Confederate Yankee

September 15, 2009

A Tale of Two Economies


Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the worst recession since the 1930s is probably over.

Bernanke says the economy is probably growing now, but it won't be sufficient to prevent the unemployment rate, now at a 26-year high of 9.7 percent, from rising.

In responding to questions at the Brookings Institution, Bernanke says "the recession is very likely over at this point."

While I would certainly like to hope that Bernanke is right, his comments don't square with reports that credit is shrinking and that President is on the verge of inciting a trade war with our biggest creditor.

The Fed Chairman's comments seem disconnected from our financial reality. I don't think he's being honest with us.

My bigger question is why.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:36 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Escalation of Force

I saw via Glenn last night that law enforcement in San Diego. The link to the original article is apparently overloaded at the moment, but Danger Room also covered the story:


"The [Long Range Acoustic Device] was stationed by San Diego County Sheriff deputies at a recent town hall forum hosted by Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego) in Spring Valley and at a subsequent town hall with Congressman Darrell Issa (R-San Diego)," East Country Magazine reported after reviewing official records. It was also parked at a local sand-building competition along the beach.

Though the Long Range Acoustic Device can be used for hailing, it has also been employed as a weapon, most prominently in 2005 by a cruise ship, which used it to ward off attacking pirates. In fact, the device, which was developed after the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, is designed precisely for that sort of mission. It can permanently damage hearing, depending on how it's used.

Deploying the Long Range Acoustic Device to local events has provided ammunition to critics of Police Sheriff Bill Gore, who was the agent-in-charge of the FBI's infamous 1992 Ruby Ridge siege. In response to questions posed by East Country Magazine about use of the technology, Gore said that officers had the appropriate training and that the device's use as a deterrent is just a "precaution in case you need it."

I understand why law enforcement desires less-than-lethal solutions, and I also understand why they prefer to deploy these tools at a distance instead of at close range. The obvious hope—the "holy grail"—is a system that can help law enforcement control a situation and deescalate a threat without putting officers or their opposition at risk of suffering permanent injury or death. A system that creates separation is presumably thought to reduce the inherent risk of short-range confrontations.

But is an LRAD an acceptable tool for use for non-violent domestic crowd control?

While I can see an obvious need for systems that make keep potentially heavily-armed crowds at a distance in foreign theaters of combat, I'm at a loss to explain why domestic law enforcement agencies feel the need to deploy acoustic weapons that have the potential to create permanent physical damage in situations where no reasonable person expects the level of violence that could justify such a system.

The deployment of an LRAD in the situation as described seems to be an unwarranted escalation of force from law enforcement, one that poses a significant simultaneous threat of permanent injury to large numbers of people. It has the potential to be used as a communications tool, or a weapon as indiscriminate as a claymore mine.

My gut reaction s that full-power military grade LRADs do not belong in the hands of civilian law enforcement at benign public gatherings any more than fully-automatic M4s do, and that having such systems in place will only encourage agitators to bring weaponry sufficient to counter these systems, putting the population at large at a much great risk than there would have been if LRADs was never introduced to the situation at all.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:00 AM | Comments (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Snow Troll

I woke up this morning to find the following comment spammed across the comment sections of a dozen posts, regardless of subject matter:


Yes it is all the black people's fault. Let us kill all the black people. We should not have a black president.

The spammer hails from the IP of 99.233.2.165, which seems to trace to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I cannot imagine why a Canadian is worried about having Barack Obama as his President, unless...

What if Barack has a Canadian birth certificate?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:47 AM | Comments (49) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 14, 2009

Nuts in the Fire

After three separate ACORN offices enthusiastically attempted to help a pimp and prostitute get a government loan for a brothel to be filled with underage girls from Central America, the Senate has voted 983-7 to strip the Obama-trained organization of all federal funding.

The Pedophile-Pimping Seven are:

  • Dick Durbin (D-IL)
  • Roland Burris (D-IL)
  • Robert Casey (D-PA)
  • Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
  • Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
  • Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
  • Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)



President Obama, who spent time training ACORN operatives as a community organizer in Chicago and who recently displayed rapt interest in a new vintage of South American origin, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:21 PM | Comments (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

ACORN: Rotten to the Core

Auctioning
Childrens
Orifices
Right
Now

Busted for the third time helping a "pimp" and "prostitute" illegally acquire housing loans for a brothel to traffic in under-age illegal aliens. ACORN is a corrupt and possibly criminal enterprise, and all federal and state associations and funding to the group should immediately be severed.

The Department of Justice must launch an investigation immediately, and if they fail to do so, Eric Holder needs to step down as Attorney General.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:36 AM | Comments (30) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Blumethal: Know Who Is Responsible for Satanism and Mass Shootings? Jesus.

Max Blumethal has a long track record as a media activist, and has established a clear method of operation:

  • Draw conclusion
  • Create/modify facts to support that conclusion

The actual subject doesn't matter.

He sees lynchings in lyrics, manufactures non-existent weapons at gun shows, and sees racism in every nook and cranny, and has more moral flexibility than any human with a fully-developed sense of right and wrong should have.

So it should hardly be surprising that Blumenthal took the relatively rare case of a mentally-unstable man going on a violent rampage, and turned that into an indictment against an entire faith in The Nightmare of Christianity.

You may remember Matthew Murray's story, even if you long ago forgot his name. Murray had been thrown out of a missionary program three years before in Arvada, CO, and then became obsessed with it, sending it hate mail in the weeks before he finally went on a rampage, killing two people and wounding two others.

The next day, armed with several weapons and carrying a book by satanist Alister Crowley, Murray launched an assault on New Life Church in Colorado Springs with the intention of committing a mass homicide. Church member Jeanne Assam was also a volunteer security guard, and drew her concealed pistol and engaged Murray in the church foyer, wounding him. Murray then took his own life.

Assam's stand against Murray's rampage made her something of a hero, and Murrya was written of for what he was; a deeply disturbed and violent young man with hate in his heart and confused sexuality.

But murderous spree of a possibly gay satanist wasn't what gay atheist agitator Max Blumethal wanted to see, so he decided to create something more conducive to the world he likes to imagine exists, where home schools are cults and home-schooled children are mindless and dangerous drones slaved to an aggressive and oppressive religion.

There are tens of millions of active, church-going Christians in the United States and millions more that profess Christian values even if they do not regularly attend services. There are also an estimated more than one million children home-schooled.

But Blumenthal looks past all of that to focus on one young man and try to insist that this exceedingly rare and isolated incident should be used to indict Christianity as a whole.

That The Nation would run an article based upon such obviously flawed logic simply shows that their far left-wing radicalized contempt for people of faith far outstrips their ability to apply logic or rational editorial thought.

If Blumethal had attempted to make the equally absurd argument that Murray's alleged sexual preferences were at the root of his murderous psychology, and that other homosexuals or bisexuals were therefore ticking time bombs, the editors of The Nation would have unceremoniously thrown him out on his ass.

But logic and reason matter not a whit to Max Blumenthal, nor his editors at The Nation. What matters is that they had a remotely plausible excuse to smear those with which they disagree, and that's all the justification they ever need.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:49 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 13, 2009

No Surprise Here: Kanye West Hates White People

I could care less about the various award shows and stopped watching music video channels way back when they stopped playing music videos, but chronic tool Kanye West's latest stunt goes too far. West snatched the microphone out of Taylor Swift's hand as she started to give her acceptance speech for Best Female video at the VMAs, and told her that she didn't deserve the award, that Beyoncé did.

I don't know the videos in question, and frankly, it doesn't matter. What we do know is that West is a first rate jerk with a long record of deviant and outrageous behavior, who acted up again when a white girl won an award he thought a black artist deserved.

I'd say it was likely a racist incident, but then, with West, that's to be expected.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:36 PM | Comments (34) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 12, 2009

Message Delivered

Estimates of the crowd size at today's TEA party protest in Washington, DC vary widely, but most estimates place it north of half a million up to potentially two million or more.

By any estimate, that is an impressive figure, but what is more impressive than the numbers is the kind of person who turned out. It wasn't the professionally-aggrieved protester class, but men, women, and children of every age who had never protested anything in their lives. It was Democrats and Republicans and independents and people who had never before cared about political matters at all. It was a cross-section of America, who knew in their hearts that America cannot much longer survive if it continues down the path that our self-serving politicians are leading us.

Barack Obama was sworn in seven months ago in front of roughly a million Americans who hope he represented the future of this republic. Today, perhaps double that number angrily let the world know that they no longer have faith in him or his allies.

It was a powerful message.

It remains to be seen if he retains enough humility to listen.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:03 PM | Comments (71) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 11, 2009

"I Put a Bomb in Your Building, Bitch"

Someone find out where all of Obama's domestic terrorist friends are; organizers for tomorrow's 9/12 protest in Washington, DC were forced out of their building due to a bomb threat.

I'm sure that DHS and the Southern Poverty Law Center will be along any minute now to assure us the perpetrator was a right wing extremist:


A FreedomWorks staffer told ABC News that the organization's offices at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue were evacuated on Friday afternoon by DC Metro Police because of a bomb scare.

DC Metro police has confirmed to ABC News' Jason Ryan that the DC Metro police had, indeed, evacuated the organization's offices after being told by the organization that it had received a bomb threat.

The threat came when a man called the FreedomWorks main line and told the organization's female receptionist: "I put a bomb in your building, bitch."

The FreedomWorks staffer who spoke with ABC News said that the organization has received multiple threats but that for some reason, the DC Metro police thought that this one was credible enough to evacuate the building.

Hope. Change. Multiple bomb threats.

Man, I'm loving this Presidency so far.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:41 PM | Comments (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sadly Necessary

A re-linking of Popular Mechanics' Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report.

Because sadly, Van Jones isn't the only left-wing idiot that signed that infamous petition, and most of his peers are still convinced the Bush Administration let 9/11 happen.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:51 PM | Comments (30) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Anti-Abortion "Sign Man" Brutally Shot Down

Jim Pouillon, known among his neighbors as the "sign man" for his signs opposing the practice of abortion, was gunned down this morning in Owosso MI as students at the high school across the street were unloading from buses at 7:20 a.m.


Owosso resident Gary Shepherd, who lives near the high school, said he was in bed sleeping when he heard "four shots and tires squeeling."

He and his wife went outside to see what was happening.

"I just saw several people that I knew who were medical officials working on (Pouillon) and giving him CPR," Shepherd said. "It's a pretty sad day when somebody shoots someone over a political agenda that he had. He was always known as the 'sign man.' ... This country is based on freedom of speech."

A second man police was believed killed by the same suspect around 6:00 a.m. at nearby Fouss Gravel. The suspect in both shootings is believed to be the same man, and is in police custody.

A press conference has been scheduled by local law enforcement to discuss the shootings at 11:30 CT.

h/t Don Surber, who is also covering.

Update: The Blog Prof has a post up where a commenter suggests that the protester's murder was a crime of opportunity committed by someone strongly opposed to his views who was already on the hook for the earleir murder that morning. Gravel company owner Mike Fuoss was gunned down first, and the shooter, knowing he was going to be captured for the Fuoss murder, decided to "kill that ass," —abortion protester Poullion—who was apparently known to stand outside the high school in the mornings.

I'm not sure if that makes Poullion's murder an assassination, a crime of opportunity, or a bit of both.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:26 AM | Comments (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Still Raw, Still Visceral

Eight years later, all I can clearly remember is the sinking feeling in my gut and the unnaturally blue skies we had in the Hudson Valley that morning.

This says so much more than my words can.



Via Instapundit, on Facebook.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:23 AM | Comments (22) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 10, 2009

Long Guns I'd Like to See

Every once in a while I get the opportunity to test some exquisite firearms.

The last to pass through my hands was Ruger's first entry into the AR market, the piston-driven SR-556, which I was able to outfit with an Insight Technologies MRDS optic. I just returned it last week after having it for three months, and it was tough to send back. I'll post my range report in the weeks to come.

Having a newly-released gun in your hands sometimes lead you to try to get into the mind of the designer to try to understand why they decided on the features they brought to market, and in my case, that leads me to wonder about other firearms that I'd be interested in seeing developed from existing firearms, or entirely new designs.

There are two that I've been kicking around in the back of my mind in recent weeks, one being a 5.56 Garand, and the other is a user-friendly dedicated home-defense shotgun.

The 5.56 Garand



The Garand needs no introduction. It was America's premier service rifle in World War II through the Korean War, a semi-automatic firing eight .30-'06 rounds loaded from an en bloc clip.

There are millions of Garands in the hands of American shooters, with the vast majority of them chambered in the traditional .30-'06, but the .308 Winchester increasing being adopted in new rifles. Modification of Garands into other calibers is nothing new, with custom Garands chambered in .338 Magnum and 458 Magnum being available to those who can afford them, but I'd like to see development taken the other way.

I'd like to see a Garand design modernized and scaled to the 5.56 cartridge. Imagine a Garand at 90-percent the size of the original, with a forward-mounted short section of picatinny rail for "scout"-type scopes, with a detachable rear sight (and perhaps a folding rear backup iron site). Even scaled to 90-percent, I wold think an 8-10 round en bloc clip is quite possible.

I imagine it as a truck gun, equally suited for utility work, plinking, predator, and defense or light to medium game hunting.

The Home Defense Shotgun

While the 5.56 is a nice " want to have," the next firearm on my wish list is for a real and vital market that in my experience, is under-served.

When I was selling firearms, the most heart-wrenching work I took on was trying to help someone who had recently been the victim of a crime. A young couple just starting out was living in rough part of town, awoke one night to a someone high on drugs battering open their front door. A single older lady found signs that someone had tried to force open her apartment window. A single woman in her 20s, visibly shaken, scared that her obsessive ex-boyfriend was going to break in one night and hurt her for leaving him.

None of these customers was the caricature of a gun owner that liberals love to set up as strawmen, and none really wanted to purchase a gun. What they really wanted was the sense of security that only firearms can provide in a potentially dangerous situation.

For each of these customers, I wish I had a better option than what I had on the shelves. What I wish I had to sell was a very easy to operate, compact and nearly foolproof shotgun, one that was light and compact enough for women and smaller-statured men, without punishing recoil, and with at least 4-5 rounds in the magazine. I still don't see a perfect solution on the market (and a one-size fits all solution will never exist), but something built off the basic concepts behind the Kel-Tec RFB would certainly be a step in the right direction.



The RFB is a very compact bullpup-style .308 rifle that ejects spent shells forward, meaning it can be used ambidextrously without any modifications. A similar weapon chambered in 20-gauge with simple iron sights and larger game loads (#4-#6) could certainly be the in-home, last defense gun that I would have recommended if we had it on the shelf.

I don't know that there is a significant market for either firearm, but it would certainly be interesting to see how such concepts might work out.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:52 PM | Comments (33) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Worshipping Protocol Over Truth

The extent of which our leaders have utterly warped morals was glaringly revealed last night when SC Rep. Joe Wilson shouted out "You Lie!" after President Obama claimed that the health-care proposals he supports would not cover illegal aliens.

The simple fact of the matter is that Wilson was correct; there is nothing in the Democratic bill that would exclude coverage to those in this country illegally, and the President knows that to be true.

And yet it is a far greater sin in the eyes of the Congress that Wilson breached protocol than it was the President willfully and knowingly lied to the American people. Even Wilson himself, throughly indoctrinated, was immediately contrite.

But why should he be?

Do the trapping of office and protocol demand that obvious lies that are spouted in Congressional addresses go uncontested? Apparently so.

And we're a poorer nation for it.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:16 AM | Comments (62) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 09, 2009

29 Times Later: The Definition of Insanity is...

I must have read someone who miscounted earlier; the speech that President Obama is planning to give in just a few moments is his 29th attempt to sell the American people on the idea that the steaming pile of crap healthcare he's pimping is actually a bouquet of roses.

Based upon the excerpts already released, his delivery could run the gamut of emotions from angry and exasperated to shrill and preachy.

Don't you bitter clingers get it?

Yeah, I think I might just live blog this. Almost showtime...

8:03--Someone turn down the volume of Hillary's suit.

8:09--I can't recall ever seeing so many false smiles in one place. Well, since the last time Congress was on TV, at least.

8:11--The Won walks in. The camera flashes to Michelle, and quickly cuts away from the sour expression on her face. Wonder what her issue was?

8:14--Michelle again as Barack takes the podium. She's irritated at someone or something... doubt we'll ever find out what.

8:16--Pelosi officially presents Obama. And it begins...

8:17--Proudly claims we have "pulled this economy back from the brink." I hope he's not counting his chickens.

8:19--to the meat, and first of his pre-released comments about health care reform.

8:20--the scolding begins. Not doing too bad in his tone just yet. Think he can keep it under wraps for long?

8:22--Did Pelosi have more work done to her face? It looks like a too-tight mask.

8:23--They cut again, briefly, to the First Lady. Scowling. Again.

8:26--"Build on what works, and fix what doesn't." Who can disagree with that? Apparently, those writing the bills...

8:27--He's not doing bad with the tone of his delivery, but the message itself sounds week.

8:28--Spoke too soon. Got preachy, but settled back down after the applause line.

8:30--Going into his promises, starting to get a bit of attitude... not bad, but you can see the frustration.

8:32--Making all sorts of promises that make private insurance tough, if not untenable when competing against the government. He's not offering anything substantially different that what the American people have already decided that they don't want.

8:37--Spend 8 hours in a project management class today. Now I'm watching what some claim is a very smart man attempting to lie to the American people, claiming that a series of goals is a plan. There is no plan. I repeat. HE ISN"T OFFERING A PLAN. HE'S JUST A OFFERING A WISHLIST.

8:38--Someone shouted out "LIE!" when he claimed his plan wouldn't insure illegal aliens. I didn't know the GAO was being represented here tonight...

8:41--tuned out for a minute. sorry.

8:43--health care is somehow like college... McCain is looking at Obama like he's an idiot.

8:44--Claims he won't sign a plan that adds "one dime" to our deficits, now or in the future. Ballsy, to lie that boldly. And yes, Obots, the GAO agrees that this is a blatant lie.

8:48--Won't touch (or reform) Medicare... and wants an additional system? Why? Are Social Security and Medicare not inefficient or bankrupting what is left of the economy fast enough?

8:54--Can't focus...claims "my door is always open, though he hasn't asked a Republican to come through it to work on Health care since April.

8:56--cue violins... here comes Ted Kennedy's body being propped up on top of Paul Wellstone.

8:58--still pimping the bloated corpse.

8:59--still pimping the bloated corpse.

9:00--tries to compare Social Security and Medicare to his plan. Utterly ignores that both of those plans had popular public support, and this plan is in the negative and losing ground every day.

9:01--Claims more government is the answer to our problems. And he was serious.

9:03. Finally, mercifully, over.

29 times, and still sounding the same flat note. President Obama is still lying and claiming he has a plan. A laundry list of unsupportable wishes is not a plan.
What a waste of time.

What a waste of an Administration.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:00 PM | Comments (49) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

We Elected the Wrong Leader

Tonight, Barack Obama will take to the airwaves to make what I've read is his 28th public attempt to sell a fundamentally-flawed, fiscally irresponsible and morally bankrupt health-care plan to the American people.

It is probable that despite his much-discussed charisma, the President's plan is likely to lose support tomorrow.

It will lose support because former Alaska governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin wrote a cogent, intelligent and concise op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that utterly eviscerates Democratic plans to control medical insurance and ration health-care.

Further, Palin provides a clear path towards real health-care reform.


Instead of poll-driven "solutions," let's talk about real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven. As the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let's give Americans control over their own health care.

Democrats have never seriously considered such ideas, instead rushing through their own controversial proposals. After all, they don't need Republicans to sign on: Democrats control the House, the Senate and the presidency. But if passed, the Democrats' proposals will significantly alter a large sector of our economy. They will not improve our health care. They will not save us money. And, despite what the president says, they will not "provide more stability and security to every American."

Palin has written one Facebook entry and (now an editorial) staking an articulate direction in which to move on providing health-care reform. Our President, plummeting in the polls, will attempt yet another droning, self-referential speech to convince us that a bad idea is a good idea... because he says so.

We have before us a leader with vision.

And then we have the President.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:31 AM | Comments (44) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 08, 2009

Tomorrow Belongs to ZZZzzz...

Like most parents, I was fine with my daughter listening to President Obama's speech today. Several of my fellow bloggers got reactions from their children as well, and they are worth reading as well.

When I asked my fifth-grader how it was, she told me simply, "It was good."


"It was good," is typically her tween shorthand for "I don't know because I wasn't really paying attention/was listening.doing/daydreaming about something else," and so having my suspicions about how much she actually got out of it, I asked her about various parts of the speech.

Beyond the introduction and some of the more interesting non-Obama anecdotes, she had mostly tuned it out. It was far too long, and I'm sure before he was halfway through his self-referential bloviating that her eyes were more glazed than a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

If today's ramble was written to inspire a generation of schoolchildren, it failed miserably. But then, I suspect that this wasn't a speech targeted to inspire children.

The speech was pabulum, a mundane, forgettable effort targeted at parents. It aspired to merely generate some small measure of goodwill to get the President's plummeting approval ratings out of a flat spin before he pitches Obamacare for the 28th time tomorrow night.

Our children could not be indoctrinated by Obama's effort today, but some may have ended up catatonic. But at least nobody died... which is more that can be said for the effects of the health disaster he'll attempt to resurrect (again) tomorrow night.


Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:30 PM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

After a While, You Have To Accept That These Are The President's Beliefs On Display

When asked for an opinion about government-run health care, guess which Obama mentor answered this way?


I think the racists in the right wing are upset because poor people are about to be helped.

If you guessed Rev. Jeremiah Wright, you would be correct.

I know that people on the left are tired of having Wright, terrorist Bill Ayers, and other Obama mentors and allies thrown back in their faces repeatedly, but the influence these and like-minded figures had over the President in their long associations with him are very germane to how the President views the world. Wright's comments—and the twisted hatred and paranoia that underlie them—are the same sort of conspiratorial rants we've come to associate with another Obama ally that just stepped down from the Administration this weekend, Van Jones.

The simple fact of the matter is that all of these people were close to the President because they share the same core beliefs. While every person is an individual and they do differ on specific points, when a belief is endemic to a group and permeates it as a majority view, it is folly to think that that view is not commonly held and accepted by members of that group.

Barack Obama has a track record more than two decades long of walking arm-in-arm with radicals and racists that propagate these theories of conspiratorial oppression.

Perhaps Glenn Beck was right. Maybe President Obama is a racist. It certainly seems more likely every time one of his allies opens his mouth to spit forth another theory of conspiratorial oppression.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:23 AM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 07, 2009

Last Second Surprise

My daughter's school just robo-called to announce that they will carry President Obama's speech tomorrow, and that parents who did not want their children to see the speech should send a note to the teacher, so that the student can be separated from the rest of his class. Nothing like a little grade-school ostracism, is there?

I've read the speech and there is absolutely nothing offensive in it (other than Obama's inability to deliver a speech without referencing himself repeatedly), but my larger question is this: if the school's adminstration feel that there is sufficient controversy to necessitate robo-calling, then why did they chose to carry the speech in the first place?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:29 PM | Comments (32) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Resignation and Reality

If you follow the political blogosphere, you likely know about the various controversial statements and associations that eventually led to Obama's "green czar" Van Jones resigning.

Jones signed his name to a petition saying that he thought the Bush Administration let 9/11 happen; earlier documentation links him to other publicized "truther" activities as early as January of 2002. Jones is also a supporter of convicted Black Panther cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal, and buys into the theory that the murderer was framed. Jones also maintains that a shadowy entity of white Americans polluters is shipping poison into "people of color communities."

None of these allegations are debatable. None have been taken out of context or "spun." They accurately reflect what Van Jones himself said, felt, or subscribed to as a man and an activist. Because none of these beliefs are defensible to rational people, Jones had little choice but to resign. The fact that the did so in the dead of night on a holiday weekend only proves how indefensible his positions were.

But the most fascinating aspect of this entire affair is the left's response to Jones being called to the carpet for his beliefs.

Peer into the links on Memeorandum for yesterday or this afternoon and you will see a near-uniform claim that Jones was somehow unfairly smeared.

They try to focus attention elsewhere, on various irrelevant claims. They claim that Jones was targeted because he went after Glenn Beck of Fox News (utterly untrue; Beck had targeted Jones well in advance of Jones' organization going after Beck).

They state there must be collusion between Fox News and the center-right blogosphere in trying to bring Jones down... and of course, there is no evidence at all to suggest such an alliance exists. Perhaps they're projecting.

And of course, some claim that Jones was targeted because he made inflammatory statements, such as calling Republicans "a--holes," a belief that many Democrats share (and conservatives, truth be told, often reciprocate the sentiment).

None of those claims are relevant, and they are replete with denial.

How Van Jones feels about Republicans isn't relevant to his job, nor was his use of coarse language to describe those feelings. It did not play a role in his resignation. Fox News, while certainly influential, doesn't have nearly enough power to bring down a presidential appointee. Nor does Glenn Beck, or Matt Drudge, or the conservative blogosphere.

One thing and one thing only brought down Van Jones, and the political left cannot bring itself to face the truth.

Van Jones was laid low by the truthful, unembellished and accurate accounting of the many radical beliefs he shares with both President Obama and the far left progressive movement from which he came.

Cop-killer Mumia has long been a living martyr for the radical left, just as mass murderer Che Guevara has long been a celebrated dead hero in liberal enclaves.

Beliefs that the Bush Administration let the 9/11 terror attacks occur are closely tied to the mainstream progressive belief that Bush used the attacks to fabricate an "illegal war for oil" in Iraq. The theory that Bush falsified reasons to invade Iraq for some sort of profit is so commonly accepted on the far left as to be beyond debate.

Jones' theory that white polluters were attempting to poison ethic communities fits hand-in-glove with long-running left wing conspiracy theories that crack cocaine was created by government agencies to destroy/oppress minority neighborhoods.

Whether they call themselves liberals or progressives, radical leftists cannot admit the obvious fact that Van Jones was forced to resign from Obama's White House for being too open in his support of common left-wing beliefs. These tenuous theories are accepted and repeated in radical leftist populations as fact, but like the "theft" of the 2000 election, the significance of the so-called Downing Street Memos and delusions of the previous President plotting a military coup, they are theories that non-radicalized Americans easily recognized as the ranting of fevered minds.

Van Jones is just the first casualty of the collision between objective reality and an insular community-based reality woven from a tapestry of delusions, conspiracy theories, and impotent rage. Very likely, he will not be the last radical to fall, and that probability scares the crap out of them.

Update Via Hot Air Headlines, Dan Calabrese concurs:


The real reason Jones had to go was not his ideas per se. He thinks the way President Obama thinks. Jones had to go because his presence in the administration revealed so much about how the left operates – and these are supposed to be closely guarded family secrets.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:00 PM | Comments (32) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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