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

Category: Protests/Rallies

  • Guantanamo Protest in DC

    Today in Washington, DC, Amnesty International and the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, staged events protesting Guantanamo. I learned that they were in town from reading VanHelsing at Moonbattery, so I took the Blogger Urban Reconnaissance Vehicle (BURV) and headed downtown. The first thing I found was the Amnesty International’s Guantanamo Cell Tour 2008.

    A child who really needed to get a sandwich or two was handing out fliers to passers-by;

    Then there was the cell itself;

    The woman who was conducting the tour told me that it’s not representative of normal cells, but those of “Class V” prisoners. But according to Fox News, that’s not true;

    Amnesty International-USA said the cell, which contains a toilet, sleeping bunk and a small window, is meant to symbolize the U.S. government’s alleged mistreatment of detainees at the prison.

    It said the tour is designed to increase public awareness and mount pressure on the Bush administration and Congress to close down the U.S.-controlled detention center. The group planned its display in Washington to coincide with a House Judiciary subcommittee’s hearing on harsh interrogation techniques.

    But Charles “Cully” Stimson, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, lashed out against Amnesty’s campaign, calling it a “complete fraud in misrepresenting the condition of detention at Gitmo today.”

    Not having been to Guantanamo myself, I can’t attest to either story so I’ll just go with the experts on this. Since AI has an axe to grind and funds to raise, I’ll stick with the ex-government guy. Here’s an interview I did with the “tour guide” Cicely;

    [youtube HwQMCU-0WPU nolink]

    The particular Gitmo alum who was identified as the suicide attacker in Mosul last month was Abdullah Salim Ali al-Ajm. Cicely said he was held six years at Gitmo, but that’s not true he was there three years before he was released.

    After I was done taping, we all had our picture taken – that’s Gabrielle Birchak and Rob Raffety from Project Breakout.

    Their corner of the Mall was virtually ignored by the thousands of tourists out on this sweltering June morning;

    But their cell on the Mall was a little bit more realistic than the one I found at the other event in Lafayette Park (across from the White House where there are usually more tourists);

    It seems someone should have spoken up and mentioned thats how Americans get treated, not how we treat foreign prisoners. But, oddly, no one did speak up.

    I don’t think this guy’s hunger strike began intentionally;

    Just as I got there, they formed up for their march – around Lafayette Park.

    I was doing an interview with the Washington Post so I missed the shot of them walking by the White House. It might have been part of WaPo’s plan. But the reporter assured me that he wasn’t a communist, so who knows.

    These two guys (Raoul might know who they are) were lamenting the fact that their planned protest in Denver wasn’t going to be as good as their protests at Fort Benning’s School of America or Seattle because they weren’t going to be in charge. I’m guessing they’re not happy that the umbrella organization is making them tone down their dissent.

    About that time, this guy started eye-balling me;

    And sent this woman over to take my picture;

    I just noticed this guy from the picture three photos above taking my picture;

    I don’t what that was about, but I handed all of them my card and told them if they needed to ask me anything they can reach me at this blog. We’ll see how that turns out. Here’s a video of their little march around Lafayette Park and some REALLY BAD sax playing;

    [youtube uk579SHG23c nolink]

    All-in-all it was a pretty pathetic event. They were vastly outnumbered by the apathetic tourists. I didn’t see any support for them from the tourists, hardly any asked questions, and aside from me and the Washington Post reporter, I didn’t see any media. He told me that he was so new at the Post, he didn’t have business cards yet.

    Code Pink had the event on their website, but there were none of the usual suspects there – in fact the only people I saw wearing pink were tourists.

    There were more participants at the protest in the middle of January in the pouring-ass rain. Today was a sunny June day. I think they’re losing their cache`.

    Thanks to Jammie Wearing Fool , Little Green Footballs, Nice Deb, Stop the ACLU , Gateway Pundit, The Real Revo, Inoperable Terran, Libertarian Republican, Pirate’s Cove and McClatchy Watch for the links.

    Welcome Weekly Standard readers.

  • Zombie in Berkeley

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    The blogger who influenced me to focus my own blog on the countless protests here in DC, Zombie, has a great photo essay on this weekend’s events in Berkeley against the Marine Recruiting station there. Complete with video;

    [youtube 3j5TstKikD0 nolink]

    Code Pink was classy enough to disrupt a eulogy a Gold Star Mom was giving for her son. World Can’t Wait showed their class by throwing Nazi salutes and booing the National Anthem. More pics at PC Free Zone, Melanie Morgan and a coupla AARs at Eagles Up.

    Zombie actually sent me an email a few weeks ago complimenting our work here, but I could never reach the quality of Zombie – they have much loonier moonbats in Berkeley.

    There’s supposed to be a protest this weekend in Lafayette Park and TSO and I were talking about going. If nothing else, there’s several bars in the area where we can cleanse our memories.

  • Flag Day in bitter West Chester, PA

    My buddy Skye from the blogs Midnight Blue and Flopping Aces has been pestering me to come up to West Chester, Pennsylvania to cover her pet project, the Victory Group that counters the Chester County Peace Vigil, so I finally relented (I hate driving back into DC after the peace and tranquility of Real America) and I wasn’t disappointed. I’m sure most of you remember that Skye was the blogger attacked by a member of the “Peace” vigil last month, but that hasn’t stopped her from being there every Saturday.

    So when Thus Spake Ortner and I met up there, we estimated there were probably 200 bitter, patriotic Pennsylvanians clinging to their flag, their guns and their faith facing about forty enlightened beings ready to surrender their safety and well-being for the sake of world peace. Guess which group is which of these two pictures;

    All of the old hippies were out with their tired bumpersticker politics;

    It’s no surprise that the peace movement in West Chester would hijack the image of West Chester’s favorite son, Smedley Butler, and quote from his writings in a socialist magazine;

    And more timely slogans;

    Of course, you can’t put a whole Supreme Court decision on a sign or in few enough words that a Leftist could pay attention all the way through – it’s just easier to call the whole thing illegal.

    Apparently the pro-Victory side are uberpatriots;

    I wonder to what lie she’s referring. Maybe the lie that the Left is patriotic and supports the troops. What the Tibetan flag had to do our Flag Day, I’ll never know.

    But luckily there was a bunch of people on the spot to raise my spirits again;

    Did I mention they had bagpipes?

    I think TSO almost wet himself.

    After the good guys sang the Star-Spangled Banner and recited the Pledge of Allegiance, the hippies figured their job was done and streamed off down the street pathetically chanting “Out of Iraq Now” in those weak little voices they have. In the meantime, we were treated to good food and beer at the Knights of Columbus Lodge up the street. There was speechifying, prayers and more bagpipes. And more Skye;

    I had a great time – usually I have to wait to see good Americans when they come to DC…but this time venturing out into the hinterlands paid off for me – I felt privileged to be surrounded by such dedicated and proud hardworking Americans.

    I threw together this video of parts of the event, so across America you can get the sense of how the bitter folks of West Chester, PA stand up to the malignant “peace” movement;

    [youtube OYi16QtMNHE nolink]

    I hope everyone understands that when I say “bitter”, I kid.

    And just so you know, when I got back to DC, I was stuck 6 miles from home in an hour-long traffic jam. Yay!

    UPDATE: TSO remembers the event a bit differently than I remember.

    Skye’s report is at Flopping Aces and Midnight Blue. From her group shot, I found TSO and me – well, the top of our heads, anyway. My head is the one that’s not reflecting sunlight.

    groupshot.jpg

  • Rolling Thunder 2008

    This post is dedicated to my cousin Scott who couldn’t make it to Rolling Thunder this year because he’s escorting the Vietnam Wall back home as a member of the Patriot Guard. I drank his beer, too.

    Every year this event gets bigger. This year, according to Fox News, Rolling Thunder included 350,000 motorcycles. I walked the route from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol and after an hour and a half, there were still riders passing me. There were thousands more parked at various spots that didn’t participate.

    Before I left, I saw Fox News interviewing actor John Amos (from Good Times) who had joined the Rolling Thunder organization just yesterday. He said in the interview “I don’t see anybody rowing boats to get to Cuba…so I think we’ve got a pretty good thing going here [in the US]”. That stuck in my mind as I walked across DC and photographed the event today.

    I got to the bridge from the Pentagon just as they crossed the Potomac with Robert E. Lee’s mansion in the Arlington National Cemetery as background;

    The best seats in the house were on the Lincoln Memorial;

    I stopped by the Vietnam Memorial on my way along the route;

    I saw these guys there, but they were dressed a bit too modern to be Ron Paul supporters so I figured they were OK;

    It’s nice to see folks waving a flag for no other reason than because it’s Memorial Day for a change;

    Some Rolling Thunder members were content to just watch;

    This was the best view, though;

    Everyone turned away from the parade to watch him land;

    Then back to Rolling Thunder;

    If there were 350,000 motorcycles, there were at least that many spectators. They stretched along the two-plus mile route, both sides of Constitution Avenue, thicker in places than others. But it must’ve been a bitter crowd, clinging to their guns, motorcycles and faith because all of the souvenir stands were fully stocked with Obama ’08 T-shirts;

    I stopped by the Navy Memorial where the day before, Rolling Thunder had stopped to pay their respects to Navy veterans.

    I hope you enjoy this video I put together under the influence of Saranac Black and Tan;

    Zero Ponsdorf sends this link of John Amos speaking at the Lincoln Memorial.

    Thanks to Gateway Pundit, Boston Maggie, Blatherings and Jammie Wearing Fool for linking.

  • Memorial Day Weekend at Walter Reed

    I started my Memorial Day Weekend at my favorite place with my favorite people – the weekly Friday FReep at Walter Reed to welcome the wounded soldiers back from the war. The last time I was there was back on their 3rd Anniversary in March.

    The FReepers and Protest Warriors still own all four corners at front gate where the troops arrive since Concrete Bob discovered the Code Pink crowd lost their permit.

    The Code Pink contingent has been forced to hold their protests about 100 yards from the gate, in the middle of the block;

    At least their flags are right-side up for a change.

    The usual more signs than moonbats dilemma;

    A good friend to this blog from the very beginning – Tom the Redhunter just back from Israel;

    I’m always surprised at the amount of support these guys get in the heart of Northwest DC – not a bastion of Conservatism but, apparently filled with Americans. Here’s a video so you can see what it feels like;

    [youtube TCWUOsgin4w nolink]

    I love the girl in the video – she’s always so full of energy. While I was filming the corner, a pedestrian stopped and told her how he missed her on Friday nights when she’s not there. She told me that some troops returning from Iraq had mentioned to her that they recognized her from the video I shot in March and put on YouTube and Google.

    A few soldiers who work at Walter Reed stopped by and thanked the FReepers for being out there. Just as I walked up, one of the FReepers was autographing a sign for the father of a wounded soldier who had driven down to see his son from Illinois. He was so grateful for the support in front of the hospital, he asked for an autograph and a sign.

    It only takes a few stories like that to keep those folks coming back – every week.

    Stay tuned here this weekend as I plan to cover a lot of the Memorial Day events in the Nation’s Capitol.

  • Mothers’ Day Peace-nik (now with IVAW)

    I went to the Code Pink Mothers’ Day protest in front of the White House two years ago and they were able to scrape together a few hundred people;

    They even had giant puppets;

    But those heady days of yore are gone. Today, they couldn’t even get in front of the White House. The closest they could get was about twelve blocks away up Connecticut Avenue at DuPont Circle. On their website, they called it a Mother’s Day “Peace-nik” and they urged people to bring their children for fun and games. I expected a hundred or so, but, by my count they were a little over thirty;

    They had activities for the children, but not too many children showed up, so why waste all of that face paint stuff, huh?

    No media was there, it must’ve been tough for them. They couldn’t get the giant puppets, so they brought tall people instead;

    It was a little hard to tell who intentionally dressed like a clown and who didn’t;

    Nothing is sadder than a bunch of old hippies trying to recapture their respective youth by acting like they’re…well, hippies;

    [youtube x8OhqQeapnQ nolink]

    But since it was the only show in town the big guns were there;

    They started begging as soon as they got there. Apparently they thought the thirty or so people there were flush with cash.

    [youtube mB9J0bJk59c nolink]

    Geoff Millard (the guy who’s going to testify to Congress that our troops are all racist) from IVAW was there with his mother;

    He pleaded with the Code Pink to attend their testimony in Congress next Thursday and pack the room to keep out people that might disrupt the hearings. Like this I suppose;

    condi-hands.jpg

    He went on to say that Congress should hear about Iraq from soldiers on the ground, not just from “Generals and pundits”. Well, then I suppose he supports Veterans For Freedom because they tried to talk to Congressmen, and I doubt they got to talk to too many of the members of the Progressive Caucus. I also wonder what soldiers who haven’t been in Iraq in the last two to five years can tell the Progressive Caucus about what has happened there in the last year or so. So what Millard meant was that Congress should hear from the drama queens and sociopaths of the IVAW who haven’t been able to find their collective ass with both hands in the last year or so.

    [youtube Er9cCqGX2Xc nolink]

    Then it was time to leave. I thought they’d march on the White House but they went in the opposite direction. So I just filmed them leaving;

    [youtube 7_vBHYNNUh0 nolink]

    [youtube rdNcElPKbos nolink]

    The anti-war movement is coming undone. They’re unable to announce their events in a timely manner anymore without being countered. Their members are losing interest and their antics turn off more people than they can attract. They claim to have the support of the American people, but the reality is that they don’t. In a city with more than 30,000 college students, they couldn’t get any of them out for their lame showing. This “peace-nik” was nothing more than pan handling – and they were probably out numbered by the regular panhandlers in DuPont Circle today.

  • Code Pink (rhymes with witches)

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    Our favorite commies to hate have been at it again out in Berkeley, CA. Now that Medea Benjamin has come back from Syria, they’ve shifted into high gear. This time they’re casting spells on the marines recruiting there. Melanie Morgan has links and pictures here and here. And of course, my favorite photo blogger, Zombie, was there, too, and points us to a Fox news broadcast;

    [youtube tzTsC82qrDM nolink]

    I know they’re pretty hot about Mothers’ Day, so if you catch them loose in your town, snap some pictures and I’ll put them up here.

  • Jeremiah Wright at the National Press Club

    I read over at Michelle Malkin‘s, and later at Ace Of Spades, about Jeremiah Wright’s impending speech at the National Press Club for an “NPC Breakfast”. Michele had links to the Free Republic‘s intention to protest there, so I packed up my cameras and headed over there.

    It rained the whole time the Free Republic was outside the National Press Club which probably dampened participation as well. But five stalwarts showed up;

    This gentleman (excuse me for not getting his name) is from Miami and he happened to be in town for another protest and decided to join the FReepers at the National Press Club. His group is Shalom International and he wanted me to tell my readers in the Atlanta area that they’ll be protesting at the Carter Center, Sunday, May 4th;

    While we were waiting for the crowd to let out, I listened to Wright on CSPAN radio. I couldn’t take notes, of course, because I was standing in the rain, but here’s what I heard; the standard anti-war leftist line.

    Somehow he gets moral authority in the discussion because he “sent” his god-daughter to Iraq. I’m pretty sure a minister of a church has alot of god-children, and it stands to reason at least one of them would end up in Iraq sooner or later. But, I’m pretty sure he brought it up to contrast it with the fact that the president’s daughters aren’t in the military because right after he estabished his moral authority by recounting the fact that the woman went to Iraq, he made a point of telling us that rich people use their influence to avoid the war.

    Influence? I wouldn’t call it using influence when your children make the choice to not join the military. I think Wright got confused with the Vietnam when there was a draft and the anti-war Left accused the affluent of avoiding the draft.
    But, from what I heard on the radio, it got thunderous applause from the assembled crowd.

    To the media’s credit, they at least interviewed the FReepers. But I’ve learned that interviews don’t necessarily mean exposure.

    I interviewed Jeff Gannon when he came out (my camera was dying in the rain so the FReepers taped it for me and promised to send me a copy later) and he told me that his impression of the speech was similar to mine. Gannon also claims that Wright made up some of his Bible quotations – I didn’t hear that, but I’ll let the theologians wrestle with it.

    W ell, the crowd came out and they were in rare form. Here’s an example of the type of crowd that was in there;

    That’s Marion Berry, getting in the car, if you don’t recognize him. Jeff Gannon told me that the crowd included Cornell West, the radical black “historian”, several radical Black theologians and whole lot of people I don’t recognize;

    Wright had worked the crowd pretty good by the time they came out. In this video, a woman shouts at our new Jewish friend from Miami “Long live Palestine”. At about a minute and fifteen seconds into the video, another gentleman makes a karate-like kick at the guy from Miami and then again at about a minute and forty seconds.

    [youtube _pkD9P8vbrw nolink]

    Some elderly Black women pulled Cobie (the big Black FReeper) to the side and tried to change his mind about which side he was on. Cobie, a Navy veteran, Gathering of Eagles member and Veterans for Freedom founder, wasn’t convinced. Another Black man tried to argue with Kevin the other Black FReeper, and that didn’t work either.

    Apparently, the media and the attendees were more concerned about the Black men who were protesting Wright’s hateful talk than with the old white guys who were there. I guess they were all a bit surprised that there are Black people who don’t conform to the prevailing opinion based purely on their race.

    People talk about how brave Wright is for speaking his mind, it doesn’t take bravery to parrot the standard line, Kevin and Cobie were the bravest two people on that sidewalk this morning for sticking to what they believe in the face of the biases of the spittle-slinging mad dogs who just applauded on cue to the weakly hidden racist remarks of an opportunist who found a way to bamboozle his flock.