in the wrong era. Soundly refuting
liberals online since 2000. NOTE: That is NOT
me pictured at left. :)
| Daily Beast | Human Rights: Activist Chen Guangcheng: Let Me Leave China on Hillary Clinton’s Plane |
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| HOC | Campaign 2012: Lugar, Mourdock in Dead Heat in New Poll |
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| Zombie | New Tone: SF May Day Occupier hurls bricks and iron bars at police, injures bystander—live video |
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| Mediaite | Winning: Malkin Tears Into Juan Williams’ Comparing Occupy Violence To Tea Party ‘Racism’ |
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| The Hill | Truth: GOP seeks to portray President Obama as nation’s divider-in-chief |
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Audacity of Truth
SCOTUS Expert:
".... speaking on Monday the president was not clearly understood by some people because he is a law professor, he spoke in shorthand." - WH Spox Jay Carney, 4-5-12
(Video) Bill Whittle: Man bites dog
**Posted by Phineas
Busy day today, but I wanted to share the latest Firewall with you. In it, Bill looks at the silliness regarding Romney “dog on the car roof” story and “Obama ate a dog,” and explains why it matters. First, because it illustrates in bright, neon colors yet another example of mainstream media hypocrisy: the New York Times disapprovingly mentions the Romney story 56 times, but dismisses Obama’s self-confessed chow-down on a Chow as a distraction. Typical.
But his larger point is the more important one: Obama eating dog meat, in addition to all the other elements of his early life, shows how he just isn’t one of us. Not in the silly sense of being a “sekrit Mooslim” or the equally nonsensical birther fantasies, but that the sum total of his life experience leaves him unable to understand or empathize with his “fellow” Americans. While Bill focuses on Obama’s early life, I’d toss in his collegiate years and his life in Chicago within the echo chamber of Socialist community organizing and leftist academia. Bill Clinton feeling our pain, he isn’t.
Enjoy:
(Crossposted at Public Secrets)
It’s official: Bye bye, Newt Gingrich – hello, Mitt Romney
The Gingrich campaign took its last gasp today – and a Romney endorsement is most likely forthcoming:
Newt Gingrich officially suspended his GOP presidential campaign Wednesday – though it was more like another episode in the long goodbye that started weeks ago.
“It has been an amazing year for me and Callista,” Gingrich, the former House speaker, said at a Hilton Hotel in northern Virginia. “Today, I am suspending the campaign, but suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship. Callista and I are committed to be active citizens. We owe it to America.”
Delivering a roughly 20-minute address, Gingrich vowed to, with his wife, remain “active citizens,” as he looked back on the primary campaign and looked ahead to what challenges remain in America.But he also declined to endorse Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination — meaning another announcement could still be on the way and potentially giving Gingrich another chance to deliver one of the extended monologues he is known for.
Even so, Gingrich has slowly slipped away from the limelight in the Republican race.
The campaign suggested in March that Gingrich might quit should he fail to win Mississippi or Alabama, but the campaign limped on. Aides then revealed last week that the candidate would be calling it quits – but pushed off the day of the announcement itself until Tuesday, then delayed that announcement until Wednesday afternoon.Despite not endorsing Romney, Gingrich did make clear that his doubts during the primary campaign about Romney’s conservatism are dwarfed by his concerns about President Obama winning another term.
“This is not a choice between Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan – this is a choice between Mitt Romney and the most radical leftist president in American history,” Gingrich said.
Well, Mitt Romney was not my first, second, or even third choice. Perry was my original choice, then Newt, and now … well, we have Romney. Not ideal for me by a long shot, but as the old saying goes, we have to go to war with the army we have. I won’t be viscerally pro-Romney because I’m not, but I will always be staunchly anti-Obama. Time to put the shoulder pads and helmets on and get to work, peeps.
Are you with me?
Fast and Furious: DoJ-supplied guns used in Mexican lawyer’s murder
**Posted by Phineas
Well, ain’t that just dandy.
I’ve said before that the number of Mexican soldiers, federal agents, police and civilians killed by weapons allowed to “walk” over the border into Mexico under the Department of Justice’s “sting” operation has amounted to at least 300, per the Mexican Attorney General.
Here are some specifics, courtesy of Borderland Beat:
Firearms connected to Operation Fast and Furious were used in the 2010 slaying of the brother of the former Chihuahua state attorney general, according to a U.S. congressional report.
The report said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traced two of the weapons suspected in the murder of lawyer Mario González Rodríguez, but did not report this fact to the Mexican government until eight months after the tracing.
(…)
A video of Mario González Rodríguez’s “interrogation” by armed men was carried on YouTube. The body of the well-known Chihuahua City lawyer was found Nov. 5, 2010, in a shallow grave.
Then, Mexican federal authorities, following a shootout with drug cartel suspects, seized 16 weapons and arrested eight men in connection with Mario González Rodríguez’s murder.
The serial numbers on the seized weapons were run through an ATF database and, sure enough, two AK-pattern weapons were were flagged as “walked guns.” But it took eight months for the US government to tell Mexican authorities of their findings. When Carlos Canino, then the ATF attache in Mexico City, finally did bother to tell the Mexicans that, hey, some of our guns killed one of your citizens –our bad!– he gave the following explanation for the delay:
Canino feared an international incident might break out with Mexico if the information leaked out to the news media instead of being sent through government channels. He told U.S. lawmakers that he did not want to undermine the trust that U.S. law enforcement had developed with their Mexican counterparts in the war against the drug cartels.
Because, Lord knows, nothing builds trust like supplying automatic weapons and grenades to your ally’s enemies. Hate to see that spoiled.
When did I move to Bizarro World?
PS: Note to Mitt Romney, two words: Special. Prosecutor.
RELATED: Earlier entries for Operation Fast and Furious, aka “Gunwalker.”
(Crossposted at Public Secrets)
(Video) “Heroes don’t spike the football.”
**Posted by Phineas
Whoa. That sound you heard was Obama getting slapped in the face by this:
That’ll leave a mark. 
Since we’re using football analogies, what this reminds me of is Terrell Owens’ classless celebration on the Cowboys’ midfield star, and Emmitt Smith’s lesson to him why that was a bad idea.
PS: Ever get the feeling President Short Pants has lost 99.99% of the “military and their families” vote?
via Jim Geraghty
(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)
Diminishing the office: Obama and credit for killing Bin Laden — Updated
**Posted by Phineas
This week marks the one-year anniversary since Seal Team Six sent Osama bin Laden to Hell. It also marks the time when a president who has little else to run on (and plenty to run from) touts his role in terminating the al Qaeda chief, promoting that as a reason to reelect him.
Now, I’m not one to say Obama cannot cite the Abbottabad raid; it was ultimately his responsibility as president, whether it succeeded or failed, so he has every right to list it as an accomplishment. But the way he has gone about it has been unseemly, crass, and beneath the president’s role as Chief of State and Commander in Chief, going so far as to smear his presumptive opponent, Mitt Romney, with the accusation that he would not have had the nerve to order the raid. An accusation like that is beneath contempt (1).
My blog-buddy ST has already written about how the tawdry manner in which Obama is exploiting the Abbottabad operation is raising the ire of former and serving Special Forces soldiers. Meanwhile, in an article for the WSJ, former federal judge and former US Attorney General (2) Michael Mukasey analyses how Obama claimed credit while dodging responsibility for the operation and then compares his self-aggrandizement to the manner in which prior wartime leaders have handled similar matters.
Mukasey begins with the almost giddy rush of the administration to gloat over the operation, showing almost no regard for the vast intelligence captured by telling the world we had it and thus alerting the enemy, and also naming SEAL Team 6, possibly leaving them exposed to a fatal revenge attack weeks later. All that is worth reading, but what I want to focus on is his comparison of the words of Obama at the time to operation’s announcement with those of Presidents Lincoln and George W. Bush, and General Eisenhower at similarly dramatic moments. First, President Obama:
“I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority . . . even as I continued our broader effort. . . . Then, after years of painstaking work by my intelligence community I was briefed . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team . . . And finally last week I determined that I had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at my direction . . .”
President “I won” in his full glory.
Obama once said he’d like to be compared to Lincoln. Mukasey takes him up on that, compares Obama’s statement to the speech Lincoln gave upon announcing Lee’s surrender, thus effectively ending the Civil War, and finds him wanting. Compare the quote above to what Lincoln said to the assembled crowd:
We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace whose joyous expression can not be restrained. In the midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow, must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated. Nor must those whose harder part gives us the cause of rejoicing, be overlooked. Their honors must not be parcelled out with others. I myself was near the front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting much of the good news to you; but no part of the honor, for plan or execution, is mine. To Gen. Grant, his skilful officers, and brave men, all belongs. The gallant Navy stood ready, but was not in reach to take active part.
The 16th president of the United States, rendering full glory to others.
On D-Day, General (and future president) Eisenhower prepared a message for the landing’s success that exhibited a similar nobility of spirit:
“One week ago this morning there was established through your coordinated efforts our first foothold in northwestern Europe. High as was my preinvasion confidence in your courage, skill and effectiveness . . . your accomplishments . . . have exceeded my brightest hopes.
And Mukasey cites excerpts from George W. Bush’s statement upon the capture of Saddam Hussein:
He called that success “a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq.” He attributed it to “the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator’s footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers. . . . Their work continues, and so do the risks.”
When Ike and W did mention themselves, it was only to speak of their pride in those who did the real work.
On the flip side, taking responsibility for failure, Mukasey contrasts the carefully crafted orders for the Abbottabad raid that would have left blame with the admiral in charge to the statements of Lincoln and Eisenhower, accepting responsibility for the failures of those below them. To this, we can add George W. Bush’s forthrightness in 2006, when he made himself accountable for the difficulties and failures to that point in Iraq, refusing to blame others.
Contrast these three leaders with Barack Obama’s careful shielding of himself from any responsibility, followed by his brassy “me and only me” spiking of the ball, and you’ll see just how the current incumbent not only diminishes the office he holds, but is also himself diminished by comparison to Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Bush.
Those three were Chiefs of State and Commanders in Chief.
Obama is just a cheap Chicago pol.
Footnote:
(1) Romney’s right. Even Jimmy Carter would have ordered the hit.
(2) And a real AG, not the cheap, corrupt knockoff we have in the office, now.
UPDATE: And right on cue, he proves my point — “Obama to address nation on the anniversary of Bin Laden’s death from Afghanistan.”
(Crossposted at Public Secrets)
Navy SEALs not happy at Obama’s use of OBL kill as a re-election tool
Well, it looks like our celebrity Prez has overstepped – yet again – this campaign season by using the one year anniversary of the death of OBL as an election-year tool. Not only that, but he and his campaign have disgracefully suggested in so many words that Mitt Romney would not have made the same call last year to give Special Forces the go ahead to get Binny. Even further, his attempt at taking too much of the credit for the kill has rubbed some SEALs the wrong way. As BuzzFeed reports, their resentment towards this President is very real:
The frustration—or, even anger—within the SEAL community is real, and has been brewing for months, particularly among a politically conservative core of operators. It started immediately after the raid, with questions among the Special Forces and intelligence community of whether the president should have waited to announce the kill to exploit the intelligence cache at Osama’s compound. It simmered after a Chinook helicopter was shot down, killing 30 Americans, 22 of them Navy SEALs from Team Six.
Was it a coincidence, SEALs asked themselves, catastrophe hit Team Six so soon after being named as the team responsible for the killing?
The White House narrative on the Geronimo mission would soon come under scrutiny as well, after Chuck Pfarrer, a former member of Seal Team Six, published a book length account questioning the official version of the story. The controversial book was viciously attacked—a JSOC spokesperson called it a “fabrication”—and it was widely dismissed by the press.
What the pushback revealed, however, was an extreme sensitivity in the White House as to who would have the privilege to tell the Bin Laden story, best expressed in a compelling, if well stage-managed, story in the New Yorker. The piece recounted the Abbottabad raid based on interviews with senior administration and military officials, while imbuing the story with the drama of a SEAL’s eye view. Yet the author conceded he had not actually interviewed the men who did the shooting.
Over the past few days, I’ve reached out to a number of SEALs, both active duty and former. Most active duty SEALs were reluctant to go on the record venting or praising their boss, but one of the most interesting responses I received from an operator was to direct me to Leif Babin, a SEAL who left active duty last year.
Babin, who runs the consulting firm Echelon Front, wrote a little noticed op-ed in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal four months ago. The headline: OBAMA EXPLOITS THE NAVY SEALS. Babin took aim at “the president and his advisors, writing: “It is infuriating to see political gain put above the safety and security of our brave warriors and our long-term strategic goals.”
I don’t really have an issue with celebrating the anniversary of the killing of OBL, while giving full credit to the guys who put their lives on the line to get it done. I do have an issue, however, with the use of it as a campaign tool. Suggesting you are the guy who will do the best job of keeping America safe is one thing; but stepping on the toes of the guys who actually did the grunt work – and falsely painting your opponent as someone who would not have taken the same opportunity to give the go ahead at that crucial moment (especially when Romney has made clear in the past that he would have gone after OBL if he had been President), doesn’t really belong in any campaign, IMO.
What are your thoughts? Good or bad strategy? Should Team Obama retreat from this campaign tactic, or move full steam ahead?
Favorite #UAWOW – North Carolina rally sign: “This Slut Votes” (PLUS: VIDEO)
North Carolina’s participation in the national “United Against the War On Women” day in Raleigh on Saturday was sparsely attended – only about 100 or so took part, according to the Raleigh News and Observer – but that still didn’t keep the creative juices of those who did attend from flowing. Here’s my favorite sign so far:
Photo courtesy of the UAWOW - NC Group.
There was someone else at the rally with a “slut” sign – a guy, in fact – but I can’t tell what the sign reads. You can view more photos here. Occupy NC State has video from the rally:
Video streaming by Ustream
Never have understood why “feminists” want to “take back” the word “slut” from people who have “misused” it. It’s a pretty disgusting way to refer to someone no matter who is using it – or why.
In related news, fascistic “feminists” have been waging another war of sorts, this time against conservative women who don’t fall in line with their “group-think” mentality. Now, this isn’t anything new – “feminists” have wanted to shut us up for decades, but some took to to a whole new level the last few weeks by engaging in falsely “blocking and reporting” Twitter users for spam. If enough people report a user for “spam”, Twitter will suspend it automatically until further notice, effectively silencing an account until it either comes back up or the user temporarily starts a new one. Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy site has the details on this disturbing trend.
I should note, for the record, that yours truly was right in the thick of this as I and many of my followers were directly targeted for “monitoring” via a hit list started by “@FeminaziSlut” and promoted by a “Stop Rush” militant who used to go by the name “@subculturestuff” but who has since changed her name and password protected her Twitter account to keep people from witnessing her dictator-esque tactics. The list was supposedly started in response to a NON-EXISTENT “campaign” that I did (not) start to try and get “feminists” suspended from Twitter. Essentially what sub and “Nazi” did was to create a strawman out of thin air and generate a “campaign” against it by targeting both me and my readers, alleging I have a “Twitter army” (I do not). Some actually got suspended (I heard a few were allegedly reported to the FBI), but Twitter is slowly bringing some of them (and others unrelated to this orchestrated attack) back, thanks in part to the widespread outrage over the deliberate targeting of @ChrisLoesch last night by far leftists who repeatedly took his account down (reporting it for spam) every time it came back up.
As many of us have said before, when someone online annoys you, you can block them and set it to where you don’t see what they have to say whether or not it’s directed to you or anyone else. The “spam” feature on Twitter is not there for people just to report people they disagree with, but that’s what liberals have been using it for, excessively over the last few weeks – and the routine misuse of this feature (a TOS violation) actually goes back months.
Some people might find this petty and “not a big deal in the scheme of things” but if you think about how Twitter and other social media platforms have changed the way information is distributed and discussed, it’s a pretty big deal – and the far leftists who have engaged in this war on the speech of conservatives who disagree with them know it. That’s why they do it. In their pathetic little worlds, dissent is NOT patriotic – especially if you are a conservative who doesn’t buy into their “victimhood” mentality. For radical liberals, the response to disagreement is to shut conservatives down by any means necessary, effectively choking their voices on one of the most widely used social media platforms in the world. To do so – period – is chilling, but especially during an election year when it is so important to make your voices heard and heard often.
Unfortunately, the left is just getting warmed up with their game-playing and manipulation this general election season. Look for it to get much, much worse.
Fast and Furious: Elijah Cummings throws the dead under the bus to protect Obama and Holder
**Posted by Phineas
Last week I reported that the Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R – CA) House Oversight Committee was preparing contempt of Congress charges against Attorney General Eric Holder for non-cooperation and defying subpoenas in the committee’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. Also known as “Gunwalker,” the administration’s supposed plan was to funnel guns and grenades to the cartels and then, somehow (1), trace them to their leaders. This plan went horribly awry, resulting in the deaths of more than 300 Mexican civilians, police, federal agents, and military, as well and one, perhaps two United States federal officers. It is this failed, fatal, operation that Chairman Issa’s committee has been digging into in order to find out how something this boneheaded could take place, all with little help from the Justice Department of the “most transparent administration, ever.”
Ranking committee Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings, however, will have none of that nonsense:
Rep. Elijah Cummings warned Rep. Darrell Issa against turning a potential contempt resolution against Attorney General Eric Holder over the Fast and Furious scandal into “an election-year witch hunt,” he wrote in a letter late last week.
“Holding someone in contempt of Congress is one of the most serious and formal actions our Committee can take, and it should not be used as a political tool to generate press as part of an election-year witch hunt against the Obama Administration,” the Maryland Democrat wrote Friday to Issa, the California Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Congressman Cummings was incensed that the draft citation was leaked to the press:
“Leaking a draft contempt citation that Members of our Committee have never seen suggests that you are more interested in perpetuating your partisan political feud in the press than in obtaining any specific substantive information relating to the Committee’s investigation,” he wrote. “These actions undermine the credibility of the Committee, as well as the integrity and validity of any contempt actions the Committee ultimately may choose to adopt in the future.”
Cry me a river. A congressman complaining about leaks to the press is about as credible as Captain Renault being shocked to find gambling in Rick’s cafe.
No, what’s really going on here is a hack congressman trying to spin a message about unfair Republicans (2), in order to protect a cabinet officer and his president. The truth of what may have happened in Operation fast and Furious, including possible massive violations of federal and state laws, matters less than Obama’s electoral chances.
We’ve seen this show before: it was called “Watergate.” Only no one died that time.
Meanwhile, 300 (and counting) Mexicans and federal agents Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata still have no justice.
RELATED: Earlier posts on Operation Fast and Furious.
Footnotes:
(1) I say “somehow,” since, without any tracking devices or, indeed, any effort at all to trace the guns once they were in Mexico, it remains a mystery as to just how the DoJ, ATF, and other involved agencies ever expected to link these weapons to their buyers. The only way to ever see them again was to recover them at crime scenes, which usually meant people had been killed, too.
(2) I’m sure we won’t have to wait long before accusations of “racism” are made, too.
(Crossposted at Public Secrets)
(Video) The love of theory is the root of all evil
**Posted by Phineas
In one of the best segments of Afterburner in recent memory, Bill Whittle explores the dangers of dogma, that obsessive devotion to a theory that leads one to ignore all evidence to the contrary, and the consequences be damned:
The genius of Bill’s proposition lies in its simplicity. Look at the Hell wrought on the world by some fools’ single-minded devotion to Marxist-Leninist-Maoist economics — how many hundreds of millions have died in Europe, Asia, and Africa?
Look at the trillions of dollars being wasted –the impoverishment of previously wealthy nations, such as Great Britain– because of the obsession with global warming, a problem that does not exist.
Look at our own nation, where secular priests demand we spend more, borrow more, and create more bureaucracy, in spite of all the evidence showing that, far from making things better, it’s only more of the same poison.
This battle is a fight between empiricism and intellectual honesty, on the one hand, and the emotional attachment to a cherished theory, on the other. For the sake of all that we hold dear, we must take that love of false theory, rip it out of the hands of those who cling to it like a soft blanket, shoot it dead before their eyes, and force them to face the empirical truth.
For their (and our) own good.
(Crossposted at Public Secrets)
