Lovely Photos: Kate Beckinsale in White

She's fabulous, at Celebslam, "In beautiful people news ... Kate Beckinsale" (via Linkiest).

Latest Obama Campaign Ad Defames Mitt Romney as a 'Felon'

Stephanie Cutter's original smear of Mitt Romney as a "felon" has already been denounced as reprehensible. You'd think the campaign would move on. But no, here comes a new web ad which demands that Romney "come clean," as if he's a two-bit criminal. See the Weekly Standard, "Obama Campaign Brings Up 'Felons' in Latest Ad."

More at Memeorandum.

The screencap with "felon" is at the post.

Stephanie Cutter's Twitter feed is here. Click through and protest her repugnant smear campaign against the GOP nominee. Just tell her politely that lies and defamation have no place in this campaign.

Missy Franklin's Priceless

I was thinking this last night. That smile is spectacular.

At the Wall Street Journal, "A Priceless Gold for Missy Franklin":

LONDON — Here she is, The Amateur. It's a quaint notion these days, deemed unrealistic by most, crazy by some. How does a world-class modern athlete—thriving in a potentially lucrative sport—escape the seductive grasp of professionalism, with its paychecks and sponsors and perquisites?

Isn't pro the way to go? Who among us would not bite the apple? Who could resist the Wheaties box, the lime-colored sports car and the fresh-built mansion with a private screening room serving hot-buttered popcorn?

Especially if we were 17.

But so far Missy Franklin has resisted. She is the exception, not because she wanted to make some kind of grand statement about sports, but because she likes who she is right now. She's the teenage superstar happy to still be a teenager—living in the town she grew up, swimming for her high school team, getting coached by the same coach who has guided her since she was a 7-year-old Starfish.

She hasn't crossed that bright line. Franklin is due to graduate high school in 2013, and she says she wants to swim in college, where NCAA rules prohibit her from taking the cash.

But wowzers, it's gonna be so much cash.

Because Franklin is suddenly cast in one of the most high-profile, remunerative roles in sport: the Olympic sensation. Monday night in London, Franklin won her first gold medal, in the 100-meter backstroke. Now the 6-foot-1 Franklin isn't a could-be from Colorado with the size 13 feet, a future star on the rise.

She's here, fully arrived, the bona fide thing.

Well, she deserves to cash in at some point. But she's so wholesome it's ridiculous.

Continue reading.

Chick-fil-A Just Latest Example of How Progressives Threaten Freedom of Religion

At the Heritage Foundation, "Chick-fil-A Latest Example of How Same-Sex Marriage Threatens Religious Freedom" (via Bad Blue).

There's a number of examples of progressive anti-religious hatred at the post.

Plus, a link to the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance.

PREVIOUSLY: "Atheist for #LGBT Rights Says Chick-fil-A 'Harms Mor Gays'."

Palestinians Accuse Mitt Romney of 'Racism'

Pot calling the kettle black, and no surprise either.

At Telegraph UK, "Mitt Romney: Israelis richer than Palestinians because of 'hand of providence'."

Mitt Romney was accused of racism after he appeared to suggest that Israelis were richer than Palestinians because of their cultural and religious superiority.

Struggling to regain momentum after a troubled trip to London, where he criticised Olympic preparations, the Republican presidential candidate has stirred up further ill-feeling. He ended the Israeli leg of his world tour on Monday facing Palestinian charges that he promoted "extremism, violence and hatred".

As he prepared to stoke yet more controversy on Tuesday in Poland with a speech hostile to Russia, Mr Romney demonstrated what critics see as a penchant for causing offence abroad at a fundraising breakfast in Jerusalem.

Attempting to bestow praise on his Jewish audience, he told them that Israel was more prosperous than the Palestinian territories because of its culture and the "hand of providence", seen by some Palestinians as a reference to God.

"As you I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognise the power of at least culture and a few other things," he said.

Horrible. Just horrible. An utter abomination. How could you, Mitt Romney?!!

They're Black Flash Mobs, CBS. Get It Right. These Are Black Criminal Flash Mobs

It's the criminal gang demographic whose race shall not be uttered.

At CBS: "Flash mob caught on tape stole $3K in designer jeans, store owner says." It's not just "20 teenagers." It's "20 black teenaagers." You can call 'em out like that, go ahead. Take a chance and be called as RAAAAACIST!! Everything's racist nowadays, so live a little.

Also at Gateway Pundit, "Flash Mobbery Chicago… Youth Mob Loots Clothing Store – Makes Off With $3,000 in Jeans (Video)."

Even Gateway's keeping their race under wraps. Don't want to be slurred as "Hateway," I guess. The progs are going to do it anyway. They don't care about civil rights and black progress. They care about power and social destruction of decency, of law and order. The freaks.

GOP is Killing It With Latest Attack Ads

Actually, the RNC is killing it, and the Romney campaign is there hammering it too.

Via Nice Deb:

And at Astute Bloggers, "THE MOST POWERFUL POLITICAL AD SERIES IN DECADES CONTINUES: THESE HANDS IN OHIO."

Democrats Come Out for Homosexual Marriage in Party Platform

And just a few months ago Obama was still in favor of the traditional, biblical definition of marriage between one man and one woman.

Weasel Zippers reports: "DNC Panders Uncontrollably to Far-Left Base, Makes Gay Marriage an Official Plank of Party's Platform..."

And at the New York Times, "Democrats Draft Gay Marriage Platform."

The party of freaks.

#NBCFail: Twitter Suspends Reporter Guy Adams for Criticizing Olympics

In his last tweet, he published an NBC executive's phone number, and that got him suspended. But still, folks are saying it was NBC complaining that did it, not the tweet, which included a phone number that was not private. Adams was coming down on 'em brutally, but you'd think the big wigs could take it.

See Independent UK, "#NBCFail: Online backlash as Twitter locks out Independent reporter - The Independent’s Los Angeles correspondent Guy Adams has account frozen after criticising US TV network." (Via Mediagazer.)

And here's his response, "Guy Adams: I thought the internet age had ended this kind of censorship - I'm still awaiting a detailed explanation from Twitter as to why my account was immediately suspended."

It's to the point, so read it at the link.

Drone Pilots, Waiting for a Kill Shot, 7,000 Miles Away

At the New York Times, "A Day Job Waiting for a Kill Shot a World Away":

HANCOCK FIELD AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, N.Y. — From his computer console here in the Syracuse suburbs, Col. D. Scott Brenton remotely flies a Reaper drone that beams back hundreds of hours of live video of insurgents, his intended targets, going about their daily lives 7,000 miles away in Afghanistan. Sometimes he and his team watch the same family compound for weeks.

“I see mothers with children, I see fathers with children, I see fathers with mothers, I see kids playing soccer,” Colonel Brenton said.

When the call comes for him to fire a missile and kill a militant — and only, Colonel Brenton said, when the women and children are not around — the hair on the back of his neck stands up, just as it did when he used to line up targets in his F-16 fighter jet.

Afterward, just like the old days, he compartmentalizes. “I feel no emotional attachment to the enemy,” he said. “I have a duty, and I execute the duty.”

Drones are not only revolutionizing American warfare but are also changing in profound ways the lives of the people who fly them.

Colonel Brenton acknowledges the peculiar new disconnect of fighting a telewar with a joystick and a throttle from his padded seat in American suburbia.

When he was deployed in Iraq, “you land and there’s no more weapons on your F-16, people have an idea of what you were just involved with.” Now he steps out of a dark room of video screens, his adrenaline still surging after squeezing the trigger, and commutes home past fast-food restaurants and convenience stores to help with homework — but always alone with what he has done.

“It’s a strange feeling,” he said. “No one in my immediate environment is aware of anything that occurred.”

RTWT.

Rush Limbaugh: Olympics Opening Ceremony a Collectivist Gift to Obama

The transcript is here: "Collectivist Gift to Obama: Olympic Opening Ceremony Honors National Health Care!" (via Memeorandum.)

RELATED: At Independent UK, "David Cameron calls Conservative MP Aidan Burley 'idiotic' after Twitter comments dismissing Olympic Opening Ceremony as 'leftie multicultural crap' - The backbench MP had tweeted 'Thank God the athletes have arrived! Now we can move on from leftie multi-cultural crap'."

Objectifying Women is Human Nature

According to a new research report, at Scientific American, "Our Brains See Men as Whole and Women as Parts" (via Instapundit).

James Holmes Charged With 142 Counts, Including 24 Counts of First Degree Murder

At the Los Angeles Times, "James Holmes charged with first-degree murder in theater shootings."

Also at USA Today, "Insanity defense looks likely in Holmes' case."

Pamela Geller's Victory for Freedom of Speech

Pamela recently prevailed over New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the court case over her Freedom Defense Initiative advertisements.

She talks about it on Sun TV, "VIDEO: PAMELA GELLER ON MICHAEL COREN SUN TV ON FIRST AMENDEMENT WIN."

At the second half of the clip, Michael Coren talks about his recent episode mocking Saudi Arabia, discussed at Blazing Cat Fur: "Canadian anchor appears on screen in full veil to mock niqab-only TV!"

Islamic Jihad Takes Over the Resistance in Syria

It's a big story, even bigger with the appeasement-paper-of-record reporting, "As Syrian War Drags On, Jihadists Take Bigger Role":

BEIRUT, Lebanon — As the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s government grinds on with no resolution in sight, Syrians involved in the armed struggle say it is becoming more radicalized: homegrown Muslim jihadists, as well as small groups of fighters from Al Qaeda, are taking a more prominent role and demanding a say in running the resistance.

The past few months have witnessed the emergence of larger, more organized and better armed Syrian militant organizations pushing an agenda based on jihad, the concept that they have a divine mandate to fight. Even less-zealous resistance groups are adopting a pronounced Islamic aura because it attracts more financing.

Keep reading.

And the far left-wing Guardian UK reports as well, "Syria: foreign jihadists could join battle for Aleppo":

Scores of foreign jihadists have crossed into Syria from Turkey in the past two weeks, some of them telling Syrians that they are planning to travel to Aleppo to join a decisive battle against regime troops.

Syrian residents and a Turkish smuggler interviewed by the Guardian say many of the men have come from the Caucasus, while others had arrived from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Gulf Arab states.

According to locals who have dealt with them, the new arrivals embrace a global jihadist worldview that sets them apart from most leaders in the armed Syrian opposition and is stirring deep discontent among the rebel leadership.

This reminds me of Caroline Glick's piece the other day. Frankly, the Obama administration won't resist a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Syria, so don't expect a big push back against the rising jihadist presence in the country. As Caroline noted:

With Syria's civil war still raging throughout the country, the world media is rife with reports about Syria's Christians fleeing their towns and villages en masse as Islamists from the Syrian opposition target them with death, extortion and kidnapping.

The administration has kowtowed to Russia, while Islamists mount a murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing. And it's not just because of the Obama regime's cluelessness (although there's plenty of that). If the Islamists take over in Syria the administration can claim a hat trick: Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria.

Candice Swanepoel in Muse Magazine

She's "Candy Cane."

More pics at Egotastic.

Anderson Cooper Crosses the Line

From the Center for Security Policy:

Anderson Cooper closed one of five segments of his weeknightly CNN show that he recently devoted to attacking principally Rep. Michele Bachmann with a genuflection towards an iconic newsman, Edward R. Murrow. He deployed against her the gauntlet Murrow threw down to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in March 1954: “The line between investigating and persecuting is a [very] fine one.” If anyone has stepped over that line, however, it is Cooper himself, rather than the Minnesota congresswoman.

Night after night during the week of July 16th, the host of “Anderson Cooper 360” failed to meet even the most basic standards of investigative journalism. The irony is that, in his ill-concealed persecution of Mrs. Bachmann, Cooper has serially engaged in precisely the practices he pillories her and others for allegedly using, by his account, to destroy the reputation of the Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Muslim-American woman named Huma Abedin. Let us count the ways...

Continue reading.

Cooper even goes after Frank Gaffney at this clip:

PREVIOUSLY: "Huma Abedin Gets Police Protection After Being Threatened." And make sure to see Nonie Darwish at that link.

Why the Right Wing Blogosphere Doesn't Cover Islam — UPDATE! 'Weasel Zippers' is Mystery Blogger

At Atlas Shrugs, "The Right's Dirty Little Secret."

Actually, it's a big dirty secret.

I could not help but notice, over the past few years, the right wing blogosphere's silence on jihad and Islam. When I started blogging back in 2004-2005, there were literally scores of counter-jihad blogs in an already crowded field. Seven years later, it is a paltry few, save for Jihadwatch, Creeping Sharia, and political bloggers like Logan's Warning, IOTW, American Power blog, Zilla, .....

It's an excellent essay. Continue reading.

IOTW has this: "Creeping Silence – How the Elite Right-Wing Blogosphere is Selling You Out." Big Fur Hat offers some clues as to the mystery blog cited at Pamela's post. Actually, I don't think it's Weasel Zippers. Sounds more like Red State to me, but frankly, I don't care. I'm not a big monetized blogger. I blog for myself and I blog what I believe, which is freedom and American moral leadership in the world. That kind of stuff is actually politically correct even for some on the right, so I don't worry about it after a while. I keep plugging away to take advantage of my right to freedom of speech while I still have it.

Photo: "Pamela Geller Book Signing!" And it's not Robert Stacy McCain either. He pisses off everybody!

UPDATE: Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch confirms the report at iOWNTHEWORLD. According to Robert:

Big Fur Hat over at iOwntheWorld has figured it out: the blogger being discussed below is Weasel Zippers. Zip and I had once been friendly and actually had been planning to meet again for lunch when he wrote me and asked me to stop linking his posts at Jihad Watch, because then when Pamela Geller would link my posts, a link to his site would show up at Atlas Shrugs, and he didn't want to have anything to do with her because of her exposure of Rick Perry's Islam curriculum. When I responded incredulously, he grew progressively more abusive, finally ending up by repeating the Leftist/Islamic supremacist smear that I was responsible for the Norway murders. He still does cover jihad issues at Weasel Zippers, but not in a way that would trouble anyone who buys the propaganda line, purveyed by both Leftists and Fox, that Islam is a Religion of Peace that has been Hijacked by a Tiny Minority of Extremists.

Check Robert's post for the links.

I think I mentioned it at the time, but I was going easy on the right-side blog wars during the GOP primaries. I'd been there done that in 2008, and losing friends during the nomination period isn't worth it. Apparently Weasel Zippers, and Ace of Spades, got into it with Pamela over the Rick Perry curriculum --- and hard feelings remain. I actually blogged the curriculum story and it checked out. See: "Is Rick 'Perry Pro-Sharia'?" Follow the links. Pamela was facing a huge backlash at the time. I had little expectation that Perry was going anywhere, and so I focused on other candidates. I wanted Michelle Bachmann, in any case, who is back in the news for seeking an investigation on Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the Obama administration. So folks know where my loyalties stand.

That said, if there's been a de-linking campaign against Pamela's it's been a pretty big fail. Her blogs still ranks among the top sites on the right side and she continues to pound the opposition with outstanding coverage. I link her sight regularly, and that ain't enough.

And a funny thing is that Weasel Zippers got hacked last night on Wordpress, and Zip's switched the site over to the old Blogspot address until he gets things taken care of. Strange coincidence, I guess. Someone's not digging the Zip, and it's a bummer he had to deal with it. I read Weasel Zippers pretty regularly too. It's more of a rapid-fire aggregation blog than a commentary site. But it's first rate, in my opinion. I'm sorry to hear of the conflict. I know Pamela and Robert personally, and I communicate with Zip. As always, I"m about getting the truth out, even if it ruffles some feathers. Still, t'was a good idea laying low during the primaries. It's hard out there for a neocon!

Obama Worse Than Carter

For sure.

Obama's one of the worst presidents in history --- if not the worst.

At The Hill, "Cheney: Obama worse than Carter, ‘one of our weakest presidents’." (Via Memeorandum.)

PHOTO CREDIT: IMAO, "The Cruelest Anti-Obama Billboard Ever Erected." They say it's not a Photoshop, but who cares? It's brilliant!

Atheist for #LGBT Rights Says Chick-fil-A 'Harms Mor Gays'

From Randall Reynolds on Twitter and Tumblr:

Amazing isn't it? So far progressive have produced not a shred of evidence that Chick-fil-A discriminates. Indeed, in his interview that kicked off the faux-controversy, Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy never even mentioned homosexuality or gay marriage. All he said was "guily as charged" when asked if he supported the traditional conception of marriage, and he mentioned biblical foundations for the family. Mark Steyn had the perfect report at his piece, "The Tolerance Enforcers: They’re ever more intolerant of anything less than total ideological homogeneity." And see J.D. Dyer, at Patheos, "Chick-Fil-A Is neither Hateful, Intolerant, nor Anti-Gay":

The premise behind the political anger being stirred up against Chick-Fil-A is basically from kindergarten: if you don't agree with me, you're hateful and you hate me. But in the world of adult responsibility, the very basis for freedom of conscience—intellectual and religious freedom—is freedom of contradictory expression. What demagogues today call "hatred" and "intolerance" is actually the essence of freedom: people being able to hold and advocate their own views, unmolested, no matter how much others dislike those views.

RTWT. And also Larry Schmidt, in the letters at USA Today:

It seems as if people on the left don't approve of free speech unless it is in line with their beliefs. They call for boycotts of companies that espouse opinions other than their own. This has got to stop. This is the United States of America, where everyone has the right to free speech.

Right.

Now, if the left could just curtail the right to freedom of speech they'd be cooking. And believe me, they're working on it!