Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit reports the bus he was riding in was bombarded by bags of cement as they went under an overpass on the way to the Excel Center. He has pictures and videos at Founding Bloggers. Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs has pictures of battles between anarchists and police.
From Associated Press;
If you’re tired of jumping from website to website to track down your favorite and most plausible vitriol to spew at your next Sarah Palin exorcism, you have to go to Protein Wisdom where Jeff Goldstein has catalogued all of the top rumors generated by these supposed intellectuals and scholars. They can’t even coordinate their imbecilic stories because some contradict others.
Baldilocks says it’s how we know McCain made the right choice;
All Moonbattery is screeching in protest and in…something else.
Can you smell that? I can. There’s not enough Right Guard in the world to hide it.
Big Dog writes;
It is important to repeat anything and raise FALSE concern. In other words, keep telling lies over and over until people believe them. To them it is important to shape the message even if the message is false. These are the same people who foam at the mouth every time someone mentions Obama and Muslim in the same sentence. When people called Obama a Muslim or showed him in Muslim garb (some of which were sent by the Clinton campaign) the same people did not call this modern political warfare. Instead, they called it a smear campaign.
From Morrissey;
If this is what the opposition comes down to, McCain made the wisest possible choice, and in the process exposed the opposition in a way that could never have been possible with any other running mate.
From Irish Cicero at Liberty Peak Lodge;
Authenticity is the One-Word Threat to the Obama-Biden Ticket
So what they concerned about over at the Washington Post? Well, won’t Ann Coulter ever stop calling the Democrat nominee B. Hussein Obama?
EJ Dionne is doing what he does best…telling Republicans how we should think about our party’s choices;
By all rights, there should be a revolt at this week’s (now-delayed) Republican convention against John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate — for the same reasons so many Republicans opposed President Bush’s selection of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.
You can watch that political deep thinker Jon Stewart try to dissuade women from voting for the McCain/Palin ticket by making fun of them.
I’m with Baldilocks. We know she’s a safe bet because the only stuff they can dredge up on her is from their own imaginations, and we know she can help McCain win because they’re working so hard at being dolts.
When former DNC chairman Dan Fowler was taped on a flight telling his travel-mate that God was punishing Republicans by sending Hurricane Gustav to New Orleans, in his apology, he blamed the “right wing nutcase” who taped him (ABC News link).
“One doesn’t anticipate that one’s private conversation will be surreptitiously taped by some right-wing nutcase,” said Fowler. “But that’s the nature of what we’re dealing with.”
Well, Fowler, if you hadn’t said it, no right wing nutcase could’ve taped it, could they?
When Alan Colmes was busted on an ill-reasoned post on his blog in which he blamed Governor Sarah Palin for her child’s Downs Syndrome because of her neglect, he blamed the internet reaction on people with their own agendas. He claims he took the post down because of our comments. It was our fault for not noticing his brilliant nuance.
Like John Kerry’s misunderstood joke about the stupid troops, Al Gore’s internet invention statement…we just aren’t smart enoug
I guess it’s all a part of that elitist thing they have going where they can say whatever they want and we should just accept it as reasoned discourse. They take offense when they are held to account for their blather. And it’s always “our” fault for making such a big deal out of it…not their fault for being such thickskulled partisan hacks.
Of course, it doesn’t take any real evidence for the Democrats to create a scandal out of nothing, but Mata Harley at Flopping Aces has put together a timeline of the events that the Democrats plan to use against our newest rising politicial star;
The investigations against Wooten started more than a year before she was elected governor, and about two months before launching her campaign”.
Mata Harley does an excellent job of getting ahead of the Obama attack machine on this non-scandal. But of course we’ve had to listen to crap about George Bush’s drinking and cocaine habits for eight years without any evidence, we’ll probably hear about this for the next twelve years of the Palin VP/Presidency.
UPDATED: As a precursor to what we’re in for in scandal area, here’s the top search terms from search engines on this blog last night. Apparently someone is searching for information on Palin being Jewish and a Zionist;
Like I said yesterday, they’re just throwing stuff at the wall hoping for something to stick. My buddy/alter ego Robin at Chickenhawk Express has some more of the classless things they’re throwing at the wall. Ace of Spades and Michelle Malkin catch them looking for bikini pictures.
The Washington Times‘ SA Miller writes that the Clinton supporters have decided that she should take Harry Reid’s job as majority leader in the Senate to compensate her for her loss in the primaries;
A coalition of Democrats who can’t get over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton losing the presidential nomination is trying to install her as the party’s majority leader in the Senate.
The groups are calling on Mrs. Clinton’s backers to withhold support for the party’s senatorial candidates across the country unless the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the chamber’s Democrats pledge to elect the former first lady as majority leader, a post currently held by Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada.
“The [Democratic National Committee] may have undermined 18,000,000 voters, but we can do our best to make sure that the DSCC and the Senate don’t do the same,” the Clinton backers said in an e-mail to supporters Friday, a day after Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the party convention here.
As an American, I agree that Reid should be fired, but as a Republican and a Conservative, I like Reid right where he is…he’s led the worst Senate in history. While totally ignoring the Democrat agenda and focusing solely on ending a war that has almost been over since he took the position, he’s led the Democrat-controlled Congress into history books as the most useless legislative body ever.
Of course, Hillary would probably perform about equal to Harry, it’s just that we’d have to see her much more often on television. I’d think Democrats would want to focus on winning the election in Novemeber first but, Democrats aren’t known for their brilliant political manueverings. I love political sideshows.
Photo from People’s Press Collective
Readers may remember back in March the IVAW put out a call to ANSWER, World Can’t Wait, Code Pink, et al. to hold off their protests on the March 15th anniversary of the Iraq War so that the IVAW/VVAW/VFP/SEIU could conduct their Winter Soldier II theater at Silver Spring, MD without competing for the attention of the media. WSII fizzled and got virtually no attention from the media (despite a large presence of media) and a result, the protest against the war which happened five days later, on a Wednesday, drew less than a thousand protesters and, in turn, fizzled out, too. Many of the non-IVAW protest organizations blamed the IVAW for their piss poor performance.
Well, that bit of history seems to be repeating itself. According to one of the shiftless hippies caught in the theater of the IVAW yesterday;
It was at this point I started to wonder that we’re doing as well in Iraq as we are. If these tactical geniuses are any indication of the military resources we have at our disposal, it’s a wonder every one of them hasn’t been slaughtered.
Anyway, back at Larimer and Speer, the I.V.A.W. negotiated some more (with someone), declared that the delegates had heard their message (somehow), and disbanded.
[…]
The problem is that the I.V.A.W. assholes had put a call out to the more militant protesters, claiming that they were gonna end the march by breaking through police lines and doing their damndest to confront the delegates face to face. As such, they had a few hundred folks in the march who were ready and willing to put their bodies on the line for the assholes, and ended up wasting the entire day being herded around by police and ordered about by Medea Benjamin types.
I guess, I’d point out to this shiftless hippie that these are largely the military’s rejects. Their tendancy to lie and their inability to lead is generally a result of living among the American population, not a result of their training.
I’d also pass along a warning to the Minnesota law enforcement – since Kokesh and Millard are there getting ready for next week’s protests, I’ll be betting they’re going to try and bulid their reputations up a bit. This may be their last chance. Kokesh has been willing to get arrested on countless occasions in the last year and he has yet to pay a price…he keeps testing his boundaries and since this war is winding down, he’s losing his cachet. I’d expect a grand last gasp gesture next week.
While the Democrats were enjoying their convention last night, IVAW was leading an estimated crowd of 3500 protesters (varying sources put the number at 5000 and 7000, so you tell me) and demanded they be given time at the DNC podium to read Barack Obama their three aims. Those aims being;
Removing U.S. troops from Iraq immediately, providing full health care benefits to returning veterans, and paying reparations to Iraqis for the damage done during the war.
According to the Denver Post, there was a “tense stand off” between police and the veterans;
The veterans were arrayed in formation and in uniform, marching slowly toward a line of police, who had warned them they could be pepper sprayed and arrested. They were being watched by a crowd estimated by police at more than 5,000, many of whom had marched with the veterans from the Denver Coliseum.
As the vets got within a few yards of the police, the cavalry arrived in the form of two white-shirted Obama staffers who asked a representative of the veterans to be escorted inside the security zone.
After a brief conversation, a veteran’s representative said they had been promised a meeting with Obama’s liason for veteran’s affairs. A cheer went up, the veterans did an about face, and the Democrats appear to have avoided providing John McCain with some very unflattering video footage of veteran’s being pepper-sprayed hogtied and handcuffed outside their convention.
Another story, however shows up on the Indypendent;
The march was met with a line of more than 100 Denver Police Department officers clad in riot gear and armed with batons and pepper ball guns at the intersection of Market and 17th Streets. The police refused to let IVAW or the thousands of antiwar demonstrators closer to the convention. After long moments of contention between the demonstration and the police, finally one IVAW representative, former U.S. Marine Liam Madden, was allowed to cross police lines to meet with representatives of the Obama campaign.
As Madden left on his mission, it seemed as if more than 50 IVAW members were prepared to engage in non-violent civil disobedience and likely arrest. Less than 10 minutes later, at approximately 7:40pm (CT), an announcement was made by IVAW to the crowd, indicating that Obama had endorsed their three points of unity, causing the crowd to uproar in applause.
Some veterans were visibly emotional by the end of the march. In a highly stirring and symbolic moment, members of IVAW gave a peace salute towards the direction of the Pepsi Center. There was then a moment of silence for casualties of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Sen. Obama, we won’t forget this,” said Jeff Engelhart, IVAW member who served in Baquba, Iraq, with the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division, to the crowd via microphone and loud speakers. He went on to indicate that if Sen. Obama did not make good on his endorsement, more antiwar protests would come.
Well, there’s no confirmation that Obama endorsed their three points, in fact his website hasn’t changed one word of his plan for Iraq. The Rocky Mountain News confirms the Denver Post story that all the veterans got was a meeting, no endorsement of their three points;
Iraq War veterans who led a march through the streets of Denver won a meeting with a liaIson from Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign.
The news ended a tense standoff between the veterans and riot police near and entrance to the convention, and brought tears to the eyes of several vets.
So, the Leftist independent media either got it wrong, or they intentionally lied. If they honestly think that Obama will ever agree to reparations to Iraq or immediate withdrawal from Iraq, they’re seriously deluded. I wonder if John Solz is taking notes on the people in the picture above and getting ready to dress them down for expressing political views while wearing a uniform.
I have yet to see the big guns of the IVAW in Denver, yet. Apparently, they’re in Minnesota for the Republican convention.
Wall Street Journal’s Stephanie Simon writing at on the Washington WIre asks where are all of the protesters. Just like I’ve complained over the last few months, she discovered the anti-America Left just can’t turn out the numbers they used to command.
They’ve produced some striking visuals. Demonstrators in orange prison jumpsuits, with black hoods over their heads, protested the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Others marched in Mardi Gras masks, black bandanas, or pink princess hats. Some toted giant puppets.
Yet their numbers have been modest, their impact small.
Glenn Spagnuolo, leader of the group Recreate ’68, says crowd size is unimportant. “All I hear now is ‘How many numbers [of protestors] do you have, Glenn?’” he said. “No one says, “How many dead Iraqis are there? How many incarcerated African-Americans are there? I don’t play the numbers game. If I have to march alone, I’ll march alone.”
He blames the low turnout on the massive police presence. Law enforcement is everywhere – on horseback, on motorcycle, on foot, often in full riot gear. “You have guys looking like robo-cops coming in with all this gear on and it’s very intimidating,” Spagnuolo said. “Even I’m scared.”
“I don’t play a numbers game”. You can bet if the numbers were in the thousands he’d be shouting it from the rooftops.
Well, you know, the answer could be that it’s a lie that 65% of Americans condone the protesters as they like to tell us. Seems to me that if that figure were true they’d be able to attract a whole lot more. Their message is old and worn out. Their chants are empty platitudes. They live in an echo chamber and prey on the young and stupid – and everyone is beginning to see they’re only in it for the money and fame.
Michael Heaney…blames activist leaders as well, for using confrontational rhetoric as they geared up for the convention. “Both the protest organizers and the police, over the course of this entire year, have been overreacting to each other,” said Heaney…
Well,, again, if they had the numbers you would have see the confrontation. The last big protest the anti-American Left assembled was in January 2007 when they stormed the Capitol and spray-painted their slogans on the steps. That triggered the Gathering of Eagles and Eagles Up movements across the country which has also caused the anti-America crowd step back and take a look at themselves and their behavior. Now they can’t get ten protesters together without attracting counterprotesters. That hurts their morale and affects their numbers.