Confederate Yankee

May 20, 2008

Third Cop Found Guilty in Botched Atlanta Raid; War Contagion Probably to Blame

Arthur Tesler has been found guilty of making false statements in a case resulting from the shooting death of a 92-year-old woman during a botched Atlanta drug raid. Gregg Junnier and Jason Smith were two other officers involved in the raid who have already pled guilty to federal conspiracy charges.

Smith was profiled in a botched New York Times article claiming that veterans were responsible for a disproportionate number of violent crimes.

Expect the Times to now explain how Smith's war-related violence became contagious and affected Junnier and Tesler.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:39 PM | Comments (28) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Bush to Attack Iran Before Leaving Office

So says the Jerusalem Post, citing Army Radio, citing an anonymous Israeli government official, citing someone he says is "a senior member of the president's entourage."

Why, it's just like hearing it from Bush directly!

Responsible journalists don't run stories this poorly sourced as a rule, but exceptions are almost always made when the stories are sensational enough, and the story is something that journalists, editors, and many readers want to believe. That is why variations of this story of an impending attack on Iran have been recurring for the past couple of years, and no doubt will continue until President Bush leaves 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, at which point the same rumors will be passed down to (hopefully) President McCain.

The story repeats because elements of it ring true enough for those convinced that a military strike against against the world's foremost sponsor of terrorism and arms used to kill American soldiers since 1983 is an act of a fascist dictatorship, and also for those that have the good sense to recognize that reducing the capabilities of a rogue nuclear and asymmetrical warfare threat promising genocide as a matter of state policy is a common sense act of survival for the greater good of man.

It is quite possible that certain events before January of 2009 could trigger preemptive strikes upon Iran by the present Administration, Israel, or perhaps even both nations acting in concert. I rather doubt such rumor-mongering helps anyone, however, beyond creating full employment in Palestinian phone banks calling on behalf of the pacifist candidate Obama.

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

We Take Our Leash Laws Seriously



Holly Springs, NC Animal Control & BBQ. Sent in via email.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:49 AM | Comments (29) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (36) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Michael Moore: Thief

Something else to his list of descriptors.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:46 PM | Comments (26) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (50) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (28) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Totten On Yon

I don't think they could possibly find someone more qualified to review Michael Yon's Moment of Truth in Iraq than Michael Totten, another independent journalist who has spent and extensive amount of time in the Middle East, including Iraq.


Moment of Truth in Iraq

Read Totten's review The Real Iraq, and if you haven't yet read Yon's book, or would like to donate copies to your local library so that other people can, click the image above to order from Amazon.com.

I'd note that both Yon and Totten are independent journalists, and traveling to and through combat zones to bring you stories the media won't tell is both expensive and dangerous, so please consider contributing at their sites, Michael Totten, and Michael Yon.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:18 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Up Close and Personal with an EFP

You've heard of EFPs (Explosively-formed penetrators or projectiles), a kind of IED, being used against American armored vehicles.

Very few people outside of the military have seen the results of an EFP strike in detail. Thanks to confidential sources inside Iraq, I have relatively rare photos of an EFP strike in my post at Pajamas Media, How Iran Is Killing U.S. Troops in Iraq.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:32 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (47) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

John McCain: Commander in Chief of the Israeli Military?

In a story on the L.A. Times blog Top of the Ticket about John McCain's new position that he thinks American combat troops will be out of Iraq by 2013, the Times includes this photo.



Pardon me for asking, but at what point did American Presidents command Israeli solders?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:11 AM | Comments (34) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (38) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Bloodless Bullets of Baghdad

I suspect that this is less a case of "fauxtography" than a curious physiological response, but Associated Press cameraman Karim Kadim captured this photo of a Sadr City woman having a bullet removed from her forearm.

Here is an enlarged and cropped version of the photo as tweaked in PhotoShop to focus on the wound. I got as close as I could without distorting the image significantly.



As you can see, the bullet is being pulled nose first, suggesting that it penetrated though the outside of the woman's arm and passed through the interosseous membrane between the ulna and radius to stop at some point on the inside part of her forearm.

All combat rifle cartridges commonly used should have fully penetrated this woman's arm completely with a significant (and ghastly) exit wound if not impeded by either hitting a barrier of some sort, or coming from an extreme distance away. I'd love to see a higher resolution version of this photo to see if we could determine what kind of rifle cartridge this was.

Whatever the bullet is, I'm pretty sure it isn't one of these.

5/20 Update: After speaking with Associated Press resources in New York, trauma surgeons, and other resources in Iraq, this photo is confirmed as the extraction of a bullet that hit the woman in the photo after being fired from a considerable distance, and after the bullet had expended much of its energy. Additional still footage is said to exist showing the entry wound, and there is also said to be videotape of the extraction.

This was not a staged photo, just a strange physiological response to an uncommon wound.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:43 AM | Comments (41) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hussayn's Story

Despite feigned ignorance of the facts, the media knows that Muqtada's militias are being crushed, that al-Masri's terrorists are being picked off, and Iraqi's of all sects, Sunni Shia and Kurd, have newfound trust in a newly-muscular Iraqi government and military.

Iraq's want peace, are are willing to destroy the belligerents among themselves if it leads to a prosperous future. Here is one Iraqi's story.

More, please.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:46 AM | Comments (28) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gripes of Wrath

Liberal bloggers and journalists put their inability to focus on substantive issues on display yesterday along with a blind hatred for President Bush, thanks to a catalytic interview yesterday by Mike Allen of The Politico and Yahoo News.

The interview was entitled "Bush warns of Iraq disaster," and in it, President Bush warned of the regional consequences of the kind of a premature, headlong retreat from Iraq. Such a retreat is favored by Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, who has pledged to withdraw American forces in 16 months.

Such a withdrawal window is not logistically feasible without abandoning costly American military equipment and supplies, and the cost of destabilizing Iraq's security is feared as a threat by every country in the region, and cannot be overemphasized.

Iraqis fear a return to sectarian conflict that may rapidly escalate into the genocide of hundred of thousands and the displacement of millions if their nation collapses due to a too-quick, timetable-based American withdrawal such as the one Obama has repeatedly promised.

Turkey fears an attempt by Iraqi Kurds to form their own country in the wake of a U.S. retreat, and would invade northern Iraq (they are already making multi-day raids, along with air and artillery strikes). Jordan, saturated with refugees only just returning to Iraq in past months due to the success of the surge, would face a new flood of Iraq refugees that would threaten the nation's economy and national security. Syria would face similar mass immigration problems, compounded by possible Turkish incursions to root out Kurdish rebels in northeastern Syria.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, already sharing sharp words over Hezbollah's actions in Lebanon, will engage in a proxy war in Iraq that many expect may erupt into an open regional war.

Such a conflict would shut down Persian Gulf shipping and drive the price of oil astronomically high (how would you like $10/gallon gasoline, or higher?), impacting financial markets worldwide, negatively impacting billions of people, with those in developing nations hardest hit.

In short, the headlong retreat promised by Barack Obama will plunge the Middle East into conflict and wreck economies worldwide, including our own. It would be, in every sense, the disaster President Bush mention in his interview.

How did liberal members of the media and bloggers react to the interview? They ignored a direct policy conflict of global importance between a sitting U.S. President and his would-be successor, in order to write grade school-level snark.

I expect very little from the media. I see they delivered.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:39 AM | Comments (79) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (30) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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 (36) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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