It was Anderson Cooper’s top story, and the evening’s KTH (Keeping Them Honest) critique. KTH: Are Republicans waging a war on women?

“MoveOn.org insists House Republicans want to keep student loan rates low by waging war on women’s health. Keeping Them Honest, Anderson Cooper digs into the numbers and facts.”

Yes. It really happened on Cooper’s May 3rd show. Cooper told the MoveOn.org spokesperson he should be reporting the facts, not meeting “his agenda.” And, when President Obama is cutting millions from his 2013 budget, Cooper added, “I don’t see MoveOn.org ad attacking President Obama. You only seem interested in attacking Republicans because that meets your political agenda.” Woah!

Below, more from Cooper’s blog, “Claiming the funding impacts women more than anyone else is untrue”:

Read the rest »

Far be it for me to have an insider’s knowledge. However. My gut reaction to the MSM version of events is that Chen Guangcheng, who’d endured 18 months of house arrest, beatings and more ordeals, injured his leg enroute to the U.S. embassy: He was NOT in good shape physically or mentally. He didn’t know about his wife and children (see photo below). Yet somehow he came, rather quickly, to the happy conclusion that he could go to a Chinese hospital but remain with U.S. representatives and talk to his wife and attorney. A few questions: (1) Why didn’t U.S. officials enable Chen to communicate with his wife AND his attorney while he was still safely at the embassy? Why did he have to leave the embassy to call them? (After all, he changed his mind about leaving the embassy — after it was too late — once he talked to them and learned she’d been tied up and beaten for two days.) (2) Why did U.S. embassy staff release him to an unknown fate without ensuring Chen had ALL the information? (3) Why did they give Chen assurances they’d be able to remain with him in the hospital? [SEE UPDATES BELOW, including Bill Kristol's and Nick Kristoff/David Gergen's observations.]

One thing for sure: David Gergen and Nick Kristoff, on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show tonight, made it VERY clear that this can quite likely blow up in the Obama Administration’s face. Hillary departs for Bangledesh tomorrow. Chen, Gergen and Kristof are sure, won’t be aboard Hillary’s plane. Here’s Romney:

“President Obama’s campaign slogan may be ‘Forward’, but our new video shows how he has moved this country backward.”

* Bumped Up *

God bless my friend and former colleague, “RETIRED,” for his pithy, insightful comments on the question of torturing suspected terrorists. His recommendation that you read the Ali Soufan book, The Black Banners, and compare his story with the nonsense spun by Jose Rodriguez in Hard Measures is spot on.

If you are not up for the reading, then you can watch the two men for yourself and make your own judgment. Here is Ali Soufan speaking to 60 Minutes:

Disclaimer. I know Ali and consider him a friend. He is a straight shooter. Read the rest »

Update: An example of Salon’s brain on drugs with side effects including hallucinations, agitation and confusion. “How to make Mitt look small” — “After last night, Romney is probably done complaining about Obama’s ‘politicization’ of bin Laden’s death.” (more at the end)

VeteransForAStrongAmerica.org: President Obama has spiked the Bin Laden Football so hard that Navy SEALS, retired and active duty, are hammering him over his zealous efforts to take credit for their handiwork.

In response to President Obama hiding behind our troops and taking credit for their actions – we’ve released our newest ad entitled CREDIT.

Six months and counting.

The lives of countless numbers of families and individuals are likely forever changed by what transpired at MF Global. Yet there remains no real accounting nor full retribution for the fiasco which unfolded within the walls of the firm that traced its roots to the late 1700s.

Certainly we can expect that trustees and regulators will put forth some thousand page reports trying to detail the minute by minute demise of MF Global. Do you think those reports will mean anything to the lives of the people impacted? I don’t. Why? How do you recapture trust? When there is NO real trust, there is NO real justice, and NO real closure. It is that simple. Read the rest »

We learn via the WSJ that President Obama has a “hit” list. Shades of Tricky Dick! Really? This would be scary stuff if we didn’t have investigative reporters and the MSM to alert the public. Oh wait…

Presidential “Hit List.” Just the phrase should send a chill up your spine. The President of the United States has a “hit list” of people, private citizens, who have the effrontery to contribute to the campaign of his opponent. He has made their names public. He has a website that is smearing them. The frakkin POTUS!

Barack Obama, the obamacrats and the obamamedia would like you to believe that everyone that doesn’t like, support  or trust him, feels that way because of the color of his skin. We are frightened or confused because he doesn’t “look” like us. Because of course most of us have never seen a black man before. Seriously? Dems really need to climb out of the 60′s. Read the rest »

Just a quick note about the 60 Minutes interview with the former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, Mr. Jose Rodriguez. I have known Jose since the Contra Wars in 1986. He is not a friend, but we worked the same area and issues back in the day. I served on the Central American Task Force for a short stint before becoming the Honduran analyst in the Central American Branch.

What he said on 60 Minutes about water boarding and its efficacy is a goddamn, self-serving lie. He is a disgrace to the intelligence service and all that it is supposed to stand for. The only person who has testified under oath about water boarding and what was gleaned from interrogations that did not require torture is Ali Soufan. Here’s a challenge–let’s put everyone under oath and ask them about what really went on. I have $5000 Jose that says you don’t have the balls to do so in a court of law.

I will be writing more on this, but watching his nauseous bullshit is infuriating. Read the rest »

For the non-sport inclined among us, “SPIKING” the ball does not mean you secretly pour vodka or gin into it. Nope. It is something that some football players, particularly players labeled “hotdogs,” do when they score a touchdown, heave the ball into the ground and then engage in some sort of weird, celebratory dance. Such a display tends to be unseemly.

SO . . . . speaking of unseemly, did you see Barack Obama and his team try and fail with their “SPIKE THE BALL” moment on the anniversary of Bin Laden’s death? How do these guys get a reputation for being so smart when they repeatedly do such dumb things. Like? Accusing Mitt Romney of being soft on terrorism and not having the stones to kill Bin Laden. OOPS!

It was bad enough that the Obama team trotted out Bill Clinton to level the charge. Frankly, what an appalling act of chutzpah from Clinton. While I applaud will Bill for helping rein in government spending and growth during his tenure, he was passive aggressive on the issue of terrorism and certainly failed to turn the dogs loose in going after Bin Laden. This really was a low moment and further “stains” the reputation of Clinton. I thought he was smarter than this politically.

Sometimes when players, who are not accustomed to scoring, try to spike the ball it turns into a disaster. Here’s an example: Read the rest »

This may be the Obama campaign, all of it, repeated from now until November 6.

A presidency fixed on a murder by gunshot.

Ironic? Dubious? Does it means that Mitt Romney or George Bush or any Republican would not have launched a operation against Bin Laden?

Is this the foreign policy campaign of POTUS Obama? The man who shot Liberty Valance, Seals Scenario? Read the rest »

Breaking News, April 30, 12:30 p.m.: EPA official Al Armendariz has resigned for talking publicly about his team’s “crucifixion” of oil and gas companies in “the oil-rich South and Southwest region.” Armendariz insisted his staff only attacked guilty companies. However, Armendariz’s example required the murder of five random men regardless of guilt. Further, his resignation doesn’t solve the problem — his crucifixion strategy surely needed prior approval of his superiors and cooperation of his underlings.

This video was posted by Larry Johnson on April 26.

This week is a sad moment for America. We have ceded our lead and presence in space. I watched the space shuttle on its funeral journey aboard a 747 at Dulles earlier this week. Now the U.S. begs and buys seats as mere passengers aboard Russian space craft some at NASA and in the government not so long ago derided dismissively.

We end the week with the Russians in space and China planning on making claims on the moon. Our moon.

Read the rest »

The annual incest competition in Washington, DC–aka the Washington Correspondents Dinner–went off last night without President Obama killing the number two guy in al Qaeda, Ayman Zwahiri. However, there was some killing, at least the verbal variety, by Jimmy Kimmel. I am presuming most of you neither watched nor were invited to the affair. So here you go:

I think Kimmel did a great job. He punched everyone. Read the rest »

So much for the meme that Mitt Romney’s wealth makes his lifestyle so different from ours. Or that his “traditional marriage” is just that — not actually so, given that Mitt willingly does jobs that most wives would be expected to do.

Yes, Mitt Romney really hand-washes his own shirts in a hotel bathroom sink (not easy to do, I can attest, even though I am a woman, heh). Then he irons each sleeve, button hole, seam, and collar — hard to do without regular practice, which he surely has. More Mitt attributes, revealed by his campaign staff to show his “soft side,” tell me that he is not an out-of-touch, awkward elite that the media reflexively describe. “The Unzipping of Mitt Romney: an Effort to Show His Softer Side,” at The Daily Beast, is about “humanizing” Romney because “no candidate could need it more.” Woah.

Howard Kurtz’s “Unzipping” begins with a description of a long friendship so startling to the Beast‘s Kurtz that he goes on and on about it for several paragraphs: “The story about a 35-year friendship between Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu was striking for reasons that had nothing to do with international diplomacy.”

it was interesting to learn that the future presidential candidate and future prime minister met in 1976 when both worked for the Boston Consulting Group. But the real head-snapper … Read the rest »

CIA Director Leon Panetta’s memorandum for the record, which I first mentioned in my terrorism post yesterday, deserves a post of its own. It is stunning. Here it is again:

Received phone call from Tom Donilon who stated that the President made a decision with regard to AC1 [Abbottabad Compound 1]. The decision is to proceed with the assault.

The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven’s hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out. Those instructions were conveyed to Admiral McRaven at approximately 10:45 am.

So much for the incredibly brave Commander-in-Chief meme. The only one with balls in this story was Bill McRaven. Read the rest »