan, CNN's top news executive, essentially accused the U.S. military of the premeditated murder of a dozen journalists. This follows a claim from Jordan months earlier where he stated American soldiers captured and tortured journalists, which follows the 2003 admission that Jordan and CNN turned a blind eye to torture to retain a Baghdad bureau.

    The blogosphere has targeted Eason Jordan. 438 blogs with combined daily traffic of over 720,000 visits have placed Jordan and CNN under withering fire. More blogs, as well as elements of the mainstream media, are joining daily. By next week this story will be fodder in every major news outlet. CNN needs to act, and act fast.

    CNN must fire Eason Jordan, or forever lose their credibility within the U.S. market.

    The old tactic of stonewalling until an issue goes away has passed. CNN and by extension, Time Warner, are walking into the proverbial guns. They can either duck, or be shot to pieces.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)

    February 08, 2005

    New Symbol of the Democratic Party

    Barring a minor miracle, it appears Howard Dean will be confirmed as the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee, pulling the DNC even further toward the radical left and away from any chance of striking a chord with mainstream America.

    To commemorate this hysteric, err, historic event, I'd like to bestow upon them a new branding image that I feel captures the essence of the future of the Democratic Party, and where it is heading.



    You've got to love a party whose platform includes a trapdoor with a quick-release.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)

    "Err" Jordan Still Employed by an Ethics-Challenged CNN

    Eason "Err" Jordan seems to be quite the athlete, deftly turning away from dozens if not hundreds of real incidents of torture, rape and murder by tyrants and dictators, only to volunteer that charges of war crimes by U.S. soldiers are a slam-dunk... without the first shred of corroborating evidence. I think Jordan would be very close to fouling out of the game of journalism for good if his masters retained any integrity at all.

    Eason Jordan first came to light in October of 2002, when The New Republic accused CNN of
    collaborating (registration required) with Saddam's Ministry of Information in order to retain access in Baghdad. Jordan denied it-sort of-at the time. When Baghdad fell in April of 2003, Jordan told a much different story, admitting that he hid the truth. He said he did not report the truth because it would have "jeopardized the lives of Iraqis." Jordan turned a blind eye to murder, rape and torture to retain access to get access to Iraqi leaders. How concealing the existence of government-sanctioned rape rooms and torture chambers saved lives, Jordan never adequately explained. For this ethical offense alone, he should have been fired. CNN declined to do so.

    Many allege Eason Jordan allowed Saddam to use CNN to broadcast his propaganda, unedited, and uncut.

    Jordan claimed U.S. troops tortured and killed journalists in 2004, which is very close to the comments Jordan is alleged to have made at the World Economic Forum, where he claimed U.S. forces have targeted journalists on purpose. He never produced any evidence to support this wild claim. He should have been fired for this offense as well. Again, CNN declined to fire him.

    This most recent incident in Davos at the World Economic Forum was not an isolated incident, but one event in an established history of ethically outrageous behavior on the part of Eason Jordan and CNN. A lot of very credible people witnessed this willful and malicious slander of our troops, including Congressman Barney Frank, Senator Christopher Dodd, journalist David Gergen, and Wall Street Journal writer Bret Stephens, among others. And yet, once again, CNN once again refuses to fire Eason Jordan.

    Why is that, CNN?

    It is one thing to capture a questionable event and report it as Kevin Sites did in Fallujah, but quite another for a dangerous allegation to be made during wartime without a shred of evidence.

    Eason Jordan tacitly supported the terrorism of the Iraqi people, turning a blind eye to torture for his (and CNN's) professional gain, and then commits slander against our military on multiple occasions, presumably to further ingratiate himself to the despots of the world and allow CNN even greater access to the dictatorships of the world.

    This must not stand.

    If CNN retains any sort of moral fiber or journalistic ethics it will fire Eason Jordan.

    Unfortunately, CNN and other so-called "professional" news organizations seem to be circling the wagons to protect a man who is treading dangerously outside the lines of what we will morally (and legally?) accept as a society regarding slander and sedition.

    Eason "Err" Jordan has erred one time too many to retain his credibility as a news executive for a major news organization. He should be forced to resign from CNN, if not fired outright for his outrageous, unsubstantiated claims against our troops and a history of a dangerous lack of ethical judgement.

    Update: This thread has been been Malkinized. I'd suggest my readers check out Michelle's site, as she seems to be the lead investigator into this issue across all forms of media.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)

    February 07, 2005

    All Aboard the Crazy Train

    (hat tip: Drudge)

    Will the last nut out of the tree please turn off the light?

    Melanie Redman, 30, assistant director of the Epilepsy Foundation in Seattle, said she had put her Volvo up for sale and hopes to be living in Toronto by the summer. She and her Canadian boyfriend, a Web site designer for Canadian nonprofit companies, had been planning to move to New York, but after Nov.2, they decided on Canada instead.

    "I'm doing it," she said. "I don't want to participate in what this administration is doing here and around the world. Under Bush, the U.S. seems to be leading the pack as the world spirals down."

    I guess that the freeing of 50 million people in two countries by the Bush administration was just too much for her, bless her poor Volvo-driving bleeding heart. But don't worry.

    The Democratic Underground Railroad was created just for people like you, Melanie.

    Toot. Toot.

    Update: I had almost forgotten: I have a picture of this nut in her home. Hardly surprising, is it?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)

    February 04, 2005

    Garofalo: Republicans and Iraqis are Nazis?

    (Hat tip: Kevin McCollough)


    Republicans and Iraqis are Nazis?

    That seems to be the only thing I can take away from this salute Janeane Garafalo gave on MSNBC the other night while saying:

    "The inked fingers and the position of them, which is gonna be a 'Daily Show' photo already, of them signaling in this manner [does the Nazi salute], as if they have solidarity with the Iraqis who braved physical threats against their lives to vote as if somehow these inked-fingered Republicans have something to do with that."
    Janeane, they did have something to do with that: A Republican president and Republican-controlled Congress gave the orders to our military, which destroyed the Baath Party in Iraq, captured its leader, and killed his heirs.

    After deposing Saddam, we have tried, and usually succeeded, in acting as a protective wedge between the Iraqi people and the terrorists that would plunge their country into chaos. We have put our soldiers lives on the line so that we could give Iraqis a shot at forming their own democracy.

    The fact that Garafalo apparently links conservatives, American soldiers and the Iraqi people with the Nazis in her warped ideology is disgusting, but not particularly surprising for anyone who has heard her ratchet-up her increasingly shrill rhetoric over the past few years.


    A Republican president directed American troops to dispose a despotic dictator who practiced mass murder upon his own people, and gave oppressed peoples a chance to form their own government, hardly an act that would have been supported by the National Socialists.

    That she can equate the celebration of newfound freedoms with fascism is disturbing at best and possibly delusional at worst. Garafalo has become a perfect example of the "reality-based community" drifting further and further away from reality.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)

    February 03, 2005

    Treason at CNN

    Read this:
    November 19, 2004

    Independent journalists operating in Iraq face arrest and even torture at the hands of the US military and the authorities are failing to act on promises to do more to protect them, news organisations have warned.

    Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, said there had been only a "limited amount of progress", despite repeated meetings between news organisations and the US authorities.

    "Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces," Mr Jordan told an audience of news executives at the News Xchange conference in Portugal.

    Then read this:
    Forumblog.org
    During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others.
    Then read this:
    Title 18 > Chapter 115 > § 2381 Treason
    Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
    CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan has apparently accused our soldiers of no less than twelve counts of first degree murder against civilians, while the very soldiers he is accusing are in a combat zone. This propaganda has no apparent basis in fact, and serves to inflame our enemy, putting our soldiers' lives at greater risk.

    CBS News fired one person and asked others to resign when they ran a false story about President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, so at a bare minimum, Eason Jordan should be fired from CNN.

    But backpedalling by Jodan and CNN does not pull the knife out of the back of the American GI, nor does it excuse his latest statement (which as the first quote proves, is hardly isolated, or even a first for him).

    If transcripts do indeed prove Jordan's statements were made as alleged (and at least one witness claims that they are), Mr. Jordan not only owes the soldiers he slandered an apology, he owes the American people a term in a federal penitentiary no shorter than five years, and a fine of no less than $10,000.

    That is the punishment for treason.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:44 PM | Comments (0)

    My Thoughts Exactly: NY Post Editorial Cartoon


    (Hat tip: GOP in the City)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

    So Who Stayed Awake Through the Democratic Rebuttal?

    I didn't see any real new information in the State of the Union tonight. I do think Bush knocked Social Security out of the park, selling it quite effectively to the public, in terms most can readily digest. On the other hand, I think he underwhelmed his base with his treatment of border security and illegal immigration. All in all, a nice, serviceable address, but nothing we didn't already know.

    I wish I could say the same for the Democratic response. I tried, really, really hard to pay attention to Harry Reid, but he delivered his portion with all the excitement of Ben Stein droning, "Bueller... Bueller... Bueller..."

    I drifted off. I do recall there was some ten year-old Napoleon Dynamite-type from Searchlight, NV that wants to grow up to be like Harry. Poor kid. Nothing else he said was memorable.

    Pelosi started off trying to act like she cared about the troops, and I was suddenly overcome with an intense desire for a long, hot shower.

    I missed the rest.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:35 AM | Comments (0)

    February 02, 2005

    A Victory in the War on Terror

    Amid all the jeers and laughter yesterday surrounding the "capture" of a children's action figure, a funny thing happened:

    We won the War on Terror.

    No, the shooting didn't stop, and more real hostages will likely be taken and face for real the dire possibility of death by beheading. No, the war won yesterday was more symbolic than practical; terrorists, perhaps for the first time, ceased to terrorize us and became a joke.

    On 9/11 and in the days that followed, terror really did have the upper hand in the United States. For the first time I can recall in my generation, America was unsure and afraid. Once the immediate danger passed, we were filled with what Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto once described as "a terrible resolve." The Taliban and elements of al Qaeda in Afghanistan were the first to feel our wrath, and from there the physical battle has continued, as it shall until Islamic terrorism is no longer a sustainable threat.

    But all this time, even as we were winning the war, and hearts, and minds, the threat of terrorism still hung heavy in our national conscious.

    But thanks to the stellar fact-checking of the mainstream media and the apparent desperation of terrorists reduced to threatening toys, the cloud of terrorism threatening us has been lifted, if but for a time.

    We laughed at them.

    And in that, we can find a special victory.

    Update: Thanks to Instapundit for picking up this thread.

    Update 2: Tom Elia over at The New Editor makes an excellent point:

    ... I would stipulate that we won a battle in the War on Terror yesterday with the unmasking of the fraudulent photos depicting a GI Joe as an al Qaeda "hostage" -- it was a mighty big battle, no less -- but just one battle. There will be many more to fight -- a point that Confederate Yankee does make, but I think it should be emphasized that the war that we are winning is a long way from being over.
    We won the war on the pervasive emotion of terror yesterday, not the physical war. It is, as Tom says, a part of a larger war. One that I think we will eventually win.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

    February 01, 2005

    Jersey Jihad?

    I've read quite a bit of online coverage on this so far, but haven't blogged it until now. The background of the story is that a family of four Egyptian-Americans Christians were murdered in their home, presumably by Jersey City-area followers of "The Religion of Peace."

    Michelle Malkin has a lot of links to work from, and agrees that Jihadwatch has the best coverage so far, with the three latest links here, here and here.

    The mainstream media has stonewalled this story so far. How unsurprising.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

    Absolutely Correct

    I really like Frank J.'s humor, but every once in a while, he writes serious essays of such obvious brilliance that I have no choice but to agree with them in full.

    The Iraq elections had high participation. The people are dancing in the streets. Do you know what that means?

    It means I'm right about everything, you stupid pinko!

    Even more importantly, it means you're wrong and totally suck!

    I know; it's still just hitting you now. "What? They're happy! They're free! They like America! But this would mean Bush was right, and I was ::gasp:: wrong!" Then it makes you think, if you could be wrong on such a big issue, could you be wrong and the right-wingers right on other things such as taxes, Social Security, and abortion? Yes, absolutely!

    Now, some of you will not face reality and continue to argue for your views that have been now scientifically proven to be wrong and destructive by this one victory, and your high pitch whines eventually reaching such a frequency that they can no longer be heard by humans (around 23kHz). Little kids will walk by and ask, "Who are those weird people waving signs of gibberish and moving their mouths without noise?"

    And their parents will answer, "Those are liberals, people proven by events to be wrong about everything. Now ignore them like everyone else."

    Go to IMAO for the rest.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:36 AM | Comments (0)

    January 31, 2005

    Stalkers and Me

    basil (no, not Basil, basil), of basil's blog has a disturbing late night visitor.

    The telephone rang, jolting me from the most pleasant, but strangely odd, dream. The infernal chirping of the cordless phone continued as I reached over to find it. I must have knocked it off the nightstand, because I heard a small "thump" and the ringing moved down about 3 feet. I got out of bed and picked up the phone. I didn't recognize the telephone number, but answered it anyway.

    "Hello?"

    "Basil?" came the voice on the other end.

    "It's 'basil'" I corrected.

    "Yes, that's what I said," came the voice. I didn't say anything. He continued, "I'd like to talk to you about your blog."

    "Why?" I asked.

    "So, you are the 'Basil' of 'Basil's Blog?'" he said.

    "It's 'basil' and it's 'basil's blog,'" I corrected.

    "Yes, that's what I said. I'd like to talk to you about your blog," He repeated.

    "You remember when I asked 'Why?' Well, what I meant by that was, 'Why?'"

    "You're not that snotty on your blog," he said.

    "Wait till I write about this conversation."

    He tried again, "My name is Michael Moore and I'm doing a documentary on blogs and bloggers. I'm interviewing people who are running blogs. I'm also blogging my research into bloggers.

    "Good for you," I said.

    He continued, "I'm outside, actually. Can I come in?"

    Sit down with a nice freshly-blended puppy, and read the whole thing.
    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)

    Well Then, I Guess It's Unanimous

    The Guardian (among other sources) is reporting that Howard Dean has won the support of state Democratic Party leaders today in his bid to become the chairman of the Democratic Nation Committee.

    Interestingly enough, Dean is also thought to be the choice of most Republican state party leaders as well.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:39 PM | Comments (0)

    "We are tired. We have faltered. We will fail."

    "The president needs to spell out a real and understandable plan for the unfinished work ahead… Most of all, we need an exit strategy so that we know what victory is and how we can get there; so that we know what we need to do and so that we know when the job is done."
    So says Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-Gambling and Legalized Prostitution) on CNN.com.

    What Senator Reid won't tell you is why an an exit strategy deadline is important. Without a deadline, the liberal faithful might begin to feel that the continuing success in Iraq is a permanent change. Without a "cut and run" date, the terrorists in Iraq might think they have a chance if they can just outwait America.

    Luckily, we are governed by a man with a spine, and this will not happen.

    President Bush recognizes that an arbitrary withdrawal date (what the liberals really mean by "exit strategy") does nothing for the United States or our Iraqi allies, and only serves to bolster the morale of terrorists and liberals. I can only assume that bolstering the morale of the terrorists is just an unintended side effect of Democratic gamesmanship, though it is becoming increasingly obvious that liberals hate the Bush Administration more than terrorist tyranny, and are willing to go against their own country's best interests in their desperate partisan thrust for relevance.

    Reid shows the true soul of the Democratic Party, in effect saying, "We are tired. We have faltered. We will fail."

    The nauseous downward spiral continues.

    Update: A big "thank you" goes out to one of my favorite journalists, Michelle Malkin, for picking up this thread in her "Quote of the Day" update.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)

    T Minus Two Weeks, and Counting

    As threatened, err, promised, this is your two-week warning for Valentine's Day.

    Last week, I mentioned where you could find some nice stuff that she would actually like from PajamaGram, their treat-based offshoot TastyGram, and the rather famous Vermont Teddy Bear Company. For those of you who would like to get dirty looks from your wife on Valentine's Day, there was also Frederick's of Hollywood.

    For those of us who enjoy a nice glass of fermented grape juice every now and again, wine.com has some nice offerings, as does similarly-named but different 800wine.com.

    For those of you with a taste for fine jewelry alle' is having a Valentine's Day Sale with Free Fed-Ex Shipping. For those of us who haven't recieved their Halliburon disbursements just yet, Target.com has a nice selection as well, and currently are having a 10%-off sale on sparkly stuff.

    Of course, for those of us trapped in the frozen zones of this great country, you might want to simply get away from it all and escape to somewhere warm for a few days. Orbitz can help you do that, and a trip to Bermuda right now would go a long way towards curing your frostbite.

    Now back to your regularly scheduled conservative political programming.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)

    January 30, 2005

    Liberals Against Democracy: Lurking at the D.U.

    Despite the attacks of suicide bombers, Iraq's first free elections in decades seem to be a success. Somewhere around 60% of eligible Iraqi voters risked their lives to cast more than eight million votes. Video from Iraq shows poll workers, voters, and the police guarding them dancing in the streets. Among certain factions in America, however, the elections were met with rather less enthusiasm.

    "Yea, this is going to be a great representative government with a third of the country not voting." opined Dark on the Democratic Underground message boards. Apparently he was too stoned to realize that their turnout was equal to or better than the turnout in our last national election, even though we didn't have to risk our lives when going to the polls.

    "Just more crap from US-appointed Iraqi puppets," added DU poster leftchick. Yes, leftchick, the American GOP appointed all eight million Iraqi voters. Gotta love that "reality-based" intelligence.

    This pathetic crying from DU-poster patsified was wildly celebrated in the forum as the most eloquent of sentiments of the American far left:

    "Even if all the Iraqis in the world are jumping up and down and clapping and dancing and crying for joy; even if there were really and truly 100% turnout for this election; even if the winner of this election were truly the choice to represent the majority of all Iraqis:

    Was this worth destroying the United States of America? Was this worth sending our nation tumbling into the toilet? Was this worth destroying our reputation and the worth of our word in the world? Were the lies worth it? Was this worth the billions and billions of dollars emptied from our nation's treasury? Was the enrichment of Halliburton and the Carlyle Group worth it? Was this worth the bloodshed of soldiers and of innocents? Was it worth losing your arms, little Ali? Was there NO OTHER WAY to have achieved this? Am I supposed to jump up and down and clap and dance and cry for joy that MY nation has been turned into a shitpile and everyone in the world hates MY nation now? There is no democracy here in America, but I am supposed to be overwhelmed with good cheer that it exists for the Iraqis?

    I can't think of a single cause outside of the borders of my country that would be worth destroying my country for. And that's what has happened, I don't care how happy the Iraqis are. I mourn what my country has become, and I am bitter because I know what she could have been. So I'm sorry if I can't join in the joy today."

    When a disjointed rant against freedom is the best your side has to offer, your days as a major political party in America are over.

    When America is spreading freedom in the midst of tyranny, it is not destroying our country, but making it stronger, and safer. If our reputation is faltering in the world, it is among those despots who chose to believe we were weak and ideologically spineless, and unwilling to fight for what is right.

    No, the best the left has to offer is a spasmodic, reflexive gushing forth of vitriol against Halliburton and the freedom of fifty million newly free people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Liberalism hates all that most Americans identify as the very soul of America. They apparently believe in liberty on their terms, or not at all.

    Liberalism rejoices when our soldiers and the civilians they are trying to protect are murdered by the terrorists that liberals sympathize with, because they feel each death is one more strike against Bush. Sickening.

    America is watching liberalism, and notes each poison phrase they utter. Liberalism is killing itself in America.

    No one will be sorry to see it go.

    Update: A big "Thank you" to Instapundit, Professor Bainbridge, and Tom Elia over at The New Editor for picking up this thread. For those visitors who are new to Confederate Yankee, I invite you to look around and if you like what you see, please bookmark the site and come back often.


    Also: Please consider helping our soldier in Iraq via the Any Soldier program (which I write about here), and our allies in Iraq through the Spirit of America Iraq Democracy Project. Thank You.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)

    January 28, 2005

    Hugh Hefner To Take Over Interrogations at Gitmo

    "The attractive woman strutted into the room wearing a revealing miniskirt, a bra, and a skimpy thong. The man was tied to a chair and helpless to defend himself. As she removed her bra and tossed it at him, he closed his eyes and began to pray. She touched her breasts, rubbing them against the man's back, commenting on his apparent erection. He lurched forward and cursed at her. With a smile, she pulled down her thong and sat on his lap, grinding her exposed behind against his crotch. The man screamed and began to cry like a baby."
    Okay, that was from the bachelor party of Liberal Larry's brother, but it sure sounds like what happened to terrorists during interrogation sessions in Gitmo, according to a story by some AP reporter named Paisley Dodds. Paisley? Yeah, I'm sure someone named "Paisley" doesn't harbor liberal bias, but that is a whole other kettle of fish...

    Anyway, liberal outrage aside, I have a simple question: how is this "torture" any different than say, Paige Davis' mock strip tease for charity? Was the torture that the terrorists in Gitmo didn't have dollar bills to tip with, or that they didn't like the color of paint they chose for the cell walls?

    Woodchippers, branding irons, and pliers are acceptable tools of torture in Islamic countries, but a Frederick's of Hollywood thong isn't. Yeah. What they consider torture sounds like a good night to most guys I know.

    My opinion? If you see it on Cinemax every night of the week, it probably isn't torture.

    Of course, I'm just a conservative, so I could be wrong.

    Update: So I don't get called the next Armstrong Williams, in the interest of full disclosure, I do sell "items of torture" at Confederate Yankee Store, Blogger Gear, and Conservative Blogger Gear, and another store I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I have at Cafepress.com.

    Alert the mainstream media

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)

    January 27, 2005

    Pot, Meet Kettle


    Once again, I can't quite get over the arrogance of Democrats who have the gall to chide Alberto Gonzales in his bid to become the next Attorney General, when the last Atttorney General they put into office, Janet Reno, was responsible for the most infamous 51 Days in American law enforcement, where 74 people, including 20 children, were killed in Waco, Texas.

    Puts naked pyramids in perspective, doesn't it?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:25 PM | Comments (0)

    The Politics of Slime


    I created this image in response to a bit of ignorance hunted up by The Museum of Left Wing Lunacy.


    Once again liberals ignore the fact that Albert Gonzales had nothing to do with the criminal acts perpetrated by a handful of prison guards in Abu Ghraib, all of which (at least in the cases prosecuted so far) have been proven to be independent criminal actions with no orders from their superiors.

    But hey, why let the facts get in the way of a good liberal rant? It didn't stop CBS News or the New York Times, so it certainly won't stop those with even a less tenuous grip on reality.

    Too bad they can't as easily explain away the million plus dead as a result of liberal polices of inaction and apathy in Rwanda, Iraq, and Darfur.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:38 PM | Comments (0)

    January 26, 2005

    From Car Bombs to Matchbox Cars

    My wife and daughter filled up a Priority Mail box last night with an assortment of goods that might seem a little odd to some.

    • Baby wipes
    • Pens and pencils
    • Pads and paper
    • Beanie Babies
    • Matchbox cars
    • chocolate coins
    • two letters

    Part of the shipment was for our soldiers, part was for Iraqi kids to let them know we care about them.

    Most important of all were the letters, one in heartfelt feminine script, the other in chunky crayon. I'm guessing one or both is going to make an American tanker in Iraq smile, and maybe even grow misty-eyed for a moment, thinking of home.

    It is our family's first shipment via Any Soldier to a New York-based armored unit was just of many more to come. I hope it finds them well and safe.

    It really is amazing, that terrorists attack Iraqi and American alike with car bombs and IEDs, and expect to win over Iraqis. We respond with freedom and matchbox cars, No wonder we will win. Tax dollars that support or military might will help beat the terrorists, but little things, like beanie babies and matchbox cars, are more powerful in the long run.

    For this reason I'm glad we've got organizations like Any Soldier so that our men and women can tell us what they need, not only for them, but for our new allies.

    You might want to consider checking them out, or Google similar organizations.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)

    AP Editor Run Over By Blogger's Tank

    Figuratively speaking, of course.

    From The Mudville Gazette (and yes, you should read the whole thing):

    ...Note to AP Technology Editor Frank Bajak:

    Meet CPT Neil Prakash. His first hand accounts of the battle for Fallujah kick your guy's ass. He won't get a Pulitzer for his writing, but he did earn a Silver Star for his efforts. But part of the theory is correct, like the Times, I'm sure he'd credit a bulwark of experience, credibility and financial, medical, legal and logistical support for his accomplishments, and probably the guys who went in with him too. I suppose we could call them a "staff of savvy locals." Frankly, you've really got to expand your knowledge base, build credibility and respect before publishing things about web logs. wade a little deeper into the blogosphere one of these days if you get some time.

    On the other hand, to give credit where due, no one covers the insurgent side of the war quite like the AP.

    Indeed. (Hat Tip: Instapundit)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)

    Oil for Peanuts

    Aaron at The Blue State Conservatives is reporting that Jimmy Carter might be linked to the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal.

    It is unclear whether Peter Pan, Skippy, or JIF will also be implicated at this time.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)

    January 25, 2005

    Sig Murdoch! Ted Turner Rants

    Had Ted Turner been drinking with Ted Kennedy?

    Turner called Fox News a propaganda tool of the Bush administration and indirectly compared it to Hitler during a Q&A session at the National Association for Television Programming Executives' conference .

    However, Turner had no comments about the apparent collusion between CBS and the DNC in their "fake but accurate" falsified Texas Air National Guard documents story, nor Michael "Some Animals are Moore Equal" Moore and his crockumentaries.

    It seems pretty obvious Turner doesn't mind propaganda, as long as it comes from his side.

    I think I've heard this line before.

    With Ted's comments, I think we can now make the new total 450 things.

    FOX Responds
    : "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind -- we wish him well."

    Personally, I don't think Turner ever psychologically recovered from getting beaten down by Vince McMahon. He just went downhill from there, like a wrestler that has been pile-drived into the mat far too many times.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

    By Any Means Necessary

    MSNBC.com is running a Doug Struck/Washington Post article today, claiming torture in Iraq is still routine, at least according to a report issued by Human Rights Watch. HRW is an organization that takes great pains to avoid mentioning that Darfur is a Arab Muslim genocide of African Muslims and Christians. So much for their objectivity, or credibility.

    In any event, the article states that Iraqis are routinely beaten, hung by their wrists, and shocked with electrical wires. Struck makes sure to use a quote from an Iraqi by the name of Dhia Fawzi Shaid, claming that the the torture is "worse than Saddam's regime."

    Really?

    Would Dhia Fawzi Shaid come forward openly, using his full name, and complain to an international organization with full media exposure if Saddam was still in power? Only if he would like to be intimately acquainted with the inner machinations of a wood chipper. Color me skeptical, and this report less than honest.

    Human Rights Watch also acknowledges that Iraq was, "in the throes of a significant insurgency" (who knew?) , but what really got under my skin was the statement in the Human Rights Watch report that:

    "no government, not Saddam Hussein's, not the occupying powers and not the Iraqi Interim Government, can justify ill-treatment of persons in custody in the name of security."
    They could not be more hopelessly wrong.

    Ladies and gentlemen, I've got news for you: if you are in the middle of an insurgency and capture someone that may have information about an impending attack that will almost certainly take the lives of dozens of men, women, and children, it it not only morally justified to use every method at your disposal to avert that attack, it is your moral imperative.

    Yes, the "ill-treatment" of prisoners in a combat zone is acceptable and justifiable to get the intelligence needed to save a far greater number of lives. Yes, I condone torture in extreme cases, and even summary executions.

    To say you will not use every means necessary to avoid terrorist attacks is to say you hold the lives of the terrorist in higher regard than the lives of Iraqi mothers, fathers, and children. Does anyone dare make that case?

    You must do what you must to save lives. I don't care if this involves electrical shock to the genitals of terrorists or the cutting off of their fingers joint-by-joint. If having your compatriot's gray matter splattered all over your burka loosens your tongue, then so be it.

    As someone once astutely noted, war is Hell.

    That said, torture is obviously unacceptable for routine criminal offenses, and I'm neither thrilled nor surprised that the Iraqi prison system is still in need of substantial reform.

    But don't try to tell me torture is never justified.

    It simply isn't true.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

    January 24, 2005

    It's No Fun, Being an Illegal Elian

    From Yahoo! News:

    MIAMI - A trial opened Monday in a $3 million-plus lawsuit by 13 people who say they were injured or traumatized when federal agents seized a screaming Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives' home.

    The opening witness was neighbor Maria Riera, who testified that she clutched her chest and thought she was dying when an agent doused her with tear gas during the April 22, 2000, raid to reunite the 6-year-old boy with his father in Cuba.

    The 13 neighbors and protesters are seeking up to $250,000 each, claiming that agents used excessive force during the armed raid.

    "I was stopped by a gentleman on my left approaching me with a shotgun," said Riera, who lived across the street from the home where the boy had lived since shortly after he was rescued from a shipwreck on Thanksgiving Day 1999.

    She said a black-garbed agent wearing a mask ordered her to "stand back" or he would shoot, adding a word of profanity. She said she complied, but a second agent approached with a gas gun as she stood in her driveway and left her in a gray cloud of tear gas.

    A total of 108 people sued over the raid, but U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore limited the case to people who were not on the Gonzalez family property and were beyond police barricades.

    Elian, now 11, was one of three survivors of a shipwreck that killed his mother.

    The raid took place after the family refused to return the boy so he could be taken back to Cuba.

    An illegal alien is an illegal alien, and I don't care if he's a cute little Cuban boy or a hardened Dominican gang member. Sorry, but we have must have equality in the deportation process as well as every other facet of civilized society.

    As for those suing...well, I'm sure that the law enforcement guys who had to execute this raid were tramautized as well. Perhaps the government or the individual officers should countersue the protestors for damages?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:42 PM | Comments (0)

    Lame Ducks and Other Foul Creatures

    The University of Oregon has banned the near ubiquitous yellow "Support the Troops" ribbons found across the country as a political statement.

    Kevin McCollough has the details of this disgusting stifling of dissent popular support for our troops. Who do they think they are, Columbia?

    Meanwhile, UCLA's student paper spreads terrorist propaganda. Who do they think they are? Columbia?

    Stanford?

    Duke?

    And those are just a scant handful of universities supporting Islamofascism. I guess we're getting a clearer understanding of so-called "diversity" in ultra-liberal university cultures, aren't we?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)

    Boxer Suffers Too Many Hits to the Head

    Senator Barbara Boxer, who attacked the integrity of Secretary of State nominee Condoleeza Rice, is now attempting to play the victim, saying she was the one attacked by Rice during the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee hearings last week.

    That's funny. I specifically recall Boxer saying, "I personally believe -- this is my personal view -- that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth."

    Boxer was calling Dr. Rice a liar in no uncertain terms.

    I guess this leader of the "reality-based community" is getting further from reality every day. That, or Babs might have pounded her head against the wall one time too many after Bush was certified the winner of the election. She should consider getting her PEST treated.

    Captain's Quarters has more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)

    T-Minus 3 Weeks for Valentine's Day

    If you guys are anything like me, you tend to forget about holiday's until the very last minute, leaving yourself to scramble for the lame, last-second cards and presents nobody else wanted.

    As something of a public service annoucement for you (and a shameless plug for my advertisers), I've decide that I'd drop in a short reminder post to you every Monday leading up to Valentine's to keep you out of trouble, and potentially make you a hero in the eyes of your spouse or that "special someone."

    While I'm sure I can sell Frederick's of Hollywood stuff to the guys, I have it on good authority that something from PajamaGram tends to be a bit better received by most of the ladies.

    In addition to that, a lot of folks like Valetines' sweets, and TastyGram has a pretty good reputation for being able to satisfy that need.

    Another gift that scores well among ladies of all ages are the bears from the Vermont Teddy Bear Company.

    So consider yourself warned, and don't wait till the last second guys, I'd hate to see you in the dog house.

    We now return you to your regularly-scheduled conservative political blogging.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)

    January 23, 2005

    Milblogger Wins Silver Star

    1st Lt. Neil Prakesh of ARMOR GEDDON (and Syracuse, NY) was recently presented a Silver Star for action in Ba'quabah, Iraq.

    Congratulations, Avenger Red Six.

    (hat tip LGF)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:11 AM | Comments (0)

    January 20, 2005

    "America Is Divided By Jerks."

    P.J. O Rourke's An Alternative Inaugural Address
    (hat tip: The Ebb & Flow Institute)

    MY FELLOW AMERICANS, I had intended to reach out to all of you and bring a divided nation together. But I changed my mind. America isn't divided by political ethos or ethnic origin. America isn't divided by region or religion. America is divided by jerks. Who wants to bring a bunch of jerks together with the rest of us? Let them stew in Berkeley, Boston, and Ann Arbor.

    The media say that I won the election on the strength of moral values. If the other fellow had become president, would the media have said that he won the election on the strength of immoral values? For once the media would have been right.

    Read the whole thing.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)

    Some Animals Are Moore Equal

    I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning, it smells like... bacon.

    Yes, the fat frying this morning belongs to none other than Michael Moore.

    Moore, who disingenuously challenged America's gun culture and history with his now customary use of inaccurate, contradictory and confused information in Bowling for Columbine, just had his bodyguard arrested for attempting to illegally carry a handgun onto a flight at JFK Airport in New York.

    Moore now joins gun-grabbers Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy,Dianne Feinstien, Barbara Boxer, and many more that belong to the liberal culture that tells us, "do as I say, not as I do."

    "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," was the proclamation by the pigs of Orwell's classic Animal Farm.

    It looks like Michael Moore is one pig who took that lesson to heart.

    Update: You've got to L-O-V-E synergy. I also just won the weekly photo caption contest at Slant Point. The winning comment? You have to see it for yourself.

    Update 2: Hello, Instapundit readers! Be sure to look around the site and bookmark it (CRTL+B, Mom) if you like it. Also check out my advertisers so I can afford a new gun of my own. Thanks!


    Update 3: Readers are expanding the list of those that apparently feel they are "more equal than others."

    "Tongueboy" reports late columnist and rabid gun control advocate, Carl Rowan, managed to shoot a trespasser with his unregistered gun.

    "Brad" adds that California State Senator Don Perata (D) has a CCW for a Beretta 92F 9mm an identical copy of the military M9. Most of you would recognize the 92F/M9 as pistol carried by Mel Gibson's character in the Lethal Weapon series and Bruce Willis' in the Diehard series. Yippie-ki-yea, Don.

    I'm sure more qualify. Keep them coming.

    The "I'm a Bad Capitalist" Update: I forgot to ask my visitors to check out the Confederate Yankee Store for "Luck Fiberals" Merchandise and my new "Unlike Liberals" bumper sticker.

    The "Fox News Must Have Hired Mary Mapes" Update.
    Apparently, Fox News really screwed up this story, but Moore's hypocrisy still stands. As Moorewatch reader Rann Aridon says:

    "Just because the guy wasn't in the process of guarding Moore at the time doesn't detract from the fact that Moore still employs bodyguards armed with the very weapons he wants to deny the "common people" he claims to represent."

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)

    January 19, 2005

    My Blue States Conservatives Article Is Up

    My guest-blogging article Can the Declaration be Drafted? is up over at The Blue State Conservatives.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

    Rice Confirmation Mini-Roundup

    Like most of you, I have better things to do with my day than watch the Secretary of State confirmation hearings (such as my job, or alphabetizing my socks). Still, the news clips shown last night on the various cable news outlets all seemed to show what we expected going into the hearings, namely that Dr. Rice would be calm, professional and the epitome of the word "classy," while Senate Democrats would be anything but that.

    At least one blogger has the real story, but don't expect to find much resembling insightful commentary from the left. The deep analysis from the reality-challenged community focuses on how Rice was "grilled like Mahi-Mahi in Miami" and how Barbara Boxer was a hero for stooping to petty personal attacks. Yet librals can't figure out why moderates grow more disgusted with them every day.

    Mini-Roundup

    • Instapunk reports on Kerry's near-meltdown during the hearings
    • Sisu captures a couple of soundbites and draws an interesting visual comparison
    • LGF reader Model4 catches Barbara Boxer lying through her teeth
    • Blogs For Bush catches it as well

    • Jimme at Blue State Conservatives dissects the day's events with specific focus on Dodd's obsession with the torture issue and how Rice may have missed a chance to knock it out of the park
    • Polipundit suggests Dr. Rice's future job after her tenure as Secretary of State
    • La Shawn Barber takes dead aim
    • Patterico puts the homestate screws to Boxer's "reality-based" comments
    • The Ebb & Flow Institute has excerpts from the transcripts
    • Spoons at The Spoons Experience says Boxer, Biden and Dodd were gratuitously picking fights they know they can't win
    More later as it develops.

    Feel free to post additional relevant links in the comments.


    Update:

    • Kevin McCollough has the complete transcript of the Rice/Boxer exchange (Kevin was also nice enough to provide a link to this thread for his radio audience, which I appreciate)
    • La Shawn Barber has a roundup at the bottom of her thread I must have missed the first time around, that includes blogger voices I'd missed.
    • As a side note, Technorati.com seems to be having technical problems this morning, making the blogosphere a bit of a challenge to check for more updates.
    Update 2:

    • Roger L. Simon compliments Kerry on his impeccable Arabic.
    • Mark at Weapons of Mass Discussion evicerates Kerry and Boxer for their grandstanding
    • Acidman of Gut Rumbles adds Biden to the malarkey-slinging list
    • The confirmation hearings spur Cobb's thinking of how Republicans can pick up minority voters
    • Weapon of Choice goes beyond the confirmation to opine about the kind of SecState Rice might be.My advice for Iran? Duck.
    • Just for kicks, The Kool Aid Report is caught Fisking the Crap out of Barbara Boxer.
    • Slant Point brings up the disturbing possibility that compared to Boxer, other liberals might seem same by contrast.

    Not surprisingly, The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 16-2 to confirm Dr. Rice, the holdouts being Senators Boxer and John "I voted for her, before I voted against her" Kerry.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)

    January 18, 2005

    Kos He Can


    I thought this guy looked familiar (source: al KozJazerra TV)

    Wretchard at Belmont Club is reporting that some representatives of certain news services are in the paid service of terrorist organizations.

    Neither Daily "F Them" Kos nor al Jazeera have issued a denial at this time.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

    Hersh's Syrup has Useful if Bitter Taste

    Roger L. Simon is dead on.

    Seymour Hersh is apparently after the Bush Administration again, but it seems the President he has consistently misunderestimated has made Hersh into a useful idiot sending a warning to Iran.

    Has anyone determined how much this one cost us?

    Don't worry, I'm sure Kos will think of something.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)

    January 17, 2005

    Harvard President: Women Are Stupid

    The smug smile above belongs to the soon ex-President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, who said that women, lack "natural ability" in some fields, essentially opining that women were too stupid to excel at math and science careers.

    Summers has already been criticized because the number of job offers to women has dropped each year of his presidency, and he suggested that instead of math and science jobs, that women should get bigger breasts and strip instead… or maybe I'm getting him confused with someone else.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)

    A Complete Blank

    Sorry.

    It has been a long weekend and I've got a hellacious set of deadlines this week, so my mind isn't on blogging right now. I have exactly nothing of interest to say at the moment, other than the fact I'll be working tonight on my guest blogging article for The Blue State Conservatives which will be posted later in the week.

    You should check them out if you haven't already, thy have some interesting, and frankly disturbing, content up today.

    Also check out the guys at The New Editor if you haven't yet.

    Iowahawk calls them, "Powerline with a little Tex-Mex flava." Not a bad analogy, as they are another tight group blog with good commentary and talent for ferretting out interesting stories.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

    January 15, 2005

    Signs of Intelligent Life

    I just wanted to let others know that there is intelligent life up here beyond the Manson-Nixon Line, other than yours truly.

    Two blue state conservative sites I've recently run across in the last few weeks are The Blue State Conservatives and Slant Point.

    The Blue State Conservatives are a brand-spanking new group blog that launched just over a week ago, and looks like it is going to be a lot more than just your normal political blog, as it already has a post up entitled NFL criminals your children can idolize.

    You won't get that kind of coverage anywhere else, kids.

    I also have it on the highest authority that in addition to the regular stable of bloggers they are filling out, they have also lined up at least one excellent guest blogger to provide occasional commentary. Gee, I wonder who that could be...

    Slant Point is based in NYC, and has managed to thrive as a hub of conservative blogging in the middle of liberal lunacy. Slant Point also has one of the few blogrolls of NYC-area bloggers I've run across.

    Besides, Scott Sala, blogger-in-residence, has pictures of himself posing with both Ed Koch and Curtis Sliwa. Top that, Instapundit!

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:02 AM | Comments (0)

    January 14, 2005

    All Your Dreams Come True

    I so hope this will come to pass.

    The New York Post is reporting that not only is Kerry considering another presidential bid, but Tipper says Al Gore is considering an 2008 run.

    As a blogger, all I can say in response is: "Please?" It will be great to have the guy who created the Internet (yeah, I know) running against the man who re-invented the flip-flop in the Democratic Primaries.

    And if they become running mates, Gore could keep Kerry's cornicopia of plans in his lockbox.

    Yes, I am salivating.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)

    January 13, 2005

    Jailed for Lawyer Jokes

    A little bit of local news from MSNBC.com:

    Did you hear the one about the two guys arrested for telling lawyer jokes?

    It happened this week to the founders of a group called Americans for Legal Reform, who were waiting in line to get into a Long Island courthouse.

    "How do you tell when a lawyer is lying?" Harvey Kash reportedly asked Carl Lanzisera.

    "His lips are moving," they said in unison.

    While some waiting to get into the courthouse giggled, a lawyer farther up the line Monday was not laughing.

    He told them to pipe down, and when they did not, the lawyer reported the pair to court personnel, who charged them with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.

    Yep, jailed for jokes that a nearby thin-skinned John Edwards-type didn't much care for. I would add that he apparently wasn't a very good lawyer either; the "good ones" (according to the lawyer mentioned below) have special security passes and don't have to wait in line with the peons.

    I actually heard these guys (well, one of them) on the radio this morning when they made an appearance to explain their story and get legal representation from the liberal lawyer/talk show host I love to hate, Ron Kuby. While I disagree with Ron on the vast majority of his politics, he is a hell of a lawyer, and I'm glad he's taking on this one... for free.

    Of course, this arrest should never have happened, which makes the fact that the two guys arrested were with a judicial reform advocacy group all the more ironic.

    Note: Despite what the caption says, the name of the dog in the Ron Kuby link above is Lily, not Commie. "Commie" just describes Kuby's political stance.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)

    January 12, 2005

    WNBC News Jumps The Gun

    I have always been a staunch Second Amendment advocate.

    I think we would benefit as a society from a national concealed carry law. I am a proponent of reinvigorating high school and college shooting programs, and feel that what the media labels as assault weapons are exactly the kinds of firearms the Founding Fathers intended us to have as I noted in a previous article.

    But as strongly pro-gun as I am, I have finally found a specifically horrific firearm/ammo system whose ban I wholeheartedly support once I saw it pre-pitched for broadcast Wednesday evening (01/11/05) at 5:00 PM on WNBC News, New York.

    Once you saw the pitch, how could you not?

    "It" is the Fabrique Nationale Five seveN, a handgun that fires the relatively new 5.7x28mm cartridge. One kind of ammunition for this firearm is SS190, ammunition that looks like scaled-down 5.56mm NATO rounds and boosts the 2.02 gram (31 grains) pointed steel and aluminum core bullet to the muzzle velocity of 650 meters per second (ca. 2130 fps) from the pistol barrel.

    It isn't a hunting handgun like a .454 Casull or .475 Linebaugh that penetrates armor as a side effect, but a weapon specifically built from the ground up to penetrate helmets and body armor to kill the person inside when using the SS190 ammunition. As law enforcement officers are the only Americans who typically wear body armor, this weapon/ammunition combination in civilian hands functions only as a "cop killer." Right?

    We would be fools to allow this monstrosity of gun and ammo to be for sale on New York streets, or streets anywhere else. The nerve of these people! Got your righteous indignation up? Freshened your torch and sharpened your pitch fork?

    Great!

    Come with me and burn down WNBC News, because this weapon/ammo combination is not now, nor has ever been, available to the public.

    You heard me right: this firearm/ammunition combination is not for sale at any price, to any civilian in the United States.

    If WNBC News had bothered to Google the Five seveN, they might have run across the very prominent information that this specific ammunition and weapon combination is available for government and law enforcement sales only. The Five seveN, itself is perfectly legal to own, but only with the slower, lighter SS192 practice/duty ammunition that in not armor penetrating.

    Even in armor-piercing SS190 form, this ammunition is thought to be less lethal than most existing handgun ammunition, and has not convinced experts that it has any more stopping power than the anemic .22 Magnum rimfire, and weaker than 95% of handgun designs currently on the market.

    So much for the myth of the magical cop-killer. I guess this myth will go the way of the plastic gun invisible to x-rays.


    Remind me again who the professional journalists are?

    Post-Broadcast Update
    WNBC News, to their credit, did a better job with their story than I was prepared to give them credit for initially. They acknowledged that the SS190 ammunition was not for sale to the public, and were able to show that the SS192 practice/duty ammunition was able to pierce a piece of body armor they selected in an uncontrolled environment.

    WNBC News showed footage of a law enforcement officer firing a three-shot group from a Five seveN loaded with SS192 ammunition into a ballistic vest on an indoor firing range at a distance I estimated to be about seven yards.

    There was definite penetration of the ballistic material, but their demonstration raised as many questions as it answered, at least in my mind.

    What was the age, classification, and integrity of the vest in the demonstration?
    How old was this vest? Was it recent, using the most modern ballistic materials, or was it an older vest made with less advanced technologies than are used in the average body armor of today's police officers? Was it obsolete?

    What was the classification of this vest? I know that no body armor is truly "bulletproof," and that there are various levels of protection, from vests rated at a relatively low Level 2 that will stop edged-weapon attacks and some low-to-mid-powered pistol bullets, to Level 4 armor that will stop direct, multiple hits from 7.62 rifle rounds. What was the rating of the vest in question? I have seen body armor before, and quite frankly, the armor used for the demonstration looked flimsy, at least on television.

    What was the structural integrity of this vest prior to the demonstration? The demonstration claimed to fire three rounds from the Five SeveN followed by one round from a low pressure .45 ACP, but the vest appeared to have as many as six impact points prior to firing the .45 ACP round. Multiple bullet strikes can diminish the ability of the vest to stop following rounds, and therefore if there were previous rounds fired into this vest, it could have weakened it significantly.

    In short, if WNBC News used an older early model ballistic vest with lower level protection, and/or a vest that had been previously compromised by multiple bullet impacts, then they ran what is essentially a rigged test with severely compromised validity.

    The fact that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms approved both the Five seven and it's SS192 cartridge indicates that the experts who evaluate these firearms and their cartridges before allowing their sale and import, obviously disagree with WNBC News as to the armor-piercing abilities of this handgun and its ammunition. To me, their rigorous testing and expertise is just a bit more believable than an uncontrolled impromptu demonstration performed with questionable methodology and materials.

    In addition, WNBC News made no comment at all as to the miniscule size of the actual bullet and its lethality, or "stopping power," preferring instead just to focus on its velocity. Folks, ask any real gun guy you know and ask them if they'd rather be shot by the Five seveN's 5.7mm bullet, which some experts compare to a .22 magnum, or the nearly hundred year-old .45 ACP cartridge. The vast majority will take their chances with the over-hyped mousegun that is the Five seveN. It is highly hyped, but unproven.

    WNBC News managed to pull off a more sophisticated smoke and mirrors act than most news channels do in their anti-gun stories, but in the end, it is still just seems to be smoke and mirrors.

    NYPD Update: I noticed this weekend that this site is getting some traffic from a law enforcement message board discussing the Five SeveN. I would like to point out that while the Five SeveN has much more velocity and lower recoil than any other duty-sized semiauto that I can recall, there are at least three half-century-old inexpensive pistol/ammo combos that I can think of right off the top of my head that can defeat many kinds of body armor, though for your safety, I will not mention them here.

    My advice to the brave men in law enforcement is to simply follow your training; even a lowly .22 short can kill you if it hits you in the right spot. So don't get shot (Gee thanks, C.Y. we wouldn't have thought of that on our own!).

    Get expert opinions from firearms guys in the BATF, FBI, and the firearms and ballistic armor industry before you make policy changes and leave the hype (positive or negative) to the news guys, the brass, and the bloggers.

    Final (hopefully) update: The Five SeveN was built from the ground up as an anti-armor sidearm and ammunition combination.

    While I do not advocate infringing upon the Second Amendment, I would note that the BATF is the organization responsible for determining whether a firearm an caliber of ammunition are available to the public.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)

    January 11, 2005

    Hung Up On Socks

    Patterico runs with the Sandy Berger Story:

    The New York Post reports:

    The criminal probe into why former Bill Clinton aide Sandy Berger illegally sneaked top-secret documents out of the National Archives - possibly in his socks - has heated up and is now before a federal grand jury, The Post has learned.
    Well, I guess it's technically true. It's also "possible" the documents were shoved up his rectum. But there's no real evidence of either.

    Unless I'm missing something, there has never been any but the most tangential hint of evidence that Berger took documents out of the room in his socks. Wild-eyed Bob Somerby explained back in July 2004.

    The Post doesn't do itself any favors with such reporting.


    As I noted in his comments section, how Berger smuggled out the documents doesn't matter as much as the fact that he did, and that he destroyed some of them.

    If Berger goes to jail for his crimes as he should, then there will be ample opportunity to discuss what is entering and leaving selected Berger orifices.

    If you really want too.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)

    January 10, 2005

    A Liberal Born Every Minute


    Proof that P.T. Barnum was right when he said, "There's a sucker liberal born every minute."

    As Tim Blair quickly notes, they apparently haven't heard of the invention of something called a "remote control."

    Maybe it is really is better (for the gene pool) that we let these brilliant folks keep practicing abortion.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

    CBS Rathergate Investigation: What It Was, Was Failure

    The axe has fallen. Too bad it didn't hit the right necks or Rather, enough of them.

    Interestingly enough, Andrew Heyward, the President of CBS News, was not asked to resign.

    When a football team blows a season, the blame usually falls on the head coach. Instead of firing the head coach (Heyward), CBS chose the equivalent of firing a few position coaches and trading some players. As any football fan knows, when you leave a failing coach at the helm, he will continue to make the same bad decisions that led to the losing season, even if his coaching staff or personnel changes. Bad leadership leads to bad teams, in professional journalism as well as football. In this regard, we can expect a Heyward-led CBS News to soon revert to the slipshod, partisan journalism that has characterized his leadership. Heyward's head should roll along with his underlings.

    The fact that the "general manager" of the Team CBS, CBS President Leslie Moonves did not fire Heyward makes me wonder if the CBS Board of Directors should consider not only sacking the head coach, but the general manager.

    Until the senior management is changed, can expect "Rathergate" type inaccuracies to resurface again, despite the window dressing recommendations of the two-person CBS-appointed panel.

    CBS News is in cover-up mode (still not admittign the documents wer forged or their reporters blindly partisan and politically-motivated), and has offered up a few underlings as a sacrifice to the American people, but it does not seem to be serious about making changes to the underlying organizational structure that allowed Rathergate to happen.

    We will see another "Rathergate" at CBS News.

    It is simply a matter of time.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

    New CBS Reporting Standards Really Help

    The axe has fallen in the Rathergate investigation. Too bad it hasn't helped their ability to air accurate reports.

    CBS News is now reporting (ed. note: link since changed, read update at bottom of page) that:

    Four CBS News employees, including three executives, have been ousted for their role in preparing and reporting a disputed story about President Bush's National Guard service.

    The action was prompted by the report of an independent panel that concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece. The panel also said CBS News had compounded that failure with "rigid and blind" defense of the 60 Minutes Wednesday report.

    Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; and Howard's deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Betsy West. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated.

    CBS might want to fact check this, as firing Betsy West twice, as the paragraph above seems to indicate, doesn't mean they fired four employees. I'm glad to see their standards of journalistic integrity haven't been affected by the shakeup.

    NOTE: CBS will probably find ths soon enough, at which point I'll redirect to the PDF of the original CBS News story.

    Update: PDF format won't work with my current limited image options. A GIF of the relevant section of the PDF I captured is available here. Email me if you want the full-screen PDF of the original CBS News page.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)

    Gotta Love Buy Blue

    I might be a day late in catching the 01/09/05 Instapundit reference to Buy Blue over the weekend, but as someone who is mostly conservative, I loved their "Blue Christmas" campaign.

    It not only provided a list of "blue" companies, but a list of "red" companies as well(PDF), which came in very handy for making sure I bought Christmas presents from companies that still (apparently) believe in keeping Christ in Christmas as I mentioned earlier.

    Sometimes, liberals are their own best enemies.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)

    January 07, 2005

    51 Days

    Call it torture.

    As Alberto Gonzales is grilled for his role in formulating the policies of torture for insurgents, terrorist, and fundamentalists as he strives to become the first Mexican-American Attorney General, it is important we review a few basic facts.

    A group of liberal-sympathizing religious fundamentalists was trapped and tortured, and stood by and Gonzales did nothing.

    You don't remember this?

    For 51 days they were kept in the dark, without heat or light. Even with no physical evidence, they were repeatedly accused of:

    • abusing children;
    • selling drugs;
    • trafficking in weapons.
    Flammable, potentially explosive pyrotechnic devices were used against them, and flammable CS gas containing methylene chloride sprayed into their cramped and drafty compound, with women and children present. 74 people, including 20 children, died of this torture and eventual immolation directed by U.S. soldiers wrongly used as agents of law enforcement by the U.S. Government.

    Attorney General-nominee Alberto Gonzales did nothing to stop these horrific events.

    Why?

    Because he was an attorney in private practice in 1993 when a Justice Department led by Janet Reno was alleged to have committed these acts, but I guess these acts don't amount to torture when administered by Democrats.

    The liberal-sympathizing religious fundamentalists were of course the Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas.


    Makes Abu Ghraib allegations of intimidation and humiliation look pretty benign, doesn't it?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)

    January 06, 2005

    Slacker

    Blogging has been nonexistent for the last few days and will likely remain light for a few more while I finish a project for my day job and dive into one of my Christmas presents.

    I should be back over the weekend, unless I'm not.

    Also, I'm interested in getting visitor book recommendations for the Get This Book ad over to the right, so if you've read something more interesting than a travel guide lately, let me know.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:04 PM

    January 02, 2005

    Flipper Speaks

    John Kerry looks back at why he lost.

    But more importantly, is he going to finally share his plans now?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)

    January 01, 2005

    Race and Disaster

    Help me understand something.

    We (and here I mean "the world community") largely stood by when 138,000 were killed in the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone, and did next to nothing as 800,000 were slaughtered in tribal warfare in Rwanda. There was also relatively little international concern or outcry of support when 30,000 died one year ago in the 12/26/03 Iranian earthquake that the world has largely forgotten.

    As many as 300,000 have died in the on-going Darfur genocide as Arab "janjaweed" militias continue to rape and murder their way across the Sudan. An estimated 10,000 are dying there each month, and the world is largely indifferent as this preventable disaster continues unabated.

    But you see, these disasters don't affect us.

    All of the disasters I just mentioned involved dark-skinned people in developing countries, and therefore they've been largely ignored.

    But when a natural disaster occurs in a favorite European tourist destination and a few thousand folks of the caucasian persuasion perish, the world is suddenly filled with empathy and compassion. Did anyone notice that in a disaster that killed 124,000+ in Southeast Asia, and thousands in Africa and India, that the most popular individual "face" put on the disaster by the MSM is that of a two year-old Swedish boy?

    Nature happens, and we should of course help those affected by the Sumatran tsunami. That said, it is pathetic that we can't generate the same outpouring of support and empathy for the manmade disasters we can prevent, for reasons that largely appear to be tied to classism and bigotry.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)

    December 31, 2004

    Tsunami Perspective

    I've been getting what is actually fairly polite hate mail for my coverage of the 12/26/04 Sumatran earthquake and tsunami so far, with several people taking exception to my pointing out that:

    A few people asked why I have been so insensitive to the plight of the innocent lives lost. I asked them the questions below in response, and so far, not one has responded.

    Where was the global outcry and pledges of support when 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered? Where is the indignation as Muslims in Darfur continue to rape and murder their way across Sudan with over 100,000 dead and no end in sight?

    Why is this earthquake so much more cared about on the world stage than the one exactly one year before that killed tens of thousands in Iran? My guess is that all this sudden interest wouldn't be nearly as intense if thousands of light-skinned Europeans hadn't died as well.

    So my critics can call me cynical (among other things).

    But they shouldn't dare imply that they are somehow more caring or a better person when they finally decide to contribute when it is finally convenient for them, or suddenly in their societal interest. They've ignored greater preventable human tragedies in the past decade alone.

    I think they have a word for that.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)

    December 30, 2004

    "We are doing very little at the moment."

    "We are doing very little at the moment."

    So speaks U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland, just days after calling the U.S. "stingy" in our goverment's aid to tsunami victims.

    As usual, the United States pulls the load, and the United Nations complains, but contributes next to nothing but rhetoric.

    Par for the course.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:28 PM | Comments (0)

    Silent America goes Amazon

    Talented blogger Bill Whittle's book of essays Silent America: Essays from an America at War goes on sale at Amazon today. As a big fan of his blog, I can highly recommend the book.

    Update: Dropped the inline ad. I didn't like the way it looked. You can still see the book through the text link to Silent America above.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

    With Liberty and Eastern NC BBQ For All

    Some say, "save 'em all and let God sort 'em out." That's a great sentiment, and we should provide aid for those affected by the 12/26 tsunami.

    Despite my own personal reservations about providing money to suspected terrorist havens, I was this close to clicking over to Amazon and donating some money to the tsunami relief fund, and then I saw this picture from Getty Images (hat-tip LGF). Take a few seconds, you'll see "it" soon enough.

    As of now, my cash goes to the first aid organization that promises to season all food shipments with ham hocks, and sends over appropriate clothing.

    Let them eat pork.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:35 AM | Comments (0)

    December 29, 2004

    Don't Believe Drudge's Hype

    Parroting a sensationalist headline from The Independent, Drudge runs the banner headline "The Lost Generation" on his site for December 29th. A lot of people are buying that line, and running with it.

    The only problem is, the headline isn't true.

    Using the CIA World Fact Book for total population data and the This is London link from Drudge's own site for current casualty data, we can compile some rough figures using the calculator at Math.com.

    • India, a country of 1 billion, has lost a confirmed 7,000 dead, or 0.0007-percent of their population.
    • Thailand, a country of 64 million, has lost a confirmed 1,700 dead or 0.002-percent of their population.
    • Indonesia, a country of 238.5 million, has lost a confirmed 42,000 dead, or 0.017-percent of their population.
    • Sri Lanka, a country of 19.9 million, has lost a confirmed 22,500 dead, was the hardest hit per capita, with 0.113-percent of their population killed.
    The hardest hit country lost just over one-tenth of one-percent of their overall population, hardly anything approaching the loss of an entire generation.

    The deaths from this seismic event are tragic on a grand scale, but it falls far short of the massive casualties sustained at Stalingrad (1942-3, 1-2 million dead), and I've heard few claiming that an entire generation of Soviets or Germans were wiped out in that battle.

    Perhaps the media should stick with the facts, and leave the propaganda to Michael Moore.

    Edit: The phrase "The hardest hit countries lost less than one-tenth of one-percent of their overall population..." was corrected to read "The hardest hit country lost just over one-tenth of one-percent of their overall population."


    Update: The death toll in Indonesia has nearly doubled to 80,000, raising their loses to 0.034-percent of their total population.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)

    Writing on the Wall

    Some cranky midwestern newspaper columnist just lit into the guys at Powerline with the maturity of my four year-old, but without as much skill. Read the rant, and then see what Powerline has to say on the matter here and here. Who do you think it more professional?

    The Star-Tribune advertising department seems to know who is going to win this argument.

    Check out the blog advertising at the bottom of the article.

    Nick Coleman, your days are numbered.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)

    Grieving

    I apologize for the lack of posting today. I'm still grieving for the loss of Susan Sontag.

    Dumfart tombstone

    Yeah.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)

    December 28, 2004

    Will the Tsunami Curb SE Asian Terrorism?

    The massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake that caused a tidal wave that has killed 50,000+ this week was centered in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the Indonesian province of Aceh.

    Interestingly enough this humanitarian disaster may have a small upside; a lessening of the potential for terrorism in Southeast Asia.

    Aceh, the province of Indonesia closest to the epicenter of the quake, is a terrorist sanctuary that is the home to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and has been mentioned as a probable al Qaeda base as members try to reorganize their infrastructure. Other Indonesian terrorist organizations that may have been affected is Jemaah Islamiyah, which seeks to turn Indonesia, Malaysia and the southern Philippines into an Islamic state, and Lasker Jihad, which claims to have disbanded after the 2002 Bali bombing.

    The violent Tamil Tigers have the most well-developed capacity for maritime terrorism according to the South Asia Analysis Group, and while it is too early to determine the extent of any damage inflicted upon this terrorist organization, their home country of Sri Lanka was among the hardest hit by the tsunami, particularly ethic Tamil regions on Sri Lanka's eastern coast.

    The physical proximity of suspected terrorists to the impact zones of the earthquake and its tsunami suggest that some of these organizations took casualties and lost physical resources as a result, though only time will tell.

    Relief Effort Update: The Command Post has the most updated information I am aware of if you want to help those affected by this massive natural disaster.

    12/31 Update: Welcome Spring Starts Here! readers. While you are here, please be sure to visit my latest columns on the subject here (and be sure to check out the guy in the bin Laden tee shirt) and see if you can answer the important questions I ask here. Enjoy your visit, and be sure to come back soon.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:01 PM | Comments (0)

    Associated Hard-Pressed

    Wretchard (an always excellent blogger) at Belmont Club has been hammering the Associated Press for their uncanny ability to have a terrorist photographer on-scene to capture the assassination of Iraqi election officials as it happened. Michael Ledeen over at The Corner reports in part in an email from Tom Holsinger:

    "AP may have significant civil liability exposure to the victims' families in American courts, under the legal theory of civil conspiracy. The conspiracy objective would be to give publicity to terrorists. Every person or organization agreeing to act in concert to achieve a conspiracy's goals is liable for every act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
    American courts have taken jurisdiction, and awarded huge civil judgments, in far more questionable cases."
    In short, a case can be made for conspiracy between the Associated Press and terrorist groups in Iraq, and that case, if brought, could potentially cost the AP millions of dollars in civil judgements and legal bills.

    The mainstream media coddling Muslim terrorists: would you believe such a thing?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

    December 27, 2004

    Frank Perdue in Iraq?

    I missed this on Christmas Eve when it was originally posted by MEMRI, but apparently our nominal allies in the Saudi government daily Al-Watan are accusing the U. S. Army of illegally harvesting organs from dead and dying Iraqis.
    "Secret European military intelligence reports" indicate the:

    "...transformation of the American humanitarian mission in Iraq into a profitable trade in the American markets through the practice of American physicians extracting human organs from the dead and wounded, before they are put to death, for sale to medical centers in America. A secret team of American physicians follow the troops during their attacks on Iraqi armed men to ensure quick [medical] operations for extracting some organs and transferring them to private operations rooms before they are transferred to America for sale. "The reports confirm the finding of tens of mutilated cadavers or cadavers missing parts. Some were found without a head. The American military command could not offer reasons to explain the bewilderment about the missing parts, suggesting that this may have been caused by the penetration of bullets to the [missing] parts."
    Of course, you will note the unimpeachable resources cited by the Saudis.

    Secret intelligence reports, vague reports of missing organs from the cadavers of combat casualties, and of course, the ever-available anonymous witness. Not one corpse has ever shown up, or course, or any other shred of physical evidence.

    Years ago their was a Purdue chicken commerical talking about how the "parts is parts" approach is wrong when making good chicken nuggets. Apparently, the Saudis would have us believe the competitor's line from that commercial that anything would work, and that we were randomly hot-swapping Iraq kidneys into American bodies like so many USB drives.

    I guess no one has explained to the Arab street about the complexities of organ transplants. They couldn't know that many organs could not remain viable for the amount of time it would take to type, match, and ship them half-way around the world.

    But parts, after all, "is" parts, and one anti-American lie is just as good as another.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:40 PM | Comments (0)

    Going Hard Copy

    So far Hugh Hewitt's new book Blog seems to be doing quite well (Amazon rank #287), Scott Ott's Axis of Weasels continues to sell, and Bill Whittle is finding success with Silent America.

    A half dozen or more other bloggers are also getting into the publishing game, trying to turn their digital reputation into hard copy sales. It is going to be interesting to see who triumphs and who doesn't in this attempted transition from digital to print. Laura McKenna has an interesting take on it over at her blog, 11D.

    I agree with her opinion that non-fiction is the way to go. I don't know how many bloggers have the ability to write good book-length fiction, such as the novel for which Wonkette scored a $275,000 advance. I'm sure there will be some, but I'd be surprised if blogger/novelists sell all that well.

    This is going to be interesting to watch.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

    A New D.U. Record

    In the wake of the massive 9.0 earthquake off Sumatra, and the resulting tsunami, tens of thousands are dead. Posters at the Democratic Underground get all the way to the second post of this thread before a poster named NYC offers up:

    I haven't read any projections. An amazing number of dead in so little time. I have heard nothing about the U.S. offering aid.
    Yep.

    They got to the second poster before finding a way to work their America-hating in. That has to be a new record. It took another five hours before another DUer named StopDiggingTheHole pointed out this was a global tragedy, not a chance to attack the administration.

    For those of you keeping score at home, they got all the way to the 13th post on the thread before finding a way to fault Bush directly, and all the way down to the 72nd poster before they started ranting about the "wingnut Fundies."

    They haven't yet found a way to hold Halliburton responsible.

    Give them time.


    Update 1: Michele at A Small Victory has a list of ways you can help the survivors of this natural disaster. Please help, if you can.

    Update 2: I spoke too soon. As poster Abu Maven noted at Little Green Footballs, DU-ers did blame Halliburton, Lockheed-Martin, SIAC, etc before I even completed the original post. I just missed it.

    Update 3: Those "wingnut Fundies" the DU-ers complained about are on the ground in affected regions. If you would like to help through one of these organizations, visit Scrappleface.com.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:24 AM | Comments (0)

    December 26, 2004

    A Curious Desire

    For years, I've had the desire to try solo primitive wilderness camping. This a somewhat odd fixation, as the closest I've ever come to "real" camping is a drive-in campground, but I've always had this unquenchable urge to light out on the open trail alone, subsisting with only what I could find, catch, or carry with me.

    My wife thinks I'm nuts. I mentioned it once in passing to her and simply got "the look." Married men know what I'm talking about. And so I haven't mentioned it any more to her. Maybe she is right. But I still have the urge.

    I think I could do it. Seriously.

    Yes, I have a bum knee that has already required surgery once. But at my own pace on the terrain of my choosing, I don't see a touchy knee being an insurmountable issue.

    I have basic outdoor knowledge, having hunted and fished with my father and brothers for years. I've just never tried to apply everything I know about nature all at once, and I think that is a key part of the challenge of this adventure.

    I figure during the fall would be a nice time.

    I'd start on a weekend morning at the drop off point, and go as far as I felt comfortable going until mid-afternoon, where I'd make camp, and if conditions warranted, build a simple lean-to for shelter. I'd then find some downed trees and choose a few well-seasoned limbs for my cooking fire, and once this basic camp-making was completed, set off in search of sustenance.

    In most parts of the North America there is wild food literally for the taking, you simply have to know what you are looking for. I'd collect wild plants and tubers, maybe do some fishing or hunting nearby, and just play it by ear, simply getting back to nature…getting back to myself.

    For the next days, I'd plan on doing nothing more complicated than try to figure out where my next meal was coming from and trying to relax. I'd have time to think. Time to reflect. Something you never seem to be able to find in our normal lives, even when on normal vacations.

    Come the next weekend, I 'm sure a dirty, smelly, hungry man would return to the drop-off point to go back to civilization, but I'd think I'd also be a man that was a bit more at peace with himself.

    If I can come back like that, it would have been worth it.

    Note: I've finally posted my Amazon wish list after someone reminded me it wasn't available on my blog. For some reason, a lot of it seems slanted towards camping gear...

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)

    December 23, 2004

    What, No Prize Money?

    Sgt. Stryker apparently likes my sense of humor, and dubbed me the winner of his second Caption Contest. Check it out.

    So far I'm 2-0 in contest posts (I've blocked out any losses), winning one over at IMAO a long time back with this one...

    IMAO: I got an e-mail from the John Kerry campaign titled "What would you ask John Kerry" saying how if I set up a house party, I could ask a question to John Kerry. So, what would you ask John Kerry?

    C.Y. Answer: "So, Senator, how does four months of actual combat experience make you a better candidate than say, Lyndie England?"

    And yet, I'm stilling waiting on that invite to go write for Dennis Miller.

    Call me, Denny babe. Ciao.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)

    December 22, 2004

    Victory

    After a few days of fitful tinkering, I finally have Haloscan fully implemented across the site, and the Blogger commenting system fully suppressed. For a while I was running parallel commenting systems, with Haloscan working off my main URL and Blogger taking comments for any other pages, including archived pages and direct links.


    So What.

    Well, that means any comments you may have made on the Blogger system are history. Sorry.

    But at least we're all on the same page, now that I've beat my templates into submission.

    Carry on.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

    December 21, 2004

    Credit Where Credit is Due

    With his usual amount of honesty, Daily Kos blames President Bush for a terrorist attack, with his headline, Bush destroys another 22 families.

    As deaths continue to pile up from the flu, I'm sure Kos will be sure to credit Hillary with the headline, Hillary destroys another 11 families.

    Somehow, I don't think he'll get around to writing that one, no matter how many toddlers die as a result of HillaryCare.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 09:53 PM | Comments (0)

    If Your name Is Margolis, You'd Better Stick to Modeling

    Florida state senator Gwen Margolis is proposing Senate Bill 500, a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines that would not only to attempt to resurrect the flawed and failed 1994 Crime Bill on a statewide level, but would also seek to make the ban retroactive. She advocates nothing less than the confiscation of the very arms our Founding Fathers would most protect, and it is all based upon a series of lies.

    Let us go through the fallacies perpetuated by Margolis, shall we?

    Her bill states, starting on line 29 of the first page, "WHEREAS, the United States Congress passed, and the President of the United States signed into law, the Federal Assault Weapons Act on September 13, 1994, which prohibited the use and possession of assault weapons, and-"

    And let's start right there.

    The last I checked, there has never been a "Federal Assault Weapons Act." There was, however, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Perhaps if Senator Margolis is going to try and reinstate and expound upon a law, she should at least see if that law has ever existed.

    But her lack of knowledge of the law neither starts nor ends with the name of the law, but extends into the most basic content of the law as well.

    "-which prohibited the use and possession of assault weapons, and-"

    And which did no such thing. Margolis is either ignorant of the law, or is exaggerating it to the point of outright fabrication.

    The possession and use of assault weapons was never prohibited in the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (which from now on, we will simply call the "1994 Crime Bill" as it is commonly referred).

    The fact sheet of the 1994 Crime Bill specifically states the fact that the law "bans the manufacture of 19 military-style assault weapons, assault weapons with specific combat features, 'copy-cat' models, and certain high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than ten rounds.'"

    The 1994 Crime Bill did not, in letter or in practicality, ban the use or possession of assault weapons, or of their semi-automatic clones. As a matter of fact, it specifically protected existing lawfully-owned assault weapons, and allowed the manufacture of assault weapons throughout the entire period of the failed ban with only slight cosmetic and zero functional change to the basic design of the firearms whatsoever.

    Shall we continue?

    Margolis continues on line 6 of the second page of the proposed bill "WHEREAS, as a result of the expiration of the ban, UZI's, AK-47's, and other semiautomatic weapons are now available for purchase and possession in this state, -"

    I have a news flash for Senator Margolis: semi-automatic weapons were available for legal purchase and possession every single minute of every single day that the 1994 Crime bill was in effect, not only in Florida, but in every state in the Union.

    In fact, hundreds of new models and variants of semi-automatic rifles came to the public market in the past ten years, including, but hardly limited to, models from manufacturers such as Armalite, Benelli, Beretta, Browning, Bushmaster, etc.

    Her contention that these firearms were not for sale during this time period is simply a fallacy. The only question that matters is this; does Senator Margolis spreads fallacies out of ignorance, or out of malice?

    In either event, I saw no reason to continue reading a proposed law based upon shoddy research and blatant falsehoods, though there appeared to be far more of this proposed bill that would not stand up to closer scrutiny.

    This flawed document should be regarded more as a work of fiction than a serious attempt at legislation.

    Perhaps Senator Margolis should try to learn something about her subject matter before she tries to legislate it.

    Update: text of email sent to Senator Margolis on 12/21/2004:

    Dear Senator Margolis,

    It is readily apparent that you lack even fundamental knowledge of a subject on which you are trying to legislate. Perhaps you should at least try to get your basic facts correct before basing legislation on incorrect or misleading information, as you have done with your proposed bill.

    A few of your many fact errors have been noted in an article at the web link below.

    (link to this article)

    Have a Nice Day.

    Sincerely,


    (Hat tip to Frank J. at IMAO)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:07 AM | Comments (0)

    December 20, 2004

    Better Late Than Never

    Afterglow grandstanding.

    I think 41 is standing up for his victorious President, not for his embattled son, when he finally comes down on Michael Moore. I think that is a distinction worth making, as he didn't publicly say anything about Moore until well after the election was over.

    Politically, 41 was soft, and it is clear than the spine 43 was bequeathed came from maternal DNA. Dad's rant was little more than a little boy shouting at a vanquished foe, granted this particular foe isn't intelligent enough to know he's been soundly beaten.

    While I agree with his assessment of Moore being a new pariah on the Left, as is his due for his disingenuous propaganda, I must wonder if Bush 41 would have been as vocal if Moore's "Fiberal" party had won the election. Somehow I think not.

    Bush 41 should be proud of his son, but attacking Moore now, when it doesn't matter, is simply beating a corpulent, dead horse.

    Update: An apology to Bush 41 may be in order. Bill at INDC Journal thinks I'm coming down too hard on him, and believes he has spoken out against Michael Moore before. I haven't heard of such comments, but if they do exist, I'll apologize for that particular criticism.

    Update 2: Basil found two pre-election comments made by Bush 41 hammering Moore. I stand corrected.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)

    December 18, 2004

    Fiberals

    Fiberals.

    Let's call them what they are. They don't support the troops, and they never will respect the military, even though they say the opposite. They don't respect minorities, and move quickly to quash any who fail to toe the party line. They don't respect the Constitution, and they don't respect the law of the land.

    They don't have to. They're better than us.

    The ACLU claims to fight for civil liberties, but was founded by socialists and communists with the express goal of undermining the Constitution. Planned Parenthood claims to be about choice, but was founded by a eugenicist and practices genocide. Fiberals shrilly attack conservatives and moderates of both parties as being "right wing," and then openly embrace a radical religion that admired Adolph Hitler.

    Welcome to the Fiberals.

    As Fiberals, they have the right to claim that the most inclusive President in history is a racist, when in fact their party founded the Ku Klux Klan and stood in the way of civil rights for over one hundred years. They can confidently call minorities that step out of line "Aunt Jemima" or "Uncle Tom" without reprisals, and certainly no complaints from the NAACP.

    They have the right to claim Faux News and the Moonie Times are unbalanced in their news coverage because Maureen Dowd and Lawrence O'Donnell told them so, and Rather and Mapes were just telling the truth by other means, and Halprin was just trying to provide the right perspective.

    They have the right to claim the War on Terror has nothing to do with Iraq, even though the World Trade Center bomb-builder came from and returned to Iraq in 1993, and Iraq was home to one, two, three, four terrorist organizations, and Saddam provided money to the families of terrorist bombers.

    Fiberals claim the right to say that we acted illegally and without United Nations support in our invasion of Iraq as the corrupt organization of despots quietly pocketed hundreds of millions from Saddam as he continued to murder, rape and kill thousands of his captive people each year.

    As Fiberals, they have the right to claim American soldiers are terrorists for killing men who purposefully shoot women and children and build bombs on holy ground, and question the moral fiber of those who fight against criminals who rape, behead, and torture in the name of a God Fiberals claim doesn't even exist.

    As Fiberals, they get to register Mary Poppins for crack cocaine and claim voter fraud when the terrorist-meeting war protestor they support is beaten by a dunce from Jesusland.

    As Fiberals, they get to believe our 51% of the country is so stupid that we cause mental disorders and flight to more tolerant climes.

    As Fiberals they get to be a lot of things...

    Just not in charge.

    Note: Don't like Fiberals, and want everyone to know it? Visit the Luck Fiberals Store and view "Luck Fiberals" t-shirts, stickers, mousepads, and more.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)

    December 16, 2004

    Courage and Heart

    Love is stronger than hate, freedom is stronger than tyranny.

    Read this, and try to convince me we're losing in Iraq.

    (Hat tip: LGF)

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)

    Coming Down on Pixelated Porn

    It looks like Illinois is going to be the first state to try to institute some sort of governmental control over the sale and distribution of violent or other adult-themed video games to minors.

    It's about time.

    I don't want to hear anyone who lives with their parents whining about "freedom of speech," either. Various levels of obscenity law have been upheld by courts for a very long time, and that is what these proposed laws are, and nothing less.

    Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) is promoting two bills to make selling or renting violent or sexually graphic materials to minors a crime, treating video games with the same kind of oversight governments have traditionally used to regulate cigarettes and alcohol distribution.

    The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) and Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) are both unhappy with these proposed laws, claming that they have their own ratings system, and feel they should be self-regulating.

    I'm sure Larry Flynt felt the same way about marketing and selling Hustler.

    But the fact of the matter is that the industries do not adequately self-regulate unless forced. I've never seen a store refuse to sell a violent videogame to a teenager, but these same kids know not even to try buying a copy of Penthouse or a six-pack of Coors.

    The fact of the matter is that the software gaming industry has been under-regulated from it's inception, and enforcing a state-mandated minimum level of morality at the cash register or at the rental counter is precisely the kind of involvement that I do feel is necessary by state governments.

    Whether the content is delivered via pixels or picas shouldn't matter.

    We don't let our kids buy "adult" products in other forms until they meet minimum level of maturity, and we should not allow video games to be excepted from those rules.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)

    December 15, 2004

    A Blue Christmas? Not Quite

    Seems like the liberal-run education system has failed us again.

    A new generation of oxygen-starved liberals have now decided to color Santa blue instead of red, proving their mothers (the ones who chose to carry them to term, that is) ingested far too much THC during their pregnancies.

    A group calling themselves "Buy Blue" has a web site up encouraging lefties to buy products from left-leaning businesses that directed the majority of their campaign contributions to Socialist Democratic candidates.

    An offshoot of this moonbattery is their Blue Christmas campaign, alluded to above.

    Yes, we're all shocked that a party allied with the Anti-Christian Liberties Union (PDF) would even mention the word "Christmas" without an overwhelming urge to sue themselves, but they obviously felt they corrupted the spirit of the season enough to suit their Godless existence.

    That said, a wonderful benefit of the Blue Christmas campaign is this page, which not only tells you which "blue" companies donated heavily against freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan, against the rights of children to be born, and against the very mention of the name of the man who's birth we are celebrating with this holiday, but also includes a list of "red" companies that still support the principles this country was founded upon.

    Please download the printer-friendly PDF version of their page (before they wise up and take it down), and be sure to send it to everyone you know, so that when they buy consumer goods, they are buying from the "red" companies that still support traditional American values.

    These liberals want to take Christ out of Christmas and make Santa blue.

    Thanks to your convenient list, liberals, I'll be confidently shopping "red" for 364 days, and I'll still be dreaming of a white Christmas.

    Update: I visited Little Green Footballs after I posted this thread and noticed that Charles found another group of Shop Blue morons. Check it out.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)

    December 13, 2004

    Kerik in 2008?

    According to the New York Daily News, former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik didn't step down from his nomination as Homeland Security Director because of "Nannygate" issues, but rather, because of a slew of other allegations, including:

    • two simultaneous extramarital affairs
    • involvement with mafia-run businesses
    • accepting expensive gifts without proper disclosure
    • discriminatory retaliation against the co-workers of one alleged mistress
    Because of the newness of these allegations, there is no word from Senator Clinton's office yet on whether she considers Kerik a threat for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)

    December 10, 2004

    Happy Armed Jews Week

    I hope everyone takes the time to celebrate Armed Jews Week. We're dead center in the middle of it, so read this fascinating piece over at PuppyBlender.com written by a moonlighting Dave Kopel, who knows a thing or two about the subject.

    Update: While you're celebrating, why not buy a Bren from the JPFO? Proceeds go to raise funds for the pro-gun documentary Innocents Betrayed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)

    December 09, 2004

    Spitzer Going for the Plantation Owner Vote?

    I know politics makes for strange bedfellows, but I don't know that this approach will work in New York.

    From Page Six of the NY Post:

    STAFFERS at the engineering firm owned by Bernard Spitzer - the father of state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer - are accused of driving the office's lesbian receptionist positively batty.

    Evelyn Quinones was fired from her job answering phones at Spitzer's Fifth Avenue firm last January. She has since filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that four female staffers at Spitzer Engineering harassed her so badly, she suffered panic attacks and had to check into a psychiatric ward.

    Now her girlfriend, legal aide Lisa Padilla, charges in a letter to PAGE SIX that Eliot Spitzer is unfit for office because his "campaigns and lifestyle have been financed by his father . . . Since the younger Mr. Spitzer is attempting to build support in the gay and lesbian community for his gubernatorial run, it is akin to an abolitonist[sic] running for office financed by slavers."

    That tactic (supporting slavery) is at least 140 years out of date, Elliot, but if you are going to hold one set of views privately and project another when it comes to minority relations, then at least you're in the right party.

    Of course this allegation against Spitzer's father has absolutely nothing to do with Spitzer himself, but it is amusing to watch the moonbats turn on each other.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)

    Time for an Impeachment

    Michelle Malkin is talking about a bureaucrat who is very likely to get people killed in this country due to his paper-pushing incompetence. (Hat tip: Powerline)

    Get the bumper sticker.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)

    December 07, 2004

    The NAACP's Slow Suicide

    Last Tuesday (11/30) I noted that as Kweisi Mfume was stepping down as president of the increasingly irrelevant NAACP, that Chairman Julian Bond needed to go next.

    At the time I wrote that, I said Mfume had to go "for allowing the organization's credibility to be damaged severely, to the point where many feel it is no longer a civil rights organization, but instead a mouthpiece of the Democratic Party."

    Well, it looks like I might owe Mr. Mfume an apology, based upon this article.

    It now seems that Mr. Mfume was trying to right a sinking ship, one that the rest of the crew of the U.S.S. NAACP apparently wants to scuttle.

    According to the Human Events Online story, Mr. Mfume had been reaching out across the aisle, trying to build a working relationship with Republicans. Mfume nominated Condoleezza Rice for an NAACP Image Award in 2003, and had realized that by voting lockstep Democrat in every election, black voters had given away their political bartering power.

    After the election last month Mfume sent a letter to President Bush mapping out ways they could work together to help the community, which was against the wishes of a rabid Julian Bond.

    Bond then had Mfume forced out, for this apparent sin of trying to bring political diversity to a once-meaningful civil rights organization.

    Thank you Mr. Mfume, for trying to reach out and make the NAACP relevant again.

    I'm sorry it didn't work out.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)

    December 03, 2004

    Religion of Peace says the word-of-the-day is "legs"

    ...And so they continue spreading the word.

    You've got to admire a religion like that. Yes, I'm being sarcastic, but it is the safest thing to be. You can't actually accuse Islam of being a bunch of mindless rutting pigs without respect for women. They don't respond well to criticism. Better to turn your head and be a good little dhimmi.

    You know. Like Europe.

    But guess what, kids: there's a nasty storm brewing of-dare I say it-biblical proportions.

    We are in a clash of civilizations that some very astute thinkers are already classifying as World War IV and yet most people don't even recognize what is going on around them.

    For the next few days, the mood here at Confederate Yankee is projected to be a little darker and more serious than the satirical charity work and reality show pilots of the past week, but I encourage you to stick around. Hopefully, I might say something profound.

    And doesn't everyone enjoy a good surprise?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)

    Blech

    Some things just shouldn't be.

    This is one of them.

    Remember kids:

    Love your grandmother, but don't loooove your grandmother.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:09 AM | Comments (0)

    December 01, 2004

    Batter Up

    Can you guess what's going to happen now, Brian?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)

    French Twist

    Let me see if I understand the game properly.

    If terrorists in an American prison have to listen to loud music, it is torture.

    If a terrorist is shot by American soldiers, it's a war crime repeated incessantly on the news.

    But when French helicopter gunships fire into a crowd of civilians without warning or provocation, it isn't newsworthy.

    Yeah, there's no such thing as media bias.

    Update 12/3: Cox and Forkum noticed what the Red Cross considers "torture" and respond accordingly.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)

    November 30, 2004

    Next Get Bond... Julian Bond

    The media at large and CBS News in particular took hard hits as a result of the last election cycle, and it appears they are not alone. In addition to propagandist Michael Moore being shelled as the least inspiring, least-intriguing celebrity in Hollywood, it now appears the axe is falling on at least one head at the incredibly ineffective NAACP, as President Kweisi Mfume plans to step down.

    Neither the NAACP nor Mfume would say why he was stepping down, but I'll go out on a limb and say he has to for allowing the organization's credibility to be damaged severely, to the point where many feel it is no longer a civil rights organization, but instead a mouthpiece of the Democratic Party.

    Mfume allowed NAACP Chairman Julian Bond to threaten the organization's tax-exempt status by making overtly partisan statements at the organization's annual Convention in July. Bond said:

    "They preach racial neutrality and practice racial division," Bond said Sunday night in the 95th annual convention's keynote address. "They've tried to patch the leaky economy and every other domestic problem with duct tape and plastic sheets. They write a new constitution of Iraq and they ignore the Constitution here at home."
    In light of these statements, and earlier comments where Bond compared Republicans to terrorists, it is clear (at least to me) that Mfume is not the only officer of the NAACP that should step down. Bond has destroyed any remaining shreds of credibility the organization has, and it would be a shame if the one-time powerful civil rights group should be forced to consider reorganizing as a 527 or other non-tax-exempt group thanks to their poor and partisan leadership.

    Julian Bond, is is time for you to go.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)

    November 29, 2004

    I Wish I'd Run So Far Away

    The Puppy Blender has a tittilating thread promoting "Hot French Chicks with Guns."

    Sucker that I am, I clicked on it...

    For my trouble, I got a fake Glock, a fake Beretta, what are probably not even real French people, and a "chick" (singular) looks like a long lost member of A Flock of Seagulls.

    No wonder Glen is credited with being the leader of the Axis of Naughty.

    If you want real hot foreign chicks with guns, you have to go here.

    Accept no substitutes.

    And be very polite.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)

    November 28, 2004

    Neither Muskets nor Ducks

    Like it or not, the assault weapons outlawed by the now-expired 1994 Crime Bill are precisely the kind of firearms that our Founding Fathers probably intended to protect.

    "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
    Earlier today I read the interpretations of a group of self-professed "experts" explaining how assault weapons were dangerous, obviously not protected by the Second Amendment, and in need of a permanent ban.

    They were following the collectivist, or "states rights" argument, that the Second Amendment of the Constitution was written to protect the States in their authority to maintain formal, organized militias. To their way of thinking, there is no individual right of gun ownership, and the government is permissive in the kind of sporting arms used in hunting or target shooting. According to their argument, assault weapons and several other categories of firearms should be banned outright.

    These people could not understand the Second Amendment any less.

    If any category of modern firearm is protected by the Constitution it is assault weapons, not hunting or target-specific arms. Does this seem like a strech to you?

    Read on.

    Many may scoff at the idea, but those who subscribe to the collectivist interpretation of this Amendment betray a misunderstanding of the historical context the Bill of Rights was written in, or they simply chose to ignore it in pursuing their political agenda.

    In the cultural context in which it was written, the Colonial Era "militia" referred to the armed citizenry as a whole, as opposed to the "organized militia" which was the government-controlled force we would now recognize as the Guard and Reserve components of our full-time armed forces.

    In this correct context, the Second Amendment simply justifies the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms, just as the Constitution was written to justify certain inalienable rights. We have a pre-existing natural right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and other reasons that is bolstered by the phrasing "the right of the people" in the First Amendment that is understood to apply to all the other Amendments to protect individual rights, not the authority of states. To say that the Second Amendment is the only amendment in the Bill of Rights that followed the collectivist model is disingenuous at best.

    The only Supreme Court case on the matter, United States v. Miller (1939), held that a shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches did not show a "reasonable relationship" to the kind of arm that might be expected to use in a well regulated militia, and that the sawed-of shotgun in the case was not the kind of ordinary military equipment that could be reasonably expected to be used in the common defense.

    In Miller, the Court specifically held that the militia was comprised of all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. This individual rights position was bolstered in 2001 where in United States v. Emerson, the Court held that the people have "rights" and "powers" but that the federal and state governments have only "powers" or "authority," holding that the "right" referred to in the Second Amendment was an individual right.

    In addition, a 2002 Justice Department brief states that the Second Amendment "broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms, subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse."

    In short, the modern Justice Department and apparently the Supreme Court uphold the individual right to own arms, but what kind of arms does that specifically apply to?

    Once again, this historical context of the Framer's time period is important to understand their intent.

    At the time the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1789, a substantial portion of the population lived in rural or semi-rural areas, where firearms played a vital role in the lives of the colonists being used primarily for hunting, self defense, and community defense.

    The typical military firearm of Revolutionary War was a musket, a smoothbore firearm typically loaded with "buck and ball," a single large round ball slightly smaller than the interior diameter of the barrel, and several smaller buckshot. This was an inaccurate firearm not capable of reliably hitting a single man-sized target outside of approximately 50-75 yards, however, it was easy to load and fire several projectiles per firing in a comparatively short amount of time, which was desirable in an age and style of warfare that utilized densely packed formations of men firing in close proximity to their enemy.

    The typical civilian firearm of the time period was the rifle, a firearm with spiraled grooves down the length of the barrel that imparted spin on a single projectile, making it much more stable in flight, and thus more accurate, much in the way a football thrown to impart spin is much more stable and accurate than one that is thrown so that it tumbles end over end.

    The rifle was a huge technological improvement over earlier firearms such as muskets and shotguns, extending the practical range from the approximate 50-75-yard range of muskets to 150-200 yards for rifles. The downside of a rifle in the military usage of the period was it's comparatively slow rate of fire and lack of a bayonet mount, both major problems in the style of combat prevalent in regular armies of the time period. That said, rifle-equipped units were the "special forces" units of their day, and excelled in unconventional combat.

    So... what does that have to do with assault weapons in modern America?

    Everything.

    The Second Amendment was written to make sure that the civilian population that makes up the general militia has arms suitable for the protection of the community at large, which at the time of the adoption of the Bill of Rights, consisted of the continued civilian ownership of muskets and of more technologically advanced civilian rifles.

    A logical person understands that for the civilian militia to be effective, they must have personal arms that can be militarily viable in the context of the potential conflicts of the day. This of course does not apply to crew-served weapons employed by professional militaries and their organized militia (Guard and Reserve) components, but just to small arms. Civilians have no rights to cannons, tanks, or nuclear weapons, just small arms.

    Considering the small arms technologies employed by conventional infantry units in 2004, civilian versions of military assault weapons are specifically the kind of small arms our Founding Father's intended us to have.

    Militaries today primarily use either NATO-specified 5.56mm and 7.62mm ammunition, or military calibers of the former Soviet Union (7.62x39mm, 7.62x54R). Therefore, firearms chambered to fire these calibers of ammunition are exactly the kind of firearms the Founders who have had in mind for the general militia that is the population at large.

    Further, the kinds of semi-automatic firearms erroneously called "assault weapons" that most closely mimic conventional military weapons, are precisely the kinds of civilian-owned firearms most protected by a correct contextual interpretation of the Second Amendment.

    The Second Amendment was never written to preserve our right to hunt ducks or squirrels, and it was certainly never intended to limit our choice of weapons to period muskets any more than the Freedom of Speech would be limited to those conversing in Colonial-era English.

    The Second Amendment was written to ensure that the individual American could ensure his access to military capable arms for the defense of his home and his community.

    Now, when can we get a militia-friendly, semi-automatic version of one of these?


    Update 11/30: This thread has been picked up by excellent gun blogger Jeff Soyer at Alphecca, and was "Today's must read" from SayUncle. Thanks, guys!

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)

    November 24, 2004

    The BBC Foulkes Up

    In an article titled "Housing Report slams US and Sudan," Imogen Foulkes of the BBC reports on the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) condemnation of the United States and several other nations because of high homelessness rates.

    As an American citizen I was extremely surprised by the news story, as when I think of world homelessness, I tend to think first of developing nations with high birth rates, not the world's sole remaining superpower. Upon further reading, in the second paragraph of the story, I happen to notice an unfamiliar term-"forced evictions." What, exactly, does that mean?

    You would be hard-pressed to find a direct answer from the BBC article, but it seems that the condition of "forced eviction homelessness" Foulkes highlighted is readily apparent on the COHRE site, and is defined as:

    the removal of people from their homes or lands against their will, directly or indirectly attributable to the State. It is a widespread practice affecting persons in developed and developing countries.

    Wow…where I live? I read more.

    There is invariably an element of "force" or coercion involved and the use of physical and psychological violence is also common. To implement a forced eviction, it is now common practice for governments to employ armed police officers, SWAT teams, criminal gangs or hired thugs and bulldozers to ensure a complete and successful eviction. COHRE receives regular reports of the use of severe violence during forced eviction including killings, beatings, rape and torture.

    Now, as a blogger, I just felt stupid. Completely incompotent.

    I've spent countless hours breathlessly searching the web for news of relevance to write about, to the point that sweat is dripping from my pajamas and pooling around my fuzzy bunny slippers, and I miss a case of this magnitude, virtually in my own back yard?

    I had yet to hear of cases where NYPD SWAT teams murdered and raped, or raped and then murdered, tenants that did not pony up their monthly rent.

    I knew obtaining rent-controlled apartments in Manhattan was very competitive, but I didn't think it had gone so far as to necessitate torture. I thought that was a right reserved for housing co-op boards.

    I fought down an urge to call Mayor Bloomberg's 311 line, and left the COHRE site to return to the BBC article, so that I could bring the full weight of evidence of this atrocity into the public eye.

    As I rejoined her BBC article, Foulkes went on to say that the US was cited for not only high levels of homelessness, but for criminalizing acts such as sleeping on a park bench. Oh, the horrors! But before I could renounce my citizenship and run for the Canadian border, I caught the next paragraph, where it stated the US:

    was also cited because of its activities outside US borders. The centre claims indiscriminate bombing in Iraq has destroyed thousands of homes.

    Wait just a minute...

    I put down my copy of The SAS Survival Handbook and sat staring at my computer monitor, stunned.

    The article nearly took me in, and instead of a true human rights report, I find a blatantly anti-American screed.

    Let me get this straight: this "journalist" and a bunch of Euro-dunces takes issue with the fact we are disenfranchising Islamofascists in Iraq from their rights to fortified positions?

    Something stinks in London, and it isn't the Thames.

    Not only does this "journalist" (and I use that term loosely) fault the United States for these so-called crimes, but she refuses to mention, in any way, that the terrorist forces in Iraq are commandeering these houses-often committing the very rapes, murders, and torture COHRE seems to want to credit to the U.S.-and thereby forcing coalition forces, in military terms, to "reduce" these structures to save the lives of peaceable Iraqis who are being terrorized, murdered and raped by terrorists who have taken over their own homes.

    Apparently Imogen Foulkes and COHRE doesn't care if the house is being lived in by the rightful owners or being used as a weapons cache, rape room, or torture center, as long as it is still erect and even so much as a terrorist can call it "home."

    No, Foulkes and the COHRE instead use this as an excuse to attack the United States on the most dubious of charges, while commending Sao Paulo, Brazil for their policies on treating the homeless. Unless Brazil has recently moved or there is another Sao Paulo, this is the same city where no less than another BBC article showed the police there have been accused of murdering the homeless in their sleep.

    Nice.

    Once upon a time I though that the BBC was a credible news organization. It is quite a shame to realize that they, too, are Rather biased.

    Update: Upon further reading, COHRE takes issue with the United States for confiscating the homes of drug dealers, and those homes used as drug dens, or what we tend to call "crack houses." I guess in their eyes, violating the law is not a crime.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)

    November 23, 2004

    Rather Biased Reporting: 1962-2004


    Dumfart tombstone

    Bye, Dan.

    Update: I think I may have been outdone. "Pajamahadeen" indeed.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:59 PM | Comments (0)

    November 22, 2004

    Where is Michael Moore's intellectual honesty?

    Michael Moore, the activist filmmaker that excoriated George Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11 for alleged ties to Saudi Arabia, is strangely silent on the news that these same Saudi interests, including the Saudi royal family and three Saudi businessmen, funneled millions of dollars into the Presidential library of one William Jefferson Clinton.

    The governments of Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar (state-owned apparatus of Arab news outlet Al Jazeera ) also each donated a million or more.

    Somehow, I don't see the hypocritical Moore making a video condemning Clinton, either Bill or Hillary. Moore is great at slickly-edited partisanship, but lousy at seeking or presenting any sort of true intellectual honesty.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)

    November 20, 2004

    The Arrogance of Amphibians

    In a visit to Britain Friday to try to improve relations between crumpet-eating mammals and spine-deprived amphibians, Jacques Chirac huffed:

    "It's not for any given country to consider that a situation is open to stepping in and interfering," he told a question-and-answer session with students at Oxford University, according to the UK's Press Association in a sentence that either Chirac or the British has trouble translating into coherent English.

    "It's up to the international community to do so and particularly the U.N., which alone has the authority to interfere," he said in remarks apparently aimed at the United States and its involvement in Iraq.

    He went on to hold forth about the importance of dialogue between Europe and "the world's major poles" -- China, India, Brazil, Russia and various trading blocs according to CNN.

    "For although our memory is sometimes short, the peoples submitted to the West's domination in the past have not forgotten and are quick to see a resurgence of imperialism and colonialism in our actions."

    This would be presumably the same world whose United Nation's had Security Council members Russia, China, and France accepting lucrative bribes in the ongoing Oil-For-Food scandal with Saddam Hussein's Baathist Iraq. These five same Security Council members were understandably against any action against their revenue stream Iraq, and would have vetoed any military action by the United States against Saddam's regime.

    So, Jacques Chirac, the President of France, is against the use of unilateral military force by Western powers, and thinks we should guard against actions that might be taken as resurgent colonialism?

    I'm sure Ivory Coast appreciates that sentiment.

    For those of you who can't keep up with African maps that change with more frequency than the bug splatter patterns on a NASCAR windscreen, Ivory Coast is a former French colony in the middle of a civil war that pits the dictatorial Laurent Gbagbo government against northern rebel forces.

    On November 6 Gbagbo's forces launched an air strike against rebel positions, and nine French soldiers were killed in the attack, presumably while trying to surrender.

    So France of course followed their own recommendations to the Americans, right?

    They of course called an emergency session of the United Nations, where a timetable was arranged to start strategically applying increasingly stronger-worded resolutions over a multi-decade time period until Gbagbo died of boredom, or old age. That is what they have been telling us to do with Iraq for several years, so obviously that would the correct course of action in these kinds of circumstances, oui?

    Well, someone apparently forgot to pass along the "timetable for peace" to the French military, as their response to the killing of their handful of peacekeepers was to wipe out the Ivory Coast Air Force.

    This overkill response led to outrage among Gbagbo's government loyalists, and the French have now found themselves in a situation where they are being blamed for shooting into a crowd of anti-French demonstrators, killing over 60. As tensions escalate in an impending showdown in Africa, one can only assume that Jacques Chirac was either a complete fraud in his call for sanctions in Iraq, or he was simply too arrogant to think that his advocacy of a world authority would actually apply to him.

    Update: According to feeds compiled by Instapundit, French soldiers were caught on video indiscriminately firing up African civilians (additional updates available here), though exact details and context seem to be lacking.

    Unlike the video of the American Marine shooting a terrorist in Fallujah, this story is getting swept under the rug by the international media. The AP, Reuters, and other news agencies seem to be ignoring the story entirely, and the BBC makes no mention of the video and focuses more on the French denial of beheading victims.

    The international apathy to French attrocities is appalling. Of course, we've seen French "diplomacy" in action before.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:37 AM | Comments (0)

    November 19, 2004

    Calling Kerry's Libel Bluff

    According to the gossip-laden Page Six of the New York Post, Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry is considering filing a libel lawsuit against the leader of the Swift Boat Veteran's for Truth, John O'Neill. 800,00 copies of O'Neill's book Unfit For Command and a series of television commercials produced by the Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth attacked Kerry's war record and branded him a traitor.

    The Post added:

    Now, "the Kerry camp is thinking about filing a libel lawsuit against Regnery and O'Neill," a source close to the candidate's inner circle tells PAGE SIX. "I don't know if they will actually go forward, but consideration is serious. If Kerry plans on running again in 2008 - and I'm hearing he will - it would make sense that he'd file the suit."

    I'll go ahead and promise Mr. O'Neill he won't have to loose one night's sleep over this empty threat for a very simple reason: Kerry's bluffing, and not bluffing very well at that.

    If Kerry files suit against O'Neill, Regnery Publishing or Unfit's co-author Jerome Corsi, John Kerry's service records, so long and successfully hidden from public view, will become key pieces of evidence for the defense, and therefore, public knowledge.

    While the liberal mainstream media has been almost as careful about avoiding Kerry's record as it has recklessly and occasionally fraudulently challenged Bush's, they know that Kerry has failed to file a release of his service record, and that as many as 94 pages are hidden. Why?

    Good question.

    We do know that any libel lawsuit by the Kerry campaign against Mr. O'Neill will bring the uncomfortable glare of the media spotlight on a man who has so far managed to avoid answering questions about his unusual discharge circumstances, his own repeated lies about the "Christmas in Cambodia" myth he created, his fraternization with an enemy he himself categorized as "terrorists" in Paris, and other mysteries that happened between his enlistment and eventual discharge.

    In poker terms, John Kerry is "drawing dead."

    It's time we called his bluff.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:07 AM | Comments (0)

    November 18, 2004

    I can't wait for that free national heathcare...

    I wonder if this is what Hillary had in mind.

    Link "borrowed" from one of those nice red-state dog lovers.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

    Ronstadt speaks out

    According to WorldNetDaily, has-been singer Linda Ronstadt has gone on the rant against those of us from the more enlightened regions of the country, declaring that "People don't realize that by voting Republican, they voted against themselves," and that we're dealing with a "a new bunch of Hitlers."

    Don't beat her up too bad, though.


    She seems to be gravely ill.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)

    November 17, 2004

    Mr. Consistency...

    In his first interview since his November 2 loss, Kerry was asked by the Fox News in Boston about running again in 2008.

    He replied, "It is so premature to be thinking about something that far down the road. What I've said is I'm not opening any doors, I'm not shutting any doors."

    Those flip-flops must be really comfortable.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)

    A touch of Grey in Fallujah

    Remember a movie called Red Dawn?

    In that movie, a wounded insurgent, played by a young Jennifer Grey, hides a grenade under her bullet-ridden body as she lay dying, so that when the enemy soldier comes to check on her, he gets blown up.

    This seems eerily similar to the situation the young Marine faced in that Fallujah mosque, and from the perspective of the movie, I can't disagree with his decision.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:16 AM | Comments (0)

    November 16, 2004

    "It's all political"

    I said earlier that I don't know enough to judge the situation regarding the Marine that killed a wounded terrorist in Fallujah, but according to an al Rueters story, his fellow Marines are rallying around him, even as they support an investigation of the incident. To me, that means they feel that there is nothing to hide.

    Charles wonders about the motivations of the NBC reporter who broke the story. I'm not so sure.

    Kevin Sites doesn't seem like someone with an anti-military grudge, at least not by what I've see on his web site. While I've never been in combat, I think it would be mighty difficult to be prejudiced against the men you're embedded with, and I can't find any overt anti-Marine bias in what I've seen of his reporting.

    Time will tell.

    Interestingly enough, some of the MSM seem to be playing this one close to the vest. Maybe the incident will be treated in context after all.

    Update: Maybe the Marine shooter should get a Silver Star?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)

    November 15, 2004

    Speechless

    I see the next crop is coming along nicely.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 03:59 PM | Comments (0)

    An Avenging Angel at the CIA

    While it is far too early to intelligently speculate about the new team Bush will try to assemble for his second term as President, indications from a recent appointee seem to indicate Bush's version of Team America will not accept dissention within the ranks.

    Porter Goss, the former spymaster now heading the CIA, is clearing out the deadwood in management. Two more officials "resigned" today from the CIA, and according to a Washington Post article:

    Both men are highly regarded by their clandestine service colleagues, said 10 former CIA officials who have worked with them.

    Of course, commentary from the CIA to the news just like this is exactly why these men needed to be "resigned."


    The CIA is supposed to be a spy agency, which it clearly has not been for the last decade in any effective way. With John McCain calling the CIA a "rouge" agency with a political agenda instead of an intelligence service, Goss is right in telling these paper-pushers to ship out.

    The job of the CIA is to provide intelligence, not attempt to sway public opinion.

    I'm glad that someone in Washington finally realized that. It's amazing that this was even an issue after the multiple and broad CIA failures noted in the 9/11 Commission Report and other critical reports and books.

    Goss, thankfully, understood the importance of having an intelligence service that works for the administration and the country instead of against it. His "can do" attitude is certain to strike fear into career CIA bureaucrats the way another famous Porter did when he took care of business in his own environment 150 years ago. If Goss is any indication of the character of men and women Bush will appoint, Bush's second term is going to be fun to watch and blog.

    Update: wretchard of Belmont Club provides an excellent analysis of the CIA culture Goss is trying to reform.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:58 PM | Comments (0)

    Watch where you spend it, Mr. President

    It has been almost two weeks since 51% of American voters decided to give George Bush a second term as President of the United States. Bush not only won the election with a majority; he picked up support across a wide range of demographics when compared against the 2000 election. In addition, the Republicans not only won the White House, they picked up four seats each in the House and Senate, while deposing Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Liberalism may not be dead, but the public issued a strong admonition against it.

    In this charged political atmosphere President Bush and the Republicans feel they have earned some political capital, and they say that they intend to spend it. Let's just hope they decide to spend it on the right things. From what I've seen so far, President Bush has good ideas that his capital is worth investing in, if it doesn't get wasted upon issues with the potential to be costly mistakes.

    Gay Marriage Amendment
    Quite frankly, this stands to be a Pyrrhic victory, at the very best, and could cost President Bush dearly while stoking the fires of his liberal obstructionist opponents. Most Americans don't feel comfortable with the proposition of a Constitutional amendment that seems to have the sole purpose of limiting the rights of a group of American citizens.

    The Republicans need to remember that they did not win the election because of the Religious Right. No, the Republicans won because of moderate voters, Democrat, Republican and Independent, that thought the more conservative values of the traditional Republican party trumped the liberal extremism being displayed by Democrats. If the GOP lets the extremists of the far right drive this amendment, they can expect to lose the popular support that have steadily been gaining over the past few elections. This should be a state's rights issue, and the GOP would be wise to step away from this on the federal level if they hope to pick up more seats in the 2006 elections.

    Border Security/Illegal Immigration
    The elephant in the room that neither side wanted to discuss during the campaign. The popular excuse has always been that the Republicans don't want to take away cheap labor from Big Business, and Democrats were silent because they tend to consider new immigrants (legal or otherwise) "money in the bank" for a variety of reasons on Election Day. That mindset should have changed in the wake of September 11, 2001.

    The 9/11 Commission Report and ongoing intelligence operations show that our borders are exceedingly porous, an unforgivable sin considering what we know and what we suspect may be coming into the country. Bush's response so far has been anemic at best, and embarrassing at worst. We need stronger border security, not amnesty for lawbreakers. Bush's current lackadaisical attitude on the subject may have fatal consequences that could not only cripple his second term, but replicate or exceed the human tragedy of that day in September three years ago.

    These are two issues where many of us voted for you despite your position, Mr. President. Don't make us wonder if we wasted our capital on November 2.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 04:04 AM | Comments (0)

    November 12, 2004

    Dear Mr. "Swift"

    I read with some amusement the almost coherent babble on your new web site. I find it quite interesting that you blame "the South" for a Bush re-election, when in fact, the "reddest" counties were in the Midwest and West, including every county bordering your home base of Madison, WI as well. I'm sorry that we can't all be as urbane and enlightened and indeed, mature as you are, but let's try to face some factual problems with your little hatefest, shall we?

    The Second Amendment, sir, is about making sure Americans have sufficient arms to prevent tyranny, sir, which would by definition included military-capable arms of the day, including what you erroneously call "assault weapons" in your ignorance of the mechanics of the law and of firearms design.

    In addition, you didn't kill half a million people in the Civil War. Of the 618,222 men who died in the Civil War, 414,152 died from disease, not combat. When it comes to combat losses, the South lost 94,000 and the Union lost 110,070. Also, the war was fought primarily about states rights, not slavery. Do get you facts, correct, sir. They seem to be in short supply in your region, or at least, in your house.

    "We" founded this country? "We" did not include Wisconsin, sir, as one of the 13 colonies. You may also want to reconsider you conscending, arrogant "we started this country" diatribe, as you, in fact, did not.

    Both the Mecklenburg Resolves (May 31, 1775) and the Halifax Resolves (April 12, 1776) preceeded the Declaration of Independence, and The Halifax Resolves were the first formal call for American sovereignty. The first American military victory was also in North Carolina, at a place called Moore's Creek where on February 27, 1776 a thousand North Carolina patriots routed Scottish Highlanders for the first patriot victory of the Revolutionary War, months before the official Declaration of Independence was was signed on July 4th. Southerners also fought and won the turning point battle of the Revolutionary War at Kings Mountain, wiping out Ferguson's forces, killing or capturing every man. The Battle of Cowpens, made famous by Mel Gibson in The Patriot was also a major victory in the Carolinas in 1781, which led to the eventual defeat of British Forces in Yorktown, Virginia, which the last I checked, was part of the South, under the command of General George Washington, who was also a Southerner from Virginia. The Revolutionary War was decided in the South,sir, by the South, sir. Perhaps you should review your history.

    You would like to whine about taxes and self-sufficiency, sir? We can play that game as well. It is hearby decreed that every county in the U.S. that voted "Blue" should be entitled to keep every single dime it produces in tax revenue. Will that make you happy, sir?

    In exchange, the "Red" counties will not longer be required to provide these predominantly urban "Blue" areas with "Red" food and water. You'll have your tax money, but you'll be dead in a month from starvation and disease, sir. I guess we simple Southerners will share that orange juice amongst ourselves, won't we?


    One last comment: regardless of party, a Southerner has been in the White House for five of the last six Presidencies, and that trend shows no signs of stopping, sir.

    So enjoy your cheese, sir, and feel free to enjoy your whine as well, while we Southerners run the country for another four years.

    Good Day, sir.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 01:45 PM

    November 11, 2004

    Remembering

    Today is Veteran's Day, the day we remember those who have fought and those who have fallen for our freedom, and the freedom of others. I thought I would share an appropriate passage from a story I wrote many, many years ago.

    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 fous 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 your sir?" The old man shook his head and replied, "Not just one of them. All of them."

    God bless those who serve.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:07 AM | Comments (0)

    November 09, 2004

    Bab-ble

    Babs is on the rant again. In her post-election missive, she tries to offer hope for the 48% of the country that backed a losing Kerry Edwards ticket by quoting from Thomas Jefferson:

    "A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."
    Perhaps Mrs. Streisand should read the entire document. For if she had read the entire letter to John Taylor from Jefferson in 1798, she might have realized that he was in fact referring to a time in our history where Jefferson's Virginia and my own native North Carolina were:


    "...compleatly under the saddle of Massachusets & Connecticut, and that they ride us very hard, cruelly insulting our feelings as well as exhausting our strength and substance."
    Jefferson was lamenting the undue influence of the anti-Republican northern states of his day that used the economic forces of the Northeast to tried to run roughshod over southern states of the Republic, states that today would be recognized as the rural "Red States" that coastal liberals are reacting against with such venom today.

    Babs, do you get your information from Jane Smiley by any chance?

    Note: This thread was picked up by The New Editor. Thanks, Tom.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)

    November 08, 2004

    As we suspected...

    According to NewsMax (which is about as balanced towards Kerry as the New York Times is towards Bush) Kerry describes in his diary his "meeting with some North Vietnamese terrorists in Paris" in 1970. Of course, I always take anything Newsmax says with a grain of salt.

    However, when the article cited by NewsMax in Newsweek supports the exact same story, I start to think that there might be something to this. The last paragraph on the first page of the Newsweek article reads:

    [Senator] Edwards played along, but his aides were indignant.
    They warned the veep candidate that the story was already out of control and about to get worse. Historian Douglas Brinkley, author of a wartime biography of Kerry, cautioned that Kerry's diary included mention of a meeting with some North Vietnamese terrorists in Paris. Edwards was flabbergasted. "Let me get this straight," the senator said. "He met with terrorists? Oh, that's good."
    No wonder Osama wanted Bush out of the White House. In Kerry, he might have found exactly what he was looking for in a presidential candidate.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)

    More from SeeBS

    It looks like another retiree from the Tiffany Network is soiling his Depends over how some blogs were leaking exit poll data from last Tuesday's election.

    Maybe he should try to remember which network tried to determine the course of an election with fake documents and biased bomb stories before he starting preaching in front of his glass house, eh?

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)

    November 07, 2004

    Don't blame Gavin

    It seems that San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsome is being offered as the sacrificial offering to the Democrat masses for the failure of the Kerry/Edwards ticket to capture the White House. According to the points-of-view I've seen offered up for the past few days, the near mythic power of the Evangelical was a dormant beast until Newsome decided to allow a few gay marriages.

    As this theory apparently runs, the Evangelicals (which makes up about 59 million American voters if you listen to the way the mainstream media spin) felt that the Decline And Fall Of Civilization As We Know It would occur if Bruce and Steve were allowed to place rings on each other's fingers and say "I do."

    To hear the media spin it, this barbaric act of exchanging rings was so outrageous that the so-called "morals voters" turned out in droves to reject this travesty of God's Law, and thus projected George W.Bush to the White House based upon their own bigotry and hatred of gays.

    Maybe I'm not the typicalBushvoter, but that isn't what I was feeling on the way to the polls Tuesday morning.

    Along with about 60% of America, I'm fine with Bruce and Steve having some form of legal and moral contract dedicating their lives to each other. My moral issues went a bit deeper than whether or not each household was composed of an equal number of adults preferring the toilet seat up or down.

    My moral issues began with courage, conviction, integrity, and resolve, not gay marriage, or whether or not you beleive in God the same way that I do, or even if you believe in God at all. I found that for me, George W. Bush better exhibited these qualities of leadership better than John Kerry did, almost across the board.

    Why?

    We've had almost four years to judge George W. Bush in what fate shaped into a remarkable presidential term. To find a true position of leadership in John Kerry's life we have to go back over 30 years to four months in Vietnam, where his superiors and peers gave him less than stellar marks for his performance. These were the moral issues that troubled me, and the majority of American voters.

    You see, we aren't just a bunch of bible-thumping rednecks. We have much more depth than the ineffectual intellectuals in the media would like you to believe. Gavin Newsome is just a whipping boy, an excuse. His opinion didn't affect the election in any appreciable way, despite what the media would have you beleive.

    Call me crazy, but if you really want to find someone to blame for John Kerry's defeat, I think you might want to start with John Kerry.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)

    November 06, 2004

    Razing Arizona

    On my drive to work Friday morning I listened to Paul Harvey, who mentioned that according to the 9/11 Commission Report, there were 59 references to al Qaeda activity in this border state. According to Arizona Monthly's feature article this month Al Qaeda Among Us (free registration required),

    "...the most important nexus for international jihad outside of Pakistan and the Middle East has been Arizona."
    Isn't that just peachy?

    Specific attention is focused on the Islamic Center of Tucson (ITC) which according to the article, seems to little more than an al Qaeda base operating in the continental United States.

    When you combine the Arizona Monthly article, to the chilling news that this past July, 25 Chechen terrorists slipped across the border from Mexico into the mountainous regions of Arizona before disappearing, then you have to wonder just how good our security is along our southern borders.

    I think the goverment is correct in taking the fight to terrorists where they live and breed overseas, but when you let them in though the back door you open yourself up to dangerous and possibly catastrophic possibilities.

    Let's get with the program, Washington.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)

    November 05, 2004

    Anatomy of an Idiot

    I noticed with considerable amusement yesterday that according to Jane Smiley, 58 million American voters are complete idiots. Though apparently the victim of social promotion's influence on math skills, she is, of course, referring to the 59,459,765 Americans who chose to re-elect George W. Bush by a comfortable margin and a statistical majority over John Kerry.

    In her vile, headlong rush to condemn the majority of American voters who voted red instead of blue, she seems to get her facts just a bit backward.

    According to Smiley:

    The worst civilian massacre in American history took place in Lawrence, Kan., in 1862-Quantrill's raid. The red forces, known then as the slave-power, pulled 265 unarmed men from their beds on a Sunday morning and slaughtered them in front of their wives and children.

    Now, if history hasn't completely reversed itself recently, wasn't William Clarke Quantrill a Confederate raider?

    According to PBS, the strongly pro-Union stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas, had 183 (again, social promotion does not help math skills) of their predominately Republican citizenry slaughtered by pro-slavery Democrats. These same Democrats, of course, went on to found the original Ku Klux Klan.

    Of course, we are the party revelling in the "ignorance in America" so I guess she didn't think we'd notice her attempts to play fast and loose with the facts...

    Us being idiots and all.


    Note: This post got a mention by Glen Reynolds in an update of the Jane Smiley backlash over at Instapundit.com. Thanks Glen! Frank J. at IMAO picked it up as well. Thanks, guys.

    Posted by Confederate Yankee at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)