Combating Media Manipulation: Just Say ‘No’

Barry Rubin  "I don’t understand — and I haven’t seen anyone even try to explain it — why the Republican presidential candidates keep subjecting themselves to politically partisan, hostile journalists being in control of their debates. These journalists have been highly partisan previously, seem to shield President Obama from criticism, and go on the offensive to try, for example, to turn the whole debate into the pretense that these candidates want to make birth control pills illegal."
...."It is absolutely clear that critics of this president, his policies, or the ideas behind those policies will be blacklisted and smeared by many journalists, programs, and networks. If the highly politicized media cannot ignore a person, they will try to make them look bad or twist their words. Why should people keep playing along with this strategy and falling into these traps?"


Can you believe someone would actually make this argument?


Romney ‘Shoe Shine’ Photo a Hoax, Left-Wingers Push Story Anyway   "The meme began from a photo by Getty showing Romney sitting in a chair on the tarmac with his foot up and a red-jacketed worker attending to the candidate’s footwear. The left immediately assumed that Romney was getting his shoes shined before getting on a “corporate” jet. This story was made up out of whole cloth because in reality what the picture shows is Romney getting his shoes wanded by an explosive sniffing device wielded by a TSA agent before being allowed to board the plane.

"The photo seems to have appeared early on the blog of the MSNBC smear show The Ed Schultz Show with the headline, “Romney Creates Another Job.” "

A Guide to the Liberal Mind

Victor Volsky   "As a great fan of Jeff Foxworthy, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to use his hilarious you-might-be-a-redneck comedy routine in an attempt to characterize the liberal mindset (tweaking Jeff's formula a bit to convert it from the suppositional to the unconditional).  So, with apologies to the wonderful country comedian, here are some of the notable features of the liberal's mental landscape:"
Here is a small sampling of what the author lists in his article:

....If you believe that the 1^st Amendment separates church from state, but not state from church, you are a liberal. ....If you believe that the results of progressive programs are irrelevant and that only good intentions count, you are a liberal.....If you believe that a decades-old drunk-driving episode in George W. Bush's biography comes under the "people's right to know" doctrine while the entire past of Barack Obama is protected by his right to privacy, you are a liberal.....If you believe that your choice of a car affects the planet's climate while sunspot activity doesn't, you are a liberal..... If you believe that the anarchists, hoodlums, and hobos who make up the Occupy movement are noble idealists who truly represent the 99 percent of America while the Tea Partiers are Nazi troglodytes and of course racists, you are a liberal. .... If you believe that the Palestinians sincerely want an accommodation with Israel and that only the stiff-necked Jews' obduracy stands in the way of Middle East peaceful settlement, you are a liberal.

Hat tip to Neal Boortz who commented: "Caution … here is a guide to the liberal mind. Here’s the article we covered yesterday on the program talking about how incompetence deprives people of the ability to recognize their own incompetence. To put it bluntly, dumb people are too dumb to know it"

(Updated) Breaking story: Two more American troops killed today

ISAF.NATO.INT:

For Immediate Release
KABUL, Afghanistan (Mar. 1) – Two individuals, one believed to be an Afghan National Army service member and the other in civilian clothing, turned their weapons indiscriminately against International Security Assistance Force and Afghan National Security Force service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing two ISAF service members.
It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities. For questions regarding ANSF casualties and involvement, please contact the Afghan Ministry of Defense

"ISAF spokesman Brian Badura declined to provide the nationalities of the service members who were killed. "Those responsibilities reside with the respective host nation," he said in an email to Morning Defense."

From CBS: Afghan gunmen kill 2 U.S. troops
"Clark reports that, while the angry protests which drew thousands of Afghans into the streets in the days after the Koran burning was made public have died down, targeted attacks against U.S. forces by their supposed Afghan military partners seem to be on the rise.

While Crocker and Gen. Allen insist the U.S. mission continues unabated, Clark notes the prospect of increasing hostility from their partners in Afghanistan poses a serious challenge to U.S. troops - whose entire mission is pinned on the idea of living with and fighting with, not against, the Afghan security forces they're training.


Now wait just a pea-pickin' minute here. OK, we're told that Christians showing Muslims texts about the Christian faith must use  a clean, unmarked Bible or the Muslim will not respect them as serious and devout. We're told a Muslim will not hold a Koran below their waist out of reverence for the book.
What about when these books are manufactured? Don't they run off an assembly line? Aren't Korans packaged into boxes, loaded onto pallets and fork-lifted onto trucks for delivery to the local outlets? What happens to the truck driver when he rolls his truck and spills his load of Korans all over the Mohammed Freeway?
Just asking; inquiring minds want to know.


World Net Daily reports this:  AFGHANS: QURAN-BURNING SOLDIERS TO FACE TRIAL
"Clare Lopez, a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy, said if the statement by the Afghan government turns out to be true, it would be an unprecedented betrayal of our men and women in uniform.
" “I can’t imagine we would ever do this, what would we charge them with? Are we going to try Americans for crimes committed under Shariah law? I cannot believe our government would go that far,” she said."  Hat tip to Don Standlee, Arlington, TX
Here's a great place to rerun this cartoon:

Koran burning: Cartoon shows Obama kissing tush of amused symbolic Afghan Muslim
In Catalino's recent cartoon, Barack Obama -- who of course regularly makes obsequious comments like "Islam has always been a part of America" -- is shown being overindulgent to an extreme in apologizing for the accidental burning of (U.S. taxpayer-funded) Korans in which Taliban prisoners had been writing incendiary messages.

[Robert Spencer, founder of Jihad Watch] "said that whether the soldiers end up being turned over to the Afghan government or face court-martial, either decision would set a dangerous precedent.

" “It would be unconscionable either way,” he said. “If they turn them over to the Afghan government for trial then we are endorsing the applicability of Shariah law to non-Muslims in the U.S. military. If they court-martial them then they are adopting those norms as part of the UCMJ*. Either way it’s frightening.”

"Lopez said that while U.S. officials have made large concessions to appease Muslims, turning the soldiers over to face trial would be over the line."  (Emphasis added)

*Uniform Code of Military Justice


From Jihad Watch: Afghanistan: "NATO officials promised to meet Afghan nation’s demand of bringing to justice, through an open trial"

Two Bibles 'containing terror codes' found in Bin Laden compound -- will apologies and riots ensue?

Ann Coulter: The Problem With Santorum

Donkeyhotey

Ann Coulter "I also wonder why he's running for president, rather than governor, when the issues closest to his heart are family-oriented matters about which the federal government can, and should, do very little."
...."He genuinely does not seem to understand the Constitution's federalist framework, except as a brief talking point on the way to saying states can ban contraception. Otherwise, he wouldn't keep claiming, falsely, that Obamacare is the same as Romneycare."
...."He still could have recovered by demanding to know if Wallace was suggesting, therefore, that the Army IS a sociological laboratory and a splendid place for social experimentation in time of war, but Santorum just shrugged sheepishly and mumbled something about how that was different.

"The problem is not Santorum's conservative positions, it's that he can't defend them."

The Occupiers at it again: Rocks shatter windows ahead of 'F29' march

KATU

"Police said a second e-mail was received after the Key Bank branch and Starbucks locations were vandalized, which read in part, "wherever capital chooses for its bunker, we will be there to attack it in the night." It was signed "For freedom, for equality, for anarchy". (Warning: this e-mail contains profanity)"


Victoria Taft;  Five Ways to Minimize Damage from Occupy Riots:
"The violent children of Occupy are bankrolled by the unions. Who bought all those purty umbrellas you'll be seeing in the news today anyhoo?

"This is an anti corporate" (read: anti business) planned riot. Police should be watching these sites which unions and their Occupy useful idiots have been targeting: Dosha Salon, Pioneer Place, Chase Bank, B of A. They should have officers there PROTECTING THESE SITES."

Obama says, NO, WE CAN'T!

Obama: I’ll veto bill that will provide water to California’s Central Valley

"Once a breadbasket for the nation, the cutoff of irrigation water to the Central Valley has destroyed agriculture and tens of thousands of jobs as a tradeoff for the endangered fish.  Now, however, voices of sanity in Congress have begun to speak on the man-made economic and agricultural disaster, as Rep. Devin Nunes builds support for his Sacramento-San Joaquin Water Reliability Act:"
...." Late yesterday, the White House announced that Obama would veto Nunes’ bill because — I am not making this up — it would “unravel decades of work” on California water regulations … decades of work that brought California’s Central Valley to its current destruction:"


Chu to Congress: We’re not interested in lowering gas prices   "When asked by Rep. Alan Nunnelee whether the Obama administration wants to work to get gas prices to come back down, Chu replied that they’re not focusing on that — and that higher gas prices mean more of a push for the alternative energy sources the administration wants to push:"


Quoting Heritage: 

Sensing impending political fallout from the high cost of gas, President Obama last week spoke on the subject and attempted to deflect blame for the pain. He said that there is no quick fix to high gas prices and the nation cannot drill its way out of the problem, but as Heritage’s Nicolas Loris writes, the president ignored reality and dished out a series of half-truths. Among them, the president claimed oil production is its highest in eight years, that increasing oil production takes too long, and that oil is not enough.

All above from Hot Air

By, of, and for Whom? The People and the Ruling Class

Chuck Colson   "But look at where we are today. The ruling class, increasingly cut off from the daily lives of ordinary Americans, has become an elites governmental equivalent of the Pharisees: “they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” That’s from Matthew 23:3-4."

Some opinions on the Michigan Republican primary

American Thinker
Romney gets the job done in Michigan and Arizona  "No doubt Santorum picked up a few votes from Democrats in Michigan, but there may also have been GOP voters who were incensed that mischief-making Democrats like Michael Moore were similarly urging a vote for Santorum, perceived to be easily beatable in a general election."
Should the fact that the Michael Moore Democrats cheat for Santorum give us a new perspective on Mitt Romney?

Did Gingrich Just Win In Michigan?   "Now watching Romney and Santorum each beat the other's brains out in Michigan I think I finally figured out what Newt is up to.  Waiting for it to finish so that he can move south and east again.  Just like he always does.  And if I'm right it means we'll look back and see that both Romney and Santorum showed up for a chess match, clutching a box of checkers."


Santorum's robocall maneuver in Michigan strikes at the heart of his message  "Reagan didn't change his principles to attract Democrats.  He just explained that his principles were theirs, too.  Enough Democrats agreed with him to create tremendous hardship for the Democratic Party for many years to come.  Santorum's maneuver actually played into the Democrats' hands because they think he will be easier to beat than Romney in November.  That's what Ron Radosh was writing about in his article for PJ Media titled "Voting for Santorum Equals Electing Obama in November."

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/walt-handelsman-1.812005

Big Government; Open Primary Shenanigans and the Santorum Democrats


Neal Boortz; Santorum loses  "My ideological choice for president is still Newt Gingrich.  My practical choice is the candidate that has the best chance of knocking Obama out of the Oval Office, hopefully to land on his bony bum right back there on the streets of Chicago (since Indonesia is a bit too much to hope for.) 
"By the way … here’s a question to consider during this campaign:

Have you ever heard Barack Obama propose a private-sector solution to ANY significant problem our country is facing?  Ever?  No?  Me either. (emphasis in the original)

Thomas Sowell writes this must-read;  Pettiness and Mud  "What could they possibly have been thinking about, in the first place, when they agreed to a format based on short sound bites for dealing with major complex issues, and with media journalists -- 90 percent of them Democrats -- picking the topics?
"The conduct of the candidates made things worse. In a world with a record-breaking national debt and Iran moving toward creating nuclear weapons, they bickered over earmarks and condoms. I am against earmarks, but earmarks don't rank among the first hundred most serious problems facing this country."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/02/28/96818

Taegan D. Goddard's Political Wire;   No More Talk of a White Knight?  " "The biggest impact of Romney's narrow victory in Michigan: It silences the talk of a white knight riding to the GOP's rescue. While such an outcome might not have occurred even if Romney lost -- was a Christie/Daniels/Jeb Bush really going to jump in this late in the game? -- last night pretty much closed the door on that kind of speculation, even if Romney struggles next week on Super Tuesday (which is entirely possible)."

Big Peace; Ron Paul Panders to Anti-Semitism in Michigan "Ron Paul, who has consistently engaged in anti-Semitic nonsense over the course of the past few decades, has largely attempted to hide his anti-Semitism throughout his campaign. No longer. Ron Paul has issued this Arabic-language flyer outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan:"...

"The English side promotes Paul’s “Plan to Restore America” and touts his deficit cutting prowess and dislike of the Federal Reserve. The Arabic side, however – the side shown above – is far less subtle. It says that Paul will cut foreign aid, and specifically mentions only foreign aid to Israel as the target of cutting."


WSJ; Romney's Rebound  He won in Michigan on the economy.  "But Mr. Romney also improved his case for his own candidacy, stressing a reform agenda as much as his business biography. In the final days in particular, he pressed his new plan for a 20% across-the-board income tax cut, as well as Medicare reform. He stressed his ability to revive the economy...."


NRO Symposium; Michigan’s Verdict  "Our experts weigh the evidence. "....it has become extremely difficult to see who in this field can ever defeat him. Romney has managed to win the middle 40-49 percent of voters in New Hampshire and Florida, and now Arizona and Michigan. If he can do it again next week in Ohio, that should effectively be the end of the race." "
Even so: 

http://theweek.com/section/cartoon/0/222167/all-cartoons

Good Grief… Now Team Obama Wants to Blow Up 3 Dams In the Name of Junk Science

Gateway Pundit "Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder…
"The Obama Administration now wants to demolish three dams in northern California to supposedly save the salmon… But the whole reason to support the move was based on shoddy and inconclusive scientific data."

"Now a scientist is challenging the junk science behind the decision.
The City Square reported:

Against intense local opposition, the Obama administration wants to demolish three dams on the Klamath River in Siskiyou County, California. Low-cost clean hydroelectricity as well as water for irrigation would be lost if the dams were removed. Removal of the dams would also cause chaos for ranchers, homeowners, and small business who live and work in the downstream of the dams. Despite this, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been trying to force dam removal for the supposed benefit of some salmon and steelhead spawning habitat.

Now, Prof. Paul R. Houser of George Mason University alleges that the administration’s plan is all based on junk science. In his role as science advisor to the Bureau of Reclamation, he was closely involved in the project. He has filed a formal complaint (PDF) alleging “intentional falsification” and “intentional . . . compromise of scientific and scholarly integrity.”

The State of the World: Explaining U.S. Strategy

STRATFOR  "The same strategy is in place with Iran. Sanctions on Iran are unlikely to work because they are too porous and China and Russia will not honor them. Still, the United States pursues them not for what they will achieve but for what they will avoid -- namely, direct action. Rhetoric aside, the assumption underlying U.S. quiescence is that regional forces, the Turks in particular, will be forced to deal with the Iranians themselves, and that patience will allow a balance of power to emerge."
Basically, Obama's policy is "World, you're on your own!" We need that policy here at home.
....
"The weakness in Obama's strategy is that the situation in many regions could suddenly and unexpectedly move in undesirable directions. Unlike the Cold War system, which tended to react too soon to problems, it is not clear that the current system won't take too long to react. Strategies create psychological frameworks that in turn shape decisions, and Obama has created a situation wherein the United States may not react quickly enough if the passive approach were to collapse suddenly."
However, as David Letterman's writers would say, "Obama is just too competent" to find fault with.


What a great title by Ken Blackwell: Mr. Obama's 'Grovel-Ready' Foreign Policy  "President Obama began badly. He went to London and bowed low before King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The famous red "reset" button he had Hillary present to the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, was intended to give Moscow a pass for its aggression against the neighboring Republic of Georgia. The button was even spelled wrong. How do you spell "appeasement" in Russian?"
....
"The president has yet to visit the only real ally we have left in the region -- Israel. Lucky Israel. It's the only friend of America that that has not been de-stabilized by this president's feckless* policies."   Also from Patriot Post

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/02/28/96829

*Feckless;  Feckless describes someone who is ineffective or irresponsible. (adjective)

A person who cannot be trusted to take on responsibility is an example of someone who would be described as feckless. yourdictionary.com

The Tunnel Wall cites the following Michael Ledeen column as an example: 

Obama Administration Ignored Iranian Opposition’s Advice  "It cautions that any agreement with the regime would require the United States to recognize the legitimacy of the regime, promise to maintain silence on questions of human rights inside the country, and abandon the Middle East.  And even if the regime promised to abandon its nuclear program and cease its support for terror, it would not honor these commitments.  It needs both terror and nukes in order to survive.

"So far as I can tell, the demands for American silence on Iranian affairs, recognition of the regime’s legitimacy, and withdrawal from the region are precisely what  the Obama administration has received through all their contacts with the Iranian regime."

http://conservativedailynews.com/2012/02/iran-scam/

Random thoughts from Argus Hamilton

The Patriot Post  

Argus Hamilton

"Joseph Kennedy III filed for Congress for the seat left by Barney Frank. He's RFK's grandson and Teddy's nephew. Young Joe is a Middlesex County prosecutor, and only someone from Middlesex can bridge the gap between the Kennedys and Barney Frank."
....
"Mitt Romney fell behind in the Michigan polls despite getting Donald Trump's endorsement. This information could save Israel. If we can just get Donald Trump to endorse Iran's nuclear weapons program, the missile won't be able to carry its home state."
....
"New York Knicks star Jeremy Lin forgave a fired ESPN copywriter who unintentionally wrote an anti-Asian term. Lin's parents fled China where saying the wrong word could cost you your job and ruin your life. Now ESPN copywriters are fleeing America for the same reason." 
More at the link...
"Who is Argus Hamilton, and why is everybody quoting him?  Meet the funniest topical comedian in America, the man Robin Williams once called "the Will Rogers of the Baby Boom." "

Obama: “Trying To Climb To The Very Top” Is Not What America’s “About,” It Is “Greed”…

Weasel Zippers  “America’s not just looking out for yourself, it’s not just about greed, it’s not just about trying to climb to the very top and keep everybody else down,” Obama said at the UAW’s annual National Community Action Program Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C.

Instead, Obama – who climbed to the very top of American politics just three years ago – said that instead America was about being “all in it together,” and giving people “a hand up.”

This man is a socialist demagogue and we must fear what he will do with four more years. Yet the American voters do not seem to realize the danger in this man or there would be a groundswell of support to remove him.


Carney: Obama's Speech To UAW "Not At All" A Campaign Speech  "Question: "The speech today wasn’t just the president touting the auto bailouts then. A good amount of time was on rhetoric was from campaign fundraising speeches. He took some shots at politicians who didn’t support the bailout. We know that the Republican candidates fall on that side. I wonder why the White House is so reluctant to acknowledge that the president might be focused on the campaign."" Hat tip to Weasel Zip.

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/02/27/96809

Republicans are losing the class warfare fight  "No doubt Barack Obama would love to reprise Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America” reelection campaign, but the anemic economy is not cooperating. Without a robust recovery to trumpet, the president is betting his reelection on class warfare — focusing on “income inequality” and “fairness.” Class warfare is not a winning strategy, but it is the only card Obama has to play.
"That’s the good news for Republicans. The bad news is: Right now, the GOP is blowing it."