Shocker: "Peace" Activists Brandishing Weapons!

For the sordid and depressing details of the anti-Israel propaganda war being waged by the pro-Palestinian media (aka the "global media") in the wake of Monday's IDF raid on the Gaza flotilla, read the HonestReporting.com account here.

Ynetnews.com published a first-hand account of the incident that details how the IDF commandoes who boarded the vessels bound for Gaza in contravention of an Israeli embargo were ambushed, then beaten by "activists"wielding knives, clubs, poles and guns.  This account states that only after suffering wave upon wave of injurious attacks did the on-scene IDF commanders seek approval for a live-fire response. It is no surprise that once shooting starts in close quarters with lots of concealed weapons, people are going to get killed.  And in most situations the ones being killed are likely to be those who are shooting at well-trained Israeli soldiers.

While it is early in the lifecycle of this story, it already seems clear that if the Israelis are guilty of anything it is not murder or indiscriminate use of force, but poor planning.  Someone in the IDF's intelligence wing should have realized that the so-called "political" activists and "humanitarians" aboard the vessels were capable of brandishing weapons that they were willing to use brutally and mercilessly.

Thankfully, the American administration appears to be taking a wait-and-see attitude rather than assuming the worst of Israel immediately.  But it is still a holiday weekend, and the White House could  turn on Israel at a moment's notice once it absorbs the global anti-Israel firestorm that is in full swing.

Common Sense or Nonsense?

You decide.

"I came here to govern, not to worry about reelection."

Isn't this what we all say we want in a politician?

"Thunder on the Mountain"

posted by Jay Cost of Horseraceblog.com

Thunder on the mountain heavy as cscramblingan be


Mean old twister bearing down on me

All the ladies of Washington  to get out of town

Looks like something bad gonna happen, better roll your airplane down-Bob Dylan
The American people have only a limited role in the United States government. They must choose representatives to govern for them, rather than govern directly. They have just two political parties from which to choose. And if a representative from one district votes for a bill that affects another, the people in the other district cannot do a thing about it.

Oftentimes, one can't help but wonder if the practical power of the people is even slighter. American elections too often have low turnout. They are too frequently determined by the campaign for dollars, as candidates raise money to subsidize the unctuous propaganda that fills the airwaves prior to Election Day. Elections often do a poor job of booting the bad characters from government. The whole ugly process of electoral politics rarely seems to attract the best of the citizenry. A visit to Washington, D.C. can prompt the cynical question, "Who runs this place? Because it sure as hell doesn't seem like it's the people..."

And yet for all this, the people do indeed rule. While their power is limited, it is nevertheless unconditional where it exists. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi need the assent of the people of the United States to govern this country. But the people don't need any such thing. In the limited sphere where they rule, they are supreme.

This is easy to forget because it is rare to see the people actually wield their power in its full force. Between 1954 and 1994, the Democrats controlled the House, whether they deserved to or not. The Republicans controlled it from 1994 to 2006, again regardless of merit. The Senate has usually been just as static. Turnover in the presidency has also been fairly uneventful. Only once in the last century have the people ejected from the White House a party it had installed just four years prior (that dubious distinction goes to Jimmy Carter and the Democrats, who were promoted to the White House in 1976 then quickly demoted in 1980).

This kind of stability can give the impression that the people do not rule. We so rarely see the full force of their power that it is easy to think that the real bossess are the decades-long denizens of the prestige committees, the high-powered lobbyists, the king-makers in both party establishments, or the plugged-in Beltway journalists. We see them all the time, preening about their power and influence. They seem like they're really in charge.

But they're not. D.C. might shine brilliantly to the eyes of some, but it is still just reflected light. For all their posturing, the establishment still works at the pleasure of the people. It just so happens that the people usually choose to renew their tenure.
Yet this year, it looks like the people are set to deliver a historic rebuke to the establishment. The portents of the coming reprimand are all around us. Consider:

-Arlen Specter was effectively booted from the Republican Party nearly a year before the primary election. The conventional wisdom at the time was that the Republican electorate in Pennsylvania had become too conservative. This tendentious interpretation has been exploded by the fact that he's about to be ejected from the Democratic side, too.

-Scott Brown came out of nowhere to defeat Martha Coakley in the election to replace Senator Ted Kennedy.

-Former Senator Dan Coats couldn't even get 40% of the vote in the Indiana primary. Most of the vote was split between Marlin Stutzman and John Hostettler, who combined had raised just $315k by April 14.
-In Indiana's 9th Congressional District, frequent candidate, former representative and party favorite Mike Sodrel finished in third place. In Indiana's 5th District, Republican incumbent Dan Burton scored just 30% of the primary vote.

-Charlie Crist has been forced to exit the Republican primary in Florida because of Marco Rubio's surge. He is currently leading in opinion polls, but the lead is completely illusory. Right now, he's winning over 40% of the Democratic vote (more than the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kendrick Meeks) as well as nearly 25% of the African-American vote. Those numbers are unsustainable.

-Three-term Senator Bob Bennett has been booted from his seat by the Republican Party of Utah.

This is the thunder on the mountain, the early warning that something bad is about to blow through the District of Columbia. I don't think there's anything anybody there can do about it. The people have a limited role in this government - but where the people do possess power, they are like a force of nature. They cannot be stopped.

That's bad news for the establishment this year. They're going to wake up on the morning of November 3rd and be reminded of who is actually in charge of this country.
Democrats will be hit much, much harder than Republicans. Even so, it would be a huge mistake to interpret the coming rebuke through a strictly ideological or partisan lens. Yet predictably, that's what many will do. Republicans will see this as a historic rejection of Barack Obama's liberalism, just as they saw the 1994 revolution as a censure of Bill Clinton, and just as Democrats saw 2006 and 2008 as admonishments of George W. Bush's foreign policy. These interpretations are only half right. When the people are angry at the way the government is being managed, and they are casting about for change, their only option is the minority party. The partisans of the minority are quick to interpret this as their holy invitation to the promised land, but that's not what it really is about. They were only given the promotion because the people had no other choice.

The entire political class needs to understand that the coming events transcend ideology and partisanship. The electoral wave of 2010 will have been preceded by the waves of 2006 and 2008. That will make three electoral waves in a row, affecting both parties and conservative and liberal politicians alike. The American people are sending the establishment a message: we're angry at the way you are running our government; fix it or you'll be next to go.

Fear and Loathing in Phoenix?

Hugh Hewitt's favorite Lefty Peter Beinart proves that when it comes to the politics of race and ethnicity, there are no moderates on the Left.  They just can't help but view everything through the prism of race.  And of course, in their telling, the Left is always the champion of the downtrodden and the Right is always suspicious and fearful of anyone not just (white) like them.

The problem is, the folks opposing LBJ on civil rights and beating up blacks in Alabama that Beinart laments were Democrats.  And the folks today who wave the bloody shirt of race at every turn are...Democrats.  And yet we are supposed to believe that just because liberal eltes can't stop thinking of race, normal Americans are similarly afflicted.

Do these people ever go the places they write about?  If they did, they might talk to the people most affected by the refusal of the Federal government to enforce its own laws, and thus necessitating the new Arizona law.  One may quibble about the legislative language, but what normal person (i.e., one who doesn't live on either of the Left coasts) can begrudge the good folks of Arizona for wanting their government to do something about the lawlessness and violence on their borders?

Does anyone believe that some nativist impulse drives the majority of Arizonans and similarly situated citizens of other southwestern states to want to stem the tide of illegals coming across the border?  The southwestern states contain a larger percentage of citizens and legal residents of Latino origin than any other region of the country?  Do none of them agree with the majority of Americans that border protection and enforcement of immigration laws is a national priority?  And are those Latinos who agree with their fellow citizens similarly nativist?

I think the liberals may have played the race/ethnicity card a little too often.  It has been thrown against conservatives in almost every political dispute since Obama was elected, ranging from a police arrest of an arrogant Harvard professor to opposition to Obama's plans to nationalize the health care industry.  It should be no surprise that after demonizing average Americans as racists merely for exercising their right as free people to disagree with their elected officials, liberals would demonize average Americans as nativists for trying to protect their life and property from  lawbreaking thugs.

Don Imus, Trent Lott and countless other public men have slinked away quietly in the face of unfair and ludicrous charges of racial crimes and misdemeanors.  But as I said, liberals may have finally overplayed their weak hand in the race game.  Now that they have waved the bloody shirt of "racism" at great swaths of ordinary law-abiding Americans, liberals may be surprised to find that their targets are not willing to gently comply with their demands to leave the public stage a la Messrs. Imus and Lott.

Shame on you, Peter Beinart.  I thought you were above the street theater of Sharpton and Company.

"Old Geezer" to Obama: "Shape Up or Ship Out."

Dear President Obama,

My name is Harold Estes, reaching 95 on December 13 of 2009. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate. Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor, allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.

One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.

So here goes.

I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.

I can't figure out what country you are the president of.
You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:

" We're no longer a Christian nation."

"America is arrogant" - (Your wife even announced to the world, "america is mean-
spirited." Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our
war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a
whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)

I'd say shame on the both of you, but I don't think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.

After 9/11 you said," America hasn't lived up to her ideals." Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn't mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.

I don't think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.

Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man;

Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don't, I'll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue. You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.

And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don't want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts, who was putting up a fight? You don't mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don't want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.

One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you're the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you're not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you're thinking of.

You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president. You're not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That's not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now.

And I sure as hell don't want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle...

Sincerely,

Harold B. Estes

From a letter by Master Chief Harold Estes to President Obama dated November 20, 2009, as verified by Snopes.com