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

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My days of considering FactCheck.Org a reliable source are over.

In a release yesterday that targets NRA claims made against Barack Obama, FactCheck.Org simply failed to do their research in several instances, and were more than willing to take at face value claims made by the Obama campaign that were disputed or counterfactual.

Patterico does the bulk of debunking the debunkers, but I'll tackle one specific claim in more detail just to show how lacking their research really was.

The FactCheck.org article claimed stated:

NRA Claim: "Ban Rifle Ammunition Commonly Used for Hunting and Sport Shooting"

False: Obama is not proposing to ban hunting ammunition. And he did not, as claimed in an NRA TV spot featuring a Virginia hunter named Karl Rusch, vote to "ban virtually all deer hunting ammunition." What Obama voted for was a measure to ban "armor-piercing" ammunition, which the measure's sponsor has said repeatedly would not cover hunting ammunition.

This claim is based on Obama's vote on S. 397 in the U.S. Senate. Obama was one of 31 senators who voted in favor of S. Amdt. 1615 to S. 397 which sought to "expand the definition of armor piercing ammunition."

The amendment applied only to handgun ammunition "capable of penetrating body armor" and to rifle ammunition that is "designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability," however.

It's true that common high-powered rifle bullets are capable of penetrating the vests worn by police, which are a defense chiefly against lower-velocity handgun rounds. But does that mean hunting ammunition is "designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability"? That's the NRA's argument, and it was repeated on the floor of the Senate by Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He said flatly that the measure "would ban nearly all hunting rifle ammunition," without any elaboration. However, the measure's sponsor, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, said his amendment was not intended to cover hunting ammunition:

Sen. Kennedy (July 29, 2005): This is not about hunting. We know duck and geese and deer do not wear armor vests; police officers do.

Kennedy's measure failed by a vote of 64 - 31.

By the way, the NRA has used this ploy before. It ran ads in 2004 claiming Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry had voted "to ban deer-hunting ammunition" when he had actually voted on an earlier occasion for this same Kennedy amendment on armor-piercing rounds. Kennedy said then:

Sen. Kennedy (March 2, 2004): My amendment will not apply to ammunition that is now routinely used in hunting rifles or other centerfire rifles. To the contrary, it only covers ammunition that is designed or marketed as having armor-piercing capability.

FactCheck refers to the Kennedy amendment, but let's read it for ourselves:

SA 1615. Mr. KENNEDY submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 397, to prohibit civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

     On page 13, after line 4, insert the following:

    SEC. 5. ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION.

     (a) EXPANSION OF DEFINITION OF ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION.--Section 921(a)(17)(B) of title 18, United States Code, is amended--

     (1) in clause (i), by striking "or" at the end;

     (2) in clause (ii), by striking the period at the end and inserting a semicolon; and

     (3) by adding at the end the following:

     "(iii) a projectile that may be used in a handgun and that the Attorney General determines, under section 926(d), to be capable of penetrating body armor; or

     "(iv) a projectile for a center-fire rifle, designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability, that the Attorney General determines, under section 926(d), to be more likely to penetrate body armor than standard ammunition of the same caliber.".

     (b) DETERMINATION OF THE CAPABILITY OF PROJECTILES TO PENETRATE BODY ARMOR.--Section 926 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

     "(d)(1) Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this subsection, the Attorney General shall promulgate standards for the uniform testing of projectiles against Body Armor Exemplar.

     "(2) The standards promulgated under paragraph (1) shall take into account, among other factors, variations in performance that are related to the length of the barrel of the handgun or center-fire rifle from which the projectile is fired and the amount and kind of powder used to propel the projectile.

     "(3) As used in paragraph (1), the term `Body Armor Exemplar' means body armor that the Attorney General determines meets minimum standards for the protection of law enforcement officers.".

The following language would indeed ban most centerfire handgun hunting ammunition as being armor-piercing:

     "(iii) a projectile that may be used in a handgun and that the Attorney General determines, under section 926(d), to be capable of penetrating body armor; or

It may not have been Senator Kennedy's intention to ban handgun hunting ammunition, but the fact of the matter is that bullet-resistant vests used among uniformed police officers on patrol nationwide are designed to stop common low-to-medium velocity handgun bullets (SWAT teams typically wear much heavier ballistic vests featuring large plates such as those worn by the military, designed to stop common assault rifle rounds).

The overwhelming majority of commercial, factory-loaded ammunition for hunting-class centerfire handguns will penetrate bullet-resistant vests, because the majority of these handgun calibers are high-velocity. While most ballistic vests will typically stop common defense rounds such as low-to-moderate velocity .38 Special, 9mm, 40S&W, and 45ACP, they begin having problems with higher velocity +P and +P+ loadings that are increasingly more common in these calibers. We want our police protected against unduly dangerous ammunition, but none of these listed are properly classified as armor-piercing.

Likewise, .357 Magnum, .41 Magnum, .44 Magnum, .454 Casual, 500 S&W, and literally dozens of other hunting and long-distance target cartridges (.357 SuperMag, for example) will penetrate most common soft body armor worn by law enforcement agencies, and there is no language in the Kennedy Amendment that exempts these various cartridges, nor the various bullet designs commonly used in hunting or sport shooting in these calibers.

Based upon this alone, FactCheck.Org is at least partially incorrect, but the ambiguity in the Kennedy Amendment continues:

     "(iv) a projectile for a center-fire rifle, designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability, that the Attorney General determines, under section 926(d), to be more likely to penetrate body armor than standard ammunition of the same caliber.".

Kennedy, either by intent or negligence, does not define what constitutes a center-fire rifle bullet "designed" with armor piercing capability, nor does he define what constitutes "standard ammunition". Would that include hard cast lead bullets? Ammunition that uses bullets with full-metal jackets, commonly used as practice ammunition? How would this amendment view high velocity ballistic tip or hollowpoint ammunition? Does that affect higher velocity +P or +P+ loadings that are common in many centerfire loadings, including many kinds of ammunition designed for hunters, and self defense for both police and civilians?

We don't and can't know due to the vague language Kennedy used, and his proposed language to determine the capability of projectiles to penetrate body armor contains a "trojan horse."

     "(3) As used in paragraph (1), the term `Body Armor Exemplar' means body armor that the Attorney General determines meets minimum standards for the protection of law enforcement officers.".

"Body armor that the Attorney General determines meets minimum standards" could mean any armor classification arbitrarily determined by the Attorney General, whether that means almost useless (and therefore almost never issued) Category I armor, the slightly more effective and generally agreed-upon minimum of II-A, or perhaps even higher (and probably most commonly issued) Level II, or even Level III-A armor.

We simply don't know what level an Attorney General might determine to be the minimum, and the lower the level, the more common ammunition runs the risk of becoming unfairly classified as "armor-piercing."

FactCheck's fact check of the NRA claims largely consisted of taking politicians at their word and a shallow, almost negligent reading of the laws and language they've supported.

The rest of us have a word for that.

"Fiction."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:17 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Stanley Kurtz has published his long-awaited research into the archives of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and the conclusions he draws are not surprising—Barack Obama blatantly lied earlier year when he tried to dismiss his relationship with terrorist Bill Ayers.

As Kurtz shows in his Wall Street Journal article Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools, Obama and Ayers were partners in a radical program that was focused more on indoctrinating children and their parents than education. Working together, Obama and Ayers funneled $160 million to to community organizers and far left peers of Ayers such as former SDS radical and Maoist Mike Klonsky.

Ayers and Obama used grant money that was supposed to be used for improving the educational experience of Chicago's children for political activism and agitation.

Kurtz concludes:

Mr. Ayers's defenders claim that he has redeemed himself with public-spirited education work. That claim is hard to swallow if you understand that he views his education work as an effort to stoke resistance to an oppressive American system. He likes to stress that he learned of his first teaching job while in jail for a draft-board sit-in. For Mr. Ayers, teaching and his 1960s radicalism are two sides of the same coin.

Mr. Ayers is the founder of the "small schools" movement (heavily funded by CAC), in which individual schools built around specific political themes push students to "confront issues of inequity, war, and violence." He believes teacher education programs should serve as "sites of resistance" to an oppressive system. (His teacher-training programs were also CAC funded.) The point, says Mr. Ayers in his "Teaching Toward Freedom," is to "teach against oppression," against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation.

The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.

Barack Obama was either an infamous terrorist's long-time patsy, or an infamous terrorist's long-time partner, and no one thinks Obama is enough of a rube to be his patsy. Obama earned his partnership with Ayers through a shared vision of radical activism.

Professor Steve Diamond's blog provides much-needed historical context, which shows that Obama/Ayers were using the CAC to fund an insurgent campaign in the "Chicago School Wars" that occurred from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, and which was fought over the fate of Chicago's public schools.

One side in this war was controlled by Mayor Richard M. Daley, Jr., son of the legendary Mayor Daley.

And the other side was led by Ayers and a small group of reformers that had emerged several years earlier in 1988 during a battle to create a new power center in the Chicago schools, the so-called Local School Councils, or LSCs. The LSCs were an effort to rein in the power of unionized teachers, school principals and school administrators, in the wake of an unpopular teachers' strike in 1987.

This milieu around Ayers also included, as far back as the late 80s, Barack Obama and the Developing Communities Project (DCP) that had hired Obama as its Executive Director in 1985. The DCP was a leading participant in the campaign to establish the LSCs.

Thus, in fact, the "radical" Bill Ayers and his ally Barack Obama, a Democratic political activist and lawyer on the rise in Chicago, were engaged in an anti-union effort to influence the direction and nature of the entire Chicago public school system. It would lead them into a battle with Mayor Daley himself.

By all means, read all of Diamond's explanation to get a true understanding of just how radical of a leftist Barack Obama truly is.

Barack Obama is an authoritarian leftist, one who sacrificed the future of a generation of inner city children, using money meant to provide them with an education to further his political goals.

As parents, we can't risk giving him the opportunity to do so again.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:13 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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We have fresh information regarding poorly-researched claims made in the media (including CNN, US News & World Report, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, and literally dozens of other "professional media" that Sarah Palin presided over a Wasilla, AK city government that charged rape victims for the forensic medical examinations designed to collected physical evidence of sexual assaults. With very little variation from one media source to the next, media accounts attempted to portray Palin as a callous monster out to re-abuse victims.

The best evidence available indicates these are entirely false claims.

As I reported earlier today, the City of Wasilla can find no evidence that anyone was ever billed for the cost of these examinations, a point reiterated in a second statement by Wasilla Police Chief Angela Long this afternoon:

I found no documents within the police department showing sexual assault victims were billed for forensic exams. Nor have I been able to find any documentation regarding a decision to bill those victims. Case reports don't contain financial billing information.

Financial records are retained by the Finance Department, and the Finance Director was unable to find any records of billing within records still being held.

The Wasilla PD can find no evidence that victims were billed for rape kits. The only other city government entity (the Finance Department) that would possibly have such information only keeps billing records for six years, and is therefore of little use, as it no longer keeps records that would have been created under Palin's administration.

Outside of Wasilla, however, other government officials and experts have testified that there were no known instances of rape victims being bill for examinations, and the best evidence of this may be the minutes of the committee that helped draft the state legislation.

On March 6, 2000, Del Smith, the Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, testified in support of HB 270 (the bill outlawing the billing of rape kits) and the minutes noted:

He commented that he does not think that a victim ought to even see a bill related to sexual assault whether it is on their insurance form or not. He emphasized that a police agency investigating a crime should pay because that is the cost of doing business in the collection of evidence no matter what the crime; he does not know of any police agency that has requested payment.

Testifying in front of the same committee, Lauree Hugonin, Director, Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (ANDVSA) noted that "billings have not come from police agencies but have come from hospitals." Trisha Gentle, Executive Director, Council on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault noted that police departments were willing to pay for the exams, but that it was an internal decision on the part of the hospital as to who pays the hospital bill.

Despite the spin recently being applied by astroturfing Obama supporters, there was never any evidence that victims were being charged by any police departments including Wasilla's Police Department under Palin. Testimony instead indicates it was callous hospitals that attempted to bill victims on rare occasions of insensitivity.

It is also true that protective mechanisms were in place in Alaska that would have picked up the cost of such kits, even if State law had not changed in 2000.

The State of Alaska Violent Crimes Compensation Board (VCCB) was "was established in 1971 by the Alaskan Legislature to help bring financial relief to innocent victims of violent crimes in Alaska."

Among the things the VCCB would pay for are the medical bills of victims of violent crimes (including sexual assaults), counseling, and transportation to medical and counseling services.

A former worker with VCCB notes via email:

Rape kits and other medical expenses of this type would be paid by the VCCB, 100% guaranteed. The City of Wasilla could have technically 'charged' the victim but even if they did, the VCCB would have paid the bill in full. I still know the a few of the Board members and the supervisor and I can tell you that they are very liberal with the way that they pay the victims bills.

Despite claims to the contrary, there is no record that the Wasilla Police Department ever charged rape victims under Sarah Palin's leadership, nor were State law enforcement or sexual assault victim's advocates aware of such attempts anywhere in Alaska as the proposed bill was being discussed. As committee minutes show, the offenders experts were worried about were hospitals, not police, and not Sarah Palin.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:05 PM | Comments (57) | Add Comment
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After failing their effort to flee the field last week regarding the nation's financial crisis, the liberal Democratic leadership took another step towards record mediocrity today, when it was discovered they were trying to sneak in an extension to the ban on offshore drilling:

"Since the Democrats took control of Congress, Americans have seen prices at the pump increase by 75 percent. Americans watched as Democrats, led by Speaker Pelosi, took a five-week vacation this summer while they suffered. Americans also watched as Democrats brought a hoax, no energy-energy bill to the floor last week. And today, Americans watch as Democrats prevent access to American energy in a bill designed to keep the government functioning. Once again, when it comes to providing solutions to help lower fuel prices for Americans, Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats are more out of tune than a rusty piano.

"Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats have made clear their desire to appease environmental extremists while fooling the American people into thinking that they support Republican efforts to open up AmericaÂ’s energy resources."

Pelosi and House Democrats are attempting this even as oil prices are skyrocketing.

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After failing their effort to flee the field last week regarding the nation's financial crisis, the liberal Democratic leadership took another step towards record mediocrity today, when it was discovered they were trying to sneak in an extension to the ban on offshore drilling:

"Since the Democrats took control of Congress, Americans have seen prices at the pump increase by 75 percent. Americans watched as Democrats, led by Speaker Pelosi, took a five-week vacation this summer while they suffered. Americans also watched as Democrats brought a hoax, no energy-energy bill to the floor last week. And today, Americans watch as Democrats prevent access to American energy in a bill designed to keep the government functioning. Once again, when it comes to providing solutions to help lower fuel prices for Americans, Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats are more out of tune than a rusty piano.

"Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats have made clear their desire to appease environmental extremists while fooling the American people into thinking that they support Republican efforts to open up AmericaÂ’s energy resources."

Pelosi and House Democrats are attempting this even as oil prices are skyrocketing.

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I'm not an economist, and won't attempt to try to influence your opinion on the Wall Street meltdown, or the bailout proposal presently in the news. I'm simply not qualified to comment meaningfully on the subject in any way, shape, or form.

What I will suggest is that readers go to Memeorandum.com, and follow the economic stories being posted there, and carefully read related blog posts. Most of the bloggers, of course, don't have any more expertise on economic policy than I, and all they are doing is echoing "fears and peers;" reacting to their own biases and prejudices and echoing the blog posts of like-minded pundits. That said, there are some ideas and reservations worth considering come from both sides of the aisle when people stop pointing fingers long enough.

Good luck, folks. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:18 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Led by The Jawa Report, a group of bloggers that has used their skillset to target, investigate, and bring down al Qaeda Web sites, Rusty Shackleford has posted research that has identified a Obama-connected public relations firm and it's employees as being behind the creation, uploading and publicizing of anti-Palin smear ads using proven-false smears and a technique called astroturfing, a technique perfected by Obama Campaign manager, David Axelrod.

Within an hour of the report, those named in it have feverishly begun trying to remove evidence, including deleting videos and accounts used in the astroturfing effort.

I'm not a lawyer and won't pretend to know which campaign laws (if any) were broken, but it certainly appears that Barack Obama's campaign manager is involved if not orchestrating these efforts, and people have certainly gone to jail on far less evidence.

Watch the story develop in the blogosphere at Memeorandum.

Barack Obama's chickens may have finally come home to roost.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:53 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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The imminent coup is coming from the Bush Crime Family, of course, and the revolution must come from left wing "patriots" if the Democratic Congress doesn't immediately begin impeachment proceedings.

No, I'm not kidding. She's serious as a heart attack:

As I see it now, we have but two options and I have long alluded to hoping against hope that one of these options would not be the only one left to a peaceful people. The first and frankly most preferable option is for Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the members of this latest Business Plot.

No time needs to be wasted on hearings as we already now have in writing, formally as presented to Congress, the intentions of this administration to nullify Congressional powers permanently, to alter Judicial powers permanently, and to openly steal public funds using as blackmail the total collapse of the US economy if these powers are not handed over. You do see how this is blackmail, do you not? You do see how this is a manufactured crisis precisely designed to be used as blackmail, do you not?

The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won't act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us - the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger - then what is left for us to do? I don't want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will.

It doesn't appear that the most extreme elements of the far left are willing to risk the possibility of losing another election.

I can only hope the lawful authorities are monitoring such enticements towards insurrection with all due seriousness, and find a nice, well-lit and cheery cell for those who require one.

Update: In an update, Alexandrovna is furiously trying to claim that what she wrote didn't mean what she so clearly did, and claims I must be " near ready to call 911 and report me to the secret police," before snorting that I must be "taking heroine with his [my] coffee."

Now not to brag, but yes, I've taken a heroine or two in my day.

What I haven't done is get tanked on Smirnoff (or perhaps heroin) and angrily belched out that there should be an immediate impeachment, or else:

The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution.

Words mean things, even if the writer later claims that they don't, and the thought of taking responsibility for those words becomes too much to bear.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:56 PM | Comments (140) | Add Comment
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That is the interesting contention of Amanda Platell in the U.K. Daily Mail.

It is rather refreshing to see a media account about Gov. Palin that isn't spiteful or inartfully designed to tear her down from the outset, but genuinely curious in tone.

It's also pathetically sad that we have to go overseas to find it.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:08 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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This sounds familiar:

Republican National Committee officials say they aren't surprised to hear a Durham County elections official suspects voter registration forms gathered by a community activist group may be fraudulent.

The RNC's chief counsel, Sean Cairncross, on Friday said the group, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has a history of gathering fraudulent or incomplete voter registration forms. Cairncross disputes ACORN's claim that it is a nonpartisan organization.

Refresh my memory: don't these thugs have ties to a certain community organizer?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:04 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Some of the defenders of Scott Beauchamp's trio of fables in the New Republic simply can't let go of the fact that his stories were poorly written fiction. There's always been an odd attachment by some of them to justify his lies, almost as if his stories of minor atrocities were dismissed, then no atrocity claims would ever be taken seriously again.

Today, several left wing blogs have latched on to a story than has been simmering for months, the trial resulting from the execution of prisoners by members of Beauchamp's battalion between mid-March and mid-April of 2007 near Baghdad. They are trying to use that story to somehow resurrect Beauchamp's credibility.

"See? This guys in Beauchamp's battalion committed atrocities, so his stories must have been real!"

Uh, no.

During the debunking of Spencer Ackerman's cartoonishly bad "Notes on a Scandal" roughly a month ago, I compared the military investigation into Beauchamp's lies to that very same far more serious and still developing homicide investigation to make a point:

Ackerman’s biggest point of contention that Beauchamp's stories may be true are the claims that five soldiers contacted the New Republic to vouch for the accuracy of the claims made in the article — but that none of the soldiers were willing to go on the record in the magazine for fear of retaliation by the Army. Ackerman himself presents no evidence that he spoke to a single one of these soldiers, so we don't know if that claim has any merit, but I did get in touch with an officer yesterday involved in the saga who referred to claims of fears of retaliation as "a bald-faced lie."

The claims made in "Shock Troops" — insulting a burned woman, wearing bones as a hat, running over dogs — are barbaric, but at best are minimal crimes if true. Punishment for even those soldiers involved in acts such as those Beauchamp described would be administrative punishments carried out at the base, while those who would have witnessed such acts would face no penalty for reporting them. Lying on a sworn statement, however, is far more serious, and could potentially result in a court martial and prison time. Does anyone seriously want to argue that 22 men would risk their careers and freedom to lie for Scott Beauchamp, a soldier who had gone AWOL on several occasions and who many of these men did not trust?

In addition, whistleblower laws protect witnesses of crimes, whether minor cases of cruelty as reported by Beauchamp, or murder, and we need look no further than Beauchamp's own brigade for evidence proving this.

An Article 32 hearing for Staff Sgt. Jess Cunningham, Sgt. Charles Quigley, Spc. Stephen Ribordy, and Spc. Belmor Ramos will begin next week to determine whether these four soldiers in Beauchamp's battalion executed Iraqi prisoners.

It was other soldiers in Beauchamp's battalion that stepped forward and reported the far more serious crimes of executing captives. It is highly improbable that soldiers trained to do their duty would report their fellow soldiers for serious crimes, while men in the same battalion, presumably with the same training, would participate in a cover-up of far more minor violations, fearing non-existent reprisals, and risking their careers by participating in a cover-up to do so. The argument made by Beauchamp, swallowed so easily be Ackerman, is absurd.

The one particular detail of the murder investigation that has the left so suddenly feisty is that one of the soldiers facing charges (added as a defendent in the 1 1/2 months that has passed since the story cited was written) is SFC John E. Hatley, a soldier that has been cited for an email he wrote to milblogger SFC Cheryl MacElroy (RET).

Vietnam war historian Keith Nolan wrote this afternoon seeking my reaction to this development as he recalled I mentioned Hatley's email, and this is what I told him:

Mr Nolan,

Yes sir, I did quote from and refer to an email between SFC Cheryl McElroy and a SFC Hatley. I've contacted McElroy to see if she can contact the Sgt she emailed and determine it is the same Hatley. If it is the same Hatley, it would certainly destroys his credibility if he is judged to be guilty of such crimes.

What interests me is that Hatley isn't mentioned among the accused at all in this earlier article. I wonder what changed since late July.

As for how that impacts the overall case against Beauchamp? It doesn't.

It was still against SOP (not to mention suicidal) to change a HMMWV tire while on urban patrol in his area, and doubtful that a run-flat equipped vehicle would stop anyway.

There are still no such thing as a square-backed bullet in modern firearms, and Glocks are still among the most popular handguns in Iraqi culture, despite Beauchamp's claim that only Iraqi Police carry them.

There is still no burned female contractor. She simply never existed. I have an independent civilian contractor at that Kuwaiti base and military officers on the record supporting that.

Bradleys and other tracked vehicles still cannot maneuver as he described, and that comes straight from the company that manufactures them.

As for the most plausible story he told, that of someone abusing human remains, I've got two dozen signed affidavits in my hands (well, photocopied onto a CD) that makes the all sorts of slightly different claims you would expect regarding several bones found at a COP under construction, but not a single one of a guy wearing a rotting skullplate with flesh attached for part of the day and night.

Hatley's account was a supporting anecdote I relayed, but it played no significant role in my investigation or conclusions.

Hatley may very well prove to be guilty of murder and of lying in a email about how all of his soldiers are "consistently honorable."

But Hatley's guilt or innocence in a separate matter is of little more than a footnote in Beauchamp's stories, all three works of fiction that editor Franklin Foer finally decided that even he couldn't support.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:29 PM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
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(h/t Instapundit)

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It is fair to call a 54-37 advantage "crushing,": isn't it?

Republican presidential candidate John McCain fared better than his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, when North Carolinians were asked about their opinions of the two candidates.

Fifty-four percent of people surveyed in an Elon University Poll view McCain favorably, compared to 37 percent who view Obama favorably.

Asked about the vice presidential candidates, Republican Sarah Palin was viewed favorably by 49 percent. The Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, was viewed favorably by 41 percent.

Gut reaction? North Carolina is about as much a battleground state as New York, just leaning the opposite way.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:57 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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You can't have a mentoring relationship of over 20 years without some give and take and melding of ideas, and it looks like the reflexive tendency to stoke racial conspiracies that are a well-documented part of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's character have rooted and grown deeply in at least one member of his flock, Barack Obama.

This morning in the Wall Street Journal, talk show host Rush Limbaugh rightfully rips Barack Obama for a racially-charged Spanish-language campaign ad designed to bully Hispanic voters into the Democratic camp, using fear and distortions so great as to be outright lies:

I understand the rough and tumble of politics. But Barack Obama -- the supposedly postpartisan, postracial candidate of hope and change -- has gone where few modern candidates have gone before.

Mr. Obama's campaign is now trafficking in prejudice of its own making. And in doing so, it is playing with political dynamite. What kind of potential president would let his campaign knowingly extract two incomplete, out-of-context lines from two radio parodies and build a framework of hate around them in order to exploit racial tensions? The segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s were famous for such vile fear-mongering.

Limbaugh then shows that the Limbaugh "quotes" used by the Obama campaign came from several parodies before concluding:

The malignant aspect of this is that Mr. Obama and his advisers know exactly what they are doing. They had to listen to both monologues or read the transcripts. They then had to pick the particular excerpts they used in order to create a commercial of distortions. Their hoped-for result is to inflame racial tensions. In doing this, Mr. Obama and his advisers have demonstrated a pernicious contempt for American society.

We've made much racial progress in this country. Any candidate who employs the tactics of the old segregationists is unworthy of the presidency.

"Any candidate who employs the tactics of the old segregationists is unworthy of the presidency."

Indeed, that should be automatic and reflexive disqualification in this day and age. For that matter, a candidate that goes a radical church based on a racist cult theology advocating the killing of God if God isn't sufficiently committed to one race above all others shouldn't be a factor in his party's nomination process, but Barack Obama, who was a member of a church espousing Black Liberation Theology for 20 years, is still here.

It is the height of hilarity this campaign season that the same media and blogosphere critics who are in hysterics over Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin belonging to a Assemblies of God church—the world's largest Pentecostal denomination—until six years ago when she joined a more traditional church, is utterly unconcerned that Barack Obama was a proud member of a church build upon the principles of Black Liberation Theology—a faith breach-birthed from the the radical politics of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X—until the inherent racism seeped out into YouTube of Jeremiah Wright's sermons.

But Jeremiah Wright's influence still remains in Barack Obama, as does the influence of long-time terrorist friends and fundraisers, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

Perhaps Rush should consider himself lucky that he was merely the victim of racial slander, and not the target of a nail-studded pipe bomb.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:07 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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David Kernell, a 20-year-old University of Tennessee-Knoxville student and son of Tennessee state representative (D-Memphis), has been contacted by the Secret Service and FBI as part of a formal investigation into the hacking of the private email account of Alaska Governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

We're sure to learn more about the case as it develops, but as it does, I think I'll largely echo Vanderleun's advice to cut the kid a little slack.

Certainly, he is an adult and is presumably intelligent enough to know what he did was both illegal and immoral, but it appears that he may also be a victim himself, of sorts. An entry on a blog alleged to be Kernell's speaks in the first person of having been institutionalized on several occasions for acute depression starting when he was just nine, and again when he was 14 or 15. In the tumultuous five years since his mid-teens until his current age of twenty, it would far from surprising to discover that this young man again needed inpatient medical care to deal with his personal demons. If he still is in such a state, I'll merely pray for him and hope that he can get the care that he needs.

What I am far less inclined to forgive is how we got to this point.

In less than a month, Sarah Palin has gone from the well-liked governor of a remote state to the most slurred and slandered politician in America today.

I'd like to be able to point a finger at an isolated source acting in bad faith as the culprit in the most vicious string of unfounded personal attacks I've seen against a politician and that politician's utterly blameless family in my lifetime. I'd like to be able to point my finger at Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic for all the vicious smears he has pushed as a political Perez Hilton (minus the charm and influence, of course). But Sully is just an angry boil; a sign of infection, wishing he could be the cause.

In the concerted effort to destroy Sarah Palin, her husband, and her children, we've seen the progressive blogosphere and professional media adopt the no-holds barred, street-fight viciousness of a community organizer fighting for scraps. The petty brutality has trickled down from the man they idolize, a man cool enough to befriend and use aging terrorists and racist ministers as they can help him, and callous enough to discard friendships decades old if it suits him, without a backward glance.

For all his eloquence behind a teleprompter, Barack Obama is still at heart a thug, and his disciples learned well from their master.

In Wasilla, Alaska, two Democratic National Committee "opposition researchers" are scouring the archives of the Palin's hometown paper for any hint of a scandal.

It will never stop.

Until it stops working.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:37 PM | Comments (25) | Add Comment
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1 There is a direct link between the State Legislator, his son and the Obama campaign. Just like with all other Palin smear on the Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Move On, etc. The Chicago taskforce of bloggers is run out of the campaign headquarters, this is a fact. Barack is a thug, like Castro, like Mao, like Stalin.

Posted by: Carlos Echevarria at September 18, 2008 11:48 PM (CsNoJ)

2 http://carlosechevarria.blogspot.com/2008/09/exposedan-obama-hacker.html Do not give this Obama thug a pass, he knew full well what he was doing because he even said he was looking for dirt, plus that the FBI would be coming for him.....his daddy is a Democratic hack. HE NEEDS TO BE ARRESTED, LET HIM USE THE INSANITY PLEA, BUT HE IS A MENACE TO SOCIETY, just like Barry is a cancer....

Posted by: Carlos Echevarria at September 19, 2008 12:01 AM (CsNoJ)

3 No slack from me. The kid needs to do time in Club Fed. So do the people who put him up to it. I'm tired of this $h!^.

Posted by: filbert at September 19, 2008 12:13 AM (MZFhi)

4 I have to agree with the rest. This is war, not polite debate. All Dems need to be destroyed before they destroy the USA. Do we possibly want to be ruled by the likes of Kwame Kilpatrick, Chris Dodd, or Charlie Wrangel? Murdering crooks and liars who would betray anyone and anything for their own despicable self-aggrandizement. If you can't fight in the streets, you deserve to lose. One of the biggest weapons the fascist left has against the (classically) liberal West is our sense of honor and fairness. That sense works for us most of the time. But when faced with an existential threat, we need to change from normally decent people to unforgiving executioners. This fool is not a victim no matter how pathetic he seems. Crucify him, his father, his political affiliations, and anyone even moderately associated with him. You are right that he is just a foot soldier for Obama and the "progressive" filth, but destroying foot soldiers is required to win a war. Give as much quarter as the Democrats would give--absolutely none.

Posted by: iconoclast at September 19, 2008 01:45 AM (AHcbR)

5 I agree with not cutting him any slack. He suffers from depression, not schizophrenia. I'm pretty sure that depression doesn't cause someone to be incapable of understanding right from wrong.

Posted by: Anna at September 19, 2008 02:07 AM (Gl1yS)

6 The "insanity defense" generally applies only in murder cases. A thief can't be be 'not guilty by reason of insanity' any more than you can get out of a parking ticket by 'pleading insanity'.

Posted by: ptg at September 19, 2008 07:35 AM (DMGlD)

7 This punk is a criminal. Prosecute him to the full extent of the law. Depression is not a license to commit felonies. Not only did he hack in but then he published these emails. He is a left-wing political operative and needs to be treated like the knowing criminal he is. It never ceases to amaze me how the left garners sympathy for all the felons who are on their side yet prosecutes conservatives heartlessly. i.e. Enron people go to jail. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac people, run by Clinton cronnies who commited ten times the amount of fraud, money wise, get off with no jail. Its time to send liberals to jail too.

Posted by: RA at September 19, 2008 07:39 AM (poJU6)

8 Democrats sure have learned a lot from Hitler and Fascism in general.

Posted by: Capitalist Infidel at September 19, 2008 07:55 AM (kNqJV)

9 That reminds me: On election day in November 2004 five fine upstanding Milwaukee liberals (including the sons of two prominent Democratic Party officials) slashed the tires of two dozen get-out-the-vote vehicles rented by the local Republican Party.

Posted by: pst314 at September 19, 2008 08:22 AM (OA547)

10 In the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranians sent children off to be 'martyrs' by having them march through minefields to set the mines off. Obama campaign is doing the same thing with kids like this one.

Posted by: molon labe at September 19, 2008 08:50 AM (E1i8w)

11 While I am sympathetic to depression and people with mental demons, he did know what he was doing. As for Sarah, I actually think this only boostered her popularity. I already liked her. This just makes me more determined to vote for her...wishing it was Palin/McCain.

Posted by: Terri at September 19, 2008 09:44 AM (A+FOM)

12 This Obama thug (D-UT Knoxville) is not criminally insane. To be considered criminally insane, a perp can't exhibit manifest awareness that his actions are illegal or that there might be legal consequences for his actions. Merely by operating under the perceived cloak of anonymity to perform his (D-UT Knoxville) dirty trick, he (D-UT Knoxville) makes it obvious that he (D-UT Knoxville) was trying not to get caught. You know, years ago, the Supreme Court got out its microscope and found a 'right to privacy' in the Constitution that was not only invisible to the naked eye, but also so sacred as to allow a woman to abort her unborn child. How much stronger, then, should the law's reaction be to this Obama thug's (D-UT Knoxville) violation of Governor Palin's privacy?

Posted by: U.T. Viles at September 19, 2008 09:59 AM (eGoEc)

13 I agree with one and all that are sympathetic to the kid, but if this was right the reverse, and it was a Conservative kid that had done this, the Left would be out to ruin the kid and his family. To date we have heard nothing definitive from THE ONE MANCHILD COMMUNITY ORGANIZER about any of these attacks on Governor Palin, or her family. His "words, just words", ring hollow and sound much akin to his initial denouncements of Rev. J. Wright, Father Pflegger, Tony Rezko and all those like Raines and Johnson in his camp. Now I know those zombies on the Left are going to say he did come out against the media when he said children were off this list, but he did not scold the media for their actions and did not define those attacks on the Palin children as the vile, despicable attacks that they were and continue to be. And how easy for him to say stay off the kiddies when his are 9 and 6. We have all read the stories about how he has released the hounds of the Dem 527s and if you think he is not okay with all this then you need to check yourself in somewhere where they give you a nicely pressed, with buckles, little white jacket. His "get in your neighbors face" mantra should serve as one indicator that he is going militant, and do not spare the innocent or running a clean campaign. He has even gone so far as to call John McCain dishonorable! I have called Senator McCain many a name, but dishonorable was not one of them. THE ONE MANCHILD COMMUNITY ORGANIZER is no longer pushing the envelope in decency, he has now gone totally postal in his race baiting statements, and not addressing the absolute outrageousness of incidences like this publishing of Governor Palin's emails, daughter's cell phone number, husband's personal info, Track's email address, (who is on his way to Iraq!), and all the personal pictures of the family. Sometimes silence speaks volumes, and "words, just words" are not necessary to know where a person stands. And if you need "words, just words", all this racists doo-doo also reflects a deep misunderstanding of who those of us are that live between the parentheses. THE ONE MACHILD COMMUNITY ORGANIZER needs to sign up for a Dale Carnegie course, and read Frank Luntz's book about word usage. Dittos for his camp! The whole tone of this campaign has been to use "words, just words" to inflame kids like this, and others to sabotage, smear, or annihilate any GOP and in particular the McCain/Palin ticket and it does not matter how it gets done. The DNC would be wise to back off and denounce these kinds of actions because I believe the Chicago style politics are not going to be something the American voters are going to cotton to.

Posted by: freeus at September 19, 2008 10:10 AM (zxRJP)

14 Heck I lived in Chicago for 25 years, and during the time that I used to live there, I never cottoned to the Chicago style politics. Conservatism is a dirty word in that town. Chicago is a fun town, food, night life and such. However the politics suck. I'm glad to be living in NC now.

Posted by: gfchicago at September 19, 2008 10:30 AM (cBFi2)

15 Sorry - I am not even remotely inclined to be forgiving. The reason this nonsense continues to happen is because we make excuses for "poor David" or "poor whoever" and don't insist that people start to take responsibility for their bad behavior. Dems already are blaming the victim for this unlawful act and even getting away with it! No. The nonsense stops here! Prosecute him and send him to jail very noisily and publicly. He has committed a crime and he knew he was doing it even as he was engaged in the act. And while we're at it - let's start enforcing The Logan Act, starting with B. H. Obama's illegal negotiations with the Iraq prime minister! Dems have been getting away with murder (in some cases literally) for years and it is high time for them to start being forced into accountability for their immoral, illegal, completely boneheaded and dangerous (to the nation) behavior! We can start with young David.

Posted by: Gayle Miller at September 19, 2008 11:20 AM (zX5o+)

16 gfchicago, me too, I grew up in Chicago, from 1970 to 2005. Moved to Monroe North Carolina in September 2005

Posted by: Capitalist Infidel at September 19, 2008 01:31 PM (kNqJV)

17 If the young man did it he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Cut him no slack and let everyone know it's against the law to hack into someone's personal and private email account. This goes for any conservative, liberal, republican or democrat. No one should be above the law. Leftards are the ones always screaming about privacy. Do leftards remind anyone else of the famed Stasi organization in East Germany? There were spies everywhere ready to turn each other in. This is what today's democrats remind me of, rats. They want to destroy anyone that gets in their way. This is a result of the Gore and Kerry loses. And I am quite confident that in the end McCain will win although it will be as close as the previous two elections. Trust me, I predicted back in February that McCain would pick Palin. No foolin!

Posted by: Dix Handley at September 19, 2008 02:03 PM (VuvDi)

18 All these attacks from the Democrats are going to back fire on Election Day. Let there be no doubt. Most voters are going to realize that the Democrats have a rookie, unaccomplished junior senator on the top of their ticket, and they are going to have an enlightenment. Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8ph_FrL-MQ

Posted by: AmericaForever at September 19, 2008 02:45 PM (gcRCy)

19 I've been diagnosed as depressed before, nothing a little social interaction and Xanax won't fix. It never once gave me the urge to hack into a person's e-mail. I say lock him up, he did the crime so he can do the time. Throw Obama in the cell next to him. That will surely cure my current depressed state

Posted by: southerngrace at September 19, 2008 02:46 PM (onpv8)

20 No mercy. What these commie bastards haven't yet realized is that when America DOES wake up, we are the meanest mothers on the block. They need to be made aware of this, and NOW. Before it's too late for it to matter. The election is a month and a half away. We have the truth on our side, and *ahem* "The truth shall set you free"!

Posted by: cmblake6 at September 19, 2008 05:58 PM (QSVQf)

21 In Wasilla, Alaska, two Democratic National Committee "opposition researchers" are scouring the archives of the Palin's hometown paper for any hint of a scandal. Cites please?

Posted by: skylark at September 20, 2008 04:45 PM (j0b9v)

22 Cite? The publisher herself, responding to an email of mine. It's that little thing called "research" the media won't do anymore.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at September 20, 2008 04:55 PM (HcgFD)

23 Well, when the media does "research" it usually cites its sources, which is always helpful, wouldn't you agree? So this information came from the publisher of the Frontiersman herself? Care to give an exact quote? And perhaps you can date it too, because in responding to the McCain ad claiming they "airdropped" 30 lawyers into Alaska, the Obama campaign and the DNC said this: “I’m not sure how many times this question has to be answered, but hopefully this will be the last time,” Mr. Earnest said in response to a reporter’s question. “There are no Obama or D.N.C. staffers or researchers that were air dropped into Alaska.” . . . Michael Gehrke, research director of the Democratic National Committee, scoffed at all of this: “Sadly, I don’t have 30 lawyers, researchers, investigators or even wolves at my disposal. We have sent a grand total of zero people to Alaska to research Governor Palin. We’ve got all these McCain houses to keep track of. NY Times However, I have read that at least one local Democratic researcher did approach the paper early on and was told that the McCain camp itself had made no effort to search the paper's archives while "vetting" their VP candidate.

Posted by: skylark at September 20, 2008 06:56 PM (j0b9v)

24 How long ago was it that the Clintons were all over the airwaves attacking Rush Limbaugh for setting the tone for the right wing and blaminmg him for something much like this dirty work. By the way - he's not just a kid. Three years earlier than his age, I was in Korea and had no choice but to act mature and responsible. We need to stop coddling wrong because a"kid" did it.

Posted by: Don L at September 21, 2008 03:02 PM (PE+dR)

25 I am sooo sick of the attacks on Gov. Palin!!! It makes me soooo mad!! McCain did good by picking her...by all this hatred of her has wakened the sleeping giant...the conservatives!!!

Posted by: Sandra Binder at September 21, 2008 06:27 PM (DTEiw)

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Ace has the Doomsday List of Obama advisors that had a hand in the collapse.

If Barack Obama respects the American people he should ask these individuals to step down from their roles in his campaign for the financial trauma they've helped cause.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:31 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Sound advice, I should think.

Likewise, you probably shouldn't vote for a candidate just because his wife is proud of her country for the first time.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:53 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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As much as we in the blogosphere love to the describe nonsensical utterings of journalists, pundits, and talking heads as "self-parodying," it is rare that national news outlets truly earn that as well as the Washington Post editorial board has done with their editorial lamenting the demise of the D.C. gun ban and the passage of a House Bill that seeks to normalize D.C. citizen's rights along the lines of those recognized throughout most of the rest of the country.

The hysteric and unsigned op-ed, Open Season on the District, is really quite a wonder to behold.

THE U.S. SENATE represents the last, best hope to stop the mindless push to enact a dangerous gun law in the District. And stop it the senators must.

That "dangerous gun law" would bring the district's gun laws in line with the majority of gun restrictions in the United States, areas that have far less gun crime that historically have far less gun crime than D.C. a fact the editors purposefully avoid mentioning.

The House voted yesterday to adopt a measure that would gut the District's gun laws and that goes far beyond the Supreme Court's finding this summer of an individual right to bear arms. The bill would prohibit the District from requiring that weapons be registered -- the most reasonable and benign of measures. It would allow ownership of semiautomatic handguns and rifles and would place no age restriction on gun possession. And it would effectively strip the District of the ability to enact any regulations that could be seen as unduly burdening gun ownership. If even registration is seen as unduly burdensome, that leaves little room and little hope for other reasonable provisions.

Weapons registration, far from being "reasonable and benign," is recognized as a prelude to confiscation, and historically been used as such around the world. As a result, registration is very unpopular in the United States and is shunned in most cities and states.

Likewise, semi-automatic handguns and rifles are by far the most popular firearms purchased and owned in America today. The Post editorial board, like many who have a visceral dislike of firearms and little or no practical experience with them, either confuses semi-automatic weapons with machine guns (fully automatic weapons), or seeks to confuse and alarm the uninformed reader.

As for the comment on age restrictions, that is a purposeful deception verging on outright fabrication by the Post, and demands a correction. By Federal law, citizens must be 18 to possess handguns or handgun-only ammunition, and 21 to purchase handguns in the United States. It is true person of any age may possess a long gun (shotgun or rifle), but must be 18 by federal law to purchase one. The applicable law was designed so that minors can possess (hold, use) a firearm to participate in shooting sports. Clearly, the Post is engaging in fear-mongering to scare their readership to adopt their fear-based point-of-view.

The bill is not only a slap in the face to home rule, it is an affront to common sense and safety. How are police supposed to trace guns used in crimes if they are unregistered?

This is a pair of non-sequiturs.

"Home rule" does not excuse governments on any level in the United States from violating the Constitution, and that includes the District of Columbia. Somehow, I rather doubt the Post would venture forth with the home rule argument if the subject in question was the restriction of their First Amendment freedoms to engage in deceptive editorializing.

The registration of a firearm is irrelevant in tracing a weapon actively being used in crime, and once such a gun is confiscation the serial number is used for an ATF trace, currently used in every state, including the vast majority of those without gun registration.

How are they to protect lawmakers, dignitaries, visitors, workers and residents when guns are treated like any other product to be bought and sold with no restrictions?

Again, the "no restrictions" claim is more than hyperbole, it is a purposeful, calculated lie, as the federal laws alluded to above make clear.

As for protecting Americans and visitors, we've been doing precisely that throughout the rest of the United States for several hundred years with most areas suffering a far lower gun-related felony crime rate than D.C., this is another misleading question based upon a false assertion.

While many gun rights advocates tout their bona fides as law-and-order types, they apparently have no trouble ignoring the testimony of scores of police chiefs and law enforcement officers across the country who believe that sensible regulation saves lives.

Of course many police chiefs view gun restrictions favorably. Their primary and most immediate concern is to keep their officers alive, and if forced to admit it, their secondary concern is to minimize legal risk to teh department. A disarmed citizenry poses a lower risk to the police both legally and practically, and minimizes the chances of police being successfully sued in court for wrongfully killing an armed citizen. As police know they cannot be sued for failing to prevent crimes, they would much rather have their officers encounter disarmed victims at a crime scene than show up to find an armed and agitated citizen standing over a dead rapist or armed robber.

It doesn't mean that their preferences are better for anyone than themselves.

And never mind that even Justice Antonin Scalia, among the most conservative jurists in the land, went out of his way in District of Columbia v. Heller to note that a constitutional right to keep and bear arms and reasonable government regulation -- including registration and a ban on assault weapons -- are not mutually exclusive propositions.

Another non-sequitur. Scalia's opinion as a SCOTUS justice is not designed to be a law unto itself. His job is to interpret laws and determine if they meet Constitutional standards. The author of this editorial can just as easily argue that Scalia's opinion in Heller would support H.R. 6842, the very law this editorial so obtusely and emotionally argues against.

The drafters and supporters of this bill have done what many thought was impossible: They've made Justice Scalia look like a liberal.

Again, hyperbole that does not advance their argument, but which perhaps further advances the argument that they are finding it difficult to base their opposition on anything other than gut-level fears.

The National Rifle Association championed the bill, and House Democratic leaders caved in to its demand that the bill be brought to a vote after the organization threatened to withhold endorsements of conservative Democrats in tight races this year. Conscientious senators of both parties must now stand up to these intimidation tactics and prevent a dangerously bad bill from becoming law.

Unlike the editors of the Post, who have decided that they will attempt to tell you how to think, I'll do what they will not.

Here is the full text of House Resolution 6842, otherwise know as the National Capital Security and Safety Act. Read it for yourself.

Note that the law merely extends Second Amendment rights commonly held in the rest of the 50 states to citizens of Washington, D.C, and abolishes a patently silly D.C. law that arbitrarily labeled nearly every magazine-fed firearm machine guns.

And once you've read the law, and noted how the Post has chosen to misrepresent it, wonder how you can ever trust them to objectively report or editorialize on any subject, ever again.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:53 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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"Star-Spangled Banner going on right now. I don't even celebrate that sh*t. I'm black, God d*mn it. Obama '08. Obama and all that sh*t."

Details here.

I've got nothing to say against the Democratic candidate here, but find the disrespect of country from a punk who makes millions of dollars a year for playing a game is infuriating.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:52 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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