This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • What passes for unbiased press these days.

    Confederate Yankee has been dealing deadly blows to the Associated Press this week, if you hadn’t noticed. A week or so ago, AP published a story about 20 beheadings near Salman Pak that Iraqi Defense Forces can’t find. It turns out that it never happened and AP’s sources were hundreds of miles away and intentionally misleading the formerly premier news service.

    Well, here’s another nugget from the AP – intentionally misinforming the world in the model of the Washington Post story I wrote about last night;

    American soldiers rolled into Baghdad’s Sadr City slum on Saturday in search of Iranian-linked militants and as many as 26 Iraqis were killed in what a U.S. officer described as “an intense firefight.”

    But residents, police and hospital officials said eight people were killed — all civilians in their homes, and angrily accused U.S. forces of firing blindly on the innocent. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the raids and demanded an explanation for the assault into a district where he has barred U.S. operations in the past.

    Hmmm. Shi-ites upset that US forces fought Shi-ite militias in their protected Shi-ite strongholds. Imagine that. And to bolster their claim that American troops are homocidal maniacs, before they carry on with the US forces explanation, the AP injects this unrelated sentence;

    Separately, two American soldiers were charged with the premeditated murder of three Iraqis, the U.S. military said Saturday.

    No agenda with adding that particular sentence there, would you say? 

    The U.S. military said it conducted two predawn raids in Sadr City, Baghdad’s largest Shiite slum, killing 26 “terrorists” who attacked U.S. troops with small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs. But Iraqi police and hospital officials said all the dead were civilians killed in their homes.

    Can’t let the Americans tell their side of the story without interupting them, can we? And notice how the AP put the word “terrorists” in quotes – as if it was just the US forces opinion that they were indeed terrorists – despite the fact they were firing weapons at the Americans.

    “The Iraqi government totally rejects U.S. military operations … conducted without a pre-approval from the Iraqi military command,” Mr. Maliki said in a statement released by his office. “Anyone who breaches the military command orders will face investigation.”

    An American military spokesman insisted all of those killed were combatants. “Everyone who got shot was shooting at U.S. troops at the time,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, the spokesman. “It was an intense firefight.”

    The Iraqi officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, put the death toll at eight, with 20 wounded.

    President Bush’s response should be to start packing up and moving out of Iraq. No, I’m not some Leftist anti-war nut – but if Maliki starts insisting that we approve our military operations with the Iraqis, we don’t need to bleed for his country any further. I’ll bet Maliki would change his tune fast enough.

    Sadr City is the Iraqi capital’s largest Shiite neighborhood — home to some 2.5 million people. It is also the base of operations for the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The fighters are blamed for much of the sectarian killing in Baghdad.

    In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Sheik Salah al-Obaidi, a spokesman for Mr. Sadr condemned Saturday’s raids: “The bombing hurt only innocent civilians.”

    Oh, well, that tears it then, if Sadr’s spokesman says it was all civilians, that must be the case.

    The U.S. military statement said soldiers riding in armored vehicles “used proper escalation of force rules to engage four civilian vehicles.”

    “You start with warnings and work your way up to firing on a vehicle,” Col. Garver said. “Every structure and vehicle that the troops on the ground engaged were being used for hostile intent,” he said.

    U.S. soldiers fired a barrage of bullets at one vehicle after it failed to yield at a checkpoint, Col. Garver said. The other civilian cars were being used as a cover for insurgents, who hid behind them and fired on American forces, he said. Some of the 26 victims were in civilian cars, some had been hiding behind the cars and others had fired on U.S. troops from nearby buildings, Col. Garver said.

    But according to Iraqi officials, the dead included three members of one family — a father, mother and son. Several women and children, along with two policemen, were among the wounded, they said.

    And it would be the first time that the cowardly terrorists used innocent civilians to attack American forces, right?

    But back to the AP – why didn’t the supposed “journalists” (as if it’s someone’s opinion that these people who are write for the AP are journalists) get in their damn Mercedes SUV and drive out to Sadr City before they wrote the story and check to see who was in the morgue and the hospitals and see if they were indeed civilians?

    Of course, then they probably wouldn’t have been able to write the story the way it turned out if they’d see it with their own eyes.

  • This is why I hate the pompous scum on the Left

    Someone tell Elizabeth Edwards that it’s numbnuts like this Larry C. Johnson who “lowers the political dialogue at precisely the time we need to raise it” not Ann Coulter;

    Preliminary, unconfirmed reports indicate a nuclear blast has occurred at Glasgow’s international airport.  No one has seen the mushroom cloud or heard the blast, but something by God is happening and it must be terrible.  There is smoke and fire.  In fact, a car is on fire.  It must be Al Qaeda.  Only Al Qaeda knows how to set themselves on fire inside a car.  Please.  Flee to the hills (leave you doors unlocked).  Oh the humanity!

    I found the link at Little Green Footballs because I don’t usually venture into the slime that call themselves the great thinkers on the Left. I found this, with a helpful assist from The Conservative Article Annals who trolled the depths of The Daily Kos;

    The Al Qeida or Real IRA wannabes failed.  Chemistry and physics were not on their side.  They did succeed in getting the inept press led by Faux News to to characterize the cars “as bombs that would have killed hundreds of people.”  

    The press managed to scare and terrorize people again.

    Of course, it’s the press that’s terrorizing Britons, not “asians”. I thought the whole idea of terrorism is to frighten people – successful in attaining a large body count of innocents or not, that’s what crashing a flaming car into a crowded airport achieves.

    Yeah, so far UKers have been lucky this year – but the thing about amateur terrorists is that the ones who live, learn from those who didn’t. The intent is just as dangerous with or without the skill.

    John Edwards said the global war on terror is a bumpersticker slogan, Michael Moore repeats “there is no terrorist threat” every chance he gets. The Democrat presidential candidates think that fighting terror is a spigot we can turn off whenever  we want. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi think that the war on terror is just something that gets in the way of their social agenda.

    I’m pretty sure this idiot Larry C. Johnson, on September 10th, 2001, would’ve scoffed at 19 Arabs trying to crash four airplanes into buildings armed only with boxcutters, too. Or a couple of rednecks who parked a truckload of manure in front of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma.

    Just like the bozos on the Left who scoffed at the Dix Six and all of the other cells the feds have rolled up in the last five years. Yeah, Richard Reid was a dope – but he got explosives on a plane. If he hadn’t sweat so much that his matches didn’t light on the first strike, he would have taken that plane out, too.

    Yeah, these terrorists are incompetent morons- somehow the profession of suicidal maniacs doesn’t attract those who might otherwise become rocket scientists – until they get successful, and it only takes once. 

    At least this Canadian fellow, Red Tory, admits it’s a real terrorist attack, but somehow the fact that it happened in the UK, proves that Bush is wrong about fighting terrorists in their own backyards;

    …if nothing else, they point out yet again the fallacy of the Big Fib© still being trotted out by Bush-Cheney about the importance of “fighting the terrorists there so we don’t have to fight them here” or as Stephen Harper put it last month when speaking at Petawawa, “the risk of terrorism here if we do not confront it there.” As has been demonstrated by the al Qaeda-related London bombings of 2005 that killed 52 and the Madrid train bombings that killed 191, and by numerous failed or thwarted plots in recent years, involvement in the conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan provide absolutely no defense from terrorism at home. Nothing could be further from the truth in fact and its time the government stopped indulging itself in this fractured fairy tale when attempting to drum up support for the war in Afghanistan.

    So we should just sit there and take it, I suppose, cowering in our basements until the next strike. So, Leftists, which is it? Are they not a serious threat or are they proof that we can’t take pre-emptive measures to stop their attacks? Or are ya’all just so damned smart that any excuse will suffice?

    Mr. Red Tory should take the time read Sergeant Grumpy;

    The Islamists do not simply want us to leave them alone, to live and let live. They want us to submit to the will of Islam, to abandon enlightenment and reason, humanity and civility. To live according to the tribal arabian cruelty that subjugates women, crushes dissent and dialogue, and takes away every freedom we have fought so hard to enjoy.

    Where do they learn such hate? Is it from the American and Israeli gunships? No, it is from two of the most powerful institutions in any culture for shaping the minds of it’s people – religion and education.

    I guess we’ve all forgotten about the bomb in the airport at Ibiza, Spain, earlier today haven’t we? The best details are at Spanish Pundit. It serves to remind us that we need to fight all terrorists, whether they’re al Qaeda or ETA or FARC or whoever.

  • This is journalism? (UPDATED)

    Today’s Washington Post is running a story writen by Griff Witte and Javed Hamdard entitled “100 Civilians Killed in NATO, U.S. Assault, Afghan Officials Say“ – pretty serious charge, huh? The brief on the front page says;

    Possibly 100 or more killed in a NATO and U.S.-led assault in southern Afghanistan, Afghans say.

    Well, the main story goes like this;

    Just a week after Afghan President Hamid Karzai chastised international forces for being “careless,” Afghan officials reported Saturday that possibly 100 or more civilians had been killed in a NATO and U.S.-led assault.

    I’m sure the Afghanis should be mad if NATO and the US were bombing civilians in groups of a 100. But let’s read on shall we?

    The battle in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, which was prompted by a Taliban ambush, began Friday night and continued into Saturday morning, Afghan officials said. It ended with international forces bombing several compounds in the remote village of Hyderabad.

    “More than 100 people have been killed. But they weren’t Taliban. The Taliban were far away from there,” said Wali Khan, a member of parliament who represents the area.

    The Taliban was far away. This is a member of parliment telling us the Taliban was far away. Ok, let’s see if any one else was interviewed;

    Another parliament member from Helmand, Mahmood Anwar, said the death toll was close to 100, and that the dead included women and children. “Very few Taliban were killed,” he said.

    Very few Taliban were killed – but wait the other member of Parliment said the Taliban was far, far away – so which was it. A few – or none?

    Spokesmen for the international forces acknowledged that civilians were killed in the battle, though they disputed the numbers. Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for the NATO-led force, said the civilian death toll was “an order of magnitude less” than what the Afghan officials reported.

    Thomas said U.S. ground forces helping carry out a NATO mission had come under fire by Taliban insurgents using small arms, rocket propelled grenades and mortars. Thomas said the troops responded by firing on insurgents who were shooting from a compound and a network of trenches. U.S. helicopters and NATO bombers were later brought in for support, he said.

    Thomas said troops returned to the area after the battle and found what appeared to be civilian bodies among the dead insurgents in the trenches. “This confirms for us again that militants are willing to fire from among civilians,” he said.

    OK, so now there civilian bodies “among” the dead insurgents. That sounds like there were more fighting forces in those trenches than civilians. Civilians who happened to be going about their daily business in those trenches from which rockets, mortars and missiles were fired.

    So out of the three available scenarios, the Washington Post’s “writers” (I refuse to call these people who write stories from information they probably got over the phone “journalists”) picked the scenario least likely to be closest to the truth for their headline. Seems to me that someone could’ve gone out to the village and looked for themselves before they wrote this bogus-ass headline.

    So why would they do it? Well, so the illiterate and attention-deficit stricken “intellectuals” on the Left will write things like this;

    So, not surprisingly, the US has killed more civilians in Afghanistan in the last year than the Talaban has. link

    And I wonder what the government “officials’” reaction was to this;

    Elsewhere in Afghanistan on Saturday, three civilians were killed and seven injured when a Taliban rocket missed a NATO base in the eastern province of Kunar.

    Karzai should be lecturing the Taliban about being more “careful”, too.

    UPDATE: From CNN, of all places;

    An investigating team was sent to Helmand province’s Gereshk district, where fighting took place between insurgents and Western forces late Friday, said Dur Ali Shah, the mayor of Gereshk, and Mohammad Hussein Andewal, the provincial police chief.

    NATO’s International Security Assistance Force has acknowledged some civilians were killed in the southern battle but has said the death toll was nowhere near as high as Afghan officials have claimed.

    Because of the battle site’s remote location, it was impossible to independently verify the casualty claims. Afghan officials said fighter jets and ground forces were still patrolling the region and that the fighting continued into Saturday.

    So, if the Washington Post goofs had waited a day until this investigation was completed, they might have saved themselves from this embarassment.

  • Venezuelan soccer fans protest Chavez at Copa

    Despite Chavez best efforts to keep protesters away from the Copa America soccer tournament, Associated Press reports about half of the 40,000 fans broke into anti-Chavez chants;

    MARACAIBO, Venezuela (AP) – Thousands of Venezuelan soccer fans used an international tournament to show opposition to President Hugo Chavez, rising to their feet with chants of “Freedom!” The chants, which included “This government is going to fall,” began shortly into the second half of Thursday’s match between the United States and Argentina in the western city of Maracaibo, a stronghold of opposition to Chavez. 

    Chavez opponents are hoping the arrival of thousands of tourists for the Copa America tournament will draw attention to their protests against the president’s refusal to renew the licence of a popular opposition-aligned television channel.

    “We want the world to know we’re not all with Chavez,” said Gabriel Gonzalez, a business student at the University of Zulia, who attended Thursday’s match.

    About half the crowd of 40,000 appeared to join in the chants, which filled the stadium for about three minutes.

    Chavez, who was re-elected by a wide margin in December, has gone to great lengths to keep Venezuela’s bitter political divide from spilling into the tournament, banning protests in and near stadiums and ordering state security forces to crack down on any that do arise.

    Only one match in the three-week-long tournament is being held in the protest-prone capital of Caracas.

    But opposition activists seem determined to voice their criticisms about Chavez to the world.

    “I don’t really know whether it’s spontaneous, semi-spontaneous or directed from above” by the political opposition, said Steve Ellner, a political science professor at Venezuela’s University of the East. “This could be part of a strategy to erode support and create uncertainty.”

    The chants on Thursday followed a heckling incident two days earlier, when a small number of fans booed Chavez as he attended a ceremony.

    All this despite Chavez best laid plans to make the Copa about him, according to Daniel at Venezuela News and Views;

    As expected Chavez could not resist to make the Copa America his. From “ahora es de todos” the Soccer tournament went to “ahora es de Chavez“. How come the Conmebol allowed 1) the silly and stupid speech of Chavez, something which was never allowed in previous editions of the Copa? and 2) this picture below (from EFE through Tal Cual)?

    Gateway Pundit has a link to the video on YouTube and another wire service story. But the Venezuelan blogs seem silent on it.

    And Chavez is making deals with Russia to build four new refineries. No wonder he slammed the US missile defense plans for Europe. I wonder if he’ll be using Cuban slave labor for his refineries, too.

    RCTV’s Observador Online reports that Chavez is in negotiations with Belarussia to buy Venezuela a modern air defense system including missiles, radar and a command system;

    29 de junio de 2007.-
    El presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, llegó este viernes a Minsk, la capital de Bielorrusia, para concretar la adquisición de un moderno sistema de defensa aérea. Según medios rusos y bielorrusos, se trata de un sistema de defensa aérea a partir de baterías de misiles rusos S-300 PMU-2 y Tor M-1, dotadas de radares, para el que Bielorrusia ha ofrecido crear un sistema de mando automático.

    Paranoia writ large.

  • What year is this?

    I made the mistake of reading the Washington Post this morning before I read anything else. I read about the Democrat presidential candidates debate last night here in DC (excuse me for not knowing there was a debate scheduled last night in my hometown). Anyway, I read about about some Supreme Court decision that somehow portends the end of civilization (something else I missed yesterday, apparently – probably because of the chattering class’ preoccupation with the immmigration bill);

    The forum at Howard University seemed to be a guaranteed fit for Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the only black candidate in the race. He repeatedly discussed racial disparity, education and AIDS and used his unique status to call for greater responsibility from African Americans, one of his frequent themes. But the audience largely embraced the other seven Democrats on stage as well, applauding Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) when she called for a greater focus on AIDS research and cheering Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) when he called for an end to the Iraq war.

    By the end of the 90-minute forum — attended by numerous prominent black leaders, including Al Sharpton and Princeton scholar Cornel West — the group had covered an array of issues, such as the genocide in Darfur and disparities in education.

    “You can look at this stage and see an African American, a Latino, a woman contesting for the presidency of the United States,” Clinton said. “But there is so much left to be done, and for anyone to assert that race is not a problem in America is to deny the reality in front of our very eyes.”

    Obama, when it was his turn, said, “We have made enormous progress, but the progress that we have made is not good enough.”

    Just hours after the Supreme Court handed down a decision restricting public school districts’ use of race in most school-acceptance decisions, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) described the ruling as “a major step backwards.” He added: “And as president of the United States, I would use whatever tools available to me to see to it that we reverse this decision today.”

    Referring to the Bush administration, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) said: “They have turned the court upside down, and the next president of the United States will be able to determine whether or not we go forward or continue this slide.”

    So, I’m thinking “Holy Crap!, the Supreme Court has refused to allow Black people into schools across the country based on their skin pigment”. But then I find out that’s not exactly true from the Wall Street Journal;

    In one of its most bitterly divided rulings of recent years, the Supreme Court sharply restricted how school districts can racially integrate their student bodies, reflecting deep disagreements over the meaning of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

    Yesterday’s ruling could bring sweeping change to hundreds of public-school districts, many of which must rethink the use of various race-based policies they have voluntarily adopted, including the busing of students from minority urban areas to predominantly white suburbs. Except for districts ordered by courts to remedy the ills of prior official segregation, the decision effectively outlaws assigning students to a school because of their race.

    That means more districts are likely to seek diversity based on students’ socioeconomic status. Some, such as Pinellas County, Fla., have already dropped any consideration of race.

    So basicly, the Supreme Court just ruled what it’s always ruled – no preference based on skin color, no restrictions based on skin color. So what’s earth shaking about this? Well, the Supreme Court actually ruled in favor of everyone equally, not giving any preferences to anyone. They said a lack of skin pigment is equal to some skin pigment and a lot of skin pigment – that in the Great Scheme of Things, all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

    Someone said once;

    I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

    Honestly, I thought we’d arrived at Martin Luther King, Junior’s dream. So what are the Democrat candidates talking about?

    “You can look at this stage and see an African American, a Latino, a woman contesting for the presidency of the United States,” Clinton said. “But there is so much left to be done, and for anyone to assert that race is not a problem in America is to deny the reality in front of our very eyes.”

    Race is only a problem because Democrats see it as a problem. What, pray tell, is left to be done? Legislate away thoughts? Legislate some grandiose give-away program – based on skin pigment? The court said we’re all equal – regardless of skin pigment. I think we’ve come thousands of miles from where we were when I began my life.

    Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) described the ruling as “a major step backwards.” He added: “And as president of the United States, I would use whatever tools available to me to see to it that we reverse this decision today.”

    A step backwards from where? How? Just mouthing these empty words certainly don’t help, Mr. Pudgy. Words that promise to overturn the colorblind Constitution. Empty BS from the Empty BS Party.

    This is just another campaign issue they plan to wave like a bloody shirt – but nothing they can do anything about because there’s nothing that can be done. Remember the blue ribbon commission on Race that Bill Clinton empaneled? What did they do about race besides yammer? What could they do? Just talk – because the problem is only in some people’s minds. Usually weak-minded people at that.

    Like the guys at the Daily Kos – this guy in particular; Adam Bonin who wrote a lengthy essay on the decision today on AlterNet wherein he concluded;

    It is difficult to deny the importance of teaching children, during their formative years, how to deal respectfully and collegially with peers of different races. Whether one would call this a compelling interest or merely a highly rational one strikes me as little more than semantics. The reality is that attitudes and patterns of interaction are developed early in life and, in a multicultural and diverse society such as ours, there is great value in developing the ability to interact successfully with individuals who are very different from oneself.

    I thought we were all equal – that we’re all the same. And who gives a tiny rat’s ass whether or not we “interact successfully”, and where in the Constitution does mandate that the government has to insure that we “interact successfully”? Since when is a court required to engineer our social strata? Who are these goofballs and what law school teaches this goofball stuff?  

    And anyone who thinks Renquist and O’Connor would’ve voted differently, they’re fooling themselves – you can’t blame this on Bush. Blame it on the Constitution.

  • Democrats blame Republican minority for gridlock

    Roll Call’s Jennifer Yachnin (requires subscription) writes today that the Democrat majority is blaming the Republican minority for Congress’ inability to pass legislation;

    As the nascent majority seeks to tout its accomplishments in the first half of the year, Democrats have also turned to blaming the Senate’s Republican minority for slowing progress of major initiatives — from stalled lobbying reform to enacting recommendations made by the 9/11 commission — that Democrats promised in the previous campaign cycle.

    “It’s becoming clear to people where the obstacle is,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) said Tuesday. “People are frustrated that Congress hasn’t made more significant changes.”

    Although recent national polls, including a Newsweek study conducted June 18-19 by Princeton Survey Research Associates, put Congressional approval ratings at a dismal 25 percent, Democrats remain adamant that those figures are skewed, in large part the result of the Senate’s failure to move legislation passed by the House.

    Isn’t that odd? The majority can’t summon enough votes to pass their own legislation. And of course, it’s the Republicans fault – oh, and Bush’s fault, even though he’s not a member of Congress;

    But a spokesman for the Senate Republican Conference dismissed complaints from House Democrats as an attempt to skirt responsibility.

    “Last time I checked their Democratic colleagues were in charge of the Senate. It’s laughable to say that they bear no responsibility for the problems of getting things through and low poll numbers,” Conference spokesman Ryan Loskarn said.

    “They spent several months screaming at each other about the supplemental and about Iraq, and then they spent weeks screaming at each other about the Energy bill, showing some deep divisions within their own Caucuses in the House and the Senate, and perhaps they ought to take a look in the mirror before they start blaming Republicans for their problems,” Loskarn said.

    Democrats also have been swift to place guilt on the White House for the low ratings, citing the Iraq War, and in particular President Bush’s veto in May of an Iraq spending bill that contained timelines designed to end the conflict.

    “We can’t just say, and it’s a real reason: ‘Well, we can pass whatever we can in the House, but they need 60 votes in the Senate, and the president has to sign it,’” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a speech to the liberal Campaign for America’s Future annual Take Back America conference last week. “Those are facts. Those are obstacles, but they cannot be insurmountable.” 

    That’s funny – in November there was all of this talk about “working together for the American people” – what happened to all that? They were going to change the damn world in their image.

    It seems to me that if Democrats really wanted to pass legislation, they’d meet the Republicans somewhere in the middle and hammer out deals that were satisfactory to both sides.

    But Democrats aren’t about solutions – they’re about election issues. The less they get resolved, the more they can whine and point and tell the American people to send more Democrats to Congress. Cry babies. 

    Let’s listen to some whining;

    “American people voted for change,” said [Rahm] Emanuel.

     “It’s time to shine the light of day on people who are dragging their feet,” [Debbie] Stabenow said. “What we hear every day on the floor of the U.S. Senate is ‘I object, I object, I object.’ What they’re trying to do is simply run [out] the clock.”

    “It’s not the Democrats who are blocking changes in Iraq, it’s the president and the Republicans in Congress,” Van Hollen said. “They are providing plenty of ammunition. It’s up to us to make use of it.”

    Yeah, that’s my whiney little Congressman there at the end. I’m so proud. I’ll bet they come together for this, though;

    Despite low approval ratings and hard feelings from last year’s elections, Democrats and Republicans in the House are reaching out for an approximately $4,400 pay raise that would increase their salaries to almost $170,000.

    Reach out for this, fellas.

  • Chavez needs submarines to find his popularity rating

    (Photo from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra)

    There was another march against Chavez yesterday not that you’d read about it from any US news organization. But Tank at Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra has photos and videos. Pretty impressive crowd, actually. For the story, El Universal;

    On the National Journalists’ Day, on June 27, Venezuelan journalists are not celebrating. Rather, they are staging a march in Caracas streets to demand President Hugo Chávez to order resumption of private television station RCTV’s broadcast on its original open signal and to advocate freedom of expression.

    The march -organized by Periodistas Unidos por la Libertad de Expresión (Journalists United for Freedom of Expression)- is departing from Plaza Venezuela at 10:00 a.m. to the headquarters of RCTV in Quinta Crespo, west Caracas.

    The student movement, actors, and workers and trade unions of news media, professional associations, political parties, and non-governmental associations will join reporters.  

    Gateway Pundit has more photos and news.

    Chavez missed the protests, though – he was submarine shopping in Russia. According to Daniel at Venezuela News and Views;

    Thus as it is usual with Chavez, when the going gets rough, the rough start traveling overseas. First a trip to Russia to see if the submarines, 9 of them, will be bought or not. Venezuela as just gadget to go and rescue people that will be taken by the frequent floods of our starting raining season. Even there ridicule pursues Chavez.

    And then he will move on to Tehran.

    And while Chavez was in Russia, he couldn’t help but inject himself into another dispute that doesn’t involve him (how would a missile shield in Europe possibly affect the people of Venezuela) so he could cozy-up to Vlad Putin and get some verbal shots in against the US;

    Venezuela supports Russia’s opposition to the deployment of a US missile shield in Europe, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela said here Thursday.

    […]

    “We support Russia (in its stance), we need Russia, which is becoming stronger day by day,” he said, adding that Venezuela intended to continue cooperating closely with Moscow, including in the military sphere.

    Russia has repeatedly stated that it would actively participate in the modernization of the Venezuelan armed forces until 2013.

    In 2005-2006, Venezuela ordered weaponry from Russia worth $3.4 billion, including 24 Su-30MK2V Flanker fighters, Tor-M1 air defense missile systems, Mi-17B multi-role helicopters, Mi-35 Hind E attack helicopters and Mi-26 Halo heavy transport helicopters.

    The country also purchased 100,000 AK-103 Kalashnikov assault rifles from Russia in 2005 and sent its fighter and helicopter pilots for training in Russia.

    The South American country has been vigorously pursuing the modernization of its armed forces to counter a possible US blockade of its oil fields and to prepare for a direct military confrontation with Washington.

    Comforting, isn’t it? Except we know that the Venezuelans would never directly engage in a war with the US – it’s not in our mutual interest. Neither country has anything the other would want – the only possible exception is that it would increase Chavez’ power to engage us in a shooting war – at least the perception of his power, in the region if not among his own people.

    Chavez also said;

    “If the United States attacks Venezuela, we are ready to die defending our sacred land,” Chavez said Thursday.

    Who is “we”, little fella? First of all, the US has no intention of ever invading the peaceful Venezuelan people. Secondly, I’m pretty sure you’d have trouble summoning anyone to help you if we did. And that’s probably why Chavez is pushing for a defense pact with his new Left neighbors – to use them against his people like Mugabe planned on using Angolan troops to quell his own people in Zimbabwe.

    So, as I said the other day, Chavez is building up his army to protect himself from his own people. Either to stir up something with the US to build a false sense of patriotism, or, failing that, a direct action against the people of Venezuela when their sense of patriotism tells them that Chavez is bad for Venezuela.

    Why? Well, how about economic reasons;

    Venezuela’s bolivar weakened in unregulated trading and dollar-denominated bonds tumbled after Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips abandoned operations in the country, raising doubts about future oil output in the world’s fifth-largest crude-oil exporter.

    […]

    “[Exxon conceding control of it’s facilities in Venezuela] sparks additional anxiety regarding the future of oil investment in Venezuela,” said Enrique Alvarez, a Latin America economist at the research firm Ideaglobal in New York. “Investors are going to the dollar as a safe haven.”

    The bolivar weakened to 4,180 per dollar in the unofficial dollar market from 4,050 yesterday, traders said. People and businesses turn to the parallel market when they are unable to acquire the limited number of dollars the government sells at the official exchange rate of 2,150 bolivars per dollar.

    All of the oil in the world can’t do you any good if you don’t have cash. Investors rushing to buy dollars will only compound Chavez problems. Daniel at Venezuela News and Views   has already reported food shortages in parts of Venezuela;

    Gas shortages too , and winter is starting. And all due, as in Venezuela, to unreasonable price controls which are kept up for political reasons. Price control, the eternal soft drug of populist regimes…. and with always the same consequences: higher inflation than the neighboring countries.

    While Hugo cavorts and glad hands with all the tyrants he can find.

    Cartoon from Noticias 24 (h/t Kate)

  • Immigration; just another wedge

    Sometimes, I gotta think that the media and the Democrats are just using the issue of what to do with illegal immigrants to divide Republicans – to separate us from the President and from Congress. And apparently it’s working. last year, when the media could use Latin immigrants marching against the President’s policies (or lack thereof) they did. This year, they can parade Republicans protesting the President and Congress.

    Why else would Democrats bring the immigration bill back after it collapsed a few months ago and they’d declared it wouldn’t be back during this session – except that they saw how deeply divided Republicans and Conservatives are on the issue.

    It’s funny how we conservatives point and laugh at Leftists for being single-issue voters on the environment or gay “rights” or women’s “rights” or healthcare “rights” – yet some of us get our panties twisted in a knot and threaten to leave the party, leave “Jorge”, leave the country over things like immigration.

    It’s how the Democrats won in 1992 (it was that “read my lips” lie they told ya’all that year and ya’all believed it) and it’s how they’re going to win in 2008. Except this time, it’s going to be an entirely different nation when 2016 rolls around.