Confederate Yankee

September 26, 2008

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?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:38 PM | Comments (47) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (33) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (107) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (44) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (64) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Obama to Replace Biden

Obama/Sulzberger '08:


Though these facts are a matter of public record, the New York Times, in what can only be explained as a willful disregard of the truth, failed to research this story or present any semblance of a fairminded treatment of the facts closely at hand. The paper did manage to report one interesting but irrelevant fact: Mr. Davis did participate in a roundtable discussion on the political scene with...Paul Begala.

Again, let us be clear: The New York Times -- in the absence of any supporting evidence -- has insinuated some kind of impropriety on the part of Senator McCain and Rick Davis. But entirely missing from the story is any significant mention of Senator McCain's long advocacy for, and co-sponsorship of legislation to enact, stricter oversight and regulation of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- dating back to 2006. Please see the attached floor statement on this issue by Senator McCain from 2006.

To the central point our campaign has made in the last 48 hours: The New York Times has never published a single investigative piece, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, his consulting and lobbying clients, and Senator Obama. Likewise, the New York Times never published an investigative report, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson and Senator Obama, who appointed Johnson head of his VP search committee, until the writing was on the wall and Johnson was under fire following reports from actual news organizations that he had received preferential loans from predatory mortgage lender Countrywide.

Therefore this "report" from the New York Times must be evaluated in the context of its intent and purpose. It is a partisan attack falsely labeled as objective news. And its most serious allegations are based entirely on the claims of anonymous sources, a familiar yet regretful tactic for the paper.

We all understand that partisan attacks are part of the political process in this country. The debate that stems from these grand and sometimes unruly conversations is what makes this country so exceptional. Indeed, our nation has a long and proud tradition of news organizations that are ideological and partisan in nature, the Huffington Post and the New York Times being two such publications. We celebrate their contribution to the political fabric of America. But while the Huffington Post is utterly transparent, the New York Times obscures its true intentions -- to undermine the candidacy of John McCain and boost the candidacy of Barack Obama -- under the cloak of objective journalism.

I'm not sure of Goldfarb's last claim. When was the last time anyone thought the Times practiced objective journalism?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:36 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Why We're Having an Economic Meltdown

Because Americans will piss away their money on anything, as long as they find it amusing.



Keep on bidding, folks. Can't we enthusiastically get behind this this empty, useless trash, and push it far higher than it deserves to be based on merit, for no reason at all?

Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

Oh, wait a minute...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:37 AM | Comments (28) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (44) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

What's in a Terrorist's Name?

Should we take Marc Ambinder's critique of the Barack Obama/William Ayers story seriously, when he knows so little about it that he can't even spell the terrorist's name properly?



Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:45 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (34) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (81) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (53) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (26) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (232) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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