In case you missed it here it is:

Its crazy isn’t it? It really looks like the military is just picking up some guy and taking him away at first glance… but a second look reveals that the men in the video are wearing different kinds of camouflaged fatigues that many have claimed aren’t up to military standards. Plus the fact that two police officers can be seen at the tail end of the video doesn’t help clear up the situation. And, of course, this picture taken by a University of Pittsburgh photographer doesn’t help matters:

Well… I was really confused about what actually happened in this video so I decided to do a little leg work and find out for sure. First I was able to confirm, through a spokesperson, that the men in the video are NOT from the Pennsylvania National Guard who are on the ground assisting the police in crowd control but are NOT carrying weapons or making ANY arrests.

Next, given that the people in the video aren’t from the Pennsylvania National Guard, I wanted to see what the Police had to say about the video. So I contacted the Pittsburgh Police Department and they gave me the number for the G-20 Joint Information Center which handles press requests on G-20 related security questions.

The G-20 Joint Information Center, which can be reached at 412-402-7630, issued this statement to me which explains exactly what is going on in that video:

The individuals involved in the 9/24/2009 arrest which has appeared online are law enforcement officers from a multi-agency tactical response team assigned to the security operations for the G20.

It is not unusual for tactical team members to wear camouflaged fatigues. The type of fatigues the officers wear designates their unit affiliation. Prior to the arrest, the officers observed this subject vandalizing a local business. Due to the hostile nature of the crowd, officer safety and the safety of the person under arrest, the subject was immediately removed from the area.

So, yes, the video is real. However, it wasn’t the military and the guy wasn’t being kidnapped. Instead he was being arrested for vandalism.

It’s been a while but here’s your required daily reading for today:

• The Daily Kos and Megan McCain fight about who the bigger gay marriage proponent is… PLUS: Tommy Christopher throws his two cents at Markos!
• The Judicial Confirmation Network mails out a letter to senators regarding SCOTUS nominee Sotomayor
• Caleb Howe reviews the real climate of hate over at RedState

Enjoy!

I am happy to say that it contributed to the retraction of the Politico story. Read up and enjoy!

Besides if you don’t read his post you won’t get the full story and you might not fully understand how I came to my conclusions.

The basic summary is that the History Channel in all likelihood didn’t commission or run these anti-American ads (click to enlarge):

And this anti-Christian/western ad (click to enlarge):

However, the ad agency which works for the History Channel (among many others), Ogilvy & Mather, did commission the ads then brand them with History Channel logos and even submit them to the prestigious CLIO awards. And what’s worse is that these absurd ads actually won a CLIO award.

Now, again, Caleb Howe has great insights into all the things wrong with this situation and these ads so go read his post. But, he doesn’t go quite far enough down the CLIO trail. There is definitely a lot more to this.

I mean, sure, I could buy that the award ceremony disregards political messages and judges the entries based off of their creativity and visual appeal… except that those ads are neither creative or visually appealing. They look like something a 6 year old made in paint on windows 95. For goodness sake if that’s all it takes to reach the pinnacle of print advertising then sign me the heck up!

I’ll be raking in the millions in no time and I can barely get by with my cheap rip off of photo shop. Seriously, look at those pictures. It’s just a quick and simple cut and past job. And a crappy one at that. Those stupid billboards couldn’t look less like they were a part of the picture. Over all this potential campaign is just a worthless piece of crap.

So that leads me to this question: HOW THE HECK DID THIS WIN A PRESTIGIOUS AWARD???

Despite the in depth analysis a screaming question like that might seem to require I can offer only this: It’s anti-American political message. Nothing else makes a lick of sense.

The call comes after Pelosi vomitted her lies all over the CIA. Sure he’s gone off on her over this before and sure this is little more than grandiose political theater that will lead to nothing in the end… but it’s still fun to listen to someone give ol’ Nancy a much deserved smack down:

In a column for the conservative publication Human Events, the former House Speaker takes aim at Pelosi’s press conference last week, during which she said the CIA did not tell her in 2002 that it used the aggressive interrogation technique of waterboarding. She went on to allege the CIA routinely misleads Congress.

“She charged that the CIA, deliberately and as a matter of policy, violated the law by lying to Congress,” Gingrich writes in the column. “And with that allegation, Speaker Pelosi disqualified herself from the office she holds.”

“Speaker Pelosi has damaged America’s safety,” Gingrich also writes. “She’s made America less secure by sending a signal to the men and women defending our country that they can’t count on their leaders to defend them.”

Indeed all those things are true. And, yes, she should resign. But lets be honest… she won’t and the Dems won’t do a thing to her. So really the political hacks used as human shields surrounding Pelosi got this one right:

A Democratic leadership aide Wednesday called Gingrich’s comments a “political ploy.”

“This is an ethically challenged former Speaker of the House who is out to sell books,” the aide said.

Of course, like I said before, the fact that Newt’s comments are next to meaningless in reality… it doesn’t make them any less true. And I suppose it is always nice to hear another high profile person stick it to ol’ Nancy.

The reason you didn’t hear about it here is that I wasn’t completely comfortable sharing it publicly because he sent the little thank you through a direct message on Twitter. Which means he may not have wanted it shared publicly. So, if I didn’t post it you may be asking “how did Tommy Christopher end up with it?”.

Well, despite what his post may imply, I met Tommy at CPAC and we talk from time to time. And when I got a direct message from Karl Rove, in my excitement, I told a couple people about it. Tommy was one of them.

In hindsight I probably should have made it completely clear that I was talking strictly off the record but I really didn’t, and still don’t, see the story here. But I guess it just goes to show that you should always be careful when talking to a journalist… and I wasn’t.

Now that Tommy has written his inane piece bashing Rove I suppose it’s my duty to defend Rove a little. Especially since this is such a stupid non-story. Plus… I get the added bonus of taking apart Tommy’s cheer leading for Megsy Mac and that’s always a blast.

First, all Karl Rove said to me was “Thanks for your post. Awfully nice of you”. He was referring to this post, in which I defend him from the childish attacks of Megsy Mac. I defended him, he gave me a little thanks… how is this controversial? (click the picture to enlarge)

It’s an absurd stretch to say that Rove was somehow endorsing what I said about Megsy. No where does he say that he agrees with my assessment of Megsy. He simply appreciates me defending him a little. Seriously, that’s it. To take more from it than that screams attention baiting…

But let’s say for a second that Rove did endorse what I wrote about Megsy, as he really ought to, how would that be controversial? Apparently for Tommy its ultra cool when Megsy rips Rove due to her own misunderstanding of twitter but its totally lame dude that Rove might not respect her. What a joke.

Meghan Mccain deserves zero respect for her accomplishments or opinions because they’ve all been handed to her. The former by a media looking for another “Republican” to bash republicans and the later by slogans on T-shirts she’s seen Perez Hilton wearing.

Her “ideas” are nothing new. Don’t let Tommy fool you, Rinoism has been around far longer than either myself or Megsy and it has never been logical or successful. Republicans who pretend to be Democrats get nothing but electoral ass kickings, as Megsy’s father proved once (again) and for all.

I’m here to say that I’m a young Republican and Meghan Mccain will never speak for me, my generation, or my party.

Well, look whose popped back up in the news. Yup it’s mister God Damn America himself. Sounding perhaps a bit bitter and maybe even a little religion-clinging Rev. Wright had this to say on Thursday:

On Thursday, Wright was addressing more than 700 people at a mass meeting that kicked off the 44th anniversary celebration of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

The event was held at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church, site of the first mass meeting that led to the watershed voting rights movement in Selma.

During his address, Wright cautioned against putting too much faith in Obama.

“Barack’s name ain’t Jesus. Barack ain’t gonna improve your child’s reading score. There are things we’ve got to do on our own,” he said.

The odd thing is that his statement is actually relatively coherient. I suppose I am actually forced to agree with the nutbag for once… ewww that sends a cold shiver down my spine.

I guess that bus Obama threw him under must have knocked a very small amount of sense into him. or maybe it’s the taxes Obama wants to pub on his mansion that is changing Wright’s mind?