Today's look at our media; The Khalidi tape vs. the Romney tape

The Dumbest Anchormen  ..."What’s the difference between Chris Matthews and Ron Burgundy? Answer: One is a pompous, self-absorbed, often-in-error-but-never-in-doubt blowhard impervious to facts and logic. The other has a really bushy mustache."

...."The Post can’t even identify Obama by name as the politician deserving of the dreaded four scarlet “P”s. He’s merely the former Illinois senator who deserves to be called a liar about his support for infanticide — but we’re too sleepy to bother.

What makes media bias so infuriating is not its existence but the stubborn refusal of the guilty parties to admit it."

Debate moderators will spell the difference  " The Romney-Obama debates beginning October 3^rd will be moderated by what might be, probably will be, a "journalist" with an agenda.  It will be subtle and clever but the predetermined directional forces will be there."

Remember Brian Williams and his "how do you sleep at night?" question?

CBS Doesn't Air Obama Admitting Mistakes in Campaign Ads  "But curiously enough, the news magazine show did not air a clip of Obama admitting to interviewer Steve Kroft that some of his campaign ads contain mistakes and that some even "go overboard.""

Stephen Hayes; Permanent Spin  "On the one hand, as the final elements of the administration’s story began to unravel in the middle of last week, the New York Times did not find those facts fit to print. On Thursday morning, the same day White House spokesman Jay Carney would finally admit that the Benghazi assault was “a terrorist attack,” the Times did not publish a story about Libya." 

KHALIDI TAPE COVER UP: MEDIA 'SELECTIVELY EDITS' ITS ETHICAL STANDARDS

"In an article written by Peter Wallsten during the 2008 election titled, "Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Obama," we learned of the event, that there was video of the event, and that some of the night's speakers accused Israel of terrorism and compared Jewish settlers to terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.  

"There's also speculation Obama lavished praise on the terror-apologist Khalidi and that Bill Ayers was in attendance. You know, the domestic terrorist Obama says was "just a guy in the neighborhood."

"....And yet, the same media, that as I write this is replaying the illegally obtained and selectively edited '47 percent' video of Mitt Romney for the gajillionth time, refuses to release the full Khalidi tape or provide a full description of what the tape shows."  (Emphasis added)

When Harry met Romney

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Now the Dems go after Romney because he paid too much in taxes.

Likeable? Who Cares? We're Hiring a New CEO, Not Looking For a Friend  "The decision the American voter faces in November is clear. Do you vote for the man who has done the best job of telling you what you want to hear .. the man pursuing the job with no real record of accomplishment or success?  Or do you step into the voting booth and recruit the man with a proven record of business success – a man who might not be as glib or smooth at asking for the job – but a man who clearly has the better credentials to get the job done?" Boortz

Obama: Romney 'sure can afford' to pay more  "Isn’t that great that Obama has now decided that he will be the one to determine who can and should pay more in taxes?  As they say:  “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”  “They” being communists, of course." Neal Boortz  

NRO; Romney and Our Broken Tax Code  "The Democrats have managed to intentionally conflate the personal with the political, assisted as usual by the media. Reforming the tax code is important work for serious minds; the attention given to Romney’s personal taxes by Obama, Reid, and their echo chamber is juvenile."  (This blog -meaning moi- often refers to Mr. Obama as a petulant juvenile. Can anyone convince me he is not?)

Romney Gave 1,000 Times as Much to Charity in a Year as Biden Gave in a Decade
"The release of Mitt Romney’s 2011 tax returns shows that he freely gave away more than $4 million to charity last year (about 30 percent of his income)."

LYING IS THE NEW NORMAL

"This president just goes out there and says whatever sounds good at the moment, and the Activist Old Media watches from the sidelines, or often, encourages the deception. 

"Or, I could use the harsh word and call them all what they really are----lies. "

Harry's Source Lied, Media Complied  " A letter from auditors at Price Waterhouse Cooper states unequivocally that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney paid taxes every year between 1990 and 2009. This puts an end, once and for all, to irresponsible left-wing media speculation started by Sen. Harry Reid and the Huffington Post back in July."

Cartoon shows how rarely Muslims are actually outraged

National Review Online

Obama skipping face-to-face meetings at the UN

Would Obama prefer the
 company of Whoopie...

NY Post  via Lucianne   "The world's leaders are gathering in New York, but President Barack Obama has no plans to meet privately with any of them.

"He will make time for "The View," a freewheeling TV talk show more likely to reach voters than Obama would with the diplomacy he is skipping at the United Nations.

"Just six weeks until the election, the realities and priorities of campaign politics hang prominently over Obama's final turn on the world stage before facing voters.

...or Bibi?

"Unlike his predecessors, he is skipping the face-to-face meetings with counterparts where much of the U.N. works gets done, leaving Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to pick up more of those sessions herself.

...."At the U.N., Obama will try to differentiate himself from Romney by projecting a less aggressive tone toward the world, while also defending America and not seeming like an apologist..."

This Tony Branco cartoon is a good lead-in for the post that follows it

legalinsurrection.com

Steyn on Bowing to the Mob (Flag update)

Libya

Mark Steyn  "Mark says of the new, redesigned Obama flag, ..."And where the stripes used to be are a handful of red daubs, eerily mimicking the bloody finger streaks left on the pillars of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi as its staff were dragged out by a mob of savages to be tortured and killed. What better symbol could one have of American foreign policy? Who says the slick hollow vapid marketing of the Obama campaign doesn’t occasionally intersect with reality?"
....In the Middle East, Islam had always been beyond criticism. It was only natural that, as their numbers grew in Europe, North America, and Australia, observant Muslims would seek the same protections in their new lands. But they could not have foreseen how eager Western leaders would be to serve as their enablers. . . . 
In mentioning his latest book, After America, Steyn writes: "I speculate on how future generations will look back on our time from a decade or two hence:

As the more cynical Islamic imperialists occasionally reflected, how quickly the supposed defenders of liberal, pluralist, Western values came to sound as if they were competing to be Islam’s lead prison bitch.

Related; PJ Media; an Interview: Mark Steyn on After America

"The great thing about him is that he attempted to accelerate American decline and spurred the Tea Party in response.  And that’s the one hope for America, that there are still enough Americans who say, you know, to hell with you.  We are not going to decay.  We are not going to decline.  We are not going to seize up.  But we are going to — we are going to reverse this.

"You don’t have a movement like that in Iceland.  You don’t have a movement like that in Bulgaria.  You don’t have a movement like that in Greece or Portugal.  We still have a movement like that in the United States.  And that’s the best hope for the future."

obamaisalemon.com

UPDATE: OBAMA CAMPAIGN QUIETLY DITCHES FAUX FLAG    "The Obama campaign produced a poster of an American flag, with Obama’s “O” symbol replacing the field of stars, as an item of campaign merchandise, selling for $35. The image was tasteless at best. It is hard to imagine any other politician arrogant enough to remake the flag in his own image:"...

One reason given is the reason we covered in the above post.

"JOE updates: The Obama website returns this “page not found” message when you try to buy the flag:"

Via Lucianne.

Some quick hits from today's news

Pakistani Cabinet minister offered a $100,000 reward for the death of that filmmaker

Egypt Salafi urges U.N. to criminalize contempt of Islam

For nine days, the Obama administration made a case that virtually everyone understood was untrue

Polls Show Erosion of U.S. Image Abroad Over the Past Four Years

Florida Kindergartners To Celebrate LGBT History Month…

No Joke: Obama To Condemn Mohammed Film During His U.N. Speech…

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Commander: Israel A “Cancerous Tumor”…  Hitler and Himmler would agree.

“Moderate” Muslim Indonesia Threatens To Close Catholic School For Not Teaching Islam…

Ramirez on the ObaMedia

Newt Gingrich on the Islamist Challenge

Don't you find it ironic how, for all his talk of Republicans taking us "back to the policies of the past", that Obama grovels and submits to those who would take us back to the policies of the seventh century?  TD

American Thinker  "Newt Gingrich has and excellent analysis on what we face from his book Winning the Future published in 2006:

The Islamists cannot reconcile with a secular system of laws. They cannot tolerate a West that maintains a presence in the Arabian Gulf or that would defend Israel's right to survive as a country. They cannot tolerate freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or freedom for women. In short, their demands are irreconcilable with the modern world.

...."The Islamists have been successful enough to put our leaders - President Obama and Secretary Clinton - on their knees begging dispensation from our enemies for our exercise of free speech.  Even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is down there with them.  What would Patton think?  What would MacArthur think?  What would Grant think?  What would Eisenhower think?  The Islamists are dictating terms to us and we haven't even lost the war - yet.

"Why can't anybody in Washington say "we are going to exercise free speech in the US of A though the heavens tremble?"  The answer? They don't believe in anything enough to do it.  We've got to fire the whole crowd."

http://www.irreligion.org/2008/06/19/islamic-cartoons/

FOUAD AJAMI: Muslim Rage And Obama’s Retreat.

Hoover Institution; Muslim Rage And The Obama Retreat   "Without knowing it, he had broken a time-honored maxim of that world: Never speak ill of your own people when in the company of strangers. There was too little recognition of the malignant trilogy—anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and anti-modernism—that had poisoned the life of Egypt and much of the region."
...."Our foreign policy has been altered, as never before, to fit one man's electoral needs. We hear from the presidential handlers only what they want us to believe about the temper of distant lands. It was only yesterday that our leader, we are told, had solved the riddle of our position in the world."
Fouad Ajami is a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and the author most recently of "The Syrian Rebellion"  Hat tip to Instapundit

Uh, Guys? Obama's Really Sorry! Your tax dollars at work, paying to air a message of weakness.  "If our government is going to run an ad to educate Pakistanis (or whoever) about American attitudes, wouldn't it make sense to include an explanation as to why America's leaders cannot and will not enforce the mob's standards of blasphemy? To an American, what's objectionable about this ad isn't so much the apology for the video's offense as the abject failure to defend basic American principles of freedom. That same failure makes the ad less than worthless as an educational tool."

What will it take for the American people to become disgusted with this president and his grovelling? If Hillary Clinton runs for president, Republicans should use this video to discredit her as a world leader as much as it does Obama. TD

U.S. Drops to 18th in Economic Freedom

"Lastly, “every hour spent treating a patient in America creates at least 30 minutes of paperwork, and often a whole hour. Next year the number of federally mandated categories of illness and injury for which hospitals may claim reimbursement will rise from 18,000 to 140,000. There are nine codes relating to injuries caused by parrots, and three relating to burns from flaming water-skis.”  The leviathan is waiting."

Meanwhile, the United States, once a “standard bearer” of economic liberty among industrial nations, spiralled 10 spots from the 2011 rankings to 18th place — its lowest position ever, and a huge drop from its second place spot in 2000.

BUSH TAX CUTS VS. OBAMA STIMULUS  "Obama states, "this performance is better than what we can expect to see under President Romney, who wants to return, says Obama, to “the failed policies of the past,” that is, to “the same tax cuts and deregulation agenda that helped get us into this mess in the first place.” "....
"It’s true that the private sector has added 4.6 million new jobs over the past 30 months. But during the 30 months after the Bush tax cuts went into effect in August 2003, the private sector actually added even more jobs – 5.3 million according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Survey."  

"By any metric, the Bush tax cuts were more successful than Obama’s policies have been. If anyone is pursuing “failed policies of the past,” it is Mr. Obama, stuck in the Great Society mindset, hurtling pell-mell toward the tax cliff of January 1, 2013.

 (Emphasis added)   "While President Romney would be well advised to steer clear of the Bush administration’s overspending and over-regulation, one Bush policy he would be wise to adopt is tax cuts."

Romney's 2011 tax return/ Romney's Tax Rate Equal to What Obama Paid Last Year; With a Harry Reid update!

From Drudge:
The Romney campaign is releasing Mitt and Ann Romney's 2011 tax return today. The campaign previews a few of the highlights here:

• In 2011, the Romneys paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 in mostly investment income.

• The Romneys’ effective tax rate for 2011 was 14.1%.

• The Romneys donated $4,020,772 to charity in 2011, amounting to nearly 30% of their income.

• The Romneys claimed a deduction for $2.25 million of those charitable contributions.

• The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year. The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor's statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.

Additionally, the Romney campaign is releasing a summary of 20 years of taxes, between 1990-2009, detailing their tax expenditures during those years: 

Romney's Tax Rate Equal to What Obama Paid Last Year   "Over the entire 20-year period, the average annual effective federal tax rate was 20.20%," the Romney campaign states, based on a summary of Romney's taxes from the firm Price Waterhouse Cooper.

"President Obama's tax rate in 2011 was only marginally higher, at 20.5 percent." 

Here below is one of the very few cartoons I found on Mitt Romney's tax returns that did not trash the man. Many cartoonists here owe Mr. Romney an apology, I'd say. TD

Sodahead

Romney doubles Obama's charitable giving   "Mitt Romney's presidential campaign is releasing a brief summary of 20 years of tax returns on Friday, and his accountant says it will show he gave 13.45 percent of his adjusted gross income to charities.

"That's nearly twice the rate of President Obama, who according to his tax returns from 2000 through 2011 donated just less than 7 percent of his adjusted gross income to charities."

Romney bows to call for tax disclosure  "Mitt Romney has released details of 20 years’ worth of tax payments in an effort to rebut claims of secrecy over his personal income and steady his stuttering presidential bid after weeks of campaign mishaps.

"The Republican presidential candidate also released his full tax return for 2011, which showed that he voluntarily paid more tax than required by reducing allowable deductions for charitable contributions."

UPDATE! Nevada Republican to Harry Reid: Make our day, release your 2011 tax return

"Citing an anonymous source, Mr. Reid has repeatedly claimed in recent weeks that Mr. Romney "didn't pay taxes for 10 years."

"Mr. Romney countered that over the past ten years he never paid less than 13 percent of his taxable income and that "Harry Reid's charge is totally false." "