Let's be very accurate about what the Senate is about to vote on today. They are not voting on a health care bill. There is no legislative language. They are voting on nothing more or less than a tentative and vaguely-designed wishlist that they will then back-fill after the fact.

I don't care if you are a Democrat. I don't care if you are a Republican. I don't care if you favor one of the various current health care proposals being offered, or if you'd rather prefer someone come up with a more workable idea.

Regardless of your politics, you should be outraged that the Senate Finance Committee (and the Senate as a whole) thinks it can get away with this confidence game. It is fraud, a classic bait-and-switch. They intend to vote on vaporware, and then design a substandard product after the fact.

We deserve better than this. We deserve to have real legislation to discuss and debate. Instead, these cowards want to vote on vague generalities so that they can deny their complicity later when it all falls apart. It is gutless, and a blatant betrayal of the citizens they were elected to represent.

Any Senator who votes for the so-called Baucus "Bill" should be dragged into the street, stripped naked, covered in boiling tar, then feathered. I suspect that with the miracles of modern medicine, a good many of them may even survive the procedure.

Unless, of course, their health care plan doesn't cover that.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:10 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Don't you just have an extra $4,000 a year just lying around?

After months of collaboration on President Obama's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.

Obamacare is premised on the model of socialized medicine that is failing throughout the world, promises to make treating specific diseases less survivable, and will compound it all with increasing government bloat and inefficiencies.

No thanks.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:14 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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"Safe Schools Czar" Kevin Jennings is a trainwreck for the Obama Adminstration, having hidden sexual abuse of a minor while a teacher, and then hero-worshipping a known member of NAMLA, a perverse group that advocates sex between perverted old men and underage boys. For these incidents alone any Presidential Administration with any sense of decency would ask Jennings to resign, so it is perhaps unsurprising that he still works for the Obama Administration.

But as morally compromised Jennings is, the latest complaint being aired against him is a false allegation that can only come about from a misreading of the point Jennings was attempting to make.

Jennings was not attempting to say that killing someone over a sexual smear is acceptable. He was condemning it.

Read the paragraph in full:

We need to own up to the fact that our culture teaches boys that being "a man" is the most important thing in life, even if you have to kill someone to prove it. Killing someone who calls you a faggot is not aberrant behavior but merely the most extreme expression of a belief that is beaten (sometimes literally) into boys at an early age in this country: Be a man—don't be a faggot.

Jennings was clearly disgusted with the events he was writing about. He's claiming that a society that promotes murder as an acceptable response to name-calling is abhorrent. And in this one instance, he's right.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:40 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Progressive bloggers pushing for the adoption of the LGBT agenda President Obama said he would implement on their behalf have now been given the cold shoulder by the White House. Once they complained that Obama failed to live up to his campaign promises, they were summarily dismissed by the Administration as part of "the internet left fringe" that needs to "take off their pajamas."

The reaction to the betrayal is as you would expect, with lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I guess it isn't quite so funny when the real teabaggers are dismissed just as easily as those smeared as such.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:07 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Until I saw this linked on Instapundit, I never knew such an event took place:

On Tuesday, Oct. 1, Oxford, Miss., will be coming to terms with one of the major events of its past. Forty years ago on that day, in the early morning, a force of nearly 30,000 American combat troops raced toward Oxford in a colossal armada of helicopters, transport planes, Jeeps and Army trucks.

Their mission was to save Oxford, the University of Mississippi and a small force of federal marshals from being destroyed by over 2,000 white civilians who were rioting after James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran, arrived to integrate the school.

The troops were National Guardsmen from little towns all over Mississippi, regular Army men from across the United States and paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions.

They had to capture the city quickly; the F.B.I. had intelligence that thousands of Klansmen and segregationists from California to Georgia may have set off for Oxford, many of them armed.

The first troops to reach Oxford found over 100 wounded federal marshals at the center of campus, 27 of them hit by civilian gunfire. Packs of hundreds of rioters swarmed the city, some holding war dances around burning vehicles.

Snipers opened fire on the Army convoys and bricks struck the heads of American soldiers. Black G.I.'s in one convoy were ambushed by white civilians who tried to decapitate them in their open Jeeps with metal pipes....

...The Army troops restored order to the school and the city, block by block. A girl watched a team of infantrymen under attack on the Oxford town square and, according to a reporter at the scene, wondered aloud, "When are they going to shoot back?" Except for a few warning shots, they never did.

This is just another dark chapter in American history that the "higher powers" in our education system preferred us not to know about growing up, like the Battle of Athens or the Wilmington Insurrection.

The claim has always been that " history is written by the winners," but have we lost knowing ourselves when both the winners and losers refuse to acknowledge what occurred?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:27 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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But don't worry, folks.

It could never happen here.

And no, the reality of socialized medicine killing patients isn't limited to Britain.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.

Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?

Despite the military's insistence that they do, a small but vocal number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the worst possible times.

There are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of veterans far more qualified to opine on whether or not the M-4/M-16 family of small arms are the best that money can buy, but it doesn't take a great deal of qualification to suspect that the answer to this question is "no."

The basic weapon design for the M-16/M-4 is over 40 years old. While there have been modifications and upgrades during its service lifetime, it has always been prone to failure in adverse conditions. The shorter M-4 carbine, with an abbreviated gas system, is also said to be less reliable than the longer barreled M-16.

Then there is the issue of the cartridge the weapon uses. While the 5.56 NATO round can create devastating wounds at higher velocities, the shorter barrel of the M-4 reduces the velocity of the small .22-caliber bullet so that at extended ranges, velocity drops off enough that the bullet merely penetrates straight through without immediately stopping the enemy. I've written before about soldiers I've spoken to directly that had to shoot insurgents in the head after multiple shots to the torso failed to stop them.

Likewise, the cartridge has been criticized from the beginning because the high velocity lightweight bullets fail to penetrate light cover and stop the enemy on the other side. This is a significant problem, especially as U.S. troops typically encounter an opposition with 7.62-caliber weapons that have greater penetration capability.

Our soldiers are armed with a weapon advanced in years with a history of failing at the worst possible time, chambered for a cartridge with a dubious record of stopping the enemy in real-world combat scenarios.

Of course, our military knows this.

The XM-8 program developed a lighter, more reliable 5.56 weapon. The military cancelled it, but civilians can get a semi-automatic version for themselves. There are also other, more reliable weapons being used in small quantities in the field, from the HK416 to the FN SCAR.

Other cartridges are being tested as well, from the 6.8 SPC specifically developed for the military, to the 6.5 Grendel.

The simple fact of the matter is that we are not arming our military with the most modern, reliable, or potent weapons.

I'll leave it for others to explain why.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:24 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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Democrats in the media and in politics have so over-used cries to racism in an attempt to marginalize legitimate opposition that the word has rapidly lost the stigma attached to it. Indeed, in the context of the political blogosphere, bloggers on the center-right have been using the term self-referentially as a sarcastic bit of snark to the constant knee-jerk claims of racism they know will radiate from progressives.

It's a shame the left has decided to make such reckless use of the word in an attempt to stifle opposition, because when real racism occurs, calling it out with the level of derision it deserves becomes that much more difficult.

This is real racism.

When you walk into the Georgia Peach Oyster Bar in Paulding County, you feel like you've walked into a different era.

Behind the pool tables stands a mannequin in a Klu Klux Klan costume, but it's what's outside of the Patrick Lanzo's restaurant that has some people angry.
Lanzo put up a sign that reads "Obama's plan for health-care: N*&%*r rig it."

Keep that link bookmarked, lefties. The next time you feel the urge to tar someone as a racist as a catch-all smear, you can use that as a touchstone.

Sadly, labeling people such as Lanzo as a racist simply isn't the pejorative it once was, thanks to those who have turned the label into a joke.

Update: Another Black Conservative is on the same wavelength.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:29 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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According to the Miami Herald headline:

Fla. GOP members shoot Muslim targets at gun range

This is the target they were shooting at.

Now, do you see a Muslim, or a terrorist pointing a rocket-propelled grenade?

You can find this and other racist GOP shooting subjects at, uh, Law Enforcement Targets, Inc.

The real racism here is that several layers of producers and editors at the Miami Herald thinks "Muslim" and "terrorist" are synonyms. The next time they want to look for people with racial/cultural biases, they'll have to go far.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:54 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Only the shadow knows...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:57 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Lots of acclaim, and undeserved kudos that became an embarrassment.

I was just ahead of my time...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In a travesty out of Oslo, hope defeated change as Presidential candidate Barack Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize today for precisely no accomplishments. Obama took office less than two weeks before the February 1 nomination deadline.

Noel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland was pressed by the media to explain why Obama deserved the award, and could only offer this defense.

As to whether the prize was given too early in Mr. ObamaÂ’s presidency, he said: "We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future but for what he has done in the previous year. We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do."

The prize committee said it wanted to enhance Mr. Obama's diplomatic efforts so far rather than anticipate events in the future.

Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for President.

Good. Grief.

Update: With their typical dissembling, Media Matters links to this post and claims it represents "open disdain for American achievement under Obama. "

I, along with the rest of the world, can only ask, what achievement under Obama?

If the President had actual accomplished something of note in the twelve days of his Presidency before the Nobel nominating deadline passed, he would have at least some argument in favor of his award. As it presently stands, he was given the award for rhetoric. This awarding of the Peace Prize to Obama dishonors those who have done far more in the cause of peace than running a self-serving political campaign full of empty promises.

Even Obama—ever the narcissist—admits he is unworthy of the award:

I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize.

Being a liberal, however, he gladly took what he admittedly didn't deserve.

It would have been a mark of class if the President agreed with the rest of the world and declined an honor he admittedly didn't earn as an acknowledgment to those who risked so much more in the name of peace.

But that is asking too much of a man who has delivered so little.

Update: Verum Serum brings the Media Matters lapdog to heel, while the DNC wets themselves.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:24 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment
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Apparently, the Obama's questionable taste in art includes a penchant for frauds.

Alma Thomas' 1963 "Watusi (Hard Edge)" is unmistakably a knock-off of Henrí Matisse's 1953 "L'Escargot." No, I'm not an art buff, the symmetry is uncanny, and forms a near-perfect overlay.

In other news, Michelle Malkin is plagiarizing my original.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:12 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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There is simply no way to top this Bulwer-Lytton-quality line from Mark Steyn:

The State Department really ought to issue travel advisories warning visitors to the United Kingdom about cage-fighting transvestites and poisoned curries from gay tripedal-catnappers.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It seems that the most brilliant President evah and the rest of his Administration are now claiming that they bought into counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine for Afghanistan without, uh, bothering to understand what it meant:

To some civilians who participated in the strategic review, that conclusion was much less clear. Some took it as inevitable that more troops would be needed, but others thought the thrust of the new approach was to send over scores more diplomats and reconstruction experts. They figured a counterinsurgency mission could be accomplished with the forces already in the country, plus the 17,000 new troops Obama had authorized in February.

"It was easy to say, 'Hey, I support COIN,' because nobody had done the assessment of what it would really take, and nobody had thought through whether we want to do what it takes," said one senior civilian administration official who participated in the review, using the shorthand for counterinsurgency.

The failure to reach a shared understanding of the resources required to execute the strategy has complicated the White House's response to the grim assessment of the war by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, forcing the president to decide, in effect, what his administration really meant when it endorsed a counterinsurgency plan. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's follow-up request for more forces, which presents a range of options but makes clear that the best chance of achieving the administration's goals requires an additional 40,000 U.S. troops on top of the 68,000 who are already there, has given senior members of Obama's national security team "a case of sticker shock," the administration official said.

Government officials could be forgiven for not understanding what COIN entails... in 2003. But a model of COIN doctrine similar that proposed for Afghanistan has been tested and proven in Iraq over the past several years. There will be some specific tweaks to the doctrine proposed for Afghanistan based upon differing human factors and tactical and strategic goals, but the basic components, theories, manpower levels and logistics are not dissimilar.

Now claiming that they didn't understand the cost of COIN reveals that the Obama Administration simply failed to do their due diligence:

This is a damning indictment of the President and his lack of preparation for the job, but it goes farther than that. Obama has essentially been "on the job" since the transition, which started eleven months ago. Considering the priority of any policy that puts American men and women in battle, Obama should have worked to understand the implications of his COIN solution from Day 1 in the transition, if not Day 1 of his term in office. He appointed McChrystal for this specific purpose in the spring without bothering to understand the concepts and the resources required for COIN.

In other words, Obama has half-assed it, and has gotten caught.

Laziness and a "can do... nothing" attitude is steadily becoming the hallmark of an Administration that seems far more interested in appearing on talk shows or making campaign speeches that exerting actual leadership decisions.

The Peter Principle Presidency continues to underperform.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:27 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Obviously, they chose to forget the IQ displayed by Duke University's Gang of 88, but overall, I agree with their assessment.

I've been working in the Research Triangle Park most of my adult life and have worked with and for some brilliant companies (including my current employer), and advanced degrees are commonplace. Combine that with the overall culture and climate, and it's a tough place to bet against.

That said, their methodology is questionable, even as it is flattering.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:53 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Meleanie Hain, who made the news last year after open-carrying to a youth soccer game and having her permit revoked and later reinstated, was shot and killed last night in an apparent murder-suicide:

A Lebanon woman who gained national notoriety last year as a champion of Second Amendment rights after she brought her loaded handgun to her 5-year-old daughter's soccer game was shot and killed Wednesday night in an apparent murder-suicide.

Meleanie Hain, 31, and her husband, Scott Hain, 33, were pronounced dead by Lebanon County coroner Dr. Jeffrey Yocum shortly after 8:30 p.m. after a two-hour standoff with police outside their home at Second Avenue and East Grant Street. The episode ended quietly when police entered the house after trying to make contact with anyone inside.

No cause of death was announced, and autopsies were scheduled for today, said Yocum.

Lebanon police Chief Daniel Wright was guarded with information as detectives began the preliminary stages of the investigation late Wednesday night. He acknowledged that the Hains were both found dead and had suffered gunshot wounds inside their 1 ½-story brick home in a quiet neighborhood in Lebanon's southside. He would not provide any additional details, other than to say that police do not feel any other people were involved.

District Attorney David Arnold, who was at the scene, refused to comment.

Several neighbors said they heard or saw the couple's children run from the house screaming, "Daddy shot Mommy!" shortly before the 911 Center was called at 6:20 p.m.

Murder-suicides are among the most selfish of crimes, often depriving children of both parents and destroying their childhoods and their ability to trust and relate to others during their formative years.

Like the murder-attempted suicide that took place in my town yesterday morning, my thoughts and prayers go out to the traumatized children first and foremost as I wonder what can turn "love" into such selfish, family-destroying hate.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:07 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Democrats in the Senate and the media keep talking about the so-called "Baucus Bill," Sen. Max Baucus' attempt at something vaguely like a Senate health care bill. But is isn't a health care bill; it's merely an outline.

There is no substance to it, no legislation to vote on, a fact made abundantly clear in the first paragraph of the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of this pipe-dream:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint
Committee on Taxation (JCT) have completed a preliminary analysis of the
ChairmanÂ’s mark for the America's Healthy Future Act of 2009,
incorporating the amendments that have been adopted to date by the
Committee on Finance. That analysis reflects the specifications posted on
the committee's Web site on October 2, 2009, corrections posted on
October 5, and additional clarifications provided by the staff of the
committee through October 6. CBO and JCT's analysis is preliminary in
large part because the ChairmanÂ’s mark, as amended, has not yet been
embodied in legislative language.

In plain English, the CBO released a fantasy estimate based upon non-existent legislation. With no actual language in place, the CBO estimate is worthless as budget document, even if it has proven a very useful diversion for those trying to force socialized health care upon a nation that clearly doesn't want it.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:59 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Loyal Bloomberg employee John McCormick certainly knows who signs his paycheck. McCormick's article Chicago Violence Haunts Obama as Gun-Control Backers Left Cold laments the fact that when U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder meet with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley today, they won't be able to blame Chicago's most recent and high profile youth death on firearms.

Honor student Derrion Albert was beaten to death with splinted railroad ties on September 24 by other youths in a crime that was captured on cell phone video and broadcast around the world.

Gun control vultures are predictably dismayed that they cannot use Albert's young corpse as a prop:

Some gun-control advocates question the administration's timing as Duncan and Holder arrive after a highly publicized beating that didn't involve a gun.

Missed Opportunities

"Where there have been opportunities for the president to speak out about the issue of firearm violence, he has missed any number of opportunities," said Thom Mannard, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.

Doing so in the Albert case "provides the cover" to address youth violence without confronting the gun lobby, said Mannard, whose group's board of directors included Duncan until he left for his current post.

Groups like the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, the Violence Policy Center and the Brady Campaign have a structural flaw in their basic underlying philosophy. They have deluded themselves into thinking that a banning a device (a firearm) will somehow mitigate the cultural problem of violence in certain groups. It doesn't work that way, as Derrion Albert's death at the hands of an angry mob of his peers so readily proved.

A subculture that accepts, embraces, and glorifies violence in their entertainment (music, video games, television shows, movies, etc) unsurprisingly develops and nurtures individuals and groups that accept, embrace, and glorifies violence in the real world. Individuals so desensitized to violence find it socially acceptable—in many instances expected—to affect violence upon others with found objects, homemade weaponry, or their fists and feet.

Put bluntly, most pay lip service to the idea of quelling violence, but none are willing to face the fierce opposition that will arise when the offending subcultures are named, nor are they willing to face the economic backlash of taking on industries that make billions profiteering off the glorification of this lifestyle.

Such reflection is necessary for change, but interests that thrive of the status quo—Hollywood, record companies, clothing manufacturers, professional victims advocates, politicians, lobbyists, etc.—have no motivation to cut their own profits merely because urban youth are killing themselves in neighborhoods they will never visit.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:14 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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The meeting seems semi-verified by the existence of the photo.

Ayers blurting out that he wrote Dreams to the first conservative blogger he ran across seems much more suspect, but still plausible if Ayers merely wanted to jerk Anne Leary around.

Actually, seriously claiming authorship?

I doubt it.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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