Stills from the Reverend Doctor’s bizarre rant at the National Press Club, via the wire services:

Though, maybe there aren’t so many moods expressed after all. Just a smug self-righteous superiority based upon untrammeled ignorance and hatred.

Still, please don’t stop, Mr. Wright.

For once you in your hate-filled life you are doing the Lord’s work.

From his fans at the Associated Press:

Wright says criticism is attack on black church

By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — The Rev. Jeremiah Wright says criticism surrounding his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church.

Barack Obama’s longtime pastor says he hopes the controversy will have a positive outcome and spark an honest dialogue about race in America. Wright says black church traditions are still “invisible” to many Americans, as they have been throughout the country’s history…

He said the black church tradition is not bombastic or controversial, but different and misunderstood by the “dominant culture” in the United States.

Needless to say this isn’t about black churches. It is about Mr. Wright’s red hot hatred of this country, capitalism, and of course, white people.

He and others have been trying to make a religion out of their race-baiting class warfare for a long time.

But it isn’t a religion quite yet.

From those defenders of the faith at the Associated Press:

Indonesian police officers walk past the burnt shell of a mosque set alight by a mob in the early hours of Monday, April 28, 2008 in Sukabumi, West Java, Indonesia.

Indonesians torch Muslim sect’s mosque

By NINIEK KARMINI, Associated Press Writer

Monday, April 28, 2008

(04-28) JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Hundreds of protesters chanting “Kill, kill” set fire Monday to an Indonesian mosque belonging to a Muslim sect they claim is heretical, police said.

A policeman was wounded in the head when the crowd stoned the mosque in West Java province before setting it ablaze, said police spokesman Col. Dade Ahmad. Several suspects were taken in for questioning.

The attack was the latest targeting the Ahmadiyah sect in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Most mainstream Muslims consider Ahmadiyah heretical because it does not consider Muhammad to be the final prophet. The sect was founded at the end of the 19th century in Pakistan.

Last week, a team of prosecutors, religious scholars and government officials said the sect “had deviated from Islamic principles” and recommended it be outlawed. There have been several acts of vandalism targeting Ahmadiyah since then.

About 300 people torched the mosque and destroyed an Islamic school building inside the Ahmadiyah compound in Sukabumi town just after midnight. Many sect members have since fled the area, seeking refuge with friends and relatives.

“We heard the attackers chanting ‘Burn, burn’ and ‘Kill, kill,’” said Zaki Firdaus, one of the sect’s members. “It was horrifying.”

Around 200 people living on the mosque’s compound got away before the crowd arrived. The police were called, “but the attackers came faster,” Firdaus said.

Ahmadiyah followers have been persecuted for years, but last week’s recommendation prompted an escalation, said sect spokesman Syamsir Ali. Four mosques have been destroyed since the April 16 announcement.

It was “like a poison, not a medicine for this nation,” he said. “We don’t know what will happen with us tomorrow.” …

Ahmadiyah, believed to have 200,000 followers in Indonesia, has also faced persecution in other Muslim countries. Its followers insist it should be considered part of Islam.

The tolerant religion of peace — which is so clear it needs no one to interpret it.

Someone should tell these pious folks about the Nation Of Islam.

From an outraged Politico:

Obama stars in Mississippi attack ad

The Republican candidate in a special election to fill an unexpectedly contested seat in a conservative Mississippi congressional district is using recent controversies surrounding Senator Barack Obama to tar his Democratic rival.

A television ad from Southaven Mayor Greg Davis tells viewers that his Democratic rival, Travis Childers, a realtor and Prentiss County official, has accepted the endorsement of “liberal Barack Obama.”

Then, with Childers’ face beside footage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it says, “When Obama’s pastor cursed America, blaming us for 9/11, Childers said nothing.”

Then: “When Obama ridiculed rural folks for clinging to guns and religion, Childers said nothing.”

“He took Obama’s endorsement over our conservative values. Conservatives just can’t trust Travis Childers,” the ad concludes.

Unlike a much-reported North Carolina Republican ad attacking Obama, the Mississippi spot is actually airing on television.

The spot marks Obama’s rapid ascent in conservative demonology, to a place in an attack ad in a contested race that — until several weeks ago — would have been lent to Teddy Kennedy or Hillary Clinton. A National Republican Congressional Committee spot airing in the same district seeks to link Childers to Obama, John Kerry, and Nancy Pelosi.

The ads are a mark of how difficult, with the nomination apparently within his grasp, Obama will find it to stay above or outside the traditional, bitter partisan divisions he so often deplores.

Meanwhile, as the ad airs, McCain’s rhetorical stance seems also to be working: in a column the editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal deplores Davis’s ad, and gives McCain credit for denouncing such spots.

Mrs. Clinton campaign’s sub rosa “war room,” Hillary Is 44 has a typically vicious highly enjoyable screed on this subject which begins:

Barack Obama Destroys The Democratic Party, Part II

Update: Obama will Destroy Democrats. Republicans are already airing ads linking a Democratic congressional candidate to Obama…

And then ominously repeats this drone:

Superdelegates beware.

We can only hope they are right for once.

And that their warnings get the Cassandra treatment.

From those champions of every vote counting at the Associated Press:

Few states let overseas troops vote by e-mail

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan can speak to their families by Web camera and fight insurgents using sophisticated electronic warfare. Yet when it comes to voting, most troops are stuck in the past.

Communities in 13 states will send overseas troops presidential election ballots by e-mail this year, and districts in at least seven states will also let them return completed ballots over the Internet, according to data compiled by The Associated Press and the Overseas Vote Foundation.

That still leaves tens of thousands of service members in far-flung military bases struggling to meet voting deadlines and relying largely on regular mail to get ballots and cast votes — often at the last minute because of delays in ballot preparations in some states.

Adding an electronic boost to the process would ease those problems, but it raises security and privacy concerns.

Pentagon officials have been urging more states to move into the electronic age before November, a move that could help reverse recent trends in which thousands of military members asked for ballots but either didn’t vote or had their ballots rejected for flaws.

The push comes more than seven years after problems with overseas military voting set off an uproar in President Bush’s narrow 2000 victory.

This year, when war is a key campaign issue, the election results in any state — particularly one with heavy military voting — could turn on the votes of thousands of troops on the front lines.

“The personnel that fight our wars, the people who are most affected by the decisions on the use of the military, are being systematically denied the right to vote,” said Bob Carey, a board member of the Overseas Vote Foundation, a voting rights group.

Carey, a Navy reservist who has served in Iraq, noted that ballots are often not prepared and ready to be mailed until 30 to 45 days before an election. And since it can take more than two weeks for troops to get ballots by regular mail, they sometimes get them too late to meet voting deadlines.

Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who is president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said the use of e-mail is a controversial subject among his members. Yet, he said his state has had no problems using e-mail to both deliver and receive ballots from overseas voters.

Mind you, this is merely the product of the media and the Democrats’ (excuse the redundancy) overweening concern that every military vote get counted.

Their attempts to close polling places on military bases and to throw out military ballots never happened. It was all a dream.

The push comes more than seven years after problems with overseas military voting set off an uproar in President Bush’s narrow 2000 victory.

You see, the problem was because our troops couldn’t vote by email.

And of course this has absolutely nothing to do with getting the camel’s nose under the tent to allow e-voting. Nothing whatsoever.

Even though such a system nationwide would save the Democrats and their lickspittle minions to save untold treasure otherwise spent on propaganda influencing the news, buying votes, and getting the illegals and the dead to the polls.

(Note that the Democrats would not allow emails to be used to re-do their Florida and Michigan primaries, because they knew there would be too much cheating.)

No, it is the left’s famous concern to count the military vote that is at work here.

It’s as plain as day.

From a disappointed AFP:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai salutes just before the gun firing which he survived during a celebration in Kabul April 27, 2008.

Afghan president escapes deadly parade attack, three killed

by Sardar Ahmad

KABUL (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped unharmed Sunday after militants attacked a high-profile military parade with rockets and gunfire, killing three people including an MP and wounding a dozen.

The extremist Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the daring attack, denying however that it was an assassination attempt on Karzai.

Bullets struck into the back of a stage where the president and Afghan leaders, including the most senior international representatives here, were seated to review the country’s most important annual military parade.

There were also several large explosions, with one — likely from a rocket-propelled grenade — landing just in front of the platform, Health Minister Mohammad Amin Fatimie told AFP.

Bodyguards sprang to cover the president and then whisked him away as other dignitaries fell to the floor or fled, said Fatimie, who was just metres away from Karzai.

The health minister later told AFP that an MP, Fazl-Ul Rahman Samkanai, suffered severe bullet wounds to his stomach and liver and died on the operating table.

The roughly 3,000 police and troops preparing for the parade broke from their formations and fled as security guards stationed across the area returned fire.

The leader of a minority tribe who had been sitting on the stage was killed in the attack in which the gunmen appeared to be positioned in derelict buildings about 400 metres (1,300 feet) from Karzai.

About a dozen other Afghans, including a parliamentarian and several security men, were wounded, officials said.

A 10-year-old boy living in the area was also killed, apparently in return fire, they said.

A Taliban spokesman who called media to claim the attack as it was unfolding said three of his group’s men were killed. He did not say how and this was not immediately confirmed by authorities.

Shortly after the incident, which was broadcast live on television, the president appeared on camera to reassure the public and announce some of the attackers had already been caught.

“Fortunately Afghan security forces quickly surrounded them. Some of them were captured,” Karzai said. “Everything is calm, rest assured.”

The attack erupted soon after Karzai had taken the stage following an inspection of troops and as a 21-gun salute was ringing out across the city.

Tight security was in place for Afghanistan’s largest annual parade, which was celebrating 16 years since the fall of the last communist government.

The Taliban, which was in power between 1996 and 2001, said it had wanted to show it could strike at will.

“We had placed six personnel in the area. Three of our men have been killed,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told an AFP reporter.

“Our aim was not to directly hit someone,” Mujahed said when asked if the intention was to kill Karzai. “We just wanted to show to the world that we can attack anywhere we want to.”

The US-led military coalition said meanwhile it had killed several insurgents in a raid Saturday on a Taliban hideout targeted at a rebel leader who was planning to attack Sunday’s ceremony.

There were also civilians among the dead, a spokeswoman told AFP although she was not able to give details…

Gosh, the AFP is so incensed they called the Taliban “extremists.” Though they also point out how “daring” they are.

And of course our unbiased reporters just can’t help themselves:

A 10-year-old boy living in the area was also killed, apparently in return fire, they said.

You see, the Taliban would never kill a young boy. It had to be the government forces.

Similarly, the AFP accepts the Taliban’s claim that they were just trying to prove an academic point. They didn’t mean to hurt anyone — let alone Mr. Karzai.

Which is a telling contrast to the vicious US forces, who once again gratuitously killed Afghan civilians in yet another one of their pointless imperialistic raids.

Still, this assassination attempt show of force from the “freedom fighters” may prove a reminder to Mr. Karzai that there are some things even worse than the US forces.

From those champions of internal understanding at Reuters:

Gov. Richardson meets Chavez over hostages

Sun Apr 27

CARACAS (Reuters) – The governor of New Mexico met on Saturday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an effort to restart talks with neighboring Colombia to secure the release of hostages held by leftist rebels.

Chavez this year helped free six hostages held for years by the Marxist FARC rebels in Colombia’s four-decade old civil war, but talks have sputtered amid continued bickering between Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

“I’ve had a good meeting with President Chavez … (he) has told me that he is willing to help in this situation,” Gov. Bill Richardson told reporters after the meeting…

The leftist Chavez and right-wing Uribe have exchanged bitter accusations throughout the year, even during the hostage release negotiations.

Uribe accuses the self-styled socialist of supporting the FARC rebels, while Chavez says the Colombian leader of advancing Washington’s agenda in the increasingly anti-U.S. Latin American region…

Will no Democrat ever pass up a chance to ingratiate themselves with a communist dictator and undermine our foreign policies?

But maybe Mr. Richardson is just trying to duplicate his wild success with getting the North Koreans to disarm.

Or his attempt at suborning perjury from Monica Lewinsky by offering her a position on his staff at the United Nations. 

(All of this was before Mr. Richardson decided he was the second coming of the Frito Bandito, of course.)

But Mr. Richardson’s treacherous behavior aside, isn’t it nice to see the way our watchdog media refers to Mr. Chavez as a “leftist” and Mr. Uribe as “right-wing”?

Moral equivalence all around.

Some actual reporting from the Los Angeles Times:

Obama donor received a state grant

His letter on behalf of a table tennis company preceded the funding.

By Chuck Neubauer and Tom Hamburger

April 27, 2008

WASHINGTON — After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client — a longtime political supporter.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell’s firm that eventually totaled $112,000.

A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

Killerspin specializes in table tennis, running tournaments nationwide and selling its own line of equipment and apparel and DVD recordings of the competitions. With support from Obama, other state officials and an Obama aide who went to work part time for Killerspin, the company eventually obtained $320,000 in state grants between 2002 and 2004 to subsidize its tournaments.

Obama’s staff said the senator advocated only for the first year’s grant — which ended up being $20,000, not $50,000. The day after Obama wrote his letter urging the awarding of the state funds, Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign received a $1,000 donation from Blackwell.

Obama’s presidential campaign rejects any suggestion that there was a connection between the legal work, the campaign contribution and the help with the grant. “Any implication that Sen. Obama would risk an ethical breach in order to secure a small grant for a pingpong tournament is nuts,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political advisor…

But he won’t take money from lobbyists. No way.

He has enough.

Doesn’t it seem like the more we know about Mr. Obama, the more shady he appears to be?

Or is that racist to suggest?

(Thanks to BillK for the heads up.)

From the terrorists’ mouthpiece, Al Jazeera:

Somali pirates free Spanish boat

SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 2008

A Spanish fishing boat seized by pirates off the Somali coast and held for six days has been freed after a $1.2m ransom was paid, a maritime official has said.

Spanish officials did not confirm that a ransom was paid before Saturday’s release, saying only that there had been negotiations.

However, Abdi Khalif Ahmed, chairman of Haradhere port local authority in central Somalia, said ransom was paid before the pirates released the ship.

“The ship is free and the pirates disappeared into their villages,” Ahmed said late on Saturday.

Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Programme confirmed in a statement that a ransom was paid.

“The Spanish fishing boat Playa de Bakio has been released after a ransom of 1.2 million dollars was paid.”  

The boat was freed on Saturday and headed towards the Seychelles under the escort of a Spanish frigate. It is expected to dock at port Victoria on Tuesday.

The Spanish government sent a frigate, the Mendez Nunez, to the area from the Red Sea, and a surveillance plane to the French military base in neighbouring Djibouti to carry out reconnaissance.

Mwangura said the boat, which was captured on April 20, “suffered heavy damage caused by gun fire and looting during the piracy attack.” …

The 76-metre tuna fishing boat from Spain’s Basque region was captured on Sunday while it was fishing in international waters about 300km off the coast of Mogadishu, Somalia.

Pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades, boarded skipper Amadeo Alvarez Gomez’s boat and captured the crew of 13 Spaniards and 13 Africans from various countries…

More than 25 ships were seized by pirates in Somali coastal waters last year despite US navy patrols, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Somehow one knew it would turn out to be America’s fault.

It certainly has nothing to do with “progressive” countries like Spain giving them huge rewards for their naughtiness.

Still, where is Thomas Jefferson when you need him?

By the way, aren’t these pirates of the Muslim persuasion? Is not piracy forbidden in that perfect guide to life — the Koran?

What a shock.

From those champions of law and order at the Associated Press:

Chicago Police receive a briefing after a roll call at 68th and Marshfeld Streets on the south side of Chicago Friday, April 25, 2008.

Chicago plans show of force to deter its killing season

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) — Police planned to increase patrols and put SWAT officers and specialized units on the streets over the weekend, a show of force aimed at deterring violence like the three dozen shootings that left nine people dead last weekend.

“Weather permitting, we will have our helicopter up,” said police spokeswoman Monique Bond, who said Thursday night was relatively quiet, with only four shootings, none fatal.

Meanwhile, religious leaders said they had persuaded some churches to open their doors in the afternoons and evenings to protect people from gunfire.

“We just picked up about four more churches in Austin [a neighborhood on the city's West Side] that are going to open their doors as a safe haven,” said Ira Acree, an activist and pastor of the Greater St. John Bible Church.

The recent violence followed a six-month period during which more than 20 Chicago public school students were shot to death.

On Friday, Mayor Richard Daley took the unusual step of calling together more than two dozen officials from the police department, schools, social service agencies and religious groups for a City Hall summit on the violence. Afterward, he said it was just the start of a continuing dialogue about how to combat violent crime.

A fired-up Daley blasted the gun industry and called on parents and adults to do their part by intervening to help troubled youth and by working to keep others on the right path…

It is key for children to be occupied in after-school or other programs so they stay out of trouble, especially when they’re not in a classroom, Daley said…

And Tio Hardiman, executive director of CeaseFire, an anti-violence group, said young people need help finding alternatives to the streets.

“We need to go right to the corners and find out what some of these young people want to do, identify some employers that are willing to hire maybe 30 from this neighborhood, 30 from another neighborhood and try to get them hired somewhere so then we can get them off the corners.” …

Hardiman said he expected that violence would not be as bad this weekend because of the police presence and other steps by community groups, including his group’s efforts to talk to gang members and mediate disputes. Last weekend, there were 36 shootings — at least 14 of which police believed were gang related.

But he said he’s concerned about possible repercussions from a shooting at a McDonald’s on Monday night that left one man dead and four others injured.

The area where the shooting took place is believed to be a stronghold of the Gangster Disciples street gang and Hardiman said he’s concerned that someone may try to retaliate.

Isn’t this Barack Obama’s home turf? (Inasmuch as he has a home.)

Isn’t Chicago the site of all of his amazing work as a community organizer? The work on which he has based his bid for the Presidency?

Indeed, it was through his work with the local Chicago churches that Mr. Obama came into the orbit of the Reverend Doctor Wright.

And yet the media have not been asking Mr. Obama about what he would do to staunch this crime wave? What this says about his storied accomplishments there?

Why is that?

As is said of the architect Christopher Wren, “if you seek his monument, look around.”

(Of course the truth is that the only achievement Mr. Obama can claim from his “organizing days” is the removal of some asbestos from a small housing project. And the people directly involved say he didn’t even have much to do with that.)

An editorial from those paragons of self-righteousness at the New York Times:

A Shameful, Ugly Ad

April 26, 2008

Manipulative. Shameful. Race-baiting. Those are the only words to describe a new television ad from the Republican Party running in North Carolina that attacks Senator Barack Obama as “too extreme” for the state.

Senator John McCain was right to condemn the ad and demand that state Republican Party leaders pull it — a demand they refused. As of Friday, the state party’s Web site was soliciting contributions to “keep this ad on the air.” The country cannot afford such divisiveness.

Unless Mr. McCain quickly gets control of his party, we fear there will be worse to come. (Just note the it’s- not-my-problem reaction of Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, who set a new low for implausible deniability by claiming that the ad by the G.O.P. in her home state has nothing to do with her own re-election bid.)

The ad is built around the well-known video clip of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. — Mr. Obama’s former pastor — declaring “God damn America.” We have said before that we find Rev. Wright’s oratory racist. And we have criticized Senator Obama for waiting too long to denounce it. His relationship with the Rev. Wright is undeniably a liability for his campaign.

But that’s not what this ad is about. The assertion that Mr. Obama is “just too extreme for North Carolina” is a clear bid to stir bigotry in a Southern state. The ad’s claim that its target is actually two Democratic gubernatorial candidates who endorsed Mr. Obama is ludicrous.

This is too familiar. In his 1990 re-election campaign, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina ran the infamous “hands” ad showing two white hands crumpling up a letter while the announcer intones: “You needed that job, and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority.” His challenger, Harvey Gantt, a former Charlotte mayor, was, of course, African-American.

Senator McCain was right when he said, of the new ad, that “there’s no place for that kind of campaigning — and the American people don’t want it, period.”

Now he needs to get his party to listen.

Coming from a “newspaper” that hates this country with a purple passion and which gleefully betrays its national security at every opportunity, this is high praise.

But even so, what incredible mendacity — even for the New York Times.

They have no shame. (And soon will have no readers.)

From her fans at the San Francisco Chronicle:

Anti-war Cindy Sheehan files to take on Pelosi

John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Peace activist Cindy Sheehan wants to snatch House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat from her in November, but first she’s going to need the help – and signatures – of 10,198 friends and supporters.

Sheehan was at San Francisco City Hall on Friday to take out papers for her independent run for Congress, but without those signatures from voters in the district, her name won’t show up on the ballot.

“It’s an uphill battle,” said Sheehan, who vowed to run against Pelosi in July after the speaker refused to start impeachment proceedings against President George Bush. “But I’m excited about the signature-gathering process. It’s going to be an opportunity to talk to people about our campaign.” …

To get the signatures, equal to 3 percent of the district voters registered for the 2006 general election, the campaign will have people setting up ironing boards and card tables on street corners throughout the city, seeking voters who want an alternative to Pelosi. Sheehan has until Aug. 8 to collect the needed signatures…

The speaker will get an early look at the unhappiness of the city’s progressives, because she’s being challenged by local activist Shirley Golub in the June 3 Democratic primary…

Despite the upbeat talk, Sheehan and Golub, along with Republican Dana Walsh and Libertarian Philip Berg in November, are the longest of longshots to give Pelosi even a moment’s worry on election day. In a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans 56 percent to 10 percent and a state where incumbents almost never lose, a party leader like Pelosi has every right to be making plans for her next term in office.

The odds don’t bother Sheehan, who has raised more than $100,000 for her race, most of it from outside the district.

“Even people who I won’t represent are willing to back me, because they know what I’ll do in office,” she said. “Many people in San Francisco know me, and they know my persistence.

“If I get to Washington, I’ll only be in office a couple weeks before Bush leaves, but I guarantee he’ll know I’m there.”

The “public face” of the wildly popular anti-war movement, self-sanctified Saint Cindy still hasn’t managed to get signatures from 3% of the denizens of the most liberal enclave in the US to get on the ballot?

(Something someone calling herself Shirley Golub was able to accomplish.)

Mind you, this is the same woman who constantly chides President Bush for being “incompetent.”

“Even people who I won’t represent are willing to back me, because they know what I’ll do in office,” she said. “Many people in San Francisco know me, and they know my persistence.

And by persistence, Ms. Sheehan means her tendency to quit whenever the cameras move off of her for an instant.