Blogs of War

Sure you might lose your job, or some pay, in the process but who cares? Those won’t be needed under an Obama administration anyway.

Howard Dean is all worked up. I bet he’s screaming again:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Monday that he’s looking forward to one party controlling all aspects of government, despite GOP charges that it would be a disastrous Nov. 4 outcome.

“Republicans had a chance to rule. They failed miserably. I think it’s time to give the other party a chance,” Dean said on MSNBC.

Barney Frank has already revealed one of their first targets:

In a revealing meeting with the editorial board of the Southcoast (Mass.) Standard-Times last week, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., called for a 25% cut in military spending, saying: “We don’t need all these fancy new weapons.” Judging from his past comments, Obama seems to agree. He says we should talk to our enemies. Obama, Frank and the Democratic caucus would have us speak softly and carry no stick at all.

The irony here is that this call to disarm is coming from the party of Franklin Roosevelt, who called the United States the “arsenal of democracy.” Obama is a far cry from Harry Truman or the Jack Kennedy who said that only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt will we be certain beyond doubt they will never be employed.

It’s “fancy new weapons” that now provide a rudimentary amount of protection against ballistic missile attack both here and abroad. What olive branch does Obama suppose will protect against Iraq’s Shahab missiles, once they’re armed with nuclear warheads?

In a video presentation to the far-left group Caucus for Priorities, Obama revealed just where Frank’s 25% cut might come from. “I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems,” he said. “I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems. I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the Quadrennial Review is not used to justify unnecessary defense spending.”

So forget about national missile defense or responding to a realistic assessment of our enemies’ intentions and capabilities.

You folks in aerospace and defense should probably be polishing up those resumes now.

Elaine is a Democrat and former editor in chief of Ms. magazine. While she does comment on Palin’s intelligence she shifts gears quickly and goes after hypocritical feminists who’ve been exposed by Palin’s selection:

Many of those—not all—who decried the sexist media treatment of Hillary Clinton have been silent as Palin has been skewered in the old ways that female public figures are skewered, as well as a host of sexualized new ways as well. Some feminists have weighed in; “Even the reportedly clear glasses she wears to play down her beauty queen credential and enhance her gravitas can’t make up for experience,” writes my heroine Suzanne Braun Levine, former editor of Ms. Oppose her on policy? Fine. But how sad for feminist leaders to sink this low, especially when Palin has worn glasses since she was 10 years old.

Last month a prominent feminist blogger, echoing that sensibility, declared that the media was wrongly buying into the false idea that Palin was a feminist. Why? Well, just because she said she was a feminist, because she supported women’s rights and opportunities, equal pay, Title IV—that was just “empty rhetoric,” they said. At least the blogger didn’t go as far as NOW’s Kim Gandy and declare that Palin was not a woman. Bottom line: you are not a feminist until we say you are. And there you have the formula for diminishing what was once a great and important mass social change movement to an exclusionary club that rejects women who sincerely want to join and, God forbid, grow to lead.

More examples of this behavior, some graphic, can be found here.

Sirens are flashing on Drudge and the AP has a one liner. More news as it develops.

Update:
knoxnews.com has more:

The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree.

In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an unnamed but predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads.

I wouldn’t surprised if these guys turn out to be a couple of slack-jawed meth-heads (aren’t all skinheads?) with little or no chance of actually pulling this off. These stories are often over-hyped. We’ll see.

Update II:
The Smoking Gun has more:

In the ATF affidavit, a copy of which you’ll find below, Cowart and Schlesselman “discussed the killing spree to include targeting a predominately African-American school, going state to state while robbing individuals and continuing to kill people.” The pair’s “final act of violence” would be an attempt to kill Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee. In separate interviews with investigators, the men said that they planned to speed their vehicle toward Obama while “shooting at him from the windows.” Apparently befitting the historic assault, Cowart and Schlesselman “stated they would dress in all white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt.” The wannabe assassins were named in a three-count federal felony complaint, a copy of which you’ll find here.

Props to the ATF for getting these fashion-challenged morons off the street but it doesn’t appear that Obama was ever seriously threatened by these two. They would have been dead long before their fantasy finale played out.

This is a fantastic find but don’t call it an October surprise. It may be October but the fact that Barack Obama is a radical socialist cloaked in meaningless “hope” and “change” marketing babble is not a surprise at all.

That said, Obama’s dangerous interpretation of our constitution and his socialist agenda should be the only topics discussed by the McCain camp in the closing days of their campaign.

Update:
The McCain-Palin camp responds:

“The American people continue to learn more about Barack Obama. Now we know that the slogans ‘change you can believe in’ and ‘change we need’ are code words for Barack Obama’s ultimate goal: ‘redistributive change.’ In a previously uncovered interview from September 6, 2001, Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t been more ‘radical’ and described as a ‘tragedy’ the Court’s refusal to take up ‘the issues of redistribution of wealth.’ No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench – as insurance in case a unified Democratic government under his control fails to meet his basic goal: taking money away from people who work for it and giving it to people who Barack Obama believes deserve it. Europeans call it socialism, Americans call it welfare, and Barack Obama calls it change,” McCain senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said in a statement.

Others Blogging:

HillBuzz – We are Democrats here are HillBuzz telling you the Democrat in this race scares us — because we know what socialism is from spending time in Europe in the 80s, and we know it does not work and is not what America needs.

Atlas Shrugs – So he doesn’t think it can be done through the courts but he thinks it can be done legislatively. That is why a Liberal Supermajority is crucial.

Wizbang! – It is surreal that this country is close to potentially electing a president who intends to govern with such clear disregard to the same Constitution he will be sworn to defend and protect. But imposed Socialism won’t be un-Constitutional. It will instead be a heralded “transformation” in the name of “political and economic justice.”

Right Pundits – He does not discuss the rights or wrongs of taking for each according to their ability and giving to each according to their need. Instead, he talks about the best ways to go about changing the system in a way that would best facilitate those changes. He concludes that it is best changed through administrative mandate because attempts to change it through legislation is too cumbersome. He also points out that the Constitution is a negative document, telling us what the States and the Federal governments CAN’T do. Instead, he says, it should address the what the States and Federal governments SHOULD do. In other words, he sees our money as belonging to the government. He wants to take our money and he will decide how to spend it. The democrats in Congress and the Senate are already deciding how they will spend it.

NewsBusters.org – Once again we have another story that has been picked up in a big way by the Blogosphere but is currently being ignored by the mainstream media. And this time the story is huge.

Protein Wisdom – In Obama’s America, we’ll finally be able to break free of the “constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution” — and in so doing, achieve “social justice” through “redistributive change.” Well, then. Fine . But this is not the America I knew…

Michelle Malkin – Joe The Plumber, you barely scratched the surface.

Mark Epstein – Sometimes you just HAVE so smile. After weeks of Obama campaign denials, after Joe Biden got uppity with a Florida television station over the legitimate question concerning Obama’s marxist beliefs, after weeks of promotion and protection by the mainstream media, after millions of illegal dollars made their way into the Obama campaign coffers, and after Hollywood’s disgusting love affair with Obama, the truth comes out: Obama is a socialist, and YOU can hear him say so in his own words! Ah, but it gets even better–Obama wants to rid the country of its constitutional framework!

Pierre Legrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar – Course if we had an honest press corp stuff like this wouldn’t depend on people like me to find. But since we do not have an honest press corp thank you Free Republic! Naturally this is a bombshell. This is the scariest candidate to be this damn close to becoming the President.

Webloggin – And please note, Obama uses and reuses the word “redistribute.” No hiding here behind colorful, user-friendly expressions such as “spread the wealth.” What Obama clearly envisions is a government program that takes away your money (and your incentive to work hard and make it the American way), so that the money can go to those Obama deems worthy.

Chuck Thinks Right – The only question now is, can the media keep things like this hidden for 8 more days.

Related:
Barbara West and Joe Biden: The Interview Barack Obama Doesn’t Want You to See

Trying to whip the Islamic world into a frenzy over the possibility of another Jewish holocaust can really drain a guy:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fallen sick from exhaustion but the illness is not as serious as political opponents suggest, an Ahmadinejad ally told Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a recent meeting with Iraq’s former prime minister Ibrahim al-Jafari.

“The president will eventually fully recover and will continue with his work, but the shame of this thing will be left forever for some people,” Mohammad Esmail Kowsari said in the IRNA report.

It’s be a real shame if this rumor tainted Ahmadinejad’s legacy wouldn’t it?

This hasn’t been confirmed but it sounds like something did go down:

Local residents in a Syrian border town said that American forces killed seven men in a helicopter-borne commando attack inside Syrian territory.

Doctors in the town of Al-Sukkariya, some eight kilometres from the Iraqi border, said seven corpses and four wounded had been delivered to a nearby clinic after the attack.

The eyewitness accounts said that four helicopters were involved in the operation, with two of the helicopters landing in the town and eight American soldiers disembarking. The eyewitnesses said that the seven killed men were supposedly construction workers.

Afterwards, the US helicopters then left Syrian airspace with all the soldiers again on board.

So, either the U.S. military is taking construction code enforcement incredibly seriously or the Syrian’s are learning the hard way that they can’t sponsor or allow cross-border operations with impunity.

The area is near the Iraqi border city of Qaim, which had been a major crossing point for fighters, weapons and money coming into Iraq to fuel the Sunni insurgency.

Iraqi insurgents seized Qaim in April 2005, forcing U.S. Marines to recapture the town the following month in heavy fighting. The area became secure only after Sunni tribes in Anbar turned against al-Qaida in late 2006 and joined forces with the Americans.

On Thursday, U.S. Maj. Gen. John Kelly said Iraq’s western borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan were fairly tight as a result of good policing by security forces in those countries but that Syria was a “different story.”

“The Syrian side is, I guess, uncontrolled by their side,” Kelly said. “We still have a certain level of foreign fighter movement.”

Update:
It looks like we’re confirming the attack – and it was related to the hostile cross-border traffic:

U.S. military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as “serious aggression.”

A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the foreign fighter network that travels through Syria into Iraq. The Americans have been unable to shut the network down in the area because Syria was out of the military’s reach.

“We are taking matters into our own hands,” the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.

The attack came just days after the commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq said American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, which he called an “uncontrolled” gateway for fighters entering Iraq.

Obama-Biden got some tough, but fair, questions and they’re in total meltdown mode over it:

Biden so disliked West’s line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate’s wife.

“This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,” wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.

McGinnis said the Biden cancellation was “a result of her husband’s experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West.”

Voters need to see this and thanks to the Obama-Biden freakout they will.

Related:
Video: Barack Obama Discusses His Strategies for Wealth Redistribution in 2001 Interview

It looks like people may have been illegally, or at least inappropriately, poking around in government databases looking for information about Joe Wurzelbacher:

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver’s license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. “It’s outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama’s allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question,” he said.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see this traced back to a P.I. or lawyer with political contacts.

The weird “B” and Twitter activity had a lot of us suspecting that this would come. She didn’t hold out long:

Pittsburgh police said a 20-year-old woman who originally said she was robbed and assaulted at knifepoint in Bloomfield because of her political views made the story up.

Ashley Todd — who has a backward letter “B” scratched into her right cheek — confessed to faking the story and will be charged with filing a false report, Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant said at a news conference Friday.

Todd, of College Station, Texas, admitted there was no robbery or attacker and said she had prior mental health problems, according to Bryant.

We’re looking at some sad and stupid decision making by Ashley. Her actions won’t help her cause, can’t help but fuel more racial tension, and the impact will be felt the rest of her life. Hopefully, she’ll get the help she obviously needs.

Update:
She’s catching a whole bunch of heat, from liberals and conservatives alike, on Twitter. You can watch the outrage scroll by on Summize.com.