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

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • Paulians rally in DC

    Basements across America were eerily empty today as several hundred Ron Paul acolytes (known as “Granny Warriors”) descended on the grounds of the Capitol this morning for a Freedom Rally.

    They raged against the empire and demanded that they be heard. The Capitol Police came along and made this guy take down the upside down flag – but it shows the diversity of views and the confusion among many of the Ron Paul supporters as to what the Paul message is.

    Now, I’m not sure what the bar code on the forehead means, but I’m pretty sure it’s something about the “empire” which I heard discussed time and again. There were several people wearing these, in fact this guy was handing them out and he remarked that he was running out of them.

    I suppose that the revolutionary-era clothes were supposed to remind us of our roots, but it should also remind us that, although it’s nice to remember those times, it was also a time of an agrarian society with limited communication and a sparse and scattered population. Although the principles of the Constitution still apply, to think that government should return to the size it was in those days is Utopian and juvenile.

    Russell Means is a pretty big guy

    Dr. Paul arrived at about 11:30 to a rock star welcome;

    [youtube uIaXa1pupPQ nolink]

    He addressed his admirers;

     

    Unfortunately, the public address system didn’t work for the first few minutes so, even though I videoed his speech, I only caught about the last minute;

    [youtube -SrGy9lJ7ew nolink]

    Although there was little I could disagree with him about, I remember the people who flooded the internet last year and absolutely squelched any debate about him. And that his stance on the war against terror is absolutely infantile and naive.

    But it took him about twenty minutes to leave because he signed autographs for his fans;

    But when Dr. Paul left, the event didn’t end, they had speakers lined up to talk to the Paulians. Most used populist themes like “out-of-control government” to whip the crowd into a frenzy. I don’t disagree with them on many of their themes, but to base a national campaign on populist sloganeering is a good way to hand the government over to the Left.

    This fellow (in the red, white and blue shirt) worried the crowd with charges that “Big Brother” was probably taping them out here (even though they were secreted away on the Capitol grounds where no one could find them) and would record all of their faces for future reference.

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    This fellow I overheard telling a group of people that he was a New Jersey Republican delegate to the convention and that he was going to vote for Ron Paul at the Republican Convention. He got advice from his (gullible) listeners to not tell anyone – as if they could overturn the convention with their stealth delegates. He told them how he was hated among his fellow delegates because he supported Ron Paul. I suppose there’s some sort of cache in being a rebel among these folks.

    There were other speakers scheduled to address the crowd, like Bob Barr, but I needed a beer. Now, Ron Paul acted like the campaign was over for him, but his fans didn’t seem to think so. I hope this doesn’t lead to some sort of Ron Paul Derangement Syndrome.

    Although the rally wasn’t as big an event (moonbat-wise) as I’d hoped, there was one bright spot. I got to meet the blogger Charlesr (from the Age of Hooper and Hot Air) and we swapped Medea Benjamin stories.

    UPDATED: I welcome the lizards from LGF, and urge ya’all to go look at the work of a real pro; Charles has his post up at Age of Hooper.

  • The majority of Americans

    Waking up early this morning, I caught the end of the Bill O’Reilly show with Laura Ingraham hosting. She had Pete Hegseth (of Vets for Freedom) facing off with Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin. The video is on YouTube already

    [youtube epgRg55pCDA]

    Medea Benjamin claims that she and her Code Pink minions represent the majority of Americans. I’d like to dispute that with some of my previously unpublished pictures – some going back two years. (Note to the guy that accuses me of photoshopping my Code Pink photos; I don’t know how to photoshop, so please don’t start that discussion again);

    These pictures are from last month’s protest;

    This picture is from January’s protest at the Israeli Embassy;

    This picture was taken at the Myanmar Embassy last September when Code Pink brought their anti-George Bush message to a rally against the treatment of the Burmese people. The guy in the picture above, with the Barbie bed, when he rode up on his crappy little bicycle to this protest, he shouted at the top of his lungs “Bush lies! Impeach Bush!” however that’s related to the Myanmar’s government treatment of the Burmese people.

    These two pictures are from the Mothers’ Day protest in front of the White House in 2006 (ignore the date stamp)

    That’s not America, Medea. It’s a bunch of drama queens who dress in the gaudiest clothes they can find to hang on their misshapen forms – Code Pink members are barely distinguishable from gay pride parade participants. No matter how many times you declare that you represent America, it’s easy to see from these photos, without even hearing your empty words, you don’t.

    I also noticed that Benjamin made reference to the amount of money to which VfF seems to have access. Code Pink bought a house on Capitol Hill (one of the priciest neighborhoods in DC) as well as a house in Crawford, TX. They have resident protesters who show up at EVERY protest in DC (as illustrated by the pictures above). I didn’t hear her address her source of cash. It seems to me that a house is a bit more expensive than a few rides on a bus.

  • Winter Soldier coverage has FAIR’s panties bunched

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    Winter Soldier didn’t turn out so well. The stories were weak and pedestrian. The testimony didn’t cause the national outrage that the prima donnas of the anti-war had hoped. The IVAW had convinced the other bands of merry protesters to suspend plans for their protests in Washington so as not to distract the media from their antics at the National Labor College – that move may have affected the turn out for the anti-war protest later that week.

    Well, of course, it must be someone’s fault that Winter Soldier fizzled, right? Well, the Left has decided that it’s the New York Time’s fault. They’ve enlisted the leftist media watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) to get to the bottom of why the Grey Lady didn’t bother to cover the Winter Soldier theater.

    First of all let me tell you, I saw reporters and technicians from countless news organizations. I wasn’t allowed to film the media or I’d show you how the back of the conference was packed with media. I saw media from the Washington Post, the Associated Press, Reuters, NPR even Al Jazeera (they all had media passes with their organization printed on them). It looked like the New York Times was about the only media not represented.

    But that’s not going to stop FAIR from “investigating”. They wrote a letter to NYT’s public editor asking for answers. Basically, the Times, in the personage of one Clark Hoyt, responded that they’d prefer their own reports from their paid staff than to rely on a pack of juvenile malcontents for their serious news.

    I’m no fan of the New York Times, but given the history of their recent problems with paid staff, I don’t think I blame them for being a bit more cautious. But that only angered the folks at FAIR;

    Hoyt’s claim that “news organizations like the Times, with its own substantial investment in independent reporting from Iraq, tend to prefer their own on-scene accounts of the war” is akin to asserting that reporters on the police beat prefer to write about crimes they have seen themselves rather than talking to eyewitnesses. Given that Times reporters, like all Western journalists in Iraq, have great difficulty travelling freely outside the Green Zone, it is hard to imagine that they could provide a full and accurate picture of the war without interviewing people who have participated in it. And of course the paper does often interview U.S. military personnel about what they’ve seen, though when they are whistleblowers trying to call attention to what they describe as “the human consequences of failed policy,” the Times suddenly has much less interest in what they have to say.

    Of course, to reach that conclusion, FAIR is assuming that the “whistleblowers” at Winter Soldier were rational people with no ulterior motives other than bringing the truth out. Although that may be the case for two people that I can name, I doubt the motives of the others, and they’ve not given me reason to doubt my initial impressions since. The New York Times may have decided that it wasn’t wise to stake the remnants of their reputation on a band of misfits who had already proven themselves to be unreliable sources.

    My buddy Denis Keohane of Obiter Dictum had another take on it in an email exchange we had today;

    I don’t think anyone could have foreseen that at the very time IVAW would hold their WSI, the Democrats would be engaged in a brutal nomination fight that could conceivably cost that party the next election. The MSM, including the NY Times, fears that and is trying to protect the Democrats chances for the fall. I strongly believe that is one reason why the WSI got virtually zero MSM coverage. If it was covered and got attention, someone may just ask Hillary or Barrack their view on it – and the organic material hits the oscillating device! Neither Democrat wants any association with the far left moonbats of IVAW or Code Pink, etc., but neither can either afford to alienate them since the far left can cripple any Democrat trying to get the nomination. Odd that it is the IVAW vets who are expendable to their side.

    That probably makes sense, too. Probably more sense than the NYT’s explanation that no one in the Washington bureau knew about the event, and that all of their national security reporters were busy that day. It certainly makes more sense than FAIR implying that the New York Times is biased against the anti-war movement.

    h/t to Michael for the tip

  • Martial bling

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    I read this at The Sniper, who got it from Curt at Flopping Aces who had the guts to read the LA Times in which some gumball named Mathew DeBord criticizes General Petreaus for wearing too many medals and badges.

    That’s a lot of martial bling, especially for an officer who hadn’t seen combat until five years ago. Unfortunately, brazen preening and “ribbon creep” among the Army’s modern-day upper crust have trumped the time-honored military virtues of humility, duty and personal reserve.

    Think about any of the generals you’ve seen in recent years — Norman Schwarzkopf, Barry McCaffrey, Wesley Clark (all now retired) and others — and the image you’ll conjure no doubt includes a chest full of shimmering decorations. In Petraeus’ case, most of them don’t represent actual military action as much as they do the general’s devotion to the institution of the U.S. Army and vice versa. According to an annotated photograph produced by the Times of London last year, the majority of ribbons on Petraeus’ impressive “rack” were earned for various flavors of distinguished service. As brave as he may be and as meritorious in general, is all that ostentation the best way to present the situation in Iraq to an increasingly war-skeptical public?

    Let me tell you, you smoldering ignorant turd, why the good General wears all of that stuff; because he earned it – and because somewhere there’s a sergeant major who knows he earned it and will verbally stomp a mud hole in the good general’s behind if he doesn’t see the general wearing each and every one of those badges and medals.

    There’s an Army Regulation that says he should wear them all – it’s called an AR 670-1 “Wear and Appearance of Army Uniform and Insignia”. Everything has a special place on the uniform – but I wouldn’t expect some half-witted goofball who can only find a job at the LA Times to know that, or bother even doing a Google search for some basic information.

    Which badges should he remove, DeBord? The Ranger Tab he got for 9 weeks of functioning as a combat leader under the most miserable conditions the Army can inflict? Or maybe his Master Parachutist wings? Maybe the German Parachutist wings? Or maybe all of the other stuff he earned and your stupid civilian ass couldn’t accomplish in a lifetime?

    If this what criticism of the war has come down to, maybe it’s time for all ya’all civilians to just leave the country. You’re really starting to grate on the rest of us’ nerves. No. Really.

  • “Shining” on Congress

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     Apparently, Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want to hear the truth. According to Politico, she has warned General Petraeus that when he briefs Congress this week, she doesn’t want him to  put a shine on recent events in Basra;

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Thursday not to “put a shine on recent events” in Iraq when they testify before Congress next week.

    “I hope we don’t hear any glorification of what happened in Basra,” said Pelosi, referring to a recent military offensive against Shiite militants in the city led by the Iraqi government and supported by U.S. forces.

    Although powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed to a ceasefire after six days of fighting, Pelosi wondered why the U.S. was caught off guard by the offensive and questioned how the ceasefire was achieved, saying the terms were “probably dictated from Iran.”

    “We have to know the real ground truths of what is happening there, not put a shine on events because of a resolution that looks less violent when in fact it has been dictated by al-Sadr, who can grant or withhold that call for violence,” Pelosi said.

    Now, I don’t know what that means unless she’s hinting that she just doesn’t want to hear the truth. Try as I might, I can’t out-write the staff of the Investors’ Business Daily in responding to Pelosi;

    “Glorification?” Heaven forfend we should glorify “what happened in Basra.” Our troops fought bravely, performing superbly the job assigned them by their own government — including you, Madam Speaker. But we shouldn’t “glorify” them.

    We’re not talking about a mere policy dispute here. There are lots of legitimate policy disputes, even about war. This is about the open contempt some members of one major party seem to hold for our men and women in uniform. It’s one thing to oppose a war, another to more or less openly root for us to lose it.

    Well, we have some real bad news for Ms. Pelosi. Seems a new National Intelligence Estimate is out. And it says what she fears most: The situation in Iraq is much improved. We’re winning.

    The New York Times quotes Pelosi in one of her Stalinesque double-speak moments;

    “I’m a big proponent of the First Amendment,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “But I would hope that as we set the stage for General Petraeus’s appearance before the committee, it is by shining a bright light of truth and a mirror on what he has to say and see how that is consistent with our greater national security goals.”

    Um, what does giving a briefing to Congress have to do with the First Amendment? The man is telling Pelosi what is happening in Iraq, not making a speech about political motivations.  I’d like to see her use the same standard for her own staff and her fellow Democrats in Congress when “shining a bright light of truth”.

    The Wall Street Journal highlights the differences between the Republicans and Democrats in the Presidential campaign;

     “Overall, it’s a remarkable success — overall with significant challenges ahead,” Mr. McCain told The Associated Press recently as he predicted what Mr. Petraeus will say about the troop-increase strategy and what he says he believes himself — even though the year of the buildup was the bloodiest yet for U.S. troops.

    Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama offer a sharp contrast to the Republican nominee-in-waiting.

    “It is time to end this war as quickly and responsibly as possible,” Mrs. Clinton said last month. She argued that the current strategy hasn’t accomplished its goals because Iraqis have not reached a political reconciliation.

    Mr. Obama also wants a quick end to the war and said Friday, “We still don’t have a good answer to the question posed by Sen. (John) Warner the last time Gen. Petraeus appeared: How has this effort in Iraq made us safer and how do we expect it will make us safer in the long run?”

    Mr. Obama said Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain have been “trumpeting improvements from a horrific situation to a simply unsustainable and intolerable situation.”

    The actual truth is; the Democrats are already taking big hits because of their ill-considered comments over the last five years and they’re rightly concerned that it will only get worse. Since they’ve hitched their wagon to the likes of the retarded ranks of Code Pink and the IVAW (who, by the way, don’t really want the war to end either), Democrats have painted themselves into a corner they can’t escape – except by lying to the American people, and now Pelosi wants General Petreaus to lie to Democrats.

    And the media is out taking preemptive potshots at  President Bush and General Petraeus to blunt the inevitable blow Petreaus will deal Congress this week, like this in the Washington Post today;

     Others see Bush’s reliance on Petraeus as part of a larger pattern. “It is part of Bush’s overall management style — to cede responsibility to a lower level and not look carefully at critical issues himself,” said Kenneth Adelman, a Reagan-era official who has parted company with such longtime friends as Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney over the war.

    The old “Bush is an idiot” line. Well, we’ll just see, won’t we?

    Veterans for Freedom will be in the North Senate Park at 9:30 Tuesday morning – and so will I.

  • What I’m reading today

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    Stolen from The Jungle Hut

    I must be getting old – I’m only reading other people’s brilliant thoughts today from the blogs that link here.

    People like Van at Kesher Talk who is convinced that McCain will tap Lieberman for VP.

    People like my friend Kamangir the Archer – the most visible moderate Iranian I know – who rationally opposes Wilder’s Fitna. As opposed to the irrational Dutch moonbats who apologize for Fitna as reported by Gateway Pundit and Weasel Zippers. If you’re like the two or three people on the planet who haven’t see it yet, Moonbattery and Say Anything have it up on their servers. The Jawa Report writes that the Islamic Republic has summoned the Dutch ambassador – I wonder what they want now?

    Folks like my buddy Skye from Midnight Blue who climbed back up on the horse yesterday after being attacked last weekend by an irrational moonbat in Chester County.

    I got an email tip from the Milblogs this morning about the upcoming Bad Voodoo’s War from PBS and Andi’s got the teaser video.

    If you’re wondering what I think about the recent uptick in violence in Iraq, it’s best described at Neptunus Lex. The Iranians are trying to upend our elections with total disregard for Iraqi lives. al Sadr finally realized it this morning. Rick Moran at the Right Wing Nut House questions Maliki’s judgement. McQ at Q&O dissects the events leading up to the Basra battle and provides links. Haystack at Redstate catches the LA Times painting al Sadr as a poor victim in the latest flare up. The Lonely Sandpiper blames the Brits. I think it’s just Maliki’s version of the Whiskey Rebellion.
    The only woman with whom I agree all of the time (except my wife and my Mom), Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy posts John McCain’s first national campaign ad.

    Marooned in Marin (who is actually marooned in Northern Virginia these days) examines the rumor that while super-delegates decide between two candidates, the Democrats are plotting to throw all of the primary voters under the bus and just pick their favorite loser of all time. So much for the democratic part of their party. Mike Tippet at Wake Up America is thankful for the democrats’ biggest loser.

    Bob Parks at Outside the Wire examines a survey that declares there’s no indoctrination at our schools.

    In case anyone is wondering, Snapped Shot is still behaving himself.

    Solomon reviews and dissects the play “My Name is Rachel Corrie” at Solomonia.

    Spanish Pundit writes that Palestinian Christians are being harrassed by a fundamentalist Islamic mafia in the Holy Land.

    Wordsmith at Sparks From the Anvil writes about an Iraqi translator who was denied resident alien status.

    The Avid Editor claims (and rightly so) that we’re already at war with Iran.

    Wolf Howling has more links to other blogs for something different.

    Chicagoan Marathon Pundit, who seems to have something against an Obama Presidency, writes about Obama’s latest embellishment.

    And just go visit The Jungle Hut and Don Surber because they both exhibited exceptionally clear judgment by adding me to their blogrolls last night.

  • Why the PhD won’t vote McCain

    Doing my evening patrolling around the internet, I stumbled over a post by Deebow at Blackfive entitled “One Reason I Will Vote For McCain“. Deebow links to an opinion piece on Military.com entitled “Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain“, written by Phillip Butler, a former Naval Academy classmate and fellow POW of John McCain’s.

    Now, Deebow did an admirable job critiquing Mr. Butler’s piece, but I’d like to pile on – seein’s how I’ve recently become a “Blog for McCain“.

    Mr. Butler begins by telling us what a piss-poor student and cadet John McCain was. I’m sure he wasn’t the first and as an ROTC instructor, I can tell you he wasn’t the last. The worst story he could recite was the time McCain took Butler, an underclassman, off of the campus grounds to a bar seven miles away and wouldn’t let Butler have a beer. GASP!

    Now Butler goes on to say “I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year…” but he doesn’t, because that’s the worst one he could tell – if he had worse stories to tell he certainly would have given the title of his article. (Emphasis is my own throughout)

    Then Butler writes;

    [H]e barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates.

    Ah! Speculation – not proof, just a bunch of post-pubescent boys making guesses about their elders’ judgement. Hardly evidence.

    Butler begins to veer off into the absurd;

    People often ask if I was a Prisoner of War with John McCain. My answer is always “No – John McCain was a POW with me.” The reason is I was there for 8 years and John got there 2 ½ years later, so he was a POW for 5 ½ years. And we have our own seniority system, based on time as a POW.

    More of the same crap I’ve run into from the VVAW and IVAW people recently – an intellectually vacant discussion over whose service has the most worth. Funny how they always slip into that mode of superiority. But Butler continues along that line of reasoning;

    Was he tortured for 5 years? No. He was subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first 2 years, from September of 1967 to September of 1969. After September of 1969 the Vietnamese stopped the torture and gave us increased food and rudimentary health care. Several hundred of us were captured much earlier. I got there April 20, 1965 so my bad treatment period lasted 4 1/2 years.

    I’m not demeaning Butler’s service, but splitting hairs like that is ridiculous. It borders on being a crybaby.

    But my point here is that John allows the media to make him out to be THE hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true, to further his political goals.

    The media makes him out to be a hero, he hasn’t contributed to that not a whit. He’s always said he’s no different than from any other POW. His book is very clear on that point.

    John was badly injured when he was shot down. Both arms were broken and he had other wounds from his ejection. Unfortunately this was often the case….But it must be known that many POW’s suffered similarly, not just John.

    Who has said differently? I’ve never seen any media stories, books or movies that ever said McCain’s treatment and condition was different from anyone else’s.

    John was offered, and refused, “early release.” Many of us were given this offer.

    That’s not a reason to not vote for him, Mr. Butler.

    John certainly performed courageously and well. But it must be remembered that he was one hero among many – not uniquely so as his campaigns would have people believe.

    Again, no one has ever made that distinction.

    He was not an individual POW hero. He was a POW who surmounted the odds with the help of many comrades, as all of us did.

    McCain has admitted that thousands of times, so where is Butler going with this?

    We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John’s age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

    So now Butler can see into the future? It’s the same thing they said about President Reagan in his 1984 campaign – not very original.

    I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

    I agree completely. If that was the only thing McCain was campaigning on as his experience I probably wouldn’t vote for him either. In fact, I voted against a guy in the 2004 election who campaigned solely on his medals and his three months in Vietnam. But John McCain isn’t even talking about his time as a POW during the campaign, is he? John Kerry, on the other hand ended each sentence with a reference to his three months service in Vietnam.

    I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.

    I’m known as a hothead, too, but see we hotheads know when to turn it off. The “finger next to that red button” was just scare mongering and hyperbole, wasn’t it, Mr. Butler?

    I’m disappointed to see John represent himself politically in ways that are not accurate. He is not a moderate Republican. On some issues he is a maverick. But his voting record is far to the right.

    I’ll bet Dennis Kuchinich is too far right for Mr. Butler. Now he’s completely outside his area of expertise since this whole thing is about how well he knows John McCain from their days in the Navy together.

    …he has taken every opportunity to ally himself with some really obnoxious and crazy fundamentalist ministers lately.

    “Some”? Or did Butler mean “one”? Please.

    I was also disappointed to see him cozy up to Bush because I know he hates that man.

    How does Butler “know” John McCain hates President Bush? Did McCain tell Butler, or is this just more guesswork on his part?

    Senator John Sidney McCain, III is a remarkable man who has made enormous personal achievements. And he is a man that I am proud to call a fellow POW who “Returned With Honor.”[…]I think John Sidney McCain, III is a good man, but not someone I will vote for in the upcoming election to be our President of the United States.

    Those two sentences are at odds…well until you read Mr. Butler’s bio and get to the last line;

    He is now a peace and justice activist with Veterans for Peace.

    So all of the previous blather and speculation can all be boiled down to it’s essence; Mr. Butler won’t vote for a Republican president. Pure and simple. He could have saved us all the time and trouble if he’d just said that upfront.

  • “Oh, Hell no!”

    Jason Mattera of Young America’s Foundation and Hot Air went to Winter Soldier II and asked folks who testified if they’d swear to their allegations of atrocities. Jason recorded for posterity the results;

    [youtube f_6gNY6S5HE nolink]

    Of course, without hesitation the consensus is “No!”, and Clifton Hicks, who was on this blog last night calling “Bullshit” said “Oh, Hell no!” I don’t blame you, Clifton – your stories are so full of holes I could fly a C-17 through them.

    Jason Hurd who slung snot all over the panel while he tearfully recounted the time he ALMOST shot a woman carrying groceries also said he wouldn’t.

    Of course, many of the IVAW members didn’t even want Rurik, TSO and myself at the event – probably one of the reasons it resulted in what one commenter here called a “wet firecracker”.

    Michele Malkin declares, “The apples don’t fall far from the Ghengis Khan-invoking tree”.

    So, a rational person might ask “What was the point?”