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I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 5 or 6 pm central standard time (I sometimes fail at this attempt).

I try to include factual material only, along with my opinions (it should be clear which is which). I make an attempt to include as much of this week’s news as I possibly can. The first set of columns are intentionally designed for a quick read.

I do not accept any advertising nor do I charge for this publication. I write this principally to blow off steam in a nation where its people seemed have collectively lost their minds.

A Yemeni man working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was killed by an air strike in Abyan province on Wednesday while carrying out humanitarian work, the agency said. This may have been an Obama-ordered drone strike.

The state department will be investigating how an Egyptian terrorist got a visa so that he could meet with Obama administration officials.

A large school bus, owned by Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Academy, that is well known throughout Rockford for its beautiful pro-life pictures and words asking people to "pray to end abortion", was fire bombed. The damage was extensive to the bus as windows were broken in on both sides and fire bombs were thrown inside to cause maximum damage. It has been speculated that this bombing of a pro-life Christian school bus is in retaliation for the closing of the Rockford abortion mill that is located not far from where the school bus was attacked.

The White House made an "angry phone call" to Fox News about an instantly infamous video which attacks President Obama on "Fox and Friends" last month, the New York Times reported on Thursday. It is a pretty mean video. Not unfair, however.

Operation Fast & Furious has finally been outed in the mainstream media. It is still be misrepresented in much of the media as some kind of a political football, as if this were a made-up controversy. Essentially, the United States

allowed about 2000 guns to “walk” across the boarder. There were no tracking devices or surveillance, insofar as I am aware of. When recovered from a crime scene, the serial numbers reveals that these were F&F guns. Two American border agents have been killed and scores of Mexicans have been killed by these guns. What has yet to be explained is, why this operation was carried out in the first place. Several people have simply said, this was a gun-tracking operation, but there were no tracking devices on the guns which were sold to Mexican gangs and, as far as I know, there have been no arrests. Yet, no reporter has asked the White House, “Why did we do this?” The President has claimed executive privilege with regards to Fast and Furious, although he has, on many occasions, said to be unaware of the program except for hearing something about it on the news. The House Oversight committee has voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress (on a party-line vote); which will be brought to the floor this week. Holder first said he had only heard of this operation recently (during his congressional hearing), but later withdrew that and claimed that he probably knew about this operation earlier. He also claims to have stopped this operation, which cessation would have occurred long before he heard about it. Some how, in some way, Holder claims to be responsible for shutting down a failed operation which, at first, he seemed to know nothing about. Holder has also claimed that Bush’s AG knew about this operation, and then later retracted that statement. Good timeline on Fast & Furious. I’ve reported on it here, but you may not have noticed. Also, when Gabby Giffords was shot, there are emails indicating that several in the ATF were worried that this was a Fast & Furious weapon.

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. This is quite a breakthrough in this case.

There is a report that Republican candidate Mitt Romney is vetting Paul Ryan as a possible VP pick.

The president is going overseas to England, France and China to get more money for his campaign. He will be holding fundraisers for Americans living abroad.

Before President Obama was to speak to an Hispanic audience, eating utensils were collected as a security measure. This was apparently a fund-raising lunch, and everyone there was eating. They were told to finish eating quickly, so that their silverware could be collected.

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren turns 63 today, and among her birthday gifts is a complimentary account at ancestry.com from the state's Republican party. She's in a tight race against the GOP incumbent, Scott Brown, and has claimed to be 1/32 Indian, and this has caused her no-end headaches in her campaign against Scott Brown.

If you are getting married, Obama has the solution for those wedding gifts; have your guests gift him instead.

The protesters popping up at Mitt Romney's rallies throughout Michigan Tuesday look like run-of-the-mill grassroots liberals - they wave signs about "the 99 percent," they chant about the Republican's greed, and they describe themselves as a loosely organized coalition of "concerned citizens." They're also getting paid.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spent $85 million for President Obama in 2008 and expect to spend a similar amount this year.

The shocking news this week is: President Barack Obama's campaign and the Obama Victory Fund spent $15 million more than they raised in May, campaign finance reports show.

Adidas pulls their “slave shoes” from the market, after they cause a controversy.

Massachusetts-based battery manufacturer A123 Systems is heading for financial trouble. They recently had a recall of nearly $52 million worth of defective battery packs. They had a net loss of $125 million in the first quarter of this year. A123 spend $1 million to lobby the government for money and got nearly $250 million for their efforts. CBS video on this story.

James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly "alarmist" about climate change. He originally supported the building of more nuclear plants, which caused some environmentalists to reject him. Now he favors fracking.

A number of important gay people from Philadelphia made a trip to Washington D.C. as invited guests of President Barack Obama for the White House's first-ever gay pride reception. There, they danced to the sounds of a Marine Corps band; they dined on crab cakes and canapés; and some of them took advantage of photo opportunities to give the late President Ronald Reagan the middle finger. The White House has since condemned this behavior.

The Obama campaign continues to fully embrace the gay way even on their website.

The University of Minnesota - Duluth (UMD) is now sponsoring an ad-campaign designed to achieve "racial justice" by raising awareness of "white privilege." The self-titled Un-Fair Campaign, is sponsored and supported by the University of Minnesota - Duluth, along with several liberal organizations including the NAACP, YWCA, and The League of Woman Voters. One of the videos.

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch vetoed the bill banning late-term or so-called partial birth abortions on Friday. However, since both houses of NH’s legislature passed this with a 2/3^rds majority, it will become law anyway.

In Michigan, one school employees union has demanded credit card numbers or bank account numbers to insure that they will be paid. According to a letter sent to union members, you pay up or you don’t work.

Oregon State University chemistry professor Nicholas Drapela was fired without warning three weeks ago and has still been given no reason for the university's decision to "not renew his contract." Drapela, an outspoken critic of man-made climate change, worked at the university for 10 years.

When Councilman Mitch Englander discovered that his daughter was unable to buy anything but sugar-packed sodas in a city park vending machine, he introduced a motion to ban them. Democrat or Republican?

A scrappy crew of Occupy Wall Street veterans that call themselves `Occu-pirates' sailed out of the 79th Street Boat Basin once again on Saturday morning. The destination was Staten Island, for one in a series of Occupy Wall Street events held in the five boroughs, that organizers have staged as town hall meetings, aimed at keeping the OWS message, and awareness of America's sinking middle class, afloat.

The Catholic bishops of the United States have called for the nation's Catholics to observe the two week period starting today and running through the Fourth of July as a "Fortnight of Freedom" in which they hope Americans will pray for the preservation of freedom in this country and speak out clearly against the unprecedented attacks on religious liberty that have issued from the federal government.

A group of armed gunmen stormed the Tunisian consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Monday to protest against an art exhibition in Tunisia which they said insulted Islam. Let’s kill some people because we are mad at art.

The Nigerian Islamic group, Boko Haram, plan to make the month of June "the bloodiest month yet" in terms of attacks on Christians and promise more bloody attacks on Christians in the coming days. They have 300 suicide bombers ready to deploy.

The Boko Haram sect who claimed responsibility of the recent attacks of five churches in the North, killing 100 worshippers including little children, have reveal their motive behind the attacks. They only want one thing: all Christians must convert to Islam and the violence will stop.

A mob of about 300 men vandalized a store that was being used for a church service by dozens of Bethel Christians in Aceh In moderate Indonesia. About 60 Christians were attending church services in the store at the time. No one was killed.

Federal prosecutors are seeking more than 12 years in prison for a Muslim convert from Brooklyn who pleaded guilty to posting online threats against the creators of the "South Park" television show.

Gaza-based terrorists fired 25 rockets into southern Israel on Saturday, causing damage to a school and factory. The latest attacks bring the total number of rockets and other projectiles fired from the Strip to approximately 150 over the past six days.

The U.S. military is guilty of political correctness toward domestic Islamic terror, according to a congressional report made public this week.

An instructor of a college course that taught top military officers the United States was at war with Islam has been relieved of teaching duties and the course ordered redesigned to reflect U.S. policy.

EPA is penalizing refiners for failing to use fuel additive that `does not exist.'

Apparently, there are new regulations for U.S. banks which will cause a large portion of $3 trillion of foreign investments in our banks to flee. This is being spun on one website as dirty money; and, on another, money that is “clogging teller windows.” What appears to be the case is, foreign investors trust U.S. banks more than those in their own country, so they are parking money here. Could some of it be dirty? Sure. Could some of it be clean? Again, yes.

Back in 2009, the fight over ObamaCare was raging, and the former firm of senior presidential adviser David Axelrod is paying to run ads in favor of the bill. That firm, AKPD Message and Media, still owes Mr. Axelrod money and employs his son. Emails recently released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee suggest the White House was intimately involved both in creating this lobby and hiring Mr. Axelrod's firm - which is as big an ethical no-no as it gets.

A former classmate of President Barack Obama's father claims that as a student, the Presidential sire viewed the Soviet Union as a "liberating force."

Slaveowner Henry Wells Shields inherited Mrs. Obama's great-great-great grandmother, Melvinia Shields. DNA testing and research indicate that he and his wife, Christian Patterson Shields, are the first lady's great-great-great-great grandparents. Their son, Charles Marion Shields, is Mrs. Obama's great-great-great grandfather.

Former Green Jobs czar Van Jones: “I believe in America the Beautiful; I don’t just sing the damn song.”

Real person Wyndi after her meal with the president: "My feet haven't even hit the ground yet," she said. "It was unbelievable. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, just like I anticipated it would be. All the advice I'd gotten from family and friends was to live in the moment. hat was the best advice anyone could have given me: just take all of it in so you don't forget it. In some ways it felt like it went really fast, and in other ways it just flowed perfectly."

Regular person Paula and her meal with the president: "I could feel the energy shift, and then he came walking through the door. The thing I was immediately aware of is what a warm welcome we got from President Obama. He immediately leveled the playing field, because he communicated with us about the things that mattered to us personally. I realized this was less about questions we would ask him and more about average citizens just sitting there, having these exchanges, talking about what was important to us-our family, our work, our country. At one point he started talking about the first time he was in an auto factory and how much things have changed since then, and he said, `You must have seen some of those changes, Paula.' And I realized: It's true-today, auto factories are much more state-of-the-art and energy efficient, and it's a quiet operation unless you're in the stamping plant. He just had such an astute interest in each of us individually."

Damon Silvers, the director of policy at the AFL-CIO: "When we talk about infrastructure, we need to talk about trillions, not billions. When we talk about taxes where the wealthy pay their fair share, repealing the Bush tax cuts is not enough. It doesn't even begin to be enough."

Democrat Jan Schakowsky: "Republicans now have gone from this rooting against the economy to outright sabotage of the economy."

Nancy Pelosi, perhaps having an aneurism: "They are the party that makes Adam Smith look like a Keynesian. They are laissez, lassez, laissez, laissez, laissez, laissez, laissez faire. No supervision. No regulation. No discipline. And to those who would exploit the system for privatizing the gain and nationalizing the risk in our financial transactions. Laissez, laissez, laissez faire in terms of they don't want any initiatives for clean air, clean water, food safety, public safety, public education, public housing, public transportation, public health, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security."

MSNBC's Chris Hayes: "What are the things we should be doing if we waved a magic wand, made Paul Krugman dictator for a period of time?" The liberal crowd cheered.

Agricultural secretary Tom Vilsack: “While this economy has gone through a rough patch—a very difficult recession—we’ve turned the corner; the president is working hard to build an economy that’s built to last.”

Former Obama Green Jobs Czar Van Jones: "[Republicans] say we've got to eliminate the EPA - just wipe it out. The EPA, which has probably saved more American lives in the past 30 years than even the Department of Defense. The EPA which is keeping the poison out of our childrens' bodies."

Van Jones on the Keystone pipeline being stopped: "They said, `we're not going to let them jab this dirty needle of a pipeline into America. We're not going to let them take the dirtiest energy ever created and cook it up and stick it into this country. Through their courage, the project was derailed."

Sen. John Kerry: "We are living through a story of disgraceful denial, back-pedaling and delay that has brought us perilously close to a climate change catastrophe."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: "I would like to see the Constitution used to protect the country's full faith and credit, as the Constitution does. I think he should [declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional].” In other words, she is arguing for Obama to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally.

Former Vice President Al Gore: "It should no longer be a surprise the lengths to which Mitt Romney and other conservatives will go to obscure truth in pursuit of their narrow ideology. Case in point was the recent bus tour on which the Republican candidate campaigned against green jobs in states where hundreds of thousands have been created." Please see the last issue where Darryl Issa on the floor on Congress tried to determine what a green job was.

DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz” "Unfortunately, the Republicans in Congress continue to demonstrate that they're rooting for failure, as evidenced, Soledad, by the Romney campaign telling my state's governor they should tone down the progress and the celebration about the progress that our state's made because that's not in line with what the Romney campaign wants to telegraph about the president's record on job creation." Here is how to defeat the Republicans: preside over a successful economy.

Van Jones: "If the Tea Party is allowed to score a trifecta, their ideas already are corrupting the Supreme Court, you see that with Scalia's antics, they already have half of the Congress. If they get the rest.and the White House.if the Tea Party governs America - if this time next year, you are living in a government run by the Tea Party - let me suggest to you that they might use power a little bit differently than we did. When they get power, they use it to decimate us."

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney: “[An investigation into Operation Fast & Furious] is a fishing expedition; it’s unnecessary and unworthy of Congress at this time, and they could be acting on things the American people care about—to help the economy grow, to put teachers back to work, to keep construction workers on the job.”

Shirley Jackson Lee: “This Fast & Furious debacle started under the Bush administration.”

Aaron Sorkin's script as read by actor Jeff Daniels, in Sorkin’s new show: "There is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories. Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real and defense spending where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined 25 of whom are allies."

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: "How is this [supporting the enforcement of immigration laws that are on the books] any different than the big boat argument of people when it comes to African Americans after the Civil War?"

Congressman Maxine Waters: "We cannot allow the opportunities that America stands for to be eroded by those who simply want to bring this president down. After a good night sleep, I wake up the next day, and I say, `Come on, Tea Party, let's get it on.'"

Black Panther General Taco: “No matter what, a black face in a high place will never change our situation as a people. And they constantly pushing this crack cocaine in, they constantly pushing AIDS at us all of these things shows us that we are facin' extermination . And if we're facin' extermination then this calls for us to stand up and resist. We will not [yells] sit back passively like Jews and go to the gas chambers, we will resist by any means necessary.” I may have his name wrong; but notice what he does not mention: abortion, which actually kills more blacks in the U.S. than anything else does.

Sharpton, from the article: “Turning over thousands of documents and overextending himself, AG Holder was spoken to and mistreated as if he were a child, and reminded that despite his esteemed position, he can and would be profiled. AG Holder was in essence `stopped & frisked' without probable cause...As I marched this past Sunday with tens of thousands in New York in opposition to the abhorrent practice of stop & frisk,' I couldn't help but think of our attorney general. Tattered down and publicly humiliated, AG Holder has been mishandled just like the young Black and Latino men (and women) who are demonized on our streets everyday. Chris Matthews of Hardball on MSNBC concurred: AG Holder is being profiled, stopped and searched.”

Al Sharpton headline at Huffington Post: “Attorney General Eric Holder Has Been `Stopped and Frisked'”

Lizz Winstead, the co-creator of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show": "We need to shut the f-k up about [abstinence]...More people need to come out and say, I go to Planned Parenthood, I had an abortion, I use birth control, I am a sexual being. There should be a Planned Parenthood in every mall. Just like Cinnabon and Chico's. To me, that would be the utopian society to live in." I think this is a comedy routine, but also what she believes.

NBC’s David Gregory,: “But the question, chairman, is whether a guy like Paul Ryan is a little too incendiary.”

Washington Post political reporter Aaron Blake: “Well, you know only time's gonna tell on something like this. I think that when you get in the weeds and you're talking about process arguments like this, I think most of the American people tend to tune it out. I don't think that the Fast and Furious situation right now really rises up on the radar for most people.”

Politico reporter Joseph Williams on MSNBC: "Romney is very, very comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him. That's one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in some town hall settings, why he can't relate to people other than that. But when he comes on 'Fox and Friends,' they're like him, they're white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company." Williams was suspended by Politico for this remark.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow riffing from the story of a grandma being bullied by children on a school bus in upstate New York: “Whether it is a Republican debate audience booing a gay soldier or Rush Limbaugh's vicious attack on a female Georgetown law student or Newt Gingrich's salvos at the poor, bullying has become boilerplate. Hiss and taunt. Tease and intimidate. Target your enemies and torture them mercilessly. Maintain primacy through predation...Women are under attack. Hispanics are under attack. Minority voting rights are under attack. The poor are under attack. Unsurprisingly, those doing the attacking in every case are from the right.”

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow:: “This is not some weird, boggy offshoot of what the Fast and Furious scandal is. This is what the Fast and Furious scandal is. This is it. It is a conspiracy theory on the right that President Obama is secretly trying to take away all your guns. That's what it was. They created this program was actually started by George W. Bush as a means of upsetting people about gun violence and their abolishing the Second Amendment.If you watch Fox News, as your source of information, you marinate daily in conservative media and that is your source of information about the world. This has been drilled into your head over and over and over again. Just like with the Shirley Sherrod story. Fox News has been very upset that they haven`t yet been able to bait the rest of the real media into following this crazy conspiracy theory of theirs yet, and they are starting to overtly bait the mainstream media into covering it and they

NBC’s anchor Brian Williams reporting on Fast & Furious: "Fallout today in that fight between congressional Republicans and Attorney General Eric Holder over a botched anti-gun running operation known as Fast and Furious. One day after a House committee recommended that Holder be held in contempt of Congress, the Speaker John Boehner signaled his backing for the action and hinted that the White House's use of executive privilege might involve some sort of a coverup. White House spokesman Jay Carney fired back, he said today, the administration isn't covering up anything." That’s it; the first report on NBC’s Nightly News on Operation Fast & Furious.

Diarist "Xaxnar" from the Daily Kos blog: “The Republicans have been perfecting their media machine and their messaging for decades. They win by mobilizing their troops and demoralizing their targets. Turn on FOX, Rush, Beck, Hannity, etc. etc. You'll hear a constant stream of taunting, lies, insults, and false victimhood. You'll hear any opposing voices that manage to break through momentarily instantly shouted down and cut off. They have incorporated bullying into their DNA - and they're not afraid to use it.”

MSNBC political commentator Krystal Ball: "You can't even say it's election-year politics because the Republicans have been pounding this thing for over a year now. And not just the Republicans in Congress, the entire right-wing media propaganda empire has really seized on this because President Obama, his administration, has been remarkably scandal free. Really." Except Solyndra, Operation Fast & Furious, a dozen green companies headed by Obama bundlers and donors who got big cash rewards from the federal government, unprecedented national security leaks, and a press that loves the President.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews of Mitt Romney: “And this is the most dangerous thing about this guy. Since he doesn't have a foreign policy, he buys the foreign policies of the powers that be. So he sings the song of his neo-con so-called advisers. What they really are of course are people who advocate a point of view: the need for a new war with each new Republican president. And they need someone in the White House to push it for them. They need a president who speaks their language. So, they write his speeches. They want war with Iran? They just put that in the next speech. This, as I said, is the dangerous part. We've had experience with a president who came to office with an empty head on foreign policy, and bought the entire neo-con pitch hook, line, and sinker. The result was the one war in this country's history that truly deserves a dunce cap.”

Robert Redford: "It's about storytelling. The Democratic Party has a good story to tell, but they don't know how to tell it. And the other side has no story to tell and they tell it loud and clear. People listen to the loud barking dog more than the mewing cat. But one of the advantages of the GOP debate - I'm speaking personally now - as horrible as it is to watch, as horrible as it is to see, at least people who have any sense at all can see, `This is what we're getting? This is what we're going to get if we elect somebody from that mob? Whoa-'"

Actor Morgan Freeman: “I think that we did a really good thing when we elected Barack Obama. I read his books, they read his books. He is absolutely and totally qualified for the job. He has proven himself to be not only qualified for the job, but very good at it. The things that he's managed to get accomplished in the face of so much push back is amazing. And I think, this is Morgan Freeman's personal thought, we're going to be in a lot of trouble if we don't reelect him because people on the other side of the fence scare me.”

Candidate Obama in 2007: "The issue of executive power and executive privilege is one that is subject to abuse and in an Obama presidency you will see a sufficient respect for law and the co-equal branches of government that I hope we don't find ourselves in a situation with aides being subpoenaed."

Obama, 2007: “There's been a tendency on the part of this administration to try to hide behind exec privilege every time there's something a little shaky that's taking place. I think the administration would be best served by coming clean on this."

Harry Reid, from 2007: “It’s hard for me to comprehend how logically, politically, realistically, constitutionally the president could do this [exert executive privilege]. It’s like saying, ‘I’m king.’ That is not the country we live in. He is not King George.”

Anti-bullying advocate Dan Savage, when discovering a Gay Conservative group tweeted: “The GOP's house faggots grab their ankles, right on cue: ”

Bill Maher, will making light of Fast & Furious: “First of all, let me say, Republicans don’t care about dead Mexicans.” He laughs and the audience claps somewhat.

White House senior adviser David Pouffe: "[Republicans] want to return us back to the same policies that caused the recession - huge tax cuts for the wealthy, more war, more debt. And independent economists last week just said the Romney congressional agenda would cause us harm in the short term economically and slow down the recovery. So that's the wrong direction."

Rep. Henry Waxman of proposed energy legislation in the House: “[Republicans are] getting away - literally - with murder"

Democratic Congressman Al Green, of the Peter King radical Muslim hearings: "People who see the hearings and never hear about the hearing on the radicalization of Christianity have to ask themselves, `Why is this missing?' Why don't we go to the next step and ask, how is that a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, white female in the United States of America can become radicalized to the point of wanting to do harm to this country? We don't have that type of hearing."

CAIR-NY's Cyrus McGoldrick tweeting: "My heart is with Egypt after yesterday's military coup. May Allah protect the revolution & people from the military doing Israel's bidding."

James Lovelock, sometimes called the father of global warming, has recently said some very non-green things: "It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion. I don't think people have noticed that, but it's got all the sort of terms that religions use . The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can't win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air."

Lovelock: "...so-called `sustainable development' . is meaningless drivel . We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can't stand windmills at any price."

Lovelock on the claims "the science is settled" on global warming: "One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it."

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell: "The media and the population saw him as this transformative figure [in 2008]; he was the first serious black candidate, a new, young, promising figure. People have sobered to that; the newness has faded and people now see him as another practical politician."

Bill Maher: "You know, I mentioned the Fast & Furious in the monologue and I really didn’t explain it to people who don’t know, and, by the way, I was one of those people until this week who didn't know [about Fast and Furious]. I heard that term, Fast and Furious, it's not the movie, by the way. It's the name of an operation that the Feds were indulging in to try to trace guns. They were purposely selling them to Mexican drug dealers" Nice that Maher admits this; this is an operation that is over two years old, already ended, and it could involve President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.

A veteran Hollywood exec of Obama’s $40,000/plate dinner with Sarah Jessica Parker and Anna Wintour: "It's a mistake. He's supposed to be a man of the people, and he's hanging out with Anna Wintour? Is he trying to turn the election into a celebrity reality show?"

George Will: “Mr. Holder himself has made himself obnoxious to Republicans by saying unlike the Supreme Court that photo ID laws constitute voter suppression. That is if you have to present when you have a photo ID, the way you have to present a photo ID to get into justice, Attorney General Holder's justice department.”

Hilary Rosen, CNN Political Contributor: “Now we're getting to the real issue. This is why Republicans don't like Eric Holder because he has challenged voter ID laws under the civil rights statutes as voter suppression rules that they are. Because he has challenged the Arizona, you know, discriminatory immigration law. Because he has refused to implement the discriminatory anti-marriage law. So, you know, Eric Holder has shown a lot of backbone in the justice department and the Republicans hate it. So, what do they do? They call for his resignation. They throw him with document requests that are impossible to respond to. They just throw more and more stuff at him to distract him from doing the things that actually the president and the people hired him to do.”

Will: “Let the record show that the Supreme Court, with Justice John Paul Stevens, liberal Justice writing it, said that there is no Constitutional flaw in photo ID voter laws.”

Rosen: “You know, they're going to have to review them in the courts. Thirteen states, George, have instituted new statutes since the Republicans took over those state legislatures in 2010 purely for the purpose of limiting voting.”

Question: “I guess my question is are you declaring [executive privilege with regards the Fast and Furious] that mostly on principle to ensure the separation of power more or—“

Jay Carney: “This is - thank you for phrasing it like that. This is entirely about principle . . .”

Nancy Pelosi: "I could have arrested Karl Rove on any given day. I'm not kidding. There's a prison here in the Capitol. If we had spotted him in the Capitol, we could have arrested him."

Karl Rove: "You know, she sounds a little bit like Inspector Clouseau and a little bit [like] the Mad Red Queen, but Speaker Pelosi was dead wrong in her assertion today and I'm sure she had a good laugh and it's nice to know that she dreams of slapping me in her own personal jail.”

Ann Romney was asked if her family would be vacationing abroad as frequently as the Obamas.

Ann Romney: "I doubt that. Our vacations and our happiness come from being with our children and our grandchildren."

Blogger Charles Johnson believed the interpretation that should be given this statement is: Ann Romney: We Won't Be Lazy Like Those Shiftless Obamas When not reinterpreting quotations and history, Johnson spends his time trying to get conservatives banned from Twitter.

Speaker of the House John Boehner: "The decision to invoke executive privilege is an admission that White House officials were involved in decision that misled the Congress and have covered up the truth."

Representative Darrell Issa: “Could it be that what they really were thinking of was in fact to use this walking of guns in order to promote an assault weapons ban? Many think so. And they haven't come up with an explanation that would cause any of us not to agree."

Darrell Issa: "There cannot be executive privilege over criminal cover-up or cover-up of a crime. Lying to Congress is a crime, we have every right to see the documents, to say: 'Did you know, when did you know, what did you know?',"

Issa, when asked if he has any definitive proof of a White House coverup: “No we don’t.”

Issa: "Ultimately, I respect privilege if it's top executives speaking or preparing to the president. But in this case, the president has already said - and the attorney general under oath has said - they weren't communicating."

Rep. Gowdy: “Obama is either part of it or he's not. If (Obama's) part of it, then we've had a series of witnesses that have misled this committee. And if he's not part of it, then he's got no business asserting executive privilege.”

Ann Romney: “There is not a day that goes by and hardly a person that I speak to, who says, ‘I’m praying for you.’ And I find that unbelievable. This country is a faithful country; they believe in God and they believe in the power of prayer and I believe that is a very sustaining power...they want God’s hand in this country.”

Neil Cavuto: “Finally, you know I promised myself, I promised myself, Neil, do not get involved in this one. Neil, just butt out. That defending Ann Romney on the latest attack and her riding horses to deal with the multiple sclerosis would look too self-serving. That because I have MS, my comments might be taken with a big grain of pity salt and more than a hint of sympathy bias. Well, guilty as charged, but sorry, I'm just charging in because I've had enough. Enough of condescending commentators at another news channel whose incredible ignorance of illness I know all too well risks being accepted by an audience that might not know the facts that well.

So, here are the facts. Ann Romney has multiple sclerosis. I have multiple sclerosis. Ann does not need your sympathy. I don't need your sympathy, that is unless it makes you feel sorry enough for me that you want to watch my show at 8PM Eastern Time on Fox Business Network. At least I'm up against a guy who is not physically ill, Bill O'Reilly.

But enough of me. Back to me and this crucial point. Ann Romney deals with her MS riding horses. It's called hippotherapy, some call it dressage, but at its core for MS patients, it refers to the use of horseback riding as a treatment for medical conditions namely for treating walking difficulties. Neurologists have long debated whether riding around on horses is a cure for MS, but many firmly believe it helps relieve some of the very real symptoms of MS.

As their industry bible "Neurology Care" noted last year, and other studies have found that, and I quote here, ".some people treated with riding therapy exhibited improvement in balance, emotional functioning, pain and muscle stiffness." Other studies have pointed to improved mood and walking ability. Still others, more energy.

My point is that this is a legitimate therapy. Now, do I use this equine therapy? No. But that's only because I'm generally bigger than the horses and I don't want to hurt them. Ann is not, so there is no such risk.

But seriously, let's get serious. Ann Romney doesn't need my defense but her critics need to use common sense here. Just because you might find such therapy strange, trust me when I tell you this disease it helps treat is a lot more strange and a lot more cruel.

So go ahead and have a good stupid laugh over Ann and her horses and whether they had anything to do with her illness. Ignore the fact she got really into this big-time about the time she was diagnosed with this illness. You might want to look that up. It just seems odd to me that a network with the very letters "MS" in its name wouldn't resist making fun of someone who has to live with MS every day.

Ann Romney doesn't need their pity, just their accuracy. She's got a lot of money, but it clearly has not bought her a path from a lot of hell, has it?

Take it from me, I'm not horsing around. These guys taking pot shots at Ann Romney are horse's asses.” Yea, Neil!

Allen West: “A year ago there were those of us who warned the Obama Administration of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Egypt. We were castigated as alarmists and loose cannons. Today our predictions have come to reality and the ominous specter reminding us of the Iranian revolution is evident. The Muslim Brotherhood claimed they would not run a presidential candidate. Clearly the Arab Spring is nothing more than a radical Islamic nightmare. Now we need to unequivocally reiterate our support to the Coptic Christians and Israel. What an incredible foreign policy faux pas by the second coming of President Jimmy Carter, the Obama Administration. I call upon President Barack Obama to cut off American foreign aid to Egypt, denounce the results of this election, repudiate the Muslim Brotherhood, and all radical Islamist political entities.” The rest of this article.

Snerdley (Rush Limbaugh’s African American call screener) of the inaccuracies in Obama’s memoirs: “Who is it that makes up blackness?”

Allen West about the communists on Congress: "Well, it's not about me trying to identify any individuals. I'm talking about principles of governance and philosophy. If you understand, when you say `progressives,' that is directly related back to the term or the label `communist' at the turn of the century - that was a change in marketing, if you want to call it that."

Paula Priesse: “June 16th - Less than a year ago President Obama said this about the DREAM Act: "We live in a democracy. You have to pass bills through the legislature, and then I can sign it." Yesterday, O decided a few more votes are more important than his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." So he bypassed Congress and rewrote immigration law himself. An average of over 600,000 people per year become naturalized US citizens. LEGALLY. They wait years for the privilege of being called Americans. On their citizenship test, questions about the US Constitution are included. These new citizens deserve better than what happened yesterday! And so do we. P”

Paula Priesse: “June 21st -The National Renewable Energy Lab (part of the Dept. of Energy) reports that 9 billion dollars in O "stimulus" funds went to solar and wind projects. These projects created from 2009 thru 2011 a grand total of 5,510 jobs (910 "direct", 4,600 "indirect"). $1.63 MILLION PER JOB! It makes you think. What if that capital (grants or loans) had been available to small businesses wishing to expand? 9 billion bucks equals $10,000 for 900,000 small businesses. Or $100,000 for 90,000. Think they might have created a few more than 5,510 new jobs? By the way, four-week jobless claims avg. just hit a 2012 high. The 2008 election was indeed historic. Never have so many been duped by someone knowing so little! P”

Paula Priesse: “June 18th - Many insist a reporter interrupting O Friday was because he's half-black. Each week it gets worse, liberals playing the race card. Since O's support from ALL groups has declined in varying degrees since 2008, odds have increased greatly that you're now a racist if you're Catholic (HHS mandates, gay marriage), Evangelical (see Catholic), Jewish ('67 borders), young or a recent college grad (no jobs), married (rising prices, home values drop), employed (income drop), a small business owner (Obamacare, regulations), a union member (Wisconsin), far-left (Gitmo, no single payer, Wall St. connections) or even black (unemployment rise, gay marriage). The race card, desperate libs don't leave home without it! P”

Rep. Trey Gowdy on Rep. Nancy Pelosi because she has said that Republicans are attacking Eric Holder in order to further an agenda of voter suppression: "You know my friend Allen West said the race card was the last card in the deck. I think former Speaker Pelosi has opened up a new deck and has found the 2 of clubs. I could not believe it when I heard her saying that. Is that all you have to come back with? Is that the best you can come up with, is that we got together in this grand scheme to suppress votes and I'm sure she didn't say southern states but that's what she meant. It's really beneath the office of a member of Congress to say something that outrageous and the fact that she was once the Speaker is

mind numbing. I honestly, and I have her a lot in my 16 years as a prosecutor, I couldn't believe the words coming out of her mouth. But keep in mind, Greta, this is the same woman who said she could have arrested Karl Rove any day she wanted. So I don't know what was wrong with her yesterday or today or whenever she said that, but I would schedule an appointment with my doctor if she thinks that we are doing this to suppress votes this fall. That is mind-numbingly stupid."

Greg Gutfeld, host of The Five: To Pelosi, truth is like a face lift—you can stretch it beyond recognition.” [quoted from memory]

Greg Gutfeld, of a Crosby, Stills and Nash concert: “Going to that show is assisted suicide.”

Rush: "Work is how most people identify themselves. It's where they take their sense of identity. Most people don't like sitting around doing nothing. It's easy to think that most people do. It's easy to think it's a nation of slackers, but I don't think that we're there yet."

Rush: "I'll tell you something else, folks, if I were Hispanic, you know what would really trouble me? To learn that the President of the United States had allowed assault weapons to be walked across the border to drug cartels and used to slaughter hundreds of Mexicans. If I were Hispanic, that would really tick me off."

Rush: "There were two dormant years between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious. Wide Receiver was a sting operation. There doesn't seem to be any plan for any kind of a sting in Fast and Furious, at least not against the gun smugglers."

Rush: "You know, Romney, I have to say, got a great crease in his pants, and unlike Bill Clinton, Romney keeps his pants on when he's supposed to."

Rush: "Congress is going to do everything they can to get to the bottom of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds and all these other guys supposedly lying to Congress. But here's the attorney general blatantly lying to Congress twice, and he's allowed to recant and retract his testimony."

Rush: "Have you people ever noticed how Obama handles himself at a press conference? He gets a question, he doesn't answer it for 20 minutes -- while sounding 'brilliant' -- and then moves on to the next question."

Rush: "The whole point of Fast and Furious was to create mayhem in Mexico among drug cartels with American-made weapons easily procured so that you and I would stand up in outrage and demand tighter gun laws. It was deceitful. It was sneaky. It was going against the will of the American people. It was liberalism on parade."

Rush: "Obama put weapons in the hands of drug lords. He created crimes. He and Holder allowed weapons to end up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels, and those cartels took action against Mexican citizens. And Obama knew that that was gonna happen. He wanted it to happen. He wanted there to be crimes with these weapons, folks."

Rush: "I'm gonna predict to you what's gonna happen. They will argue that they are upholding long-honored tradition of protecting the internal process of the executive branch. That's what the media will say about Obama. It's part of the separation of powers doctrine."

Rush: "This assertion of executive privilege just shows how important Fast and Furious was. You can't claim it's just some low-level, rogue operation and then go out and assert executive privilege. You don't assert executive privilege for low-level operations."

Rush: "Would somebody explain to me how in the world these reprobate Democrats somehow hold on to that image. They are anything but kind. They are anything but tolerant. They are anything about open-minded. They're anything but compassionate. And all this malarkey about 'for the children.'"

Rush: "So we have a president who is so out of touch he thinks automation is bad for the economy. ATMs are responsible for lost bank teller jobs. The media ignores all of that."

Rush: "Obama's between a rock and a hard place. He's got nowhere else to go. He can't run on his record. He can't run on the future, other than to scare people about Romney. So all he can do is try to give away the store to every wacko extreme or otherwise minority group in this country."

Rush: "You have to love the irony of the Democrats sending out people to disrupt Republican candidates for decades, and now the news media is outraged that Romney will not disown or try to rein in people who have the nerve to protest President Kardashian."

Rush: "NBC News is an annex of the Democrat National Committee, and it is posing as a news network."

Rush: "You cannot incentivize illegal immigration of any kind -- grandmothers, grandchildren, pregnant mothers, you could tug every heartstring there is out there -- you can't do that until you've secured the border. That has to

happen first. Everybody knows this, but nobody, at this stage, has the gumption to do anything about it."

Rush: "This is really good. From the AP: 'Mitt Romney has declined to call on his supporters to stop heckling President Barack Obama's campaign.' Do you know Romney for the most part has to keep his campaign schedule and location somewhat secret to try to keep from being overwhelmed by paid professional protesters?"

Fox Nation, getting a little snarky: “At a recent Obama rally in Ohio, prospective attendees were told to brandish their photo IDs if they expected admittance to the rally. No word yet on whether Attorney General Eric Holder plans to file suit against the Obama campaign for infringing upon Ohioans' right of peaceful assembly by way of a racist photo ID rule.”

The question was: “Jay, in 2007 President Obama criticized former President Bush for asserting executive privilege, for not handing over documents related to the firings of the nine U.S. attorneys. Does he not run the risk of looking hypocritical by criticizing the former President and now essentially evoking the same action?” Jay’s answer is cut off, but he was caught flat-footed at first.

A video from Fox and Friends (and played on that show) that caused White House Press Secretary to call FoxNews and complain.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell mocks Ann Romney for riding horses to combat her multiple sclerosis.

The Obama campaign ran an anti-Romney ad. The Washington Post gives the ad 4 Pinocchios. “The Obama campaign fails to make its case. On just about every level, this ad is misleading, unfair and untrue, from the use of "corporate raider" to its examples of alleged outsourcing. Simply repeating the same debunked claims won't make them any more correct.”

1) There is another photo of Obama bowing to another world leader. This could be simply by unintentional body language where Obama simply lets the other leader know, “I’m the beta dog here.”

2) Although I am certainly in the camp that likes Marco Rubio as vice president; I would really like to see him take an intermediate job as governor of Florida before running for president.

● Among US women age 40 to 64, 87% of those with insurance had a mammogram within 5 years, compared to 65% of those without insurance.

● The rate for Canadian women is 65% - the same as for uninsured women in the US.

● Canadian women also have the same rate of screening for cervical cancer as uninsured US women (80%), over five years. Among insured US women, the rate is 92%.

● Among uninsured US men, 31% were screened for prostate cancer, compared with 16% in Canada. For insured US men, the rate is 52%.

The Obama administration spent $10 billion to create 355 renewable energy jobs per year, according to testimony offered Tuesday before Congress by a Congressional Research Services expert. Asked by Rep. Cory Gardner (R., Colo.) "how many jobs were created" in 2009 and 2010 under the 1603 renewable energy grant program authorized by the Obama administration, a CRS specialist in public finance admitted that $10 billion was spent to create 3,666 construction jobs over a two-year period - and only 355 jobs per year going forward.

Since their weak oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the Obama administration has spent $2.7 billion towards grants, loans and awards related to Obamacare. In the 3 months prior to their appearance before the Supreme Court, they spent $1 billion.

85,000 Sacramento County Democrats and 5,000 decline-to-state voters who took Democratic ballots during last Tuesday's primary. But about 8,000 of those voters left their presidential ballots blank, and another 5,300 scribbled in a write-in candidate. That is a clear win for President Obama.

The Obama campaign says, “Instead of getting wedding presents, why not have those gift givers give to Obama?” Almost ignored by the media.

MSNBC airs segment where it appears as though Mitt Romney is amazed at the advent of touch screens. However, the larger context of what he was saying was left out. The context of his remarks was, an optometrist was going to move his business, so the federal government sent him 33 pages of paperwork to fill out. He was explaining how different the private sector operates in comparison to government regulations.

NPR panel wants 'Fast and Furious' inquiry declared DOA. 3 panelists and one moderator, and all of them think Fast & Furious is just Republican political strategy that will die out.

The count of prominent Democratic Party politicians who have decided not to attend the Democratic Party's convention in Charlotte, thereby attempting to avoid direct association with the formal renomination of incumbent President Barack Obama, is up to seven. Press coverage has been sparse.

Just imagine if Bush or Reagan had a scheme to overturn any of the amendments of the constitution; do you think it might show up in the news? However, CBS news claims to have documentation that there were discussions of using Fast & Furious to shackle the 2^nd amendment. This came out last Thursday; and it ought to be the lead story on every news report. Where is it?

Networks are silent as Obama avoids major environmental conference; ABC attacked Bush 10 years earlier.

Cleveland Plain Dealer hypes letter circulated against 'Joe the Plumber,' downplays partisanship of signers

Does your executive privilege extend to documents between yourself and members of the justice department, or does it simply cover all members of the justice department?

What the President and Mrs. Obama are doing right now is actually quite brilliant. Michelle Obama is showing up on show after show after show; shows which are generally fairly neutral or slightly left-leaning. There is rarely a strong political message; rarely a strong partisan push. Mrs. Obama, who is quite popular, is just putting herself out there, in hopes that the majority of Americans who know almost nothing about politics will vote for President Obama this November because of her (and, later, in 2016 or 2020, vote for her—that is the big plan).

This is also brilliant: Obama gives away free phones. Will there be reminders on the phone on election day? Will the program also tell the voter where to vote? Although it is hard to say whether this site is legitimate; it will give links to sites for free phones from the government.

Pretty much everyone is predicting that the individual mandate of Obamacare will be struck down by the Supreme Court (there is a good chance we will hear this tomorrow morning). What remains is tricky. There is no severance clause in Obamacare which says, if one part of the law is declared unconstitutional, then the rest still stands. This is a standard clause in nearly all contracts and most laws and was intentionally removed, if memory serves. So, logically, if the mandate is taken out, the rest of the law should be dead as well. However, let’s say the Supreme Court wants more than a 5-4 decision; can they make a deal to only strike down the mandate in order to get the 6^th vote? This could be argued, simply by saying, “The objections to Obamacare revolve around the mandate; that is unconstitutional. However, we’re not going to read the whole damn bill to figure out what stays and goes. We will therefore narrowly apply our decision specifically to the items objected to.” So, that is my guess.

We are not there yet. I have said on several occasions to expect a big war between the United States and Islam. A recent survey found: "Analysis of a huge amount of survey data collected from 13,000 Muslims in 21 countries showed that those countries where people expressed the most anti-American views were also those where two powerful political elites (one Islamist and one secular) were competing fiercely with each other for supporters. In countries where this did not apply, the amount of anti-Americanism expressed was significantly lower." These countries teach their youngest children, age 3 and up, how terrible Jews and Americans are.

Tonight, the Big Three news networks--ABC, CBS, and NBC--covered today's explosive Fast & Furious developments with sharply contrasting approaches. CBS News put together an informative and satisfying report while ABC and NBC spun and downplayed the story to minimize harm to the Obama administration.

CBS has done an excellent job with Fast & Furious since February 2011. Sharyl Attkisson has been the only reporter in the mainstream press who has been on top of this story and kept it alive. Tonight, CBS led its program with a report on the economy, but the contempt vote was the second story and it was well balanced. No spin, no jabs.

After that, Scott Pelley spoke on camera Ms. Attkisson and she gave an in depth history of Fast & Furious and the great human cost of the ATF's gunwalking operation. She even mentioned Brian Terry and the hundreds of Mexican victims, including the brother of a Mexican official, and how some guns took down a military helicopter.

ABC World News started tonight with the absolute most important story of the day--a heat wave in the northeast! Then there was talk of a brand new flood zone.

The Fast & Furious scandal and President Obama's first-ever invocation of executive privilege received only third-highest priority during ABC's broadcast. Anchor Diane Sawyer spoke as if the 18-month old scandal was itself breaking news. In fairness, it would be breaking news to viewers of ABC World News. A quick search of the program's coverage yields zero results.

Ms. Sawyer described today's vote as "a political storm over an undercover operation called Fast & Furious." She characterized the program as botched (it was not) and just mentions a border patrol agent was killed. She failed to say his name was Brian Terry.

As further damning proof of the previous lack of coverage, anchor Jake Tapper had to tell the entire story of Fast & Furious in a few seconds in order to get to today's story. If Ms. Sawyer covered it regularly over the past 18 months, ABC wouldn't need to waste precious airtime getting World News viewers up to speed.

Mr. Tapper has talked about Fast & Furious before. He shows a clip of a one-on-one interview he did with President Obama back in October which included a discussion of the scandal. Also, during an October press conference, Mr. Tapper was the only reporter to ask President Obama about Mr. Holder.

The anchors did mention Brian Terry, though briefly. They made no mention of the 300 Mexicans killed by F&F weapons or the fact that guns have been found at 12 crime scenes in America.

Brian Williams did not look happy at the beginning of NBC Nightly News tonight, and I don't blame him. The House Oversight Committee voted Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt. This meant the controversy was, for the second time ever, too large for him to deny its newsworthiness.

Though Fast & Furious was the lead story for Nightly News, it was full of spin and jabs against Republicans. According to Mr. Williams, "Washington has blown up into a caustic partisan fight, and a showdown is coming over the power of the American president." Mr. Holder was not found in contempt because of executive privilege. He was found in contempt for withholding documents. He could have avoided this if he just showed up to yesterday's meeting with the 1,300 pages he promised. The president's interference was not the genesis of this conflict.

Then Mr. Williams called Fast & Furious a "badly botched sting operation." It was not botched. Fast & Furious happened exactly how it was supposed to happen.

He ironically mentions that for anyone "not following the complexities of all of it, it just looks like more of our broken politics & vicious fights out in the open." It's ironic, because his viewers aren't following Fast & Furious. His program only recently mentioned the story at all and gave the 18-month investigation 30 seconds of air time.

Tonight's recap of Fast & Furious was very brief and didn't go into much detail. Brian Terry was mentioned once. They did show Rep Desjarlais talk about him and the slain Mexicans. That was the only mention, though.

The coverage of today's events did show some clips of House Republicans but gave most of the time to sound bites from those defending Mr. Holder. There was no discussion of how Chairman Issa has bent over backwards to compromise for these documents. NBC didn't say anything about how the original request was for 70,000 pages, but the Congressman skimmed it down to just 1,300.

In fact, anchor Kelly O'Donnell misleadingly states Holder has handed over "thousands of documents" without the context of how many tens of thousands he did not. Rep. Elijah Cummings is given time to claim Holder was "prohibited by law from producing" the documents. In contrast, Rep. Trey Gowdy, whose speech today succinctly summarized the Republican case for voting Holder in contempt, was given five words--"I can give them this"--before O'Donnell began speaking over him. Since no full thought of Gowdy's was given air time, it appears NBC merely had him on to depict Republicans as angry & unhinged.

As the Fast & Furious investigation now involves the White House itself, we can expect to see partisans like Brian Williams and Diane Sawyer continue to spin the story to protect Obama. Meanwhile, actual journalists like CBS's Atkisson will continue to follow the facts instead of contorting them to protect the powerful. As the House of Representatives votes on the measure to hold Eric Holder in contempt tomorrow, we will see which of the mainstream news networks displays the worst bias in their coverage.

Today such glaring hypocrisy in most major media outlets is not only dishonest and disingenuous, it is an insult to genuine journalism.

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2012 - Many Americans are just waking up to the facts of Fast and Furious, the ATF's gun walking operation that has become more than a nagging embarrassment for the Obama Administration.

Which begs that we ask one very important question: Why are the American people only now becoming aware of something that has been going on for almost two years. Why has it taken two years for the main stream media to really question, to drill for the answers to an event that took the lives of hundreds of Mexican nationals and American border patrol agent Brian Terry.

Fast and Furious is an issue "to big to ignore" however the "party line" that begins on Pennsylvania Avenue has obfuscated the release of information as there is also "only so much information the American people can absorb at one time."

Unfortunately, the Party line does not ring true in when comparing the murder and subsequent coverage involving the Treyvon Martin shooting.

Brian Terry, an ex-Marine serving his country as a U.S. Border Patrol agent was shot in the back on December 14, 2010. CBS reporter, Sharyl Attkisson was the lone journalist to run with the story, even as she a story coverd in the Communities by writer Peter Bella (Read: Fast and Furious: CBS's Sharyl Attkisson fights coverup that killed Brian Terry

However, NBC, ABC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post have committed what Catholics would call the sin of omission- they failed in their coverage of this intense drama.

How many Americans could say they were only now learning of what happened when Treyvon Martin was shot. That death quickly became a national and international headline.

One can ask the media why one murder held weight over another. For example, when Treyvon Martin was shot the media jumped all over the incident. Americans were given no rest over the various news outlets covering the issue, covering Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson on scene, how it was racially motivated, how Obama weighed in on it and on into a frenzy of media coverage over the boy's death.

But when it came to Brian Terry the coverage seems scarce. A Google News search for Brian Terry results in 39,700 news articles. Trayvon Martin? More than twice that many with 107,000 response.

So who was Brian Terry? He was a man who cared enough about his country to put on a uniform. He was a man who was simply doing his job in an effort to protect everyday, ordinary Americans. He was a man who was buried after dying in the line of duty. He was a man whose story should have been told by the major news networks at the time it happened.

He was an American killed on U.S. soil by foreign nationals who were patrolling the American side of the border. It doesn't take too much intelligence to recognize the outrageous disparity in coverage.

As the narrative of Fast and Furious unravels on a larger public stage, some Americans are a bit confused over why they are just learning of the death of Brian Terry, and the circumstances of Fast and Furious now.

The exact same media outlets who chose to ignore the story, are spinning an assortment of "CYA" stories from it was just an obscure story from Arizona of little concern to the American people, to it's just old news being rehashed in an election year with the Republicans are trying to use it to their advantage.

Who decided the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent was an obscure story that didn't matter much to the American people? Why are so many Americans clueless about the details of the Brian Terry murder?

A few of those inconvenient details that Americans are clueless about is the fact that around 300 Mexican civilians were killed with the guns the ATF "top-guns" unleashed upon the Mexican public. But, we are told by the major media that such issues don't really matter to the American people.

On the one hand, the NBC "News," was caught doctoring the tapes during their Treyvon Martin coverage, as they seemingly want the public to care about his death so badly. To demand justice!

Why does Martin matter and Terry does not? New York Times' motto says it all: "All the news that fit to print." What is means now is that if genuine news does not fit into their politically correct viewpoint of the world, it is not fit to print. Why stifle the truth?

What happened to the "free press" in the Land of the Free? Have the major media organs been re-invented into corporations that heve become sort of "Official News Agencies" of the state?

Today such glaring hypocrisy in most major media corporations is not only dishonest and disingenuous, it is downright disgusting and an insult to genuine journalism. More than that, it is an insult to the American people.

Benjamin Franklin is screaming from his grave. The Free Press? A question that should not be asked.

How Operation Fast and Furious unfolded, and the path of destruction left in it's path.

September 2009 - Jan. 8, 2010: A Jan. 8, 2010 briefing paper from the ATF Phoenix Field Division Group VII says: "This investigation has currently identified more than 20 individual connected straw purchasers."

October 2009: The ATF's Phoenix Field Division establishes a gun trafficking group called Group VII. Group VII initially began using the strategy of "gunwalking," or allowing suspects to walk away with illegally purchased guns,

Nov. 25, 2009: The ATF began conducting surveillance of Jaime Avila as early as this date, according to the congressional report.

Early December 2009: "It should be noted that since early December, efforts to `slow down' the pace of these firearms purchases have succeeded and will continue but not to the detriment of the larger goal of the investigation," the ATF briefing paper from Jan. 8, 2010 says.

Jan. 4-Jan. 8, 2010: There were three recorded phone calls during this period "between the most prolific suspected straw-purchaser and the Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL)," according to the ATF briefing paper. "These conversations have been to schedule future purchases of AK-47 variant riffles. The anticipated purchase is about (40) rifles."

Jan. 5, 2010: ATF agents met with Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Emory Hurley, the lead prosecutor in the matter, according to the briefing paper

Jan. 8, 2010: The aforementioned briefing paper from the ATF Phoenix Field Division sheds further light on the operation:

Jan. 15, 2010: A joint strategy meeting was planned for this day, according to the Jan. 8, 2010 ATF document, with the representatives from the ATF, the DEA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Jan. 16, 2010: Jaime Avila purchased three Romarm 7.62 rifles from Lone Wolfe Trading Company near Glendale, Ariz. According to the report, he also bought guns illegally in April and June of 2010.

Jan. 26, 2010: Operation Fast and Furious receives funding from the Justice Department's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF)

March 10, 2010: A memo from Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer authorizes a wire tap application as part of Operation Fast and Furious.

March 11, 2010: An e-mail from Voth to Gillett, with the subject line "Director's questions"....

March 12, 2010: David Voth, the Phoenix Group VII supervisor, sent an e-mail addressing the divide between field agents who wanted to halt the operation and the chain of command who supported the operation.

April 2, 2010: David Voth, the Phoenix Group VII supervisor, sent an e-mail to a redacted recipient that says: "Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during the month of March alone, to include numerous Barrett .50 caliber riffles.

April 12, 2010: An e-mail from Voth to Gillett says that the next day, the ATF Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations William McMahon will get a briefing on the operation.

Dec. 14, 2010: U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, 40, was murdered in Rio Rico, Ariz., by suspected operatives of a Mexican drug-smuggling organization. Police arrested four suspects in the murder.

Dec. 15, 2010: An e-mail exchange among ATF agents at 7:45 p.m. confirmed that the two of the weapons that Jaime Avila had purchased in January 2010 as part of Operation Fast and Furious were found at Terry's murder scene.

December-January 2010: "According to Acting Director Melson, he became aware of this startling possibility [that guns were being smuggled into Mexico with the awareness of the ATF] only after the [December] murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry

Jan. 8, 2011: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is shot while meeting with constituents in Tucson. ATF agents were initially worried she might have been shot by a gun sold through Operation Fast and Furious.

Jan. 19, 2011: Operation Fast and Furious results in the indictment of 20 straw purchasers, including Jaime Avila.

Jan. 25, 2011: Phoenix Special Agent in Charge William Newell held a press conference announcing the indictment of the 20 people as a result of Operation Fast and Furious. When asked if agents purposefully allowed weapons to enter Mexico, Newell says, "Hell, no."

Jan. 27, 2011: "Members of the Judiciary Committee have received numerous allegations that the ATF sanctioned the sale of hundreds of assault weapons to suspected straw purchasers, who then allegedly transported these weapons throughout the southwestern border area and into Mexico.

Jan. 31, 2011: Grassley wrote a second letter to Melson that says whistleblowers were being targeted in the agency.

Feb. 1, 2011: The Arizona Republic and 0ther media, such as The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times reported on this in the following days.

Feb. 4, 2011: Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote Grassley denying that the Justice Department knowingly "sanctioned" the sale of guns to people they believed were going to deliver them to Mexican drug cartels.

Feb. 15, 2011: Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata is murdered in Mexico. The Associated Press later reported (on Feb. 28), based on an unnamed source, that the weapon used to kill Zapata "was shipped through Laredo with the possible knowledge of the ATF."

Feb. 23, 2011: CBS Evening News airs its first piece on Operation Fast and Furious that includes interviews with ATF whistleblowers who say they warned supervisors of potential problems.

March 8, 2011: The Justice Department informed Sen. Grassley that the matter would be reviewed by the DOJ's Office of Inspector General.

March 10, 2011: At a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) asked Holder about the matter.

March 11, 2011: The Contra Costa Times and other news organizations reported that the Mexican attorney general's office, known as the PGR, issued a statement that Mexican authorities were aware of the U.S. anti-gun operation that allowed smugglers to buy weapons under watch of U.S. agents, but that the Mexican government "had no knowledge of the existence of an operation that might include the transgression or controlled trafficking of arms to Mexican territory."

March 22, 2011: President Barack Obama was asked about Operation Fast and Furious on Univision, a Spanish language network.

March 2011: ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson says "he told the Office of Deputy Attorney General at the end of March that the Department needed to reexamine how it was responding to the request for information from Congress,"

May 3, 2011: Holder testified to the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Holder had an exchange about Operation Fast and Furious.

June 16, 2011: Issa told CNSNews.com he believes Holder knew about the operation earlier than he testified.

June 15, 2011: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in conjunction with the staff of Sen. Grassley, released a report on Operation Fast and Furious. On that day, the House oversight committee held a hearing on the matter. Four ATF agents testified about their opposition to the operation.

June 27, 2011: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney could not provide the answer when CNSNews.com asked him for the exact date when President Obama first learned about Operation Fast and Furious.

June 29, 2011: A reporter asked President Obama about the matter at a White House news conference.

July 4, 2011: Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson and speaks to congressional investigators from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Melson met with investigators with his personal attorney present-not Justice Department attorneys.

July 5, 2011: Chairman Issa and Sen. Grassley wrote a letter to Attorney General Holder about Melson's testimony. The letter says Melson "claimed that ATF's senior leadership would have preferred to be more cooperative with our inquiry much earlier in the process.

Most of the Truth About Obama's Business International 'Embellishments' Was Out There -- In 2005

On Thursday, at the Washington Examiner, Byron York concentrated on Obama's clear antipathy towards business as described in David Maraniss's recent book about President Obama (Barack Obama: The Story) relating to Dear Leader's brief stint at a company called Business International.

Though that's obviously a critical point to make during the 2012 campaign, a more foundational one is that this mindset, as well as most of Obama's stream of "embellishments" (most people would call them "lies") about his time at BI, were known or knowable well before the Illinois senator decided to run for president in early 2007 -- even the one that has the folks at Michelle Malkin's Twitchy.com all atwitter, namely that Obama didn't, as he claimed, have a secretary.

As I noted in September 2008 (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog; HT to Sweetness & Light), "Denko" at the Analyze This blog, who asserts that he worked at BI when Obama was there and claimed that "I'm a fan of Barack Obama," wrote that what Obama did at BI "bears only a loose resemblance to what he wrote in his book."

The post by "Denko," whom Sweetness & Light identified as Dan Armstrong, is dated July 9, 2005. I don't recall anyone in the establishment press questioning this aspect of Obama's past, which is of course consistent with perhaps the most comprehensive and deliberate non-vetting of a major party presidential candidate in American history.

Here's the comparison of Obama's book-based descriptions of his work and time at BI to "Denko's" remembrances I worked up in 2008 (bolds and italicized comments have been added in this post):

The last excerpted paragraph from Armstrong's post I used in 2008 which I originally did not include, because I believe that he has since revised the post now reads (bold is mine):

A commenter at Armstrong's post who claims to have also worked at BI says that Obama "interviewing someone for an article, and it may have been a German banker." That hardly fills in all the holes.

If discovered by a subsequent employer, this kind of documented embellishment (i.e., serial fibbing) would ordinarily lead to the subject employee's termination. Instead, the narrative, as well as the rest of his fabrications, got Barack Obama elected President.

In what is meant to be a bombshell political story, the Washington Post is attempting to paint Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney as a private equity boss who got rich by shipping American jobs overseas.

But the WaPo seems more than a little fuzzy about the basics of how international business works - and the difference between outsourcing and offshoring.

But whatever the reason, WaPo World's version of Romney's business career at Bain Capital may not correspond with reality, via a source familiar with Bain's activities as well as a detailed analysis of the piece.

Romney Reality: What CSI actually did was provide U.S. software developers with technical support and sales. Example: It provided domestic outsourcing - which is different than overseas offshoring - for call centers and help desks. As far as its international business goes, CSI was reseller of U.S. software in European markets. In other words, they helped distribute U.S. software around the world.

2. WaPoWorld:

Two years after Bain invested in the firm, CSI merged with another enterprise to form a new company called Stream International Inc. Stream immediately became active in the growing field of overseas calls centers. . By 1997, Stream was running three tech-support call centers in Europe and was part of a call center joint venture in Japan, an SEC filing shows. . Stream continued to expand its overseas call centers. And Bain's role also grew with time. It ultimately became the majority shareholder in Stream in 1999 several months after Romney left Bain to run the Salt Lake City Olympics. . Bain sold its stake in Stream in 2001, after the company further expanded its call center operations across Europe and Asia.

Romney Reality: Those overseas call centers in the WaPo story were based in Europe and Japan, and serviced international customers of U.S. companies in their local languages.

3. WaPo World:

The corporate merger that created Stream also gave birth to another, related business known as Modus Media Inc., which specialized in helping companies outsource their manufacturing. Modus Media was a subsidiary of Stream that became an independent company in early 1998. Bain was the largest shareholder, SEC filings show. . In December 1997, it announced it had contracted with Microsoft to produce software and training products at a center in Australia. Modus Media said it was already serving Microsoft from Asian locations in Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan and in Europe and the United States. .

Two years later, Modus Media told the SEC it was performing outsource packaging and hardware assembly for IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Computer Corp. The filing disclosed that Modus had operations on four continents, including Asian facilities in Singapore, Taiwan, China and South Korea, and European facilities in Ireland and France, and a center in Australia. .

Romney Reality: Again, what Modus Media did was help companies like Microsoft and IBM sell their products internationally. Products destined for American consumers were manufactured here at home.

Romney Reality: This WaPo charge is particularly weak. Turns out GT Bicycles had overseas suppliers before Bain invested in the company. The story doesn't outright suggest Bain moved jobs overseas, but it does lead readers to make that erroneous leap for themselves.

5. WaPo World:

Another Bain investment was electronics manufacturer SMTC Corp. In June 1998, during Romney's last year at Bain, his private equity firm acquired a Colorado manufacturer that specialized in the assembly of printed circuit boards. That was one of several preliminary steps in 1998 that would culminate in a corporate merger a year later, five months after Romney left Bain. In July 1999, the Colorado firm acquired SMTC Corp., SEC filings show. Bain became the largest shareholder of SMTC and held three seats on its corporate board. Within a year of Bain taking over, SMTC told the SEC it was expanding production in Ireland and Mexico.

Romney Reality: As the story notes, SMTC wasn't even acquired until months after Romney left Bain Capital. Is Romney running for president or is Bain?

6. WaPo World:

Just as Romney was ending his tenure at Bain, it reached the culmination of negotiations with Hyundai Electronics Industry of South Korea for the $550 million purchase of its U.S. subsidiary, Chippac, which manufactured, tested and packaged computer chips in Asia. The deal was announced a month after Romney left Bain. Reports filed with the SEC in late 1999 showed that Chippac had plants in South Korea and China and was responsible for marketing and supplying the company's Asian-made computer chips. An overwhelming majority of Chippac's customers were U.S. firms, including Intel, IBM and Lucent Technologies.

Romney Reality: Stop the presses! Chippac was purchased in March 1999, a month after Romney left Bain Capital. Prior owner was Hyundai, a South Korean company that already had factories in Asia at the time of sale. So buying a company with foreign factories is the same, apparently, as "shipping jobs overseas," according to the Washington Post.

And that's it. That's the big story that's supposed to derail Romney campaign, I guess. Instead of the headline "Romney's Bain Capital invested in companies that moved jobs overseas, " perhaps the WaPoheadline should have been something different.

- "Romney's Bain Capital invested in companies that expanded overseas jobs overseas after he left"

- "Romney's Bain Capital invested in companies that had international employees before it bought them"

- "Romney's Bain Capital invested in companies that created foreign call centers to deal with foreign customers"

And it's also just bad economics to suggest offshoring is necessarily a job killer. As this study suggests, "Increased globalisation of manufacturing processes does not necessarily imply a hollowing-out of domestic production . Firms that go abroad expand employment at home relative to non-globalizers."

Bad reporting, it would seem, and bad economics, absolutely, from The Washington Post.

June is "Gay Pride Month," which immediately begs two questions: Says who? and, How is it that we have become a nation of such compliant sheep that we accept this rubbish?

The Viacom corporation, on the other hand, thinks it's the perfect opportunity for its MTV and gay Logo channels to announce they're creating a second "It Gets Better" anti-bullying special starring their favorite gay bully, Dan Savage. On the cusp of this news, Savage denounced the gay group GOProud for endorsing Mitt Romney for president: "The GOP's house faggots grab their ankles on this one."

This F-bomb has destroyed careers in Hollywood - see Isaiah Washington, the former star of "Grey's Anatomy." But Savage just signed with Creative Artists Agency to line up his business offers. One wonders if the reporters who cover television will ever dare to ask the Viacom brass how they square Savage's routine bullying bursts - whether into a microphone or into a keyboard - with the transparently false anti-bullying persona they're promoting to make themselves look community-minded.

Hypocrisy doesn't get more blatant than this. It's coming not just from Viacom, but from all those diversity-loving, tolerance-dreaming press critics who ultimately really don't mean a word of it.

Savage is "more mainstream than ever before," oozed a recent profile in the Chicago Tribune. In their article, we discover it is now "more mainstream" for Savage to proclaim that the nation's most devout religious leaders are cheerleaders for teen suicides. "Every dead gay kid is a moral, rhetorical victory for them. They stand on a pile of dead gay kids."

The Tribune didn't find this inaccurate or offensive. Referring to Savage's fear that "It Gets Better" makes him look like a "milquetoast," the Tribune declared, "If Dan Savage is milquetoast, then he is a particularly piquant version."

At a student journalism conference in early May, Savage caused a student walkout as he trashed the Bible as a "radical pro-slavery document." If it was wrong on slavery, "on the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced...What are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? 100 percent," Savage said. He mocked the students who walked out in protest "It's funny, as someone who is the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-assed some people react when you push back," Savage said.

In a new interview with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Savage repeated that "religious people need to learn to ignore what the Bible says about gay people, or seems to say, the same way they ignore what the Bible says about shellfish and slavery. We're not asking religious people to do anything they haven't already done, which is to let go of the parts of the Bible that discriminate. They've done it before with slavery and they can do it again with homosexuality."

Savage isn't hiding his agenda: Hey hey, ho ho, the Holy Bible has got to go. Hollywood has made this view "more mainstream than ever," and he knows it. This secular sex columnist doesn't have any need to express civility toward his opponents. There is only the flamethrower and the grenades for this commando.

This line was also in his "more mainstream than ever" basket, equating marriage to rape: " We should start calling male-on-female rape `traditional' rape. Because if all `traditional' means is that it's between a man and woman, that's setting the bar pretty low."

MTV just wrapped up its season of "Savage U," the show where Savage travels to college campuses doling out profane sex "education."For twelve episodes on twelve college campuses, MTV posed Savage as the compassionate wise man as he says the most outrageous things. In the season finale at Texas Tech, Savage preached that contraceptives must be used to prevent "the world's oldest and most disruptive sexually transmitted infection: pregnancy." He confessed his MTV sidekick Lauren Hutchinson doesn't like that lingo because "she's so sentimental that way about babies."

Savage is so unsentimental that he's insulted his own adopted son D. J. as thuggish. In an adoring NPR interview last year with Terry Gross, he cracked, "If he didn't have us for parents - he's a little thuggy snowboarder-skateboarder dude - and I like to think that he's blessed to have us as parents because you can see in him the capacity to be a bully." Thanks, "Dad."

Earth to Viacom: You are ridiculous when you announce anti-bullying specials hosted by pathetic bullies like Dan Savage. It makes about as much sense as a special promoting vegetarianism hosted by Ronald McDonald.

Former Network TV Producer Disgusted by Andrea Mitchell Wawa Edits: 'I'm Done' Denying Liberal Bias

Greg Kandra, a blogger and Catholic deacon whose last job in network TV was at CBS working for Katie Couric, took to his Deacon's Bench blog to lament the sorry, biased state of TV news as NBC's Andrea Mitchell attempted to edit Mitt Romney's remarks at a Wawa convenience store into a "supermarket scanner moment" that would make him look like an out-of-touch rich guy.

I used to defend the networks and tut-tut liberal bias, he wrote, but no more. "Forget it," he said, "I'm done. You deserve what they're saying about you."

I'm tired. Truly. I've grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible and explain the inexplicable. For years, people have stomped their feet and pounded their fists and snorted "Liberal media bias!" and I've always tut-tutted and shooshed them and said, "No, no. Calm down. They meant well. It was just a misunderstanding. A mistake. These things happen." I spent over 25 years working in the oft-reviled Mainstream Media and I saw up close and personal how the sausage was made. I knew the people who wielded the knives and wore the aprons, and could vouch (most of the time, anyway) for their good intentions.

Forget it. I'm done. You deserve what they're saying about you. It's earned. You have worked long and hard to merit the suspicion, acrimony, mistrust and revulsion that the media-buying public increasingly heaps upon you. You have successfully eroded any confidence, dispelled any trust, and driven your audience into the arms of the Internet and the blogosphere, where biases are affirmed and like-minded people can tell each other what they hold to be true, since nobody believes in objective reality any more. You have done a superlative job of diminishing what was once a great profession and undermining one of the vital underpinnings of democracy, a free press.

Hoffenblum divides the electoriate into two groups, the "14%'ers" and the "86%'ers." The "14%'ers" are actively involved in politics, they participate in local elections, and they keep themselves up-to-date on what is happening in their communities. The other 86% don't much care about politics and don't spend any effort informing themselves about what is going on.

The informed "14%'ers" are much more partisan than the uninformed "86%'ers" and get their information from a much more diverse range of sources. The "86%'ers" - when they learn anything - tend to get their information through television and advertising.

I've used this info in numerous radio interviews and other opportunities and changed the numbers to 15% and 85% (CPAs like numbers with 0s and 5s :->), but what Hoffenblum says rings very true, and explains a lot.

It explains why the economy gets a bad rap it doesn't deserve. It explains why the War in Iraq's support has deteriorated. It explains any number of items that cause people to answer polls and vote to the left of where they really are philosophically. It happens because 85%-86% of the population gets its news from top-of-hour radio broadcasts, what little local and national evening news they overhear, and the morning infotainment exercises. It's not exacty a secret which direction those items lean. The only consolation s that the 85%-86% don't vote as consistently as the active 14%-15%, but those that do (obviously) still outnumber the actives.

Until the center-right side of the blogs and the rest New Media (and that would include talk radio) figure out a way to reach the other 85%-86% that the formerly Mainstream (and more agenda-driven than ever) Media is getting to continually, it's going to be difficult to have a consistent impact.

RUSH: Peter in Rochester, New York. Great to have you on the program, how are you, sir?

CALLER: Rush, I wanted to give your millions and millions of listeners a heads up as to what we're up against. I'm a doctor in Upstate New York here, and I was seeing a patient in a room and the patient said to me: "Can you hand me my Obama phone?" So I said, "What?"

RUSH: I think I know where you're going here. I think I've heard this, go ahead.

CALLER: Well, I had not heard of that. And so I asked, "What's that?" And he said, "This is a free cell phone for poor people and we get minutes and everything." So that was all the conversation I had with him. But it occurred to me that if these Obama phones are going out all over the country --

CALLER: -- then would it be hard to believe that there's going to be text messages and phone calls and all kinds of things?

RUSH: No. In fact, let me give you a shocking statistic. I read this just this week. Obama has 27 million Facebook friends, followers. Romney has 1.8 million. The Twitter numbers are not as large. But the supremacy by the Obama campaign on those social sites is overwhelming. And with these Obama phones, of course they can send texts out. Absolutely they can. They probably do. But the same thing happens if you follow Obama on Twitter or Facebook. It's not to say that everybody following Obama is a lap dog, eager beaver, can't get enough of Obama, but that's how many people have signed up and there's always varying degrees of interest. Everybody following me on Facebook is rabid, for example, but they're not that way for Obama. We first heard about these Obama phones, I was shocked, just like you are when you discovered it, last year sometime, and I had no idea. And you're right, these people get minutes. It's all paid for. The phone is paid for. The usage is paid for. By us.

CALLER: Around election time I'm wondering what kind of messages are going to be going out, "Meet at such and such a place. Come here get a carton of cigarettes and we'll take you to the polls," blah, blah, blah.

RUSH: I do. However they could use this. And that's a good catch. Did you talk to this guy about it at all? Did you just let it drop?

CALLER: Yeah, I was talking to him, and in the context of his medical care he was going to need to make a phone call to family. So he asked me to hand him the Obama phone.

RUSH: Let me just tell you. Here are the details of this. There's a website, ObamaPhone.net. I'm going to read to you: "The Obama Phone Program. What exactly is the free Obama phone? The free Obama phone is a program that is meant to help the financially unstable who cannot afford access to a cell phone. Communication should not be limited to people in relation to what they are able to afford." They actually call it the Obama phone. And here are some frequently asked questions from the Obama phone website:

Now, in the "who pays for the Obama phone," in the Obama phone questions: "Lifeline is a government sponsored program, but who is paying for it. Some people claim that the government is using taxpayer's money to run this program, however, the claim is false. Universal Service Fund (USF) which is administered by Federal Communication Commission along the Universal Service Administration Company (USAC), pays for the Lifeline phone assistance program."

So you and I are paying for Obama phones via the charges that are tacked on to our phone bill for the Universal Service Fund. The Al Gore tax, do you remember that tax? It's still on your phone bill. To wire farms for land line phones. We are still paying that tax. And then there's Internet taxes, Internet access for the poor and number of other things. The outfit that administers that is the Universal Service Fund.

If you can decipher your phone bill you pay every month a tax that goes into the Universal Service Fund and that's what's buying Obama phones and providing service for the people who use them. And, of course, it's known who has them. It's known what their numbers are. And they can be mass texted, individually, I would assume. But, look, before you panic, folks, this is not new. This has been out there for years, and Obama is in dire straits. When you hear about this, and you think, "How do we fight this? Oh my gosh."

RUSH: Folks, this cell phone problem. Government-provided cell phones is not a new program. I don't know how long it's been around, but it's not a new program. Calling them "Obama phones" is new. That's what's new about this. And, of course, that's being done purposely to make the people think that these free phones are coming from Obama's stash, that they're personal gifts from Obama. And, in fact, the Obama phone site looks like Obama's campaign site. It has the logo and all that stuff.

RUSH: They're getting worried over at CNN. They can't hide this anymore. They can't pretend that we're in some kind of "recovery" here. This is this morning on Starting Point. That's the Soledad O'Brien show. She had on the business and economics correspondent, Christine Romans, and they had a chat about the economy.

O'BRIEN: Rattled nerves sending the markets around the world lower, triggering fears of a double-dip recession right here in the United States after Moody's downgraded 15 of the world's biggest banks.

ROMANS: The second worst day for stocks in the country this year. When you have people worried, talking about a slowing global economy and what that's gonna mean for banks, it just caused all kinds of concern. We've got contagion from Europe we're concerned about. We're worried about slowing numbers from China, from Europe -- from Germany in particular. Uh, we had all kinds of macroeconomic data yesterday that was starting to show what many people have feared: That the global economy is slowing down. When it slows down, that means American factories are selling fewer things. It means American business owners are not hiring people because they're worried about the global slowdown. It starts to feed on itself.

RUSH: She's just now figuring this out, but at least they're figuring it out. They're late to the party on this, but at least they're figuring it out. It's not just "the global slowdown." Small businesses on Main Street are looking at the fact they don't have any customers. The heck with Germany and Europe! They don't have any customers. There's no reason to expand or hire anybody. And they don't know what's coming. They don't know what's coming with health care. They don't know if Obama is going to get reelected. If he does, they know it's disaster. Why invest the money now? We're in the midst of paralysis here.

So after hearing that, Soledad O'Brien is scared to death. She wants to know if this means that we are headed for a double dipper.

ROMANS: We can't say right now there will be a double-dip recession. We just know that growth is slowing around the world and that is the big fear. We've got other things going on, the fiscal cliff is looming, debt ceiling stuff that's going to be coming up, political problems around the world. When there's prosperity, politics is not quite so dangerous. But when you don't have prosperity, the politics become that much more important. So many things to worry about. I can make a list of all these things to worry about and maybe two things you don't have to worry about. So that's where we are in the middle of the summer.

RUSH: They're not happy, folks. They're very concerned, very concerned. That's CNN. Double-dip recession. What happened to the recovery talk?

RUSH: Let's see. David Maraniss. David Maraniss has this book on Obama, and he's upset. Maraniss is not happy over how the right wing is using his book. What Maraniss is doing -- and I don't think he realizes it because he's angry at what's happening. He's angry at the reaction to his book. What he's doing is pointing out all the things in Obama's autobiographies which are not true. He talked about Obama's great basketball talents in high school yesterday that Obama wrote about in his book. It turns out he wasn't a special player.

Maraniss is poking holes in many Obama assertions in his autobiography, and he's pointing out that they're not true. Maraniss is saying, (imitating Maraniss) "I don't know what's happening here. The right wing has taken my book. I'm not a fact-checker here, I'm a historian. I'm just helping get the record straight." He's vetting Obama and doesn't realize it. What he's doing is demonstrating that nobody read Obama's books. Well, that's not true. What he's doing is demonstrating that nobody questioned anything in Obama's books. So Maraniss has come along, he's documenting lies and falsehoods, and as far he's concerned, all he's doing is getting the record straight. He is now a little shocked here that people are reacting to his book the way that they are. Let's grab sound bite number 18. This is on CNN's Starting Point today, and the host is Soledad O'Brien. And all she says was that President Obama wrote a memoir, Dreams from My Father, and Maraniss took over.

MARANISS: The buzz about the book challenging his memoir. That's not the point of my book. I'm not writing it as a fact-checker. I'm writing it as a historian. People, for ideological reasons, are pouncing on that part of what my book is, but in fact I'm just trying to tell the truth. A memoir is far different from rigorous factual biography. It's not as though I'm trying to say, "Ah-ha, I got you," each point. It's just I'm trying to present the way I really found it, which is in many cases different from what he presented. The right wing sort of is at once dismissing the book and they're cherry-picking every single negative thing in it to use against Obama. It's almost why I didn't want to write this book.

RUSH: Oh, my heart bleeds. So here we have Maraniss, who is an Obama supporter and he wrote this book with Obama's blessing and it was supposed to be a campaign valentine. This book was supposed to help Obama, it was gonna add to Obama's marvelous history. He's pointing out all the things Obama did not tell the truth about, or lied about, and so people are picking up on that, saying, "Well, where was the press vetting Obama? Obama can't even tell the truth to his own autobiography." Maraniss, "That's not what this is. It's not a fact-checking book. I'm a historian." He's not happy. You really have to wonder how bright some of these people are when it comes to down to just plain old common sense.

You got a guy who wrote an autobiography, you research it, you find out a bunch in it's not true. You write a book that corrects it, and you get mad at the people who focus on it? "Well, you know, a memoir doesn't have to be accurate." It doesn't? Somebody can just lie about their own life and it's okay, as long as somebody comes along and corrects it and adds to it? So let's see. TheBlaze.com columnist Will Cain, same show, said, "I think it raises serious questions about what the role of a memoir is, Mr. Maraniss. Is it truth telling, or is it the ability to massage and composite characters? I think through your research, it questions what the purpose of a memoir is and if it's fiction or nonfiction."

MARANISS: He wrote it when he was in his thirties before he was running for president. He had no clue that people like me would be coming along later and trying to tell the real story. But it is a legitimate question about where the line is in memoir. My major point is, yes, there are discrepancies between what really happened and the way he presented it. I don't think they're venal. I think he did it for reasons of trying to tell a story about his search to find himself. I don't think he was trying to create this mythological character. Many of the mythologies in the book were just passed along to him by his own family.

RUSH: Are you following? Am I the only one who's incredulous over this? We're now gonna debate where the line is in memoir? Have we gotten so smart, become so intellectual that a memoir does not have to be true? No, he's just trying to find himself. Of course there are discrepancies. We can't hold that against him. He didn't know that he was gonna run for president. BS. .... Well, family told the lies, not him, big whoop. Let me tell you one of the lies. There's a bunch of 'em that Maraniss has found. You know, one of the things that everybody has been led to believe because Obama says it in his book, Obama said that his grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was taken prisoner and tortured by the British during the Mau Mau rebellion. It didn't happen!

"A new biography of Barack Obama has established that his grandfather was not, as is related in the President's own memoir, detained by the British in Kenya and found that claims that he was tortured were a fabrication. 'Barack Obama: The Story' by David Maraniss catalogues dozens of instances in which Obama deviated significantly from the truth in his book 'Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance'. The 641-page book punctures the carefully crafted narrative of Obama's life. One of the enduring myths of Obama's ancestry is that his paternal grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama, who served as a cook in the British Army, was imprisoned in 1949 by the British for helping the anti-colonial Mau Mau rebels and held for several months," tortured and so forth. This has been advanced as the reason that Obama hates the Brits and gave back the Churchill bust. It turns out nothing of the kind happened to his grandfather. And we're not supposed to think anything of this?

RUSH: An outfit called BuzzFeed has listed the nine lies uncovered accidentally by Maraniss. You know, it is fascinating, Maraniss doesn't understand what he's done here. He thought he was writing an election year valentine for Obama. He's pointed out fundamental flaws, very serious misstatements, lies, prevarications, and he doesn't understand why people are focusing on it that way. Right wing people are cherry-picking it, exactly. There's literary license in memoir. My God, the more we listen to the left, the less reason there ever is for truth. Truth floats, and wherever you want it to be is where it ends up, and whatever you want it to be, it is.

So here are the nine lies. Number one, as I just mentioned, Hussein Onyango Obama, Barack's grandfather, was not imprisoned and was not tortured by the Brits. So there's no reason he should hate Churchill or the Brits. The father of his Indonesian stepfather was not killed by Dutch soldiers in the fight for independence. Remember now, this memoir, the entire title of Obama's book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, the point of this book is what a tough time Obama and his family have had because of race, how unfair the world has been to the Onyango Obango Obamas because of race. So nothing happened to his grandfather. The father of his Indonesian stepfather was not killed by Dutch soldiers.

"Regina, a friend at Occidental who Obama writes about as a symbol of the authentic African-American experience turns out to be based on Carolina Boss, who is white. Regina was the name of her Swiss grandmother." I think this is the woman who Obama complained didn't understand the anger of a black man. Number four, "Obama projected a racial incident onto his New York girlfriend that he later told Maraniss had happened in Chicago. Obama wrote that he broke up with his New York girlfriend in part because she was white. But his next girlfriend, an anthropologist in Chicago, was also white. Obama cuts out two white college roommates entirely," because it didn't advance the racial narrative. They just didn't exist.

"Obama wrote about his high school friends as an alienated, ne'er-do-well 'club of disaffection.' In fact, most members of the 'Choom Gang' were 'decent students and athletes' who went on to successful careers." They were not reprobates as he writes about them. "Obama's mother left his father, not the other way around." Everybody's of the opinion that Obama's dad ran off, Barack Hussein Sr., Barack Kardashian Sr. ran away. It's his mother that left his father.

"In his memoir, Obama mentions he missed out on playing time in high school basketball because he coach preferred players who 'play like white boys do.' In fact, Obama had to work hard just to make the team, and race had nothing to do with it." And when you get into all these things in detail, what becomes obvious is that all of these lies and composites and whatever other techniques that one uses in memoir now have been created to make Obama out to be a victim. He's a victim of an unstable family. He's a victim of a white oriented basketball coach. He's a victim of the Brits who put his grandfather in jail and tortured him. He's a victim here and a victim there. And all of this is to explain his rage and to justify the rage.

Toby Harnden writes about this in the UK Daily Mail. He writes that "Maraniss also casts a skeptical eye on Obama's grandmother's tales of racism in Kansas, doubting whether she was ever chastised for addressing a black janitor as 'Mister' or ridiculed for playing with a black girl." That didn't happen. "Obama himself, Maraniss finds, deliberately distorted elements of his own life to fit into a racial narrative." And Maraniss doesn't understand why people are interested in this for the reasons that they are.

"Obama himself, Maraniss finds, deliberately distorted elements of his own life to fit into a racial narrative. The author writes that Obama presents himself in his memoir as `blacker and more disaffected' than he really was. The memoir `accentuates characters drawn from black acquaintances who played lesser roles his real life but could be used to advance a line of thought, while leaving out or distorting the actions of friends who happened to be white'. ... Dick Opar, a relative by marriage to Onyango and a senior Kenyan police official, gave what Maraniss judged to be the most authoritative word. `People make up stories,' he said. `If you get arrested, you say it was the fight for independence, but they are arrested for another thing.'" That was about the grandfather. He was arrested, but it wasn't because he was working with the Mau Maus and opposing colonialism and all that other stuff. (interruption) Well, that's your term, Snerdley: "Race-obsessed manipulator."

Snerdley said that, and Snerdley has 100% slave blood. Doesn't have to make it up. Snerdley is certified to criticize. He's our Official Obama Criticizer. He's certified to criticize. Hundred percent slave blood. (interruption) Calm down in there. I got it handled here. Snerdley is screaming at me over the IFB, "Who is it that makes up blackness? Why do you have to make up blackness?" That's a good point we could ask blue-collar Joe Biden. Joe Biden's out there ticked off that Obama's saying he's a blue collar guy. Here, grab sound bite 17 before we get to sound bite 35. We had this earlier in the week. Obama is out there telling everybody that his vice president is a blue-collar guy, knows what it's like to work, and Biden is ticked off about this.

BIDEN: My dad never worked in a Food Fair. My dad never wore a blue collar. Barack makes me sound like I just climbed out of a mine in Scranton, Pennsylvania, carrying a lunch bucket. No one in my family worked in a factory.

RUSH: So Biden is intent everybody knows that his family never did a day's work in their life, never worked blue collar, who do they think you're kidding? My family didn't wear blue collars. So Maraniss doesn't understand why all this is important to people. Now, I want to go back to one of our all time top five sound bites on this program. It is from October 30th, 2008, the Charlie Rose Show, Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw. Now, you've heard it, but why am I gonna play it again? Because, remember, now, these guys say that they know Obama principally from his books. That's how they know Obama. In admitting here they don't know anything about him, they say that all they know came from his books, which Maraniss has now exposed as not factual. Here's the sound bite.

BROKAW: We don't know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.

ROSE: I don't really know. And do we know anything about the people who are advising him?

ROSE: He's principally known through his autobiography and through very aspirational [sic] speeches.

RUSH: (imitating Brokaw) "You know, it's an interesting question." Charlie Rose says, "Do we know anything about the people who are advising him?" Brokaw, "You know, it's an interesting question." They're two journalists. Their job is to find out stuff for us. Journalists! "There's a lot about him we don't know." Your job is to find out and tell everybody else. And they admit here, well, basically all we know is what's in his autobiographies. And Maraniss has taken care of that for us. So the bad week of Barack Obama has morphed into a bad two weeks and looking now to a bad month. And now we got Fast and Furious, and everybody with the big question, "What's Obama hiding?" That's the question asked and asked again, what is Obama hiding by claiming executive privilege on Fast and Furious?

RUSH: Now, this thing with Obama and his books, this disturbs me. I don't know why. Who is he lying to here? Who's he think is gonna read this book? Why go through all this? Look what's happening: We're talking about the president of the United States. He's been president for 3-1/2 years, and we are still learning things that we don't know about the guy and we're not sure that what we know is accurate. Now, contrast that with me. I just use myself as an example, 25 years -- well, 24 years -- here behind the Golden EIB Microphone, and 3-1/2 years in Sacramento before that.

If somebody went out and started doing a biography on me, there's not one thing you'd learn about me that you don't already know, for all intents and purposes. I have not lied about various aspects of my life for authenticity or whatever. But this guy is obsessed with race. He is obsessed with coming off as authentically black. It's troubling. It's disturbing. Who does this? Who does this kind of stuff? I can't quite put my finger on it, but this doesn't jibe. And we're talking about somebody who is president of the United States, and we have people excusing it! They're making excuses for it.

"Well, it's memoir! In memoir you have plenty of latitude, Mr. Limbaugh. You need to understand that." Well, I thought an autobiography was what happened to you in your life, as told by you. I don't understand composites and making it up and leaving out certain people who helped you along the way 'cause they're not the right skin color. What is that about? Why do you leave certain people out who helped you because they're not black? I don't know what it is, but it's disturbing. And it's disturbing that we have all kinds of people, the cognoscenti on the left, who are doing everything they can to cover it up.

RUSH: Hey, folks, our friends at Breitbart have found 38 falsehoods. Breitbart is tallying things up. So far, they found 38 falsehoods in Obama's first autobiography. The left will defend this as simply an optimistic story about race and identity in the 20th century or something along those gobbledygook lines.

Conservative Review
Issue #232	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	June 24, 2012