Breaking News: California still prefers ignorant protest to common sense

A police officer has recently killed a man in Los Angeles for threatening the lives of civilians and charging the officer with an upraised knife in-hand. Beyond all perceivable logic, the citizens of Los Angeles are protesting the shooting.

From an article reporting the incident:

Police said three bicycle officers were patrolling the area Sunday when someone flagged them down and said a man was threatening passers-by with a knife.

When officers confronted the man, they ordered him to drop the knife but he refused, Lt. Andrew Neiman said.

"Instead, he came after the officers with a knife raised in the air, leading one of the officers to fire at the suspect," Neiman said.

Authorities have not released the man's name. However, friends identified him as Manuel Jamines, 37, a construction worker and father of three.

Protesters contend the man was not dangerous and say officers should have used a non-lethal weapon to subdue him.

They contend he wasn't dangerous? Really? They couldn't have come to that conclusion rationally. Seriously, in what universe is a knife-wielding man charging at you not dangerous? What knowledge do these idiotic protestors have that was not at the disposal of the officers and witnesses who saw firsthand the danger he posed? How ignorant and misguided can these protestors possibly be?

William Sullivan

Update 9/8/10: There has been an escalation by the protestors overnight.

Less Ambiguous Eco-Terrorism

Eco-terrorist James Jay Lee has recently been shot and killed for taking and threatening hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters. In his later years, he was awoken by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and he had become a militant environmentalist and supporter of the anthropogenic global warming theory. A recently released manifesto reveals that he held a grudge against the Discovery Channel for their lackluster efforts to support the theory and demonize the skeptics. And as purveyors of information offered for public assimilation, he felt it is their duty to do exactly that.

The manifesto he leaves behind is truly frightening. The diatribes found therein read nothing like the musings of a student of science or a concerned environmental activist, but rather like the ideological ravings of a lunatic. And it raises the disturbing question, how closely does his fanaticism align with that of the current environmentalist movement?

Unlike other manifestos espousing hateful ideologies, James Jay Lee’s does not direct his hate at any religion, race, or culture. Mein Kampf, for example, presented the evil yet focused arguments that the Bolsheviks and Jews were cancerous elements, a threat that must be purged. Lee, on the other hand, espouses a more holistic hatred, as all human beings are equally malignant in his eyes. At numerous points in his rant, Lee references human civilization as “filth,” and he demands that the Discovery Channel’s programming expose humanity’s “disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed.” There are few other binding values in his ideology beyond these labels of humankind.

But the clues to Jay Lee’s eccentric sickness do not end there. He delves to deeper abysses by proclaiming, “Saving the Planet means saving what’s left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies!”

Talk about a “final solution.” Most cultures across the globe correctly perceive children as innocent and understand the need for their protection. Only a sick and twisted mind could hold the idea that children are the disease of the Earth. The sane inhabitants of this planet view children as the potential means by which humanity can better the world for nature and mankind.

If James Jay Lee were alone in such environmental fanaticism, there might not be significant cause for alarm. But thousands of activists and even accredited environmentalists have professed such ridiculous beliefs and been absolved in the past. For example, David Graber, a biologist of the National Park Service, is quoted as saying something remarkably comparable to Jay Lee’s recent appeal for the culling of mankind:

I know scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn't true. Somewhere along the line ... we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth.... Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.

Even though few environmentalists vocally espouse these extremes, such unnoticed rhetoric is frightening because these sentiments about the human detriment to the planet are foundational in the environmentalists’ ideology. Rarely do these beliefs manifest themselves as violence or destruction beyond anomalies like Lee’s attack or random acts of destruction like the torching of a Hummer dealership, but they often manifest themselves as political rhetoric. In recent years, procreation and population growth have been accused as the inevitable culprits of prophesied environmental catastrophes, and have been used as arguments to promote tax credits for non-procreating individuals and as ammunition to expand abortive practices, including support of federal abortion funding.

So James Jay Lee’s actions may have been extreme. But when set against the ideology of many anthropogenic global warming activists, how radical were his core beliefs?

William Sullivan

Brad Pitt Ponders Punishment for BP

Brad Pitt has voiced his opinion on the BP oil spill, and like most Americans, he thinks it has been a terrible disaster. Of course, it hits home a little harder for Pitt because he and his significant other, the inimitable Angelina Jolie, sometime live in the vibrant French Quarter. And it's clear that he loves the city of New Orleans, as he has generously given dollars and precious effort to rebuild the city after the disaster of Hurricane Katrina.

So much does he love New Orleans, and so passionately does he hate BP for their crimes against the Gulf Coast and the environment, that he has made the recent comments, "I was never for the death penalty before - I am willing to look at it again" in regards to BP executives.

Likely, this was just said for some sort of dark comic effect. I mean, he couldn't possibly be serious, could he? Richard Ramirez, aka The Night Stalker, is an unrepentant mass murderer guilty of heinous crimes of the worst order, including multiple rapes and murders, and he lives on the government dime in California after more than 20 years of incarceration. The only reason he still lives is because of bleeding-heart Hollywood types like Brad Pitt who argue that capital punishment is never the answer. Crimes of this caliber have not given Brad Pitt pause to reconsider the death penalty, but now that the rich executives of BP are vilified by the media as the culprits of some fabricated environmental holocaust, he is ready to start casting stones?

I do not think that Pitt was serious when he made this comment. At least I hope not, or he's far more deluded than I give him credit for.

Though I thoroughly enjoy his work and find him very talented, the simple fact is that Brad Pitt is a performing artist. Nothing more. His position as a performing artist does not lend his opinions on political matters credibility, and those opinions are no more validated or profound than those held by mimes or trapeze artists. In light of this, it truly boggles the mind to consider that Hollywood icons like Brad Pitt are the most influential figures for the progressive agenda.

His comments, and any who would agree with such comments, are downright misguided and stupid. After all, if Mr. Pitt was abreast of current political affairs and if he really cared about his adopted home state of Louisiana, he'd likely be directing his ire to the more important culprit of Louisiana's pressing issues: the Obama admistration that has fiscally pounded families and businesses in the state via senseless drilling moratoria.

William Sullivan

Spencer Ackerman Exposes the Socialistic Media Dysfunction

In a new report, Spencer Ackerman, once a journalist for the Washington Independent, despondently confirms the assertion that Jeremiah Wright’s incendiary rhetoric has always been indefensible for the left. In the recently exposed Journolist correspondence, regarding the national attention being paid to Rev. Wright in the 2008 campaign, he laments, “If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us.”

“The game,” as he describes it, could better be described as “the truth” about the kind of spirituality Jeremiah Wright imparts upon his congregation, and the kind of moral education that was imparted upon our president. As Wright’s teachings helped to shape Obama’s world view for 20 years, the subject was certainly relevant to the campaign. But Ackerman knew well that such potentially negative news could reach independent voters and be disastrous for his preferred candidate’s agenda, so he plotted a new route with his fellow “journalists.”

And we now know that this route entailed nothing short of depraved, yellow journalism and unjust slander. He suggested, “Instead, take one of them [on the right] — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country?” This is a confession that he and his cohorts are guilty of falsely labeling innocent people as “racists,” a tactic meant to keep Obama’s opposition in perpetual fear of political attack.

Generating fear in the opposition is key for any propaganda machine, and our leftist media is no different. Ackerman states:

“It’s not necessary to jump to Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically."

This idea is certainly not original, and more importantly, it provides a vital glimpse at the true ideology of the leftist media. Upon reading this passage about what the left needs to do to win their propaganda war, it took only a moment’s pondering to realize where I had heard something similar in the past:

We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it: to his home, to his centers of entertainment; a total war. It is necessary to prevent
him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may be; make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move.

I found this fascinating piece of “rhetoric” while reading Humberto Fontova’s book, Exposing the Real Ché Guevara. They are the words of Ernesto “Ché” Guevara, the murderous socialist that remains responsible for thousands upon thousands of deaths in the name of the Communist ideals that he believed. Many of his victims were sought out and attacked, both politically and physically, for a simple difference of opinion and ideology.

Though it may come as a surprising revelation to the counterculture that reveres him, Ché Guevara was a staunch believer in Stalinism, a brutal political code involving statist propaganda and the absolute suppression of free speech and individualism.

The primary American standard of the First Amendment runs entirely antithetical to such an ideology. Yet Ackerman and many of his colleagues share with Ché a belief in the Stalinist plank that those who differ in opinion and ideology should be hunted and attacked, and that they should be made to live in constant fear for their free expression of opinion, should it differ from the necessary state-media conglomerate.

The real tragedy is not that our more prominent media organizations are comprised of morally vacant, socialistic, and thoroughly un-American people like Ackerman that claim to be “journalists” or “reporters.” The real tragedy is that even though we have hard evidence that our trusted media outlets manipulate information to deceive Americans into believing as they do, these reports do not get the wide exposure warranted by such a scandal, because the media has continued protecting themselves and the administration with which they align.

And that is why this story, along with countless others that could incriminate Obama’s administration, has been largely buried by the mainstream media beneath heaps of irrelevant commentary about Sarah Palin’s family, audio clips of Mel Gibson’s rants, or President Obama’s insipid clucking with the ladies of The View.

William Sullivan

Oakland continues its downward spiral

In January, 2009, Johannes Mehserle, a 28 year old Bay Area Rail Transit (BART) officer, shot and killed a man in a confrontation. The fatally wounded man, 22 year old Oscar Grant, was unarmed and had been previously involved in a fight. Witness’ accounts have described Grant’s demeanor as anything from relatively compliant to violently resisting. Nonetheless, Oscar Grant was tragically killed when Mehserle drew his pistol and fired, though he claims to have done so in error, having attempted to draw his taser.

But more important to the public than any of the facts in the case is that the man shot was black and the officer who shot him was white, so the assumption that Mehserle killed Grant simply because he was a black man ran wild before any other facts were considered.

The first response to this incident by citizens that want to prove it was a racially motivated killing is probably similar to Barbara Plantiko’s, a protesting immigration lawyer. She just doesn’t “buy that he got confused” when he drew his firearm rather than his taser. A cop should be able to tell the difference between a taser and a gun. Anyone could tell the difference, right?

When calmly presented the choice between the two, I'd wager most citizens could. But what escapes these firearm “experts” like Plantiko is that the situation provides the variable, not necessarily the discrepancy between the weapons. Most citizens have never been in a scenario where a perceived assailant threatens them, and they have never been made to manage the fear that such that such circumstances create. And in this situation, Mehserle, in haste and fear, made a dreadful mistake that cost Grant his life. At least that’s what a jury of his peers found to be the truth.

Still, being ignorant of such scenarios doesn’t stop racially sensitive citizens with a healthy disdain for authority from playing armchair judge and jury to condemn Johannes Mehserle. Apparently, the citizens of the City of Oakland are far more convinced of his murderous intentions than the jury that deliberated and came to their verdict based upon all of the facts presented in the case.

Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, a sentence that carries a certain weight beyond the guilt that will likely plague him throughout his life. But that is not enough for the Oakland citizens thirsting for justice and retribution, so they decided to deliver their own brand of "justice." Riots littered the City of Oakland after the verdict, as its citizens destroyed their own neighbors’ property to express outrage.

I can't say with a straight face that our justice system is infallible, and I cannot say that the verdict was absolutely justified with a ruling of involuntary manslaughter. But what I can say with certainty is that Oakland’s citizens destroying their own community is not a justifiable means of expressing the anger that results from their paranoia of racism, and they should be held accountable.

So perhaps we should finally take the rioters of Oakland to task for their crimes. After all, we can certainly establish their extremely questionable character when it comes to knee-jerk allegations of racially motivated violence and the vilification of the authorities that risk their lives to protect its citizens.

The nation watched in disgust just two years ago, as Lovelle Mixon, a black man with a highly felonious past, killed four police officers after a traffic stop gave way to a shoot-out. He killed the officers, of white and mixed race, while holed-up in his sister’s apartment before the police finally brought him down. The officers slain were family men, and heroes.

But how did some of the scummy elements in Oakland react? They called Mixon’s actions a response to police brutality, and his death a murder. They held ceremonies to mourn the death of a lecherous villain, guilty of breaking our laws and robbing innocent families of their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons. And some even heralded the villain as a martyr whose death spotlighted a racial rift between the city’s police officers and its minority citizens.

Around the nation, we retched in disgust at their shameful display of misjudgment and misplaced ire by the citizens of Oakland. And now, we are to believe that these same citizens have a right to riot because they think Grant’s death was a racially motivated crime?

Not a chance. They’ve lost their credibility in gauging such issues. Therefore, many Americans recognize that the riotous citizens of Oakland are guilty on the counts of provocation, destruction of property, and an inability to act as human beings.

Eric Holder and the Department of Justice, however, don’t find Oakland guilty of those crimes. He finds them victims, and the carnage they have self-inflicted must mean that some kind of wrong was done to those people who are creating the havoc. Therefore, they will take further measures to investigate Grant’s death to see if it was racially motivated, biased against a black man. And if they deem Mehserle guilty of the crime, you can bet they’ll prosecute the case as an example of racism.

And the Department of Justice’s desire to zealously investigate this alleged crime of racism is ironic when you juxtapose it with the fact that they just threw out a case of proven voter intimidation, committed by a man that is unequivocally biased against white people in Philadelphia. But I guess since the citizens of Philadelphia haven’t destroyed their own communities out of anger about that injustice, it’s just not worth the Department of Justice’s time.

William Sullivan

Federally financed abortions, and the sorrowful conclusion

In spite of the efforts of countless Americans and some of our more honest politicians, Barack Obama has just approved the first taxpayer funding for abortions, to the tune of about 18.5 billion dollars.

So we've been had. Again.

It's irrefutable. When Obama said his Executive Order would prevent federal subsidization of abortions to get the healthare bill passed, he was lying. When Pelosi and her ilk said "there is no public funding of abortion in these bills" to get the healthcare bill passed, she was lying.

Tom McClusky, senior vice president of the Family Research Council’s political action arm, says it perfectly.

“For our efforts to remove the bill's abortion funding, we were called 'deceivers' by President Obama and 'liars' by his allies. Now we know who the true deceivers and liars really are."

We cannot sugar-coat it anymore. There are lying, evil bastards running our country.

And thanks to them, we are all morally implicated. Just think, a month from now, a baby may be violently dismembered and siphoned from his mother's womb. And whether you're pro-life, pro-choice, or anywhere in between, you will have paid for it.

I feel sick.

William Sullivan

Interesting Viewpoint on Obama and His Views on America

Normally I wouldn't post editorials that are readily available online on this blog but this particular one really struck a chord. Krauthammer takes a step back and analyzes Obama's perceptions about America versus Obama's perceptions of himself.

Obama can be selective when it comes to modesty
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

Remember NASA? It once represented to the world the apogee of American scientific and technological achievement. Here is President Obama's vision of NASA's mission, as explained by administrator Charles Bolden:

"One was he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering."

Apart from the psychobabble — farcically turning a spacefaring enterprise into a self-esteem enhancer - what's the sentiment behind this charge? Sure America has put a man on the moon, led the information revolution, won more Nobel Prizes than any other nation by far - but, on the other hand, a thousand years ago al-Khwarizmi gave us algebra.

Bolden seems quite intent on driving home this message of achievement equivalence - lauding, for example, Russia's contribution to the space station. Russia? In the 1990s, the Russian space program fell apart, leaving the United States to pick up the slack and the tab for the missing Russian contributions to get the space station built.

For good measure, Bolden added that the U.S. cannot get to Mars without international assistance. Beside the fact that this is not true, contrast this with the elan and self-confidence of President Kennedy's pledge that America would land on the moon within the decade.

There was no finer expression of belief in American exceptionalism than Kennedy's. Obama has a different take. As he said last year in Strasbourg, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Which of course means: If we're all exceptional, no one is.

Take human rights. After Obama's meeting with the president of Kazakhstan, Mike McFaul of the National Security Council reported that Obama actually explained to the leader of that thuggish kleptocracy that we too are working on perfecting our own democracy.

Nor is this the only example of an implied moral equivalence that diminishes and devalues America. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner reported that in discussions with China about human rights, the U.S. side brought up Arizona's immigration law - "early and often." As if there is the remotest connection between that and the persecution of dissidents, jailing of opponents and suppression of religion routinely practiced by the Chinese dictatorship.

Nothing new here. In his major addresses, Obama's modesty about his own country has been repeatedly on display as, in one venue after another, he has gratuitously confessed America's alleged failing - from disrespecting foreigners to having lost its way morally after 9/11. It's fine to recognize the achievements of others and be nonchauvinistic about one's country. But Obama's modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply.

It began with the almost comical self-inflation of his presidential campaign, from the still inexplicable mass rally in Berlin in front of a Prussian victory column to the Greek columns framing him at the Democratic convention. And it carried into his presidency, from his posture of philosopher-king adjudicating between America's sins and the world's to his speeches marked by a spectacularly promiscuous use of the first-person pronoun - I.

Notice, too, how Obama habitually refers to Cabinet members and other high government officials as "my" - "my secretary of homeland security," "my national security team," "my ambassador." The more normal - and respectful - usage is to say "the," as in "the secretary of state." These are, after all, public officials sworn to serve the nation and the Constitution - not just the man who appointed them.

It's a stylistic detail, but quite revealing of Obama's exalted view of himself. Not surprising, perhaps, in a man whose major achievement before acceding to the presidency was writing two biographies - both about himself.

Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama's modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. What is odd is to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence - yet not of his own country's.