In a more barbaric portion of our nation's past, it was not uncommon to prop up the bodies of the newsworthy dead to take pictures with them. It is a vile act still practiced by some crude thugs in one particularly callous and self-serving sect. You know them as the Democrats.

Whether tripping over each other to use caskets as a lectern at the funerals of a Wellstone or a Kennedy, there is never a moment too solemn for liberals to soil if the slightest political opportunity presents itself.

Our odious President Barack Obama is as feckless and sociopathic as his political brethren, and carted up a helicopter full of photographers and journalists to take to Dover Air Force Base. He wanted to use the bodies of those who died in Afghanistan as a photo op, in a move so blatantly calculated that even the New York Times was forced to comment on it.

A small contingent of reporters and photographers accompanied Mr. Obama to Dover, where he arrived at 12:34 a.m. aboard Marine One. He returned to the South Lawn of the White House at 4:45 a.m.

<Â…>

The images and the sentiment of the president's five-hour trip to Delaware were intended by the White House to convey to the nation that Mr. Obama was not making his Afghanistan decision lightly or in haste.

Predictably, the Times edited away the offending truth, but no before it was already documented.

Only one family of 18 would allow Obama his cheap theatrics. 14 suffered through a meeting with the President and his surrounding entourage during what should have been a solemn moment of reclamation. Four families, apparently, were able to escape the White House-orchestrated circus entirely.

But liberals rotted to the core and rooted in the past instinctively returned to their traditional primal howl, with something called a Blue Texan at firedoglake using Obama's irreverent, calculated photo op to attack—who else?—George Bush.

At Blackfive, a real American, a soldier who understands the solemnity of service and loss, explains to the jackals:

Turning a solemn occasion into a photo op that becomes about you is not respectful, it is sorry. President Bush knew that and chose to show his respect in private to the people who really matter, the Gold Star families.

President Bush met with families individually and in groups, crying with them, praying with them, often with tears streaming down his cheeks. Those moments were private and respectful.

The left wants the bodies of the fallen stacked into a podium, cameras flashing, reporters intruding upon the dead and grieving so that they can project a false sincerity.

We're forced to ask: if the 18th family had refused to have their son's casket photographed, would Obama have shown up at all?

Sadly, I suspect we all know the answer.

Update: Like most liberals, Blue Texan can't understand why Obama's photo-op the other night in Dover was so loathsome.

Her sophomoric response an attempts to invokes a version of the "your guy did it too!" defense, trying to hide Obama's craven cynicism behind President Reagan's 1983 visit to Andrews Air Force Base to meet the bodies of Americans killed in a terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

Context, of course, is paramount.

Reagan's visit—as a transcript of the radio address Blue Texan cited attests—was part of the government response to a significant terror attack directed at one of our embassies. Reagan's purpose was to unite American resolve in support of freedom and liberty:

More than ever, we're committed to giving the people of Lebanon the chance they deserve to lead normal lives, free from violence and free from the presence of all unwanted foreign forces on their soil. And we remain committed to the Lebanese Government's recovery of full sovereignty throughout all its territory.

<...>

The scenes of senseless tragedy in Beirut this week will remain etched in our memories forever. But along with the tragedy, there were inspiring moments of heroism. We will not forget the pictures of Ambassador Dillon and his staff, Lebanese as well as Americans, many of them swathed in bandages, bravely searching the devastated embassy for their colleagues and for other innocent victims.

We will not forget the image of young marines gently draping our nation's flag over the broken body of one of their fallen comrades. We will not forget their courage and compassion, and we will not forget their willingness to sacrifice even their lives for the service of their country and the cause of peace.

Yes, we Americans can be proud of these fine men and women. And we can be even prouder that our country has been playing such a unique and indispensable role in the Middle East, a role no other single nation could play. When the countries of the region want help in bringing peace, we're the ones they've turned to. That's because they trust us, because they know that America is both strong and just, both decent and dedicated. Even in the shadow of this terrible tragedy in Beirut, that is something to remember and draw heart from. It is also something to be true to.

I know I speak for all Americans when I reaffirm our unshakeable commitment to our country's most precious heritage—serving the cause of peace and freedom in the world. What better monument than that could we build for those who gave their all that others might live in peace.

President Reagan's visit was meant to inspire a nation.

President Obama's visit was meant to salvage his reputation.

Big difference.

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Über liberal Gore Vidal takes the disgusting practice of blaming the victim to the extreme, outrageously calling the 13-year-old rape victim that Roman Polanski drugged and brutalized, "a hooker."

Quick, someone award him a Nobel Prize for Literature.

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via Hot Air.

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Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

A bill can only get this bloated when Congress isn't conscientious enough, or diligent enough, to craft concise and thoughtful legislation that accomplishes a specific task with a clear purpose and logical mechanisms for implementation and enforcement.

This is a trainwreck, authored by the lazy and incompetent, and should be aborted instead of the children the bill would require taxpayers to kill.

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Earlier this week I read and commented upon Special Forces Major Jim Gant's proposal for winning the Afghan war, One Tribe At a Time (PDF). Gan't proposla was based upon his highly successful engagement as the leader of a Special Forces A-team that won the confidence of and became regarded as part of a Pushtun tribe.

Gant's approach suggests using smaller teams of highly-trained and highly-supported soldiers and have them assimilate into Afghanistan's Pashtun tribes to combat the Taliban with minimal but immediate assistance, both monetary and military, as needed.

David Adams and Ann Marlowe reach a similar conclusion in the Wall Street Journal today, noting that more troops applied improperly actually seems to make attempts at providing security counterproductive:

We saw how this could work in the Tani district of Khost starting in 2007. By assisting an ANA company—with a platoon of American paratroopers, a civil affairs team from the U.S.-led Provincial Reconstruction Team, the local Afghan National Police, and a determined Afghan subgovernor named Badi Zaman Sabari—we secured the district despite its long border with Pakistan.

Raids by the paratroopers under the leadership of Lt. Col. Scott Custer were extremely rare because the team had such good relations with the tribes that they would generally turn over any suspect. These good tribal relations were strengthened further by meeting the communities' demands for a new paved road, five schools, and a spring water system that supplies 12,000 villagers.

Yet security has deteriorated in Khost, despite increases of U.S. troops in mid-2008. American strategy began to focus more on chasing the insurgents in the mountains instead of securing the towns and villages where most Khostis live.

The insurgents didn't stick around to get shot when they saw the American helicopters coming. But the villagers noticed when the roads weren't built on time and the commanders never visited.

It doesn't take much more more than a scan of the current headlines to know that the application of the current strategy is not working. We also have multiple sources with boots-on-the-ground experience suggesting what certainly sounds like the same approach to a much more intimate, smaller-scale engagement, with real-world results supporting their positions.

No doubt General McCrystal has his reasons for wanting 40,000 troops, just as Joe Biden has his own (quite daft) reasons for wanting to fight a drone war.

But generals and politicians have historically had problems correctly fighting the war in front of them, haunted by ghosts of campaigns past.

Let's hope our current commanders are capable of avoiding that trap.

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The FN SCAR (Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle) that has been deployed in small numbers with U.S. Special Forces will finish an initial deployment in December. Jane's is reporting that a much larger follow-on order of 15,000 5.56 SCAR-L(ight) and 5,000 7.62 SCAR-H(eavy) modular rifles is expected to follow in 2010.

Jason Spradling of Remington addressed rumors about the 6.5 chambering listed for the much-anticipated Remington ACR (Adaptive Combat Rifle).

The Firearms Blog had assumed that the 6.5 cartridge would be the 6.5 Grendel, but an industry insider informed him that Remington was not developing a 6.5 Grendel variant, and someone else said that Remington may be developing their own 6.5 cartridge.

Jason confirmed with me via email yesterday that Remington was not actively working on a 6.5 Grnedel variant... or a 6.5 cartridge of their own.

"We have mentioned the 6.5 in our communications on the ACR simply because that platform is capable of handling the Grendel or something like it. At this point, there are no plans to chamber the ACR for the Grendel. However, that may change if we receive enough input from the marketplace to make it seem necessary."

The SCAR-L and ACR are destined for a collision course in the defense market as direct competitors as a replacement for the M-4 carbine. Both rifles are also going to be developed with semi-automatic variants for the civilian market. The SCAR-L and SCAR-H are currently priced north of $2,500 (sometimes far more).

Pricing for the ACR has not yet been released.

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Memeorandum is abuzz over this article in the Washington Post. It seems that a former Marine Captain with combat experience in Iraq who had joined the State Department in the Zabul province of Afghanistan resigned in September becuase of waht he viewed as a pointless war.

The official, Matthew Hoh, wrote in his letter of resignation:

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan,"' he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

Mr. Hoh is far from being the only American with questions about how we are executing strategy in Afghanistan, and for that matter, in Pakistan. As Michael Yon has been warning for over a year, things in Afghanistan are not going as well as they have in Iraq. We're not winning. We may be losing. All that seems certain is that whatever we are doing now isn't working.

There are more opinions that I can cite on what people want us to do in Afghanistan.

There are know-nothing defeatists on the left that desire an American defeat as a mark against President Bush's legacy. Such a view is perverse, but not unexpected from those that became enslaved to a singular hatred over eight years that have turned them into little more than Gollum, trapped in what one fevered progressive blogger described as "one long, sustained scream."

Opposing them are those with more rational reasons for advocating for policies of withdrawal or various strategies that refocus on continuing the effort.

U.S. General Stanley McCrystal wants to commit a much larger American force of 40,000 to attack the Taliban in what some are referring to as the Afghan Surge, likening it to the military operation in Iraq that did much to bring the country to a relative level of stability and enabled U.S. forces to mostly withdraw to supporting roles.

Others such as Vice President Joe Biden, want to reduce the U.S. footprint within Afghanistan and snipe at Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists with Hellfire missiles fired from the ever-present Predator UAVs circling overhead in some area.

And of course, all of our engagement strategies hinge on collaborating with an Afghan government that means almost nothing outside of Kabul.

But there is no guarantee that either increasing our conventional ground forces nor reeling them back in and remotely targeted suspect foes will affect any sort of meaningful change in the remote regions of Afghanistan. The tribes have defeated and outlasted armies that have fought with much greater ferocity and less regard for human life for longer periods of time. The enemy knows that they do not have to defeat us in battle. They can simply afford to watch us burn ourselves out.

That is not to say that the war is unwinnable. We just need to take a fresh look at how the human terrain is different in Afghanistan, and rededicate ourselves to fighting the current war, and not fall into the ever-present generals trap of fighting the last war.

For all intents and purposes, the American war in Iraq is over, and we won. We deposed a dictator, foundered in a bloody insurgency and near civil war over a number of years, before alighting on a strategy that fit the war. Once those tactics were discovered and put into widespread use, the bulk of the insurgency collapsed or was coerced into giving up, leading us to a current state where American forces spend their time on base or in training roles, and the Iraqi government has become a more or less functional state. Terrorist attacks like the double vehicle bombings of several days ago still spread terror and mayhem, but no overtly longer threaten the stability of the state. There is now hope from politicians and generals of using the lessons learned in Iraq to fight the Afghan war.

But the commanders and politicians have learned the wrong lessons.

They focus on the strategy and tactics of military conflict and diplomacy between governments because that is how they are comfortable thinking. They seek to apply what they think they learned in Iraq, while forgetting how they learned.

They learned from "boots on the ground" who found out what worked by living with the population and learning that mastering the human terrain is far more important than building firebases.

One man who seems to understand the human terrain in Afghanistan better than most is U.S. Army Special Forces operator Major Jim Gant, who was deeply and personally embedded with his team in Mangwel, Konar Province.

Based upon his experiences in Afghanistan, Major Gant wrote about the concept of winning the war through tribal engagement in One Tribe at a Time (PDF).

Regular readers of Confederate Yankee know that I commented frequently about the conflict in Iraq during it's most trying times, but that I've been almost silent on Afghanistan. The reason is simple: I had few contacts there, and little understanding of the nature of the people or the conflict. I wasn't going to opine on a war that I simply don't understand in the slightest.

Thanks to One Tribe at a Time I have a far greater understanding of at least Major Gant's view of how to conduct the war. While I'm open to hear other opinions, his experience and the course he advocates sounds like an approach at least worth studying.

I have a suspicion that if we continue to listen to just the politicians and generals, we may once again stagger on with the wrong strategy, creating a war that we cannot win because our greatest adversary is ourselves.

(h/t Instapundit)

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Democrats in the Senate should call this precisely what it is—the Screw The Poor Compromise:

Details of the legislation could change, but its broad outlines are becoming clear. Employers with more than 50 workers wouldn't be required to provide health insurance, but they would face fines of up to $750 per employee if even part of their work force received a government subsidy to buy health insurance, this person said. A bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee had a lower fine of up to $400 per employee.

The bill to be brought to the Senate floor would create a new public health-insurance plan, but would give states the choice of opting out of participating in it, a proposal that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada backed last week.

Translated into English, what this means is that employers will have to pay far more in payroll taxes, meaning they will have far less money to actually hire workers. Like always, it will be those employees on the lower end of the scale—typically minorities—that will be the most greatly affected by the change, and when I say "affected" I mean like Jody Foster was affected in The Accused.

Phillip Klein at The American Spectator notes the disaster in the making:

The major problem with this disastrous proposal should be obvious to anybody with an inkling of understanding of economics. If you make it more costly for businesses to higher lower-income workers, they won't hire as many. Simply put, if the federal government set out to create a program designed to increase the unemployment rate among the working poor, it would be hard to come up with anything better than this.

There is a reason Reagan warned that the scariest words in our language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help," and the health care proposals being offered by Democrats are a perfect example of the unintended consequences of massive, complicated bills that Congress votes upon without even making an attempt to understand them.

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You've got to be sickened by the gall of the SEIU, AFL-CIO, and Americans For Financial Reform.

In league with bullying liberal politicians in the House and Senate—and of course, their child sex slavery supporting allies at ACORN—these thugs forced banks to provide mortgages to people with bad credit by extorting them with empty charges of "racism." They are now screaming bloody murder that the banks are engaged in profiteering and preying on these same people.

Why?

For actually giving them the loans they extorted, and then having the temerity to expect these loans to be repaid. God forbid that they are treated like adults and expected to meet the financial obligations they made the decision to take on.

You can't fix stupid, apparently, but you sure as Hell can get them bused to a protest.

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So sayeth Gallup:

Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.

Let's keep those percentages in mind the next time we see a heavily-slanted poll that significantly under-samples Republicans and over-samples Democrats.

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Look closely, and you'll see James O'Keefe, the filmmaker who nailed ACORN for supporting child sex trafficking, wearing a pimp suit once again... and dancing.

Badly.

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"From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to produce and use energy," he said. "The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I am convinced of that. And I want America to be that nation."

A reasonably bright teenager can tell you that a country that powers itself exclusvely by "clean energy" simply for the sake of being green puts itself at a severe disadvantage against those economies that go with a with a less-restrictive approach that leverages existing technology. It is common sense.

Sadly, you can guess which small-minded ideologue has very little of that.

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When we finally replaced our ancient Dell desktop in August we bought a box that came installed with Vista Home Premium and the promise of a free copy of Windows 7 OS when it came out in October.

Last night I ordered the version compatible with my system, and I'm expecting Windows 7 in the mail sometime next week. Online reviews I've read have mostly been encouraging, but I was wondering if any of you have installed Windows 7 over Vista and what your experiences were.

If you've made the upgrade tell us what you thought of it in the comments.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:26 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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When you were younger, your parents probably told you that "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is."

That bit of homespun wisdom should have been applied to a blog post that claimed tertiary knowledge of a Barack Obama college thesis lambasting both the free market system and the Constitution.

The authors claim a defense of satire now that the blog entry was disclosed as such, though that warning came far too late for those that managed to push the story to multiple web sites and even talk radio.

If people had carefully read the entry before promoting it, however, this paragraph offered a big red flag:

In the paper, in which only the first ten pages were given to the general media, Obama decries the plight of the poor: &qout;I see poverty in every place I walk. In Los Angeles and New York, the poor reach to me with bleary eyes and all I can do is sigh.&qout;

When the blog entry claimed that the first ten pages of the President's thesis was given to the general media and not one soul wrote or talked about it that should have sent up huge warning flares that something was wrong with this story.

That no one bothered to contact Joe Klein to see if the document reportedly released to him been, is an example of shoddy fact-checking.

Sadly, this gives the left wing blog Media Matters more than enough excuse to run a headline that begins "So desperate they'll believe anything—" and have some justification for doing so. Michael Ledeen was quick to post a column noting that he'd been duped by the thesis hoax, which was a responsible way to handle such a situation.

Now, if we can only get the same Media Matters partisans that gloated over this incident to develop or even borrow the integrity to admit they were duped by a lying ACORN Philadelphia employee, we can call it a good day.

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Considering last night's failed attempt to censor Fox News, it wouldn't be irresponsible to wonder if the Obama White House had a direct hand in this Media Matters memorandum dedicating resources to the destruction of the only significant dissident mainstream media outlet in the United States.

An official at a Democratic-leaning organization sends on a memo the group Media Matters is circulating today to progressive groups, calling Fox "a lethal 24/7 partisan political operation" and rallying a coalition of groups to join the White House assault on the network.

"The danger to progressive causes and the institution of journalism has become too significant to ignore," says the introduction to a memo by Media Matters founder David Brock. "At Media Matters, we believe it is of paramount importance that progressive leaders have the information necessary to understand exactly what Fox News has become. We hope this brief memorandum will assist you in reaching your own decision on how best to engage this threat."

A co-worker asked me to explain to him why the White House was targeting Fox.

Essentially, the White House views FOX as a gateway between the distributed network reporting being done by the blogosphere and the traditional media.

Fox amplified the charges against Van Jones, leading to his ouster from his White House appointment before other media even reported on the controversy. Fox also promoted the investigation of a pair of filmmakers that exposed a series of ACORN offices as being supportive of tax fraud for the purposes of child sex trafficking. The embarrassing string of videos—with more waiting in the wings that have yet to be broadcast—forced the Democrats in Congress and private donors alike to sever ties with the group, which was trained by the President himself and with which he maintains close ties. Likewise, Fox has helped to focus attention on other radicals in Obama's government with profiles of Administration officials and hangers-on that the President would prefer unreported.

Along with a handful of other responsible watchdog media, Fox News has been the conduit that led these scandals from the political blogosphere to the mainstream news, and the Obama Administration is attempting to retaliate against Fox News in the strongest possible way. The goal is to both stop Fox News from reporting stories damaging to a floundering Presidency, and to warn other news outlets that they will be targeted by Obama and his allies if they step out of line and report those news stories deemed detrimental to the President.

Leaking the Media Matters memo to the Politico was no accident. It is a carefully-calculated assault designed to terrorize journalists, pundits, newspapers and networks into silent obedience. The goal is to censor all speech against the Administration, by threatening retaliation against critics by the deep-pocketed activist groups that function as shock troops.

In their hearts, the President and his allies share the distaste of a free press which stains all would-be tyrants. They will push back hard against being exposed, and the plot to pummel Fox News into silence is only a small part of a Administration's larger plan to bully the media into submission.

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Honestly? I never thought they'd take it this far.

Today the White House stepped up its attack on Fox News, announcing that the network would no longer be able to conduct interviews with officials as a member of the Press Pool. The Pool is a five-member group consisting of ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC organized by the White House Correspondents Association. Its membership is not subject to oversight by the government.

Before an interview with "Pay Czar" Kenneth Feinberg, the administration announced that Fox News would be banned from the press pool. This marks the first time in history that an administration had attempted to ban an entire network from the press pool.

I cannot recall any Administration in my lifetime so desperately intent on restricting and controlling the media's access to information. This is a blatant attempt at censorship by exclusion.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:06 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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1 I watch and read all the news I can to try and get a sensible feel for what's really going on. Fox is the only one that seems to constantly look for meaningless trivia and make them look like the enemy rules! And they always say it with a smirk on their faces. Unreality t.v. at its worst - and I ain't no liberal or even a Democrat. Fox is as close to the enemy as anyone.

Posted by: efrcd at October 23, 2009 12:20 AM (83ehI)

2 Does noone seem to CARE what a violation of the First Amendment this is? Did not the President SWEAR to uphold the Constitution? I could SWEAR I saw and heard him say he would.

Posted by: DavidB at October 23, 2009 12:31 AM (BZlP7)

3 What will it take to convince people that Obama is a Chavez type and a tyrant wannabe?

Posted by: RAH at October 23, 2009 07:05 AM (KJr9T)

4 Why does this White House sound like something that stepped out of the history books of the USSR? Countless socialistic countries have controlled the media for their own goals and aims, and when you control that source of information, you control what the people think. IF efrcd is not a liberal or democrat (though he sure sounds like one) he then must be even further to the left than those two groups. However, by stating he is not, then it gives him (in his own viewpoint) the right to criticize Fox. When you compromise freedom, you are heading to tyranny.

Posted by: DaveQ at October 23, 2009 08:16 AM (q67sz)

5 Leftists/Democrats hate Fox News because it is the only true fair and balanced news outlet. They fail to seperate Fox's news outlet from their opinion parts. Funny that they don't do the same with CNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC & CNN. I've complained about liberal bias in the media since the 70's. Now finally we have a true news outlet in Fox. This episode is dramatically increasing the numbers of Fox viewers and I think that's great.

Posted by: Rick at October 23, 2009 08:29 AM (FWmwx)

6 Obama's a wannabe Chavez.

Posted by: Steve at October 23, 2009 08:35 AM (uoYYt)

7 "Fox is the only one that seems to constantly look for meaningless trivia" Obviously, you don't watch TV or read newspapers. Either that, or reality doesn't intrude on your observations. Cable news (and network, especially including 60 Minutes and its ilk) are little more than trivia. The NYT, WaPo, AP, al-Reuters, and the rest are cesspools of unimportant nonsense and vitriol against non-leftists.

Posted by: Dr. Horrible at October 23, 2009 10:35 AM (XxxR5)

8 Fact: The Constitution protects Freedom of the Press. Obama is now circumventing that provision, as he already has the injunction against govt. interfering with contracts. I don't care what side of the aisle you stand on, this is a precedent that cannot be allowed. Because the next time, it might be MSNBC - which, by the way, has already been caught making up stories in order to foment anti-conservative sentiment. But then, so has the NY Times, whose reporters finally admitted that they made up the story about John McCain having an affair with a lobbyist. Fox News is certainly as legitimate a news organization as those two.

Posted by: KSterling at October 23, 2009 11:17 AM (+86uO)

9 When you know that by answering an opponents question or accusations with real answers will get you in trouble with the people, then you attack the questioner and attempt to delegitimize them. Personal attacks deflect attention from the accusations.

Posted by: Frances Dorsey at October 23, 2009 11:50 AM (0icBi)

10 I can't think of any other way for a president to reward those that don't agree with him other than to go to "war" against them. It shows how really stupid these people are. If you really wanted to do something bad you would ignore them, by constantly bring them to center stage they achieve credence. Now as to meaningless trivia, the times I have turned on the MSM they are constantly going on about Ms. Obama and her wardrobe. I am sorry but she looks like a fat pig and an opinionated one at that. Now that woman is meaningless. Unless you want to dig up the Chicago dirt she has. Why doesn't Obama try and get us out of the worst depression we have seen and cut the government and taxes?

Posted by: David at October 23, 2009 12:00 PM (Lh/sO)

11 "Why doesn't Obama try and get us out of the worst depression we have seen and cut the government and taxes?" Because he doesn't want to.

Posted by: Rob Crawford at October 23, 2009 12:05 PM (ZJ/un)

12 Yeah. I've got to say I've not seen anything like this in my life time either. It really is unbelievable. It shows a posture of arrogance and supremacy. The moves our government, and I'm not just citing this admin, but the majority of the whole mammoth monstrosity, has been making over the last year plus, is really worrying to me. It looks to me like fascism 101.

Posted by: Hal (GT) at October 23, 2009 12:15 PM (PTknI)

13 CY, I think you are missing the real issue (or, perhaps, goal) behind why the WH has ‘declared war’ on FNC. Consider what benefit this may give the WH, Congress, and Democrats in general. I've seen some commentators analyze this ‘war with FNC’ that echo my thoughts. For example: Beck, Newt, and Morris have called the war a 'distraction' or 'sleight of hand'. It is a continuing strategy of this administration when 'something they want' is getting trashed. They put their focus on the 'next thing' (perpetual campaign mode). Obamacare has tanked and they need to get the spotlight off of the negotiations and/or negotiators. Therefore, they attack FNC and the media, as a whole, eats it up. Notice how distracted FNC is now. Much of their reportage and commentary has been focused on this war with the WH. This 'ban' will only intensify FNC’s focus on it and will leave the WH and Congress time to gerrymander their deals without any significant questions. FNC is the ONLY TV 'news outlet' that is not solidly in the Obama camp. Obama’s administration is “crisis to crisis management”. Everything they have ‘accomplished’ has been based on the premise of ‘this current issue is solved as long as the legislation that has been written gets passed NOW’... (whether the language is done, read, or even available to be read doesn’t matter) ... and in the very next breath... ’NOW we have to focus on this NEW CRISIS...’. If there isn’t a 'new crisis' then they can’t get anything they want done because sunlight and time are their enemies. Now to agree with you – Yes, banning FNC from the WH Press Pool is a big story with respect to the 1st Amendment's 'freedom of the press' component. The problem is 'news' outlets are now focusing on THIS story INSTEAD of Obamacare and the other future ill-conceived policies/legislation (such as Cap & Trade). By all means devote SOME of your time, energy, and bandwidth to this story but, please, DO NOT drop the spotlight on the other catastrophes in progress!

Posted by: PhyCon at October 23, 2009 12:31 PM (4od5C)

14 OK. So what can we do about this? Calling General Petraeus!! Is it time yet?

Posted by: Razorgirl at October 23, 2009 12:36 PM (gHNO5)

15 This story is completely made up.

Posted by: Ray at October 23, 2009 07:43 PM (5m7x2)

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More of that famous Obama post-partisanship:

"Democrats are an opinionated bunch. You know, the other side, they just kinda sometimes do what they're told. Democrats, y'all thinkin' for yourselves."

Yes, he said Democrats—the same group that demands lock-step conformity from the media and their own followers or else starts a war with them—are the party that thinks for themselves.

Wow.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:47 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Nutty statements are a prerequisite, right?

Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan told an audience in Memphis he believes the H1N1 flu vaccine was developed to kill people, a witness said.

Farrakhan, 76, spoke for nearly three hours Sunday at a gathering to observe the religious group's Holy Day of Atonement, which also marked the 14th anniversary of the Million Man March in Washington, the (Memphis) Commercial Appeal reported, citing a source who attended the speech.

"The Earth can't take 6.5 billion people. We just can't feed that many. So what are you going to do? Kill as many as you can. We have to develop a science that kills them and makes it look as though they died from some disease," Farrakhan said, adding that many wise people won't take the vaccine.

The medical research community hasn't exactly covered themselves in glory in the past, but asserting there is a widespread genocide being perpetrated under the public's already supicious eye is borderline insane by any measure.

Which I guess means he'll end up formulating the administration's economic policy...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:22 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Remember the claims of ACORN officials that the string of sex-slavery sting operations perpetrated by a fake pimp and prostitute getting advice from ACORN on how to commit fraud were isolated incidents, and that James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles were thrown out of ACORN offices in other cities such as Philadelphia?

Update: Updated with new link.

Alternative, but very slow (due to heavy traffic?) video link at HopeForAmerica.

Eh, not so much "thrown out" as "welcomed with open arms."

ACORN Philadelphia Office Director Katherine Conway-Russell flat-out lied on camera to the media. ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis continues to lie to the media, claiming that these incidents are isolated. The media repeated their claims unquestioningly.

Now that ACORN has been exposed—yet again—as lying about their willingness to support the creation of brothels for the purpose of juvenile prostitution, will the media outlets that repeated those falsehoods decide to re-report on the truth of this story? Will they issue corrections?

Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe have shown the unedited footage from every ACORN visit they've made, from Baltimore, Washington DC, New York, San Bernardino, San Diego, and the unedited video from Philadelphia will soon be released. Other videos from other ACORN sting operations are rumored to be lurking in the wings.

How much longer can supporters of this criminal enterprise continue to insist they are being unfairly maligned, when every single meeting that Giles and O'Keefe had with ACORN officials led to cooperation in the furthering of a plot to establish a facility for the explicit purpose of juvenile sex slavery?

ACORN is a cancerous product of the Democratic Party, and cannot be separated from it. It has been trained and given advice from the President of the United States himself. It is closely tied to the SEIU thugs that have attacked and intimidated American citizens. ACORN is a criminal enterprise that has been accused of countless acts of voter registration fraud, and which has been accused of stealing elections. It's officials have participated in embezzlement, fraud, intimidation, and cover-ups. As this latest sting video shows, ACORN is little better than the mafia, willing to accept even the most depraved criminal activity.

The Americans public must demand that independent prosecutors be appointed and given the resources necessary to thoroughly investigate ACORN, and yes, that is a serious problem for the Democratic party, both politically and perhaps criminally.

ACORN has invasive, perhaps inseverable ties to the very highest level of the Democratic establishment. If the Obama White House and Justice Department continue to refuse to investigate ACORN, then we will have little choice but to assume that they are guilty of collusion and racketeering themselves...

But then, there isn't much doubt, is there?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:00 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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From the always fascinating Seymour Hersh:

"A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him [Obama] get into trouble," he said. By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended.

"If he gives them the extra troops they're asking for, he loses politically," Hersh said. "And if he doesn't give them the troops, he also loses politically."

The journalist criticized the president for "letting the military do that," and suggested the only way out was for Obama to stand up to them.

"He's either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon," Hersh said. If he doesn't, "this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency."

Funny. I thought Obama was doing a pretty good job of destroying his Presidency on his own.

As for Hersh, he's had some notable successes, and some equally spectacular duds. How are Dick Cheney's death squads working out for you, Seymour?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:15 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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