November 17, 2009

CNN's "Militias are Crazy!" Day 2



After yesterday's report attempting to portray a militia group as borderline terrorists, CNN's Jim Acosta used today's report to try to portray the founder of the group as also being an unfit parent.


Lee Miracle may run training exercises for the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia once a month in a rural area outside of Flint, but he's just as busy at home. He and his wife Katrina have eight kids, and there are more than 20 guns in the house. This explains why Lee refers to the family as "Lee and Kate plus eight plus a gun rack."

Make that several gun racks. The Miracle children are very much growing up in the militia. They take part in militia training exercises, including the weapons training.

We were there when 13-year-old Megan fired off her shotgun, but even the couple's six-year-old has had her share of target practice.

CNN's dimwitted followers obediently go where they are led, all but wetting themselves in the comments. One reader professes shock and outrage that a family has both children and guns in the same house, declaring that "somebody should do something" about that. The next poster down rhetorically asks if there is any difference between the militias and the Ku Klux Klan. It is tough to discern whether they feel having guns or belonging to the Klan would be more distasteful.

The hit job CNN did on the Miracle family was as easy as it is predictable.

They crafted both the text of the blog entry and tone of the video to inspire shock that young women and girls in the family are being taught to shoot firearms.

Being CNN, they never mention the fact that these young ladies are adequately supervised, use both the proper eye and ear protection, and in the one instance they broadcast, use a single-shot, preferred by many for training young and new shooters. In other words, the Miracle children exhibit the tells of youth taught how to act responsibly around firearms. That the women are as empowered to use firearms for their defense as are the males somehow doesn't excite the pseudo-feminist leanings of the CNN staff.

Those things don't fit CNN's narrative, you see.

It's much better to play up a caricature and beat down a strawman. Why waste time trying to discover why increasing number of people have determined that our federal government too incompetent, corrupt, and power-mad to trust?

After all, it's only news.

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November 02, 2009

Riddle Me This...

Why is it that grass roots activist opponents of the President are gleefully derided as "teabaggers," when it is the subservient liberal special interest groups that worshipped him up until the election—only to be cast aside afterwards with one broken policy promise after another— are the ones left with a bad taste in their mouths?

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October 24, 2009

About the Obama Thesis Hoax

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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October 20, 2009

Hersh: Pentagon Out to Ruin Obama

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?

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No Surprises Here: WaPo/ABC Skews Poll for Public Option

Mercy me:


The sampling comprises 33% Democrats, as opposed to only 20% Republicans. That thirteen-point spread is two points larger than their September polling, at 32%/21%. More tellingly, it's significantly larger than their Election Day sample, which included 35% Democrats to 26% Republicans for a gap of nine points, about a third smaller than the gap in this poll. Of course, that's when they were more concerned about accuracy over political points of view.

Remember when I wrote that poll watchers need to remember the recent Gallup poll on party affiliation? Gallup polled 5,000 adults and found that the gap between Democrats and Republicans had closed to the smallest margin since 2005, six points, and had been reduced more than half since the beginning of the year. For the WaPo/ABC poll, though, their sample gap has increased almost 50% during that time.

Given that skew, it's hardly surprising that they find a 57% approval rating for Obama, up three points since last month, almost the entirety of the gap increase since the last poll. His 48% tie on health care should be a significant disapproval instead, and the 45%/51% slide on the deficit has probably expanded at the same rate as the deficit in a survey with a realistic sample.

The purposeful skewing of the polling data is an old political trick, and one increasingly popular among the media, especially when they are more interesting in influencing the news than reporting it. That Dan Balz and Jon Cohen of the Washington Post would use such obviously flawed data suggests they are more interested in advocacy than journalism.

The public does not support government-run health care.

Americans shocked politicians this summer with their opposition to another government takeover, and the they they were none too subtle about it as they showed up at townhall meetings, rallies, and marches.

No amount of media deception can change the fact that Americans are rejecting Obamacare, the media promoting it, and the politicians that an increasing number of Americans feel were put into office not by the American people, but by the media and special interests.

The media and their allied progressive politicians are increasing playing to an audience of themselves.

No wonder Fox News is causing the White House to scream in anger.

Along with a handful of newspapers and new media, they're the only "honest" news left.

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October 14, 2009

Rush Limbaugh's Critics are Big, Fat Idiots

I don't listen to talk radio, and so I only hear what Rush Limbaugh says when someone else mentions it. That said, he's been on the air as a conservative talker since the mid 1980s, with an audience of 20 million. His political and social views, vocabulary, and style are perhaps more well known than any person on the planet.

That is why recent attempts to attribute a series of false racist quotes to him is so unsettling.

Limbaugh has strong views on many topics, and if he was a hardcore racist, he would have been called out for it decades ago, boycotted, and perhaps forced off the air. But the simple logic it takes to process that thought is easily blinded by hate, and a number of left-wing journalists and bloggers have decided to post various false racist quotes attributed to Limbaugh in an attempt to ruin his bid to buy the St. Louis Rams football team.

None of the false quotes even sounds remotely like Limbaugh in tone or substance, and even more tellingly, none are sourced, a red flag to any competent journalist or blogger in a day and age when such things can be easily falsified on the Internet.

Why do these journalists and bloggers lie? Why do they commit an easily disproven libel and slander in order to tar an opponent?

It's about power and control, and the moral relativism that infects them, convincing them that even the most blatant smear is justified if it thwarts their political enemies or can help them achieve even the most temporary victory.

There is a very simple reason that conservative media are ascendant and liberal media are in decline. People have learned that liberal media cannot be trusted to get even basic facts right if their agenda can be forwarded with bias and fraud. Fox News and other conservative outlets may or may not be "fair and balanced," but they certainly comes closer to being the most trusted sources of news, because the American people simply find them more trustworthy.

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October 13, 2009

Chris Matthews Fantacizes About Rush Limbaugh Dying a Violent Death

Uttered this morning:


You guys see Live and Let Die, the great Bond film with Yaphet Kotto as the bad guy, Mr. Big? In the end they jam a big CO2 pellet in his face and he blew up. I have to tell you, Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody's going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he's going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come. Not yet. But we'll be there to watch. I think he's Mr. Big, I think Yaphet Kotto. Are you watching, Rush?

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October 09, 2009

Miami Herald goes Race-Baiting

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.

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October 06, 2009

Shovel-Ready

Writing in Tina Brown's Daily Beast, Conor Friedersdorf takes issue with the success of Andrew Breitbart's media outlets, claiming that Breitbart should try to meet the standards of the... New York Times?


Andrew Breitbart is the man in the middle of the current madness. Credit him for sponsoring Big Government, the site that broke the ACORN story and prompted the Times to begin monitoring breaking news on partisan sites. These are substantial accomplishments that improve the state of journalism.

But Mr. Breitbart's role hardly ends there.

As a proprietor of Big Government and Big Hollywood, part of the team that runs The Drudge Report, and a regular guest on Fox News, especially Sean Hannity's show, he is a leader among folks who complain that the Times is a pernicious force in American life—that it ignores stories that cut against its ideological bent, too often makes mistakes in its reporting, and gives insufficient consideration to ideological insights other than those held by its staff. This is somewhat odd given that Mr. Breitbart's media empire, and the outlets with which he most closely associates himself, are thoroughly ideological enterprises, publish few if any ideologically heterodox pieces, seldom if ever correct factual mistakes, and ignore liberal insights entirely.

Friedersdorf's screed is daft, to put it mildly.

The idea of an unbiased, objective media is a late 20th century invention proffered primarily by those within the media establishment that wanted to continue to push their ideas and ideals without being challenged by upstarts.

Sadly for Mr. Friedersdorf, that illusion was dashed long ago, mostly due to the heavy liberal bias that manifested itself time and again not just in how a story was covered, but which stories were covered to the exclusion of others.

What Breitbart's various sites provide are platforms for a center-right view of the world, with insights every bit as valid as those that the left-leaning media tries to sell. Apparently, the idea of a free marketplace of ideas isn't one critics admire once put into actual practice.

Are Big Government and Big Hollywood ideologically-driven? Unreservedly. But more importantly, Breitbart's sites all wear their viewpoint unabashedly on their proverbial sleeves... if only the Times and other news outlets weakly feigning objectivity would display such intellectual honesty!

But honesty is not part of their business model, nor is objectivity, nor is competence, or accuracy. If he thinks otherwise, Mr. Friedersdorf may need to check the prescription on his rose-colored glasses.

That said, Friedersdorf's hissy fit at the building of a conservative media empire that provides an alternative to the worldview he would like to protect is hardly surprising.

His specific criticisms, however, are amusing, especially coming from someone who writes at the Atlantic, home to infamous Trig Truther, hypocrite and ideologue Andrew Sullivan.

The temerity to criticize conservative media for inaccuracies and bias is laughable considering the dismal track record of the left-leaning legacy media, but the fact that Friedersdorf published his thoughts in Tina Brown's Daily Beast—the left-leaning, status quo-defending, botoxed and digitized old media-with-a-new-face—is even more ripe, considering that Brown's own husband abused the Beast in an article full of half-truths and outright lies that Brown refused to retract or correct.

Both old and new media have significant room for improvement, but demanding that a successful and growing enterprise follow the example of a legacy media spiraling into the ground is, quite frankly, absurd.

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September 30, 2009

Crazy on the Left and Further Left

I don't often read NewsMax. I don't have anything against them, I just have limited time and resources and rely a core group of news sites, blogs, and aggregators to gather information on a daily basis.

I rather wish I did read more frequently however, because if I did I might have been able to catch John L. Perry's column from yesterday, Obama Risks a Military 'Intervention' before it was sent down the memory hole. Clicking on that link will now redirect you to the NewsMax home page; Perry's column has also been scrubbed.

The scathing response from the blogosphere—based upon what I've been able to cobble together from quotes on several sites—seems warranted.

The simple fact of the matter is that author seems to have come unhinged, and for reasons perhaps structural to the site's editorial process, the column made it to print without a sanity check by the editors.

While the number of people dissatisfied with Obama's foundering Presidency continues to balloon and his popularity erodes on a seemingly daily basis, we are a nation of laws, not a nation of mob rule and coups by military strongmen. We will have out chance to remove President Obama in 2012 as we have always removed bad Presidents, at the ballot box.

There has only been one successful coup in American history, perpetrated by the Democratic Party and the Ku Klux Klan and allowed by a Democratic governor and President.

Advocating to repeat such a disgrace as Perry apparently did is utterly unacceptable. NewsMax was right to yank a column that never should have made it to print, and should reconsider their relationship with Perry and what that association now represents.

Update: It is also worth noting that Perry is not a conservative; his bio says he worked for both LBJ and Carter Administrations and Democratic Governor of Florida, LeRoy Collins.

From further on the left, Gore Vidal laments the "fact" that Americans are just too stupid to appreciate the genius of Obama, and also suggests that a military coup is in America's future.

Update: A statement from NewsMax:


Statement from Newsmax Regarding Blogger

In a blog posting to Newsmax John Perry wrote about a coup scenario involving the U.S. military.

He clearly stated that he was not advocating such a scenario but simply describing one.

After several reader complaints, Newsmax wanted to insure that this article was not misinterpreted. It was removed after a short period after being posted.

Newsmax strongly believes in the principles of Constitutional government and would never advocate or insinuate any suggestion of an activity that would undermine our democracy or democratic institutions.

Mr. Perry served as a political appointee in the Carter administration in HUD and FEMA. He has no official relationship with Newsmax other than as an unpaid blogger.

Here is the copy of the original Perry column in its entirety, as provided by a reader:


Obama Risks a Domestic Military 'Intervention'

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 10:35 AM

By: John L. Perry
There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the "Obama problem." Don't dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isnÂ’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn't mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

Officers swear to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to "obey the orders of the president of the United States."

Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.
They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.

They can see that the economy — ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation — is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.
They can see this president waging undeclared war on the intelligence community, without whose rigorous and independent functions the armed services are rendered blind in an ever-more hostile world overseas and at home.

They can see the dismantling of defenses against missiles targeted at this nation by avowed enemies, even as AmericaÂ’s troop strength is allowed to sag.
They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.

They can see the nation's safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before.

So, if you are one of those observant military professionals, what do you do?

Wait until this president bungles into losing the war in Afghanistan, and PakistanÂ’s arsenal of nuclear bombs falls into the hands of militant Islam?

Wait until Israel is forced to launch air strikes on IranÂ’s nuclear-bomb plants, and the Middle East explodes, destabilizing or subjugating the Free World?

What happens if the generals Obama sent to win the Afghan war are told by this president (who now says, "I'm not interested in victory" that they will be denied troops they must have to win? Do they follow orders they cannot carry out, consistent with their oath of duty? Do they resign en masse?

Or do they soldier on, hoping the 2010 congressional elections will reverse the situation? Do they dare gamble the national survival on such political whims?

Anyone who imagines that those thoughts are not weighing heavily on the intellect and conscience of AmericaÂ’s military leadership is lost in a fool's fog.

Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a "family intervention," with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama's exponentially accelerating agenda for "fundamental change" toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama's radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don't shrug and say, "We can always worry about that later."

In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.

John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for Newsmax.com. Read John Perry's columns here.


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September 29, 2009

A Great Idea for 1993

Been there. Done that.

And truth be told, the traffic wasn't overwhelming.

And while it is no doubt cool to see your mug shot on the page beside Charles Krauthammer (and to a lesser extent, Eugene Robinson), the idea of a pundit reality contest will be less than riveting entertainment for anyone not intimately involved.

As you may imagine, the folks in the blogosphere are having a field day tearing this apart.

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September 25, 2009

Drudge's Easy Libel of the Military

Earlier today I noted that Drudge's link to the use of LRADs as "acoustic weapons" was over the top, which he would have easily recognized on his own if he had simply applied logic to the very video he linked. Put simply, if an LRAD is being used as a weapon, various people would not be walking or standing directly in front of it.

It's common sense.

But Matt Drudge is after headlines and eyeballs, not accuracy, and that is why his inflammatory link that screams SEE U.S. MILITARY SNATCH PROTESTER... is so detestable.



It simply does no show what he claims it shows.

Look at the very image Drudge uses as his screen capture.

How many things immediately jump out at you that scream Drudge is wrong? Don't see it? Watch the video, and then I'll go over it in detail:



You should have noticed right off the bat that neither of the uniforms shown in this clip by the men that jumped out of the Crown Victoria are those currently being worn by our military.



See the officer on the left? He's wearing woodland BDUs. No active duty American soldiers wears BDUs, they wear ACUs, which are an entirely different style of uniform with a radically different camouflage pattern. Oh, and you might want to take a look at his shoulder, where you can see what appears to be a muted version of a Pennsylvania State Police shoulder patch.

The second Officer apprehending the protestor is also wearing a camouflage pattern that is not military issue. The same with the driver.

Any semi-competent national media figure should be able to tell the difference between a military uniform and a police tactical uniform, and I strongly suspect Matt Drudge does.

I just don't think he gives a damn whether he accuses the military of snatching Americans in broad daylight if that helps his bottom line.

Update: For reasons I'll never be able to understand, some of my conservative blogging peers have decided that the video is staged... faked by the protesters themselves.

The reasons they cite are similar to mine—that the uniforms are wrong for the modern military and mis-matched—but for some reason, they assume it was a staged event or "performance art" instead of Drudge simply being wrong about a very real event.

These were police officers, carrying out a real arrest, probably at the behest of the riot police 20 feet away we see at the end of the video.

And if the shoulder patch doesn't convince you they were cops, the gun should.



Dead-center in the middle of the frame you can see the bottom of a duty holster and the handgun itself printing through the uniform.

This was a police arrest, not an illegal abduction of an American citizen by the military on U.S. soil as Matt Drudge would mislead you, nor a staged event by the protesters.

Update: Via email Lawhawk notes a story that has a photo of PA State Police wearing woodland BDUs.

And in an update at Hot Air, Ed has the photo that should settle this for once and for all.

Law enforcement confirms a police arrest.

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August 21, 2009

Pressure Mounts Against MSNBC's Faked Racial Conspiracy

By now you've all heard about how MSNBC doctored video in order to push the fabricated narrative that open carry advocates at health care events were racially motived. MSNBC had tightly cropped an African-American open carry advocate with a Carbon-15 rifle slung over his shoulder so that you could not see his race, in order to argue that "white people showing up with guns" brought racial overtones to these protests.

Americans for Limited Government called for those involved in "a blatantly racist broadcast" to be fired on Tuesday, at which point MSNBC offered a pathetically weak non-apology attempting to claim that they were talking open carry advocates generally, even though the shot was focused on the carefully cropped image of an African American man the majority of the time.

Brent Bozell of the Media Resource Center added his thoughts today, stating that MSNBC must apologize for fomenting racial discord:


"This goes beyond 'sloppy' reporting by MSNBC. This was a deliberate effort to brand conservatives as racists – and now as violent racists.

"Since the beginning of the presidential campaign, this so-called 'news' network has tried desperately to convince viewers that opposition to Barack Obama must be race-based. Now they are actually producing deliberately misleading stories to push that agenda. As a 'news' network, MSNBC is a disgrace.

"MSNBC owes this man and the tens of thousands of protestors a public apology. It should also extend that apology to its tens of thousands of viewers."

MSNBC is guilty of attempting to incite racial strife. They obviously hoped find some sort of political silver lining in labeling opponents as white racists, even when those that oppose them are black.

I do think Bozell must have misstated MSNBC's appeal, however.

Do they really have tens of thousands of viewers?

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April 21, 2009

Media Survey Bleg

Aaron Veenstra, a PhD. Journalism Candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is asking for your help:


My primary research interest is political blogs and I am conducting a experiment with blog readers that I would greatly appreciate your readers' participation in:

http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/~asveenstra/09study-3/start.html

...This study will hopefully shed some light on some understudied areas of news effects by letting me focus on a group of heavy news consumers who are highly interested in politics and current events.

Completing this survey will take about 15-20 minutes and will require a high-speed Internet connection (a connection that's fast enough for YouTube will work fine). As thanks for participating, 10 respondents will be randomly selected at the conclusion of the study to receive $25 gift cards to Amazon.com.

For those of you would would like to let a researcher know what you think of the news media and blogs, here's your shot.

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April 16, 2009

Finally! Anderson Cooper Comes Out of the Closet

A bit of personal wisdom approximately 50 seconds in.*



Other so-called "professional" journalists engaged in the juvenile wordplay as well, all--perhaps not surprisingly--on networks that aren't doing so well.

*MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is not gay, despite a performance history that might suggest otherwise.

Yeah, low-hanging fruits.

Oh, wait. People, people...

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Their Favorite Fictions

Two readers sent me a link to another infuriating and dishonest New York Times story about Americans guns begin purchased in the United States and being smuggled south for use by Mexican drug cartels.

As you may expect, it picked up on the White House's favorite faux talking points:


Sending straw buyers into American stores, cartels have stocked up on semiautomatic AK-47 and AR-15 rifles, converting some to machine guns, investigators in both countries say. They have also bought .50 caliber rifles capable of stopping a car and Belgian pistols able to fire rifle rounds that will penetrate body armor.

As it so often does, existing BATF rules and regulations disprove the mediaÂ’s assertions. Simply put, The BATF does not allow the manufacture or importation of firearms that can easily be modified into machine guns, and those drop-in parts which can quickly change a semi-automatic design are treated and as strictly monitored and regulated as machine guns themselves under U.S. law.

If there are conversions going on in Mexico, it means that the parts that make a machine gun a machine gun already exist in Mexico, meaning no additional laws targeting U.S. guns would make a difference.

And when you come down to it, I'm tired of government officials that favor gun control telling us that these conversions are taking place. I want them to show us specific conversions they have captured, making the serial numbers and manufacturing details of their parts public record so that we can determine for ourselves where these parts are coming from.

As for the .50 caliber rifles "capable of stopping a car," well, a typical car can be stopped with just about any centerfire rifle you would use for deer hunting, or with a typical shotgun. Implying that .50 caliber bullets have magical properties is rhetorically disingenuous. Yes, the .50 BMG cartridge produces far more energy than a typical rifle bullet, but the bullet isn't explosive, which is just what most pro-gun control stories stop just short of stating when they imply such firearms are threats to train cars, airplanes, and armored vehicles.

As for the .50 rifles being recovered in Mexico, commenters have remarked before how the .50-caliber rifles being recovered by the Mexican police look suspiciously like those sold to the Mexican military, right down to the same brand of scope and back-up iron sights (BUIS). Once again, that is not a problem that would be resolved by more restrictions in the United States.

As for the "Belgian pistols able to fire rifle rounds that will penetrate body armor," the authors are peddling yet another statement that is a only loosely based in fact.

The round in question is the 5.7x28, and it is not remotely a rifle cartridge.

It is chambered for pistols and personal defense weapons that falls into the submachine class of weapons , but that can shoot bullet designed for armor penetration. What the Times won't tell you is that armor-piercing bullets are highly-restricted under U.S law, for sale only to the military and police. Nor will the Times tell their readers that even when these pistols are loaded with the heavily-restricted "armor piercing" bullets, these bullets utterly fail to penetrate the more advanced body armor used by police and military units, and work reliably only on lesser armor classes.

Lastly, the Times neglects to mention that their rhetorical whipping boy 5.7x28 cartridge is failing to catch on in many circles, because while it does possess some armor penetration capabilities if using the restricted ammunition, it always uses a tiny bullet, and does not have a record of reliably causing incapacitating wounds.

You've got to give it to the Times for efficiency, though; they packed so many half-truths and lies in two sentences that it took seven paragraphs to detail them all.

But the Times isn't quite does just yet.

Watch the mastery in the deceptive sentence below:


Federal agents say about 90 percent of the 12,000 pistols and rifles the Mexican authorities recovered from drug dealers last year and asked to be traced came from dealers in the United States, most of them in Texas and Arizona.

If you read this quickly as most newspaper readers would, you'd come away with the distinct impression that 90-percent of the guns recovered from drug dealers in Mexico came from the United States, which is exactly what the author wants you to understand.

It is only upon reading the sentence deeper that you would recognize that the the phrase "and asked to be traced" is the key.

Mexican authorities only ask American authorities to track the small fraction of those guns that it suspects comes from the United States. The do not ask us to trace the majority of the guns they capture that are clearly not of U.S. origin. Of the total number of guns recovered from cartels, just 17-percent came from the United States--quite a big difference from the 90-percent the y tried to trick readers into accepting.

It is really quite sad that so many journalists feel they have the right to publisher such clearly biased information as fact, but their reporting is no more pathetic than the editors and publishers that allow journalists to publish advocacy instead of news.

News organizations are dying on the vine in the United States, and the media loves to claim that the Internet is to blame. That may be true, but if it is, it is because the Internet allows the mediaÂ’s favorite fictions to be exposed, leaving their reputations—arguably their most important product" irrevocably damaged.

People wonÂ’t knowing buy damaged goods, and why should they?

Day by day, story by story, the Times justifies ever dollar it loses with another fiction that turns away another reader, and when they are gone, they will not be missed.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:19 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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March 25, 2009

Complicity in Idiocy

Fox News posted the following highly-misleading graphic on the front page of foxnews.com tonight, as the click-through image for a story entitled Clinton: U.S. Shares Blame in Mexico Drug Wars.



The obvious implication of the image, echoing recent rhetoric by the Obama Administration and the Mexican government that the firearms industry in the United States is responsible for supplying drug cartels with massive amounts of firepower, including military weapons.

But what does the picture actually show?

A close look at the picture shows at the top a short-barreled AR-15 carbine where the flash hider begins immediately in front of the front sight.

Such weapons are highly-regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934, and buyers must have approval from the ATF and pay a $200 transfer tax. Such weapons are most commonly seen in use by law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border in urban tactical dynamic entry or SWAT teams. It is possible, and perhaps probable, that this firearm was acquired by cartels from Mexican law enforcement, and not from civilian firearms dealers.

The next firearm down, a civilian-legal AR-15 carbine, has a noticeably longer 16-inch legal minimum barrel, as does the Mini-14 carbine. The AR-15-style rifle below that has a 20-inch barrel.

Dominating the photo, however, is a collection of military weaponry that is simply unavailable for purchase by American civilians at any price. There are either rockets or mortar shells (probably the former, but I'm not sure) and a M-72 LAW, a disposable anti-tank rocket.

Our President and Attorney General and have been more than willing to mislead the American people by including military weaponry in displays of arms confiscated from cartels, in hopes of pushing for what the President likes to call "common sense" gun control measures, as if anti-tank rockets, hand grenades, IEDs and police and military-issued machine guns can be had under existing gun laws.

We except such deception from Barack Obama, a man who was once part of the anti-gun Joyce Foundation and who was part of an attempt to con the Supreme Court. We also expect the media to be largely ignorant and heavily biased in stories involving firearms.

We should, however, expect at least the most basic level of intellectual curiosity from our media, such as wondering why government officials are implying military anti-tank weaponry is available for purchase by civilians in U.S. gun shops.

Journalists are abdicating their responsibility to ask these questions.

This failure to follow the basic tenets of journalism is a large part of why the public holds the media in such low regard, and why their news organizations continue to collapse around them.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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February 04, 2009

Associated Press Goes After "Hope" Artist For More Than Change

I was emailed a link to this story from AP's Media Relations office tonight.

It seems that the wire service wants credit and compensation from an artist by the name of Shepard Fairey for his Barack Obama "Hope" image that was admittedly based on the work of an Associated Press photographer, Manny Garcia.

Now it has been a long, long time—circa 1991—that I was in college learning the basics of media law in a journalism class, but my initial reaction was that derivative art was protected under fair use laws.

And upon further review, it's a good thing that I'm not a lawyer.

Fairey has apparently admitted his work came from Garcia's photo. It seems to me that the only real question here is whether or not Fairey settles our of court, or if he presses for a trial that he seems destined to lose.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:58 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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January 19, 2009

CNN's Meserve Punked by Secret Service

Dude, where's my spotter?


The teams typically consist of two people, both armed with high-powered rifles, either of whom can shoot to deter an imminent threat. If one countersniper spots a threat, that person prepares to shoot while the other member takes on the role of "wind caller," telling the shooter how to adjust his aim to counteract the wind.

The wind caller takes cues from chimney smoke, flags or undulations from the atmosphere.

While the name of the primary shooter of a precision shooting team differs for political reasons with some calling him a sniper, countersniper, sharpshooter or kitten-of-the-gun, the second half of a sniper team is ubiquitously called a spotter.

A "wind caller?"

That's the obnoxious little kid that loudly yells "Mommy farted!" at the mall, causing a mortified, teeth-clenched-and-red-faced woman to momentarily yearn for a "decade-after" pill.

One can only imagine that Meserve and Ahlers did what CNN journalists so often do, taking the word of their subjects at face value—be they Hamas terrorists, tyrannical dictators, or straight-faced comedians with a badge—rushing the story to air without bothering with tedious fact-checking, or even a few seconds on the Internet to see if they got the terminology remotely right.

The dead-pan sniper found his mark, and CNN's Merserve published a subtle fart joke as news.

Bulls-eye.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:13 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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January 13, 2009

Red Cross Confirms the Obvious: Israeli White Phosphorus Smoke Shells Used Legally in Gaza; Hamas Docs Continue Propaganda Efforts

I wrote several days ago that the Israeli use of 155mm M825A1 smoke shells was not in any way a "war crime," nor the use of "chemical weapons," nor in any way against the law of war, despite the cries of leftist journalists and Islamist activists.

Today, the International Red Cross agreed:


The international Red Cross said Tuesday that Israel has fired white phosphorus shells in its offensive in the Gaza Strip, but has no evidence to suggest it is being used improperly or illegally.

The comments came after a human rights organization accused the Jewish state of using the incendiary agent, which ignites when it strikes the skin and burns straight through or until it is cut off from oxygen. It can cause horrific injuries.

The International Committee of the Red Cross urged Israel to exercise "extreme caution" in using the incendiary agent, which is used to illuminate targets at night or create a smoke screen for day attacks, said Peter Herby, the head of the organization's mines-arms unit.

"In some of the strikes in Gaza it's pretty clear that phosphorus was used," Herby told The Associated Press. "But it's not very unusual to use phosphorus to create smoke or illuminate a target. We have no evidence to suggest it's being used in any other way."

In response, the Israeli military said Tuesday that it "wishes to reiterate that it uses weapons in compliance with international law, while strictly observing that they be used in accordance with the type of combat and its characteristics."

Sadly, even the Red Cross' statement is unlikely to stem spurious allegations white phosphorus is being used as a weapon, as these photos show:




caption: Palestinian Louai Sobeh, 10, is treated for burns at Shifa hospital in Gaza City on January 12, 2009. Palestinian doctor working in Gaza City Dr Yusef Abu Rish told AFP that at least 55 people were injured early yesterday by white phosphorous shells, banned under international law for use against civilians, but permitted for creating smokescreens. "These people were burned over their bodies in a way that can only be caused by white phosphorous," said Abu Rish. An Israeli military spokeswoman denied the claims. "There is no use of white phosphorous. Everything we use is according to international law," she said.




caption: Palestinian Mohamed Ahmed is treated for burns at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 12, 2009. Dr Yusef Abu Rish at Gaza City's Nasser hospital told AFP that at least 55 people were injured early yesterday by white phosphorous shells, banned under international law for use against civilians, but permitted for creating smokescreens. "These people were burned over their bodies in a way that can only be caused by white phosphorous," said Abu Rish. An Israeli military spokeswoman denied the claims."There is no use of white phosphorous. Everything we use is according to international law," she said.




caption: Palestinian Akram Abu Roka is treated for burns at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 12, 2009. Dr Yusef Abu Rish at Gaza City's Nasser hospital told AFP that at least 55 people were injured early yesterday by white phosphorous shells, banned under international law for use against civilians, but permitted for creating smokescreens. "These people were burned over their bodies in a way that can only be caused by white phosphorous," said Abu Rish. An Israeli military spokeswoman denied the claims."There is no use of white phosphorous. Everything we use is according to international law," she said.



Let me be very blunt: both the Palestinian doctor and the IDF spokesperson are almost certainly lying.


Israel is using white phosphorus, but it is not violating any laws of warfare, because the white phosphorus they are using is not weaponized. They are using air-bursting shells to make smokescreens, not impact-detonating munitions one would associate with offensive incendiary use. when it comes to the white phosphorus they are using, the spokesperson is telling the truth when she claims that "Everything we use is according to international law."

So why does the IDF continue to insist it isn't using white phosphorus? I'd suggest it is because most media outlets covering the conflict are either so biased or so incompetent that they couldn't or wouldn't explain to their consumers that not all uses of white phosphorus are the same.

As for Dr. Yusef Abu Rish, he's either unfamiliar with what white phosphorus burns look like, or perhaps more likely, is serving up a healthy dose of propaganda.

As I mentioned previously and Soccer Dad picked up upon, the IDF is deploying smoke shells. In specific, they are using M825A1 air-bursting smoke rounds fired from 155 howitzers. The M825A1 disperses 3/4-inch thick solid felt wedges impregnated with white phosphorus that disperse from airbursting shells in altitudes that appear in most photos to be 100 feet off the ground, or more. Each shell disperses 116 wedges.

These wedges can indeed cause horrific, potentially fatal burns if they hit people, but this kind of WP dispersal would mostly likely cause distinctive, penetrating, and localized burn injuries— not the scattering of surface wounds suffered by Sobeh, the nearly uniform and widespread facial burns of Ahmed, or the heavy, extensive burns suffered by Roka. All of their woulds could certainly be combat-related, and the later two are distinctively burns, but they do not bear the signs one typically associates with white phosphorus.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:21 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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