Confederate Yankee

July 02, 2008

Liberal Blogger Shot During Mugging In D.C.

Liberal blogger Brian Beutler was shot three times during a mugging last night in Washington, D.C., apparently over a cell phone.

Let's hope that he has a full and speedy recovery.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:03 PM | Comments (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

"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 (22) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

July 01, 2008

Reporting What They Want You to Hear

I've criticized ABC News on numerous occasions for their coverage of gun-related stories, but their coverage of the Joe Horn shooting incident in Pasadena, Texas is one of the more irresponsible stories they've posted since ... well, since the last one I saw in late April.

Perhaps equally unsurprising is that the Associated Press made the same crucial omission in a story that has gained national attention.

Joe Horn faced the possibility of being charged by a Texas grand jury after he shot and killed two men who had broken into the home next door. Horn had called 911, told the dispatcher he though they were going to get away, and despite repeated pleas by the dispatcher to stay inside his own home, decided to step outside with a shotgun after declaring his intention to kill them.

He did.

The shhoting seven months ago has inflamed ethnic tensions in the area, and raised questions regarding the ethical use of deadly force to defend property. There are all sorts of opinions on the story, but a key detail that may have significantly influenced the grand jury's decision not to press charges was completely ignored by ABC News and the Associated Press.

As noted in passing by some news outlets including the L.A. Times, plainclothes police officer responding to Horn's 911 call witnessed the shooting:


Ballistics tests suggested that at least one of the men had been shot in the back, raising questions about Horn's story.

But a plainclothes detective who witnessed some of what took place later told investigators that the men did not stop when a visibly nervous Horn pointed a shotgun in their direction, and that at least one man appeared to be moving toward Horn when Horn fired.

The Houston Chronicle likewise noted the presence of the detective:


Pasadena police have said a detective in plainclothes had parked in front of Horn's house in response to the 911 call, and saw the two men before they crossed into Horn's front yard.

Police believe that neither Horn nor the burglars knew an officer was present.

When Horn confronted the men in his yard, he raised his shotgun to his shoulder, police have said. However, the men ignored his order to freeze.

Authorities have said one man ran toward Horn but had angled away toward the street when he was shot in the back just before reaching the curb.

The tape of Horn's 911 call, testimony from Horn, and forensics were no doubt key pieces of evidence weighed by the grand jury, but it is reasonable to suspect that the testimony of the detective that witnessed the shooting—a very rare occurrence in cases involving the use of deadly force—was among the most influential evidence heard by the grand jury.

Why, then, was the mention of the detective's eye-witnessing these events and no doubt providing key testimony that influenced the grand jury's decision not to bring charges whitewashed by the these news organizations?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:06 PM | Comments (32) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Where Do We Go From Heller

By a disturbingly narrow 5-4 decision, the learned minds on the Supreme Court determined last week that the Second Amendment means what it says:

"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 Founders were quite clear on what this Amendment meant, with Thomas Jefferson unequivocally stating, "No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." James Madison stated likewise:


"The right of the people to keep and bear...arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..."

The Founders were clear: the body of the citizenry—even those not formally enrolled—helps comprise the militia, and so it is codified into federal law.

As the citizenry is the militia, and in light of the Heller decision, two details of existing U.S. federal gun laws should be re-examined.

The Hughes Amendment

The Hughes Amendment was interjected into the Firearm Owners Protection Act (FOPA) of 1986 by Rep. William J. Hughes (D-N.J.), late in the debate and literally in the dead of night. The provision banned the civilian ownership or transfer of any fully-automatic weapon which was not manufactured before May 19, 1986. Though witnesses claim the amendment failed in a voice vote (even though many opponents were absent an empty House), gun control proponent Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) was presiding over the House at the time, and declared the amendment approved. FOPA as a whole subsequently passed House and Senate votes and was signed into law.

Though it will come as a surprise to some, fully-automatic weapons are not illegal for U.S. citizens to own, be they submachine guns, selective-fire assault rifles, or crew-served, belt-fed machine guns. According to the BATF, there are at least 240,000 machine guns in civilian hands (PDF) in the United States as of 1995, with roughly half of those belonging to government agencies, and the other half belonging to individuals.

The Hughes Amendment cannot claim to have had any impact on gun deaths; there have been only two known deaths attributed to legally-owned machine guns singe 1934. One of those was at the hands of Dayton, OH Police Officer Roger Waller, who used a department-issue MAC-11 submachine gun to murder a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman in 1988. FOPA, by the way, does not apply to police agencies, meaning it was utterly irrelevant in this case.

A second MAC-11 was used (PDF) by Dr. Shou Chao Ho in the murder of Dr. Carmelito Olaes in 1992 may be the only murder committed with a legally-owned, BATF-registered machine gun since the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 began requiring registration 74 years ago.

So if it hasn't hand any impact on saving lives, what has the Hughes Amendment accomplished?

It has raised the price of those firearms among the most suitable for militia use in these modern times to exorbitant levels. A basic, no-frills M-16A2 selective fire as issued to all U.S. military forces (and therefore, perhaps the most directly applicable firearm for militia use) has a replacement cost for the military of just $586. Factor in the $200 NFA transfer tax and a gun dealer's profit, and such weapon should still cost an American citizen who has passed the requisite (and extensive) background checks no more than $1500-$2000.

Because of the middle-of-the-night Hughes Amendment banning individual civilian ownership fully automatic weapons manufactured after May 19, 1986, prices for existing machine guns are exceedingly expensive, as transferable machine guns have become collectors items. The greatest impact of the Hughes Amendment is to make gun collectors, speculators and certain dealers wealthy, at the expense of the intent of this nation's Founders when they imagined the purpose of the militia.

Overturning the Hughes Amendment need not be any more telegraphed nor debated than the original Amendment itself. Simply amending language to overturn the constitutionally-dubious ban to an appropriate bill before the House should return use to a more appropriate NFA-ruled state of affairs that has served this country so well these many years, though that federal law as well could use some updating as well.

Updating the National Firearms Act of 1934

Without question, the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 is what most Americans would consider "reasonable" gun control.

It was passed at a time in American history when criminals engaged in high-profile shootouts with the police during the "Public Enemy"" era of 1931-35, and in the year where Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, and John Dillinger were all killed in shootouts with authorities.

The NFA was a $200 dollar transfer tax on automatic weapons, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, silencers, "destructive devices" in two categories, and "any other weapon," a category to regulate other weapons not necessarily covered in other classifications, but deemed worthy of taxation and regulation. It was designed to be used a another law enforcement tool against criminals unlikely to pay a transfer tax the equivalent of roughly five months salary at the time.

As a law enforcement tool NFA has been and continued to be an effective tool but is perhaps unduly cumbersome for those civilians who desire to own firearms or firearm components regulated by the law.

As noted in Wikipedia:


Individual owners do not need any license under the NFA to buy Title II weapons. However, the purchase and sale of NFA weapons is heavily taxed and regulated, as follows.

All NFA items must be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Private owners wishing to purchase an NFA item must obtain permission from the ATF, obtain a signature from the county sheriff or city or town chief of police (not necessarily permission), pass an extensive background check to include submitting a photograph and finger prints, fully register the firearm, receive ATF written permission before moving the firearm across state lines, and pay a tax. The request to transfer ownership of an NFA item is made on an ATF Form 4.

Most Americans have little problem with such restrictions being placed upon NFA-defined "destructive devices" that includes explosives, non-blackpowder rifles greater than .50-caliber, or machine guns, but it is perhaps time to reconsider whether or not the short barrel rifle and silencer provisions of NFA are due to be removed.

Short-Barreled rifles (SBRs)
Short-Barreled Rifles (SBRs) are those firearms with a stock that have either a barrel of less than 16-inches, or a total length of less than 26 inches. For firearms with folding or detachable stocks, measurements are taken with the stock fully extended.

SBRs are imminently practical firearms. Most (not all) SBRs currently in production are short-barreled versions of common assault rifles, and are chambered for either intermediate-power assault weapons, or comparatively low-powered pistol cartridges.

A specific subclass of SBRs, called PDWs (personal defense weapons) has emerged in recent years, designed to bridge the gap between full-size rifles and handguns for military personnel who do not carry a weapon as their primary job function, but who may still be called upon to defend themselves. Different from previous carbines or long-barreled pistols pressed into the role, PDWs are typically chambered with special ammunition that give them greater range and accuracy than pistol caliber bullets common to submachine guns and many carbines, and in military and police guises, often use armor piercing ammunition and are selective-fire.

SBRs are popular among military units and police units because they provide rifle-grade accuracy in a stocked firearm nimble enough for close-quarters use inside buildings. SBR's chambered in .223 Remington/5.56 NATO are particularly useful and safer alternatives to shotguns, pistols, and larger caliber rifles because the .5.56 bullet, having much less mass than even the lightest typical centerfire pistol bullets, provides adequate stopping power, enhanced accuracy, and far less risk of over-penetration compared to other weapons.

As a public health issue, it would be worthwhile for Congress to weigh the pros and cons of amending the NFA to make at least some SBRs more accessible to the general public.

Doing so may:

  • reduce the need to discharge a weapon at all in legally-justified defensive shooting situations, due to a significant intimidation factor/deterrent effect;
  • reduce the number of shots fired, as SBRs have more practical accuracy than pistols
  • specifically in the case of the 5.56-chambered SBRs, reduce the risk of collateral damage due to over-penetration;
  • be a more palatable option for communities that still desire to minimize the number of handguns available to the criminal population, while still providing law-abiding citizens an extremely effective home defense tool.

It is also worth noting that the existing SBR provisions of the 1934-passed NFA have largely been antiquated by technology, with legal pistol variants of both AK-47 and AR-patterned rifles available for sale with only the restrictions placed upon normal handgun sales.

It would make sense to provide the public with this viable alternative firearm for all the reasons noted above, plus the obvious applicability for SBRs as a firearm well-suited for militia use.

The Heller decisions, including both the majority and minority opinions, has opened a conversation on the role of firearms in American law and society. The usefulness of the Hughes Amendment and the updating of the National Firearms Act are but two small steps we should take to help create and maintain the kind of free society that Jefferson, Madison, and the other Founders intended.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:20 PM | Comments (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Obama's Bus List. Now With More Carnage!

Updated with suggestions from the previous post and recent events.

Under the BusClinging to the Bumper

  • NEW! the "fist bump"
  • NEW! Move-On.org
  • NEW! Wesley Clark (sorta)
  • Grandma Dunham
  • Rev. Jeremiah Wright
  • Fr. Michael Pleger
  • Jim Johnson - Countrywide
  • Michael Klonsky
  • Muslim supporters
  • babies that survive abortion attempts
  • 8,000 Members of Trinity Church of Christ
  • Samatha Power
  • Obama advisor/Hamas friend Rob Malley
  • Austin Goolsbee
  • Tony Rezko
  • a less than week-old pseudo-presidential seal
  • bitter, gun toting, religious white people of rural Pennsylvania
  • Scarlet Johansson
  • Marilyn Katz (former SDS radical, Obama campaign PR professional)

  • Carl Davidson (former SDS radical, Fidel Castro Fan, webmaster of Progressives for Obama)
  • Michelle Obama
  • half-brother Abongo Obama, a militant Muslim
  • "Uncle Frank" Frank Marshall Davis, role model/mentor and member of the Communist Party USA, poet who authored "Smash-on, victory-eating Red Army"
  • Bill Ayers, domestic terrorist and long-time friend
  • Bernadine Dorhn, Ayer's wife, fellow domestic terrorist, and Manson Family admirer.

It's a good thing the Freshman Senator has a new ride.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:00 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

At PJM: "Performance-Based" Gun Regulation

Should brewers be responsible for lowering the number of drunk driving fatalities? Should pharmaceutical companies be held responsible for reducing the number of deaths due to the abuse of prescription drugs? Should paint companies be responsible for reducing graffiti?

Of course not.

And the suggestion is even more unhinged when applied to products we have a Constitutional right to own.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:51 AM | Comments (22) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Saddest Thing About Barack Obama's Available Military Expertise...

...is that though he has Wes Clark in his corner, the only person he knows with the experience of getting a bomb on target is Bill Ayers.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:32 AM | Comments (56) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 29, 2008

ATF Takes Machine Guns From Blackwater in NC

22 fully-automatic assault rifles were confiscated by the BATF from Moyock, NC-based Blackwater Worldwide last week after a story was published in the Raleigh News & Observer questioning an arrangement between the private military contractor and the Camden County, North Carolina Sheriff's Department.

Blackwater financed the purchase of 17 Romanian AK-47s and 17 Bushmaster Bushmaster XM15 E2S for the Sheriff's SWAT team as it was forming in 2005. The Sheriff's Department had requested both weapons systems for trial. After training, deputies determined that the AK-47s did not meet their needs for SWAT use, and since that time, the 17 AK-47s and 5 of the17 XM15 carbines have been stored in a weapons locker dedicated to the Sheriff's Department at Blackwater's training facility armory. The other 12 XM15s are deployed with deputies. The department does not have an armory of it's own. Both the Sheriff's Department and Blackwater insist that the arrangement made three years ago is legal.

Fully-automatic weapons have always been legal to own in the United States according to federal law, though they are prohibited or further restricted in some states. There are more than 240,000 machine guns registered with the BATF as of 1995. Roughly half of those are owned by civilians, and the rest are owned by government entities such as police and sheriff's departments.

As a matter of policy the BATF will not comment on pending investigations, but the most likely cause for the confiscation was the determination by the BATF that the arrangement may have constituted a "strawman" purchase. On the most basic level, a "strawman" occurs when someone who is legally authorized to purchase a firearm knowingly purchases it for someone who they know or suspect cannot buy a firearm on their own. Additional scrutiny applies to the purchase, transfer and possession of machine guns under the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) and the Firearms Owners' Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA). NFA places a $200 tax on the transfer of firearms, and FOPA banned the possession or sale of machine guns to civilians manufactured after May of 1986.

The BATF may claim that the three-year-old arrangement, where the Sheriff's Department stores their weapons at Blackwater's armory is a violation of the transfer and possession requirements of NFA and/or FOPA. Anne Tyrrell, spokesperson for Blackwater Worldwide, argues that FOPA does not apply "because we never owned the weapons. The Camden County Sheriff's Department own them."

Tyrrell further claims that BATF agents have known of the arrangement with the Camden County Sheriff for an extended period of time, saying via email:

"All aspects of our contract with a local Sheriff's Department are valid and lawful. Some of the same ATF agents involved in the current inquiry have long been aware of this arrangement as a result of visits to our facility and audits of our firearms programs at Blackwater's request. As a company that is fully licensed to sell, provide training on, or even manufacture weapons---including machine guns---we have worked closely with the ATF to ensure we are in compliance with all applicable federal firearms laws. We look forward to cooperating with the government to resolve this allegation."

Pro-Blackwater blog Blackwaterfacts backs Tyrrell, claiming that the AFT did a full inventory of the facility in 2005, including the Camden County Weapons locker, after Blackwater alerted the ATF to two employees that worked in the armory were engaged in illegal activity.

If it is accurate that BATF agents had "long been aware" of the existence of the Camden County Weapons locker at Blackwater, but had not seen fit to confiscate them until now, it suggests that new details may have emerged. That detail may have been provided in articles from the News & Observer and the Elizabeth City, NC-based Daily Advance, which note that in addition to merely storing the Sheriff's Department weapons, they may have been used to train police and military units.

Blackwater, which also manufactures vehicles and airships, is the largest security contractor for the U.S. State Department and operates one of the largest tactical firearms training centers in the world. Critics of the company have attacked it as a mercenary army, and Blackwater security personnel in Iraq have been accused of using excessive force in numerous engagements, including a September 2007 incident in Baghdad's Nisour Square where 17 Iraqi civilians were killed.


correction: Moyock, NC not Mynock, as noted by "EC" in the comments.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:31 PM | Comments (22) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 27, 2008

SHOCKER: Associated Press Gets Facts Wrong in Gun Story

In a story about the Federal ATF raid to confiscate assault rifles (real ones for a change) that Blackwater International held in a secure vault for the local Camden County Sheriff that owns them, Associated Press report Mike Baker twice claims that it is illegal for private citizens or companies to purchase automatic weapons.

Fair-use, non-lede quote:


Federal laws prohibit private parties from buying automatic weapons, but allows law enforcement agencies to have them.

This claim is absolutely and unquestioningly false.

The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) imposed a tax on machine guns, but did not make them illegal to own by private citizens or companies. While extremely expensive, one can legally purchase machine guns from a wide variety of vendors.

Due to a Clinton-era restriction, machine guns manufactured after 1986 are not available for private sale, but this has had the side effect of making these machine guns an investment, and they are being marketed that way.

The media's ignorance of the subjects they write about never fails to amaze me.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:35 AM | Comments (28) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

We Must Still be Losing

Tell the Democrats we're running out of people to which we can surrender.

Abu Khalaf (a pseudonym) was the top al Qaeda leader in Mosul, al Qaeda's last reputed stronghold in Iraq, until American soldiers shot him full of holes. Further south, al Sadr's Madhi Army may be falling apart, with perhaps as few as 150 military members.

So, will someone please bring me up to speed on Barack Obama's position this hour? Is he still insisting that it is 2006 in Iraq, that the situation is untenable, and that the best thing we can do is withdraw all our forces in an expensive, resource-abandoning retreat that many experts suspect could trigger a regional war that makes today's gas prices look like a bargain and trigger a worldwide depression?

I ask, because it's rather difficult to keep up with his positions these days as he continues to throw his principles, campaign promises, friends, mentors, and supporters under the proverbial bus to bow at the alter of political expediency.

I kid, of course.

I don't seriously think Obama will change his position on Iraq being lost, as that is the only viable issue of his campaign once you eliminate his Carteresque economic schemes, head-in-the-sand energy policy, his Clintonian heathcare plan, and his beautifully empty platitudes. What he and his allies will try to do is attempt to redefine losing and winning, and try to cast obvious developing successes as defeats. If he can't successfully redefine success into failure, Barack Obama is finished as a viable candidate.

Update: Dr. Krauthammer is equally unimpressed with Obama's constantly shifting positions, and the media's unwillingness to challenge him.

It's an odd relationship Obama has with journalists. He treats them with the arrogant disdain of last night's 2:00 AM hookup, and still they pine over him, happily used, as they're shown the door.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:47 AM | Comments (28) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 26, 2008

SCOTUS Decides For Individual Rights in Heller, Liberal Blogger Calls on Scalia to be Murdered

The Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling supporting the individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment today, and within moments, a commenter to the liberal blog Crooks and Liars said Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority decision on the case, should be murdered.



David Ehrenstein, an entertainment industry liberal, made the comment. He blogs at Fablog.

Update: As noted by a sharp-eyed "Jabba the Tutt" in the comments, this is the same David Ehrenstein that created the meme of Barack the Magic Negro. Quick, somebody tell Rush!

Update: Wiped. Crooks and Liars has finally scrubbed Ehrenstein's comment.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:26 AM | Comments (55) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Obama: The Bus List

Yet another uncomfortable Obama associate has found his way under the treads of the Hope and Change Express.

This time it was former Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) chairman Michael Klonsky, a long-time friend of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn, Barack Obama's long-time terrorist friends. Ayers and Klonsky have co-authored several works together, and trace their relationship back to their days in the 1960s as radicals in Students for a Democratic Society, back before the Weathermen split off and began active domestic terrorism.

Klonsky had a blog on Obama's community web site. The page was quickly "disappeared" overnight by the campaign with an efficiency that Che-loving Obama fans will certainly admire.

For those of you keeping score at home:

Under the BusClinging to the Bumper
  • Grandma Dunham
  • Rev. Jeremiah Wright
  • Fr. Michael Pleger
  • NEW!Michael Klonsky
  • Muslim supporters
  • babies that survive abortion attempts
  • 8,000 Members of Trinity Church of Christ
  • Samatha Power
  • Obama advisor/Hamas friend Rob Malley
  • Marilyn Katz (former SDS radical, Obama campaign PR professional)

  • Carl Davidson (former SDS radical, Fidel Castro Fan, webmaster of Progressives for Obama)
  • Michelle Obama
  • half-brother Abongo Obama, a militant Muslim
  • "Uncle Frank" Frank Marshall Davis, role model/mentor and member of the Communist Party USA, poet who authored "Smash-on, victory-eating Red Army"
  • Bill Ayers, domestic terrorist and long-time friend
  • Bernadine Dorhn, Ayer's wife, fellow domestic terrorist. and Manson Family admirer.

The lists is off the top of my head and is no doubt incomplete, and doesn't include the various countries and/or regions the freshman Senator from Illinois has irritated or infuriated with his gaffe-a-matic pandering to his left-wing domestic base and woefully inadequate foreign policy inexperience.

Still it illustrates just how bloody the undercarriage of the Obama bus is, as the candidate who promised a new kind of campaign shows he's lied to the media and his supporters when he promised something other than politics as usual.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:38 AM | Comments (50) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 25, 2008

Multi-Gunshot Suicides Soon to Be On the Rise

So says the Supreme Court.

There is a macabre old urban legend that has floated around for years in which an exceedingly bad person—a wife-beater, a child-abuser, or other such societal dreg—is found perforated with bullets, and knowing local law enforcement officials note that the miscreant's death was a serious suicide, where the deceased if found having shot himself in the head and/or back multiple times, in some variations even taking the time to reload an empty weapon and fire again.

Such stories, of course, are told with a knowing smile.

We find before us—and perhaps a bit beneath us—a Supreme Court of the United States that in this session has found more sympathy and more previously unknown rights for suspected terrorists and child rapists than it has for the average American.

From Bagram to Baltimore, expect to hear some names and dates begin to be associated with this and similar urban legends.

It is a truism of the human experience that when a people sees their system of justice fail due to inequities in the judicial process, they will find justice on their own.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:06 PM | Comments (44) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (47) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 24, 2008

A Sad Day for Copperheads

You won't easily find it on Fox News or CNN or Google News, but somewhere, between the shocking news that Don Imus might have a race-relations problem and the ground-breaking development that Palestinians have engaged in self-defeating random violence, most of us seemed to miss that a dream is more than halfway towards completion.

Al Anbar province in Iraq, once described as all but lost, will become the tenth Iraqi province handed over to Iraqi government control:


The U.S. military will transfer control of security in Anbar Province to Iraqi forces this week, the governor of the region said Monday, a remarkable turnaround given that the region was considered lost to insurgents less than two years ago.

Anbar will be the 10th of 18 provinces in Iraq to return security matters to Iraqi control since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, but it will be the first Sunni Arab region to do so.

Mamun Sami Rasheed, governor of Anbar Province, said the handover ceremony would take place Saturday. "We have been dreaming of this event since 2003," he said.

With ten provinces down and eight to go, we are passing a milestone of sorts. More than half of the country will be under the control of a democratically-elected Iraqi government, the first freely-elected Arab government in modern history. You would think that Democrats would be thrilled at this step towards freedom, as the turnover also means we are one small step closer to a withdrawal from Iraq, which they claim to be their goal.

Barack Obama isn't trumpeting the good news, however. Left-leaning blogs also appear to be silent on the issue, or nearly so, if Memeorandum is a guide. Instead, liberal bloggers there seem more interested in reacting to Glenn Greenwald's latest long-winded rant about FISA (while ignoring Greenwald's own history of wiretapping, of course).

Al Anbar? It doesn't seem to exist.

With ever passing day that Iraq inches towards success or takes a dramatic leap, it becomes ever more apparent that many Democrats in this country, be they members of the news media, the new media, elected officials, or the activist left, don't just want the United States out of Iraq. They want us cast out or withdrawn in defeat.

The al Anbar handover is symbolic in nature as well as practical, and good news for two Democratic nations. Sadly Democratic leaders cannot join in sharing the good news, because what is good for the United States and what is good for the citizens of Iraq is not good for Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi, or Barack Obama.

How sad this day must be for Democrats that are more loyal to their nation than the spite-based political ideology of their fellow travelers.

Update: Peter Wehner, writing at NRO's The Corner, concludes:


Iraq has gone from broken to fragile and slowly mending. Even now, though, leading Democrats seem wholly uninterested in the outcome in Iraq; all they care about is withdrawing American troops. It is a commitment they hold with ideological and theological intensity – and if they are ever allowed to act on their convictions, misery and death and defeat would follow.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:47 PM | Comments (29) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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