James Earl Carter IV Goes Alinsky on Mitt Romney

You gotta read this report from Michael Isikoff, "How the Romney video leaked: For Carters, it was personal." I mentioned before that the "SECRET VIDEO" release was well-played, and it's more than that: it's political revenge. James Carter IV has been literally pissed off for some time that Republicans have been slamming his grandfather's "weak" foreign policy, with comparisons to the Obama administration:

"It gets under my skin -- mostly the weakness on the foreign policy stuff," Carter said. "I just think it's ridiculous. I don’t like criticism of my family."

More at the link.

And at the video, radical MSNBC host Rachel Maddow is about to explode with orgiastic delight at the news of the "SECRET VIDEO." She can barely contain her glee and literally cannot speak at a couple of points, as she tries to spew out partisan talking points. Note too how Maddow, in her explanation of events, is extremely careful to claim that she had nothing to do with the initial versions of the Romney clip posted to YouTube under her name. But given how extremely damaging the clip's turned out to be, she's positively giddy that James Carter tracked down the person responsible for the tape. The added bonus is listening to David Corn rattle on about the story. He sounds like he's pulled off a criminal enterprise, or something. No doubt the guy's got a raging woody out of sight there at the studio. And he sure wants to make a point that the host of the fundraising, millionaire investor Marc Leder, allegedly sponsored kinky hot-sex parties like a deranged hedge-fund pervert. It's all designed to make Mitt Romney look bad, really bad, and these people are reveling it it:

Meanwhile, there's simply too much commentary on this to do an adequate roundup. I'm not latching onto one of the right-wing memes that this is just another blip on the radar screen, and that Romney just needs to catch his breath and keep plugging. Check some of the links at Memeorandum for all the buzz. He has to do that, sure, but I suspect this is more of a turning point in the campaign than folks are letting on, if they even realize it. There's really one last chance for Romney to shift some momentum back in his direction, and that's the presidential debates. And the hour is late. He's been on the defense literally for months now and it was just this week that the campaign was looking for a reset. That's not happening at this point.

I'll have more in any case. I hope I'm wrong, obviously. But it's been months of folks saying that Romney was about to change the dynamics of the race, and all the supposed game-changing moments have come an gone --- the veep pick, the conventions, the so-called post-convention bounce --- and Romney's still battling to find some traction against the Democrat-Media-Complex and its extremely dirty Alinskyite politics.

Idiot Progressives Protest 'Muslim Rage' Cover at Newsweek

Actually, that cover is da bomb!

Dylan Byers compares it to Newsweek's 2001 cover story by Fareed Zakaria, "Why Do They Hate Us?" -- which I've been reminded of this last week, naturally.

But see the knee-jerk progs at Think Progress, attacking Newsweek with the phony "Islamophobic" slur, "Newsweek Publishes Islamophobic ‘Muslim Rage’ Cover In Response to Embassy Attacks."

In contrast, check "Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "The Last Gasp of Islamic Hate":

Until recently, it was completely justifiable to feel sorry for the masses in Libya because they suffered under the thumb of a cruel dictator. But now they are no longer subjects; they are citizens. They have the opportunity to elect a government and build a society of their choice. Will they follow the lead of the Egyptian people and elect a government that stands for ideals diametrically opposed to those upheld by the United States? They might. But if they do, we should not consider them stupid or infantile. We should recognize that they have made a free choice—a choice to reject freedom as the West understands it.

How should American leaders respond? What should they say and do, for example, when a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s newly elected ruling party, demands a formal apology from the United States government and urges that the “madmen” behind the Muhammad video be prosecuted, in violation of the First Amendment? If the U.S. follows the example of Europe over the last two decades, it will bend over backward to avoid further offense. And that would be a grave mistake—for the West no less than for those Muslims struggling to build a brighter future.

For a homicidal few in the Muslim world, life itself has less value than religious icons, such as the prophet or the Quran. These few are indifferent to the particular motives or arguments behind any perceived insult to their faith. They do not care about an individual’s political alignment, gender, religion, or occupation. They do not care whether the provocation comes from serious literature or a stupid movie. All that matters is the intolerable nature of the insult.

Continue reading.

The idiot progs'll slam her as "Islamphobic" as well, except that she's Muslim. The left's despicable slurs simply haven't got a chance against that moral clarity.

Walter James Casper III: Jewish 'Neocons' Should 'Stop Whining' About Being Slurred as 'Puppet Masters' for Bush/Cheney War Cabal

ICYMI, on Sunday the New York Times published Maureen Dowd's anti-Semitic screed, "Neocons Slither Back." The essay was a despicable attack on the GOP ticket reprising some of the oldest anti-Jewish slurs known to history. Dowd was widely ridiculed, and not just by the "evil" neoconservatives. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, a Jewish moderate who served in the IDF, hammered MoDo, "Happy New Year, Puppet Masters." Highlighting the essay's attack on Romney advisor Dan Senor as the "puppet master" mouthpiece for the GOP ticket's "Manichaean worldview," Goldberg writes:

Maureen may not know this, but she is peddling an old stereotype, that gentile leaders are dolts unable to resist the machinations and manipulations of clever and snake-like Jews...

This sinister stereotype became a major theme in the discussion of the Iraq war, when critics charged that Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, among other Jewish neoconservatives, were actually in charge of Bush Administration foreign policy. This charge relegated George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Stephen Hadley and the other Christians who actually set policy to the status of puppets.

Actually, Maureen does "know this," for this is hardly the first time she's attacked Jews with vicious anti-Semitic tropes. So why bother with it, if it's getting so routine? Well, I found it particularly interesting to note how many vile thugs of the left doubled down to defend the hatred. Of course, long-standing Jew-bashing troll Walter James Casper III, a.k.a. Repsac3, couldn't resist piling on the anti-Jew attacks. The vicious Repsac calls Jewish outrage at such "blood sucking" attacks as nothing more than "neocon whining." That figures, naturally, since Repsac3's on record as a huge backer of the eliminationist, anti-Semitic Occupy Wall Street movement.

The Anti-Semitic Slur Surfaces Once Again motherjones.com/kevin-drum/201… via @motherjones IOW, stop whining, neocons...
— J. Casper (@repsac3) September 17, 2012

And it's fitting that Repsac3's linking Kevin Drum, the dumbest progressive blogger this side of Matthew Yglesias. At that link, Drum spills out the stupid: "There's nothing anti-Semitic in Dowd's column..."

Actually, there is something anti-Semitic: Dan Senor, for one thing, is Jewish. Moreover, as The Future of Capitalism points outs:

...depictions of Jews as snakes or puppeteers are classical anti-Semitic images, right up there with blood-sucking. The snake image has roots in the Christian Bible; the puppet-master goes back at least to Nazi Germany, and when Glenn Beck used it to talk about George Soros, who, unlike Dan Senor, has actually been hostile to Israel, the left was all over him for it.

Right.

More of those leftist double-standards. It's only racist when the other side does it.

And it wasn't just the reprehensible Internet loser Walter James Casper III spreading the hate. Barbara O'Brien at Mahablog piled on as well, lamely attempting to justify anti-Semitic puppet master slurs because these are just the same as the "old Robert Heinlein novel about slugs from outer space that invade earth," or something. I know. She's so f-king stupid it hurts.

Anyway, I could go on like this, but again, why bother? Progressives are anti-Israel and they hate Jews, especially Walter James Casper III.

More of that at Memeorandum.

Decades After Title Fight, Pain Endures for Families of Ray Mancini and Duk-koo Kim

At the New York Times, "Families Continue to Heal 30 Years After Title Fight Between Ray Mancini and Duk-koo Kim":

As a boy, Ray Mancini would pore over his father’s scrapbook, a collection of brittle-brown newspaper clippings and sepia-toned glossies, inevitably pausing to study the photograph of his father as a young fighter, his features bloodied and swollen, the right eye clenched shut like the seam of a mussel shell.

“I didn’t win ’em all,” Lenny Mancini would tell his son. “But I never took a step back.”

The elder Mancini had been a No. 1 contender in the abundantly talented lightweight division. But his dream of a title shot ended Nov. 10, 1944, near the French town of Metz, when he was hit with shrapnel from a German mortar shell.

Four decades later, his son entered the national consciousness. Ray called himself Boom Boom, too, just like the old man. But coming out of Youngstown, Ohio, at the cusp of the 1980s, Ray also represented those felled when the steel belt turned to rust. As refracted through the lens of television, he became The Last White Ethnic, a redemptive fable produced by CBS Sports.

Mancini won the lightweight title with a first-round knockout live from Vegas, the broadcast sponsored by Michelin (“the company that pioneered the radial”), Michelob (“smooth and mellow”) and the Norelco Rototract rechargeable. That was 1982. He was only 21, but already a modern allegory, as bankable as he was adored.

Then he fought Duk-koo Kim.

Kim had hit the Korean exacta at birth: dirt-poor and dark-skinned. But the prospect of a title shot seemed to ennoble him. He became fierce for the sake of his family. At the time of the Mancini fight, his fiancée was pregnant with their son.

If only Kim had taken a step back, he might have lived to see that boy.

These days, Ray is likely to be found at a trattoria in a Santa Monica strip mall. He’ll likely be joined by one of the regulars — the playwright David Mamet; the actor Ed O’Neill, an old friend from Youngstown; or maybe Ray-Ray, now 15, the youngest of Mancini’s three children.

Occasionally, patrons pull the waiter aside and point at Ray.

“What was he in?” they ask.

“That’s Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini,” the waiter says. “Lightweight champion of the world.”

“He’s the guy who killed the guy, right? The Korean?”

Continue reading.

At the video, scroll toward the end for the knock out. Kim tries to stand but the referee calls the fight. Both Kim's mother and the ref, Richard Green, later committed suicide.

Mi Pueblo Food Center's Plan to Use E-Verify Stirs Anger

At the Los Angeles Times, "Latino food chain's participation in E-Verify leaves a bad taste":

SAN JOSE — When customers enter Mi Pueblo Food Center to do their weekly shopping, the goal is to make them feel at home.

Each of the grocery chain's 21 outlets, which are scattered throughout the Bay Area, Monterey Bay region and Central Valley, is styled to emulate a distinct Mexican region. Boisterous rancheras stream from the stores' speakers. Vivid primary colors and architectural references cover the walls: the adobe church of San Juan Nuevo, Michoacan, in San Jose's flagship store; the Maya pyramid of Chichen Itza in the Salinas market.

Mi Pueblo's employees, all bilingual, wear name tags that list their hometowns.

It's a formula that helped turn the business founded more than two decades ago by an illegal immigrant from the town of Aguililla into a $300-million enterprise.

"Those of us who don't speak English, we come here because we're comfortable," Yoselina Acevedo of San Jose, a 53-year-old immigrant from Michoacan, said while shopping one recent day.

So the company's announcement late last month that it was participating in a voluntary federal program that checks the immigration status of all new hires elicited anger and confusion from workers and customers alike.

Company officials said that, although they were critical of E-Verify, they felt "tremendous pressure" from immigration officials to sign up. Community organizers have pledged to launch a shoppers' boycott Oct. 8 if Mi Pueblo founder Juvenal Chavez, who is now a legal U.S. resident, does not change his mind.

"He says he has suffered the pain of being an immigrant. I don't believe it," said Rogelio Marquez, 37, who said he was laid off from the Gilroy store after becoming active with a workers union. "We support the economy of this country. Why is this man now checking papers?"

Well, complying with the law might be a good reason, although I love the reconquista entitlement mentality.

More at that top link.

'Atlas Shrugged: Part II'

At Reason, "Atlas Shrugged Part II: Theatrical Trailer."

I think that "Going Galt" meme will pick up again if Obama's reelected.

As Criticism Mounts, Angels General Manager Stands Behind Mike Scioscia

I mentioned earlier this season that I expected Mike Scioscia would be getting canned this year, but not yet. Not yet.

See the Los Angeles Times, "Angels general manager continues to support Mike Scioscia":

Within seconds of Mike Scioscia's latest decision-gone-horribly-wrong Saturday night in Kansas City, when he pulled starter Zack Greinke in the ninth inning with a 2-0 lead and closer Ernesto Frieri gave up two home runs for a 3-2 loss, fans began spewing vitriol toward the Angels manager on Twitter. Again.

It has become a typical, predictable and somewhat tiresome pattern: key move doesn't work out, scream at television, go to keyboard, type "fire the manager!" hit send button.

While Jerry Dipoto may not agree with what seems to be a growing number of fans clamoring for Scioscia to be canned in this season of unfulfilled expectations, the Angels general manager can empathize with such anguish and frustration.

Growing up a New York Mets fan in New Jersey, Dipoto criticized managers such as Joe Torre and Davey Johnson with as much fervor as fans are hammering Scioscia, though Dipoto didn't have the vast array of electronic media outlets at his disposal that fans have today.

Dipoto has vivid memories of his reaction to Johnson leaving Doc Gooden in to face a supposedly weak left-handed-hitting Dodgers catcher in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 1988 National League championship series.

With one of the league's best left-handed relievers, Randy Myers, in the bullpen, the right-handed and tiring Gooden — he threw 133 pitches — gave up a score-tying, two-run homer, the Dodgers won in 12 innings to even the best-of-seven series, two games apiece, and they went on to win the series.

That Dodgers catcher who hit that series-turning home run? Scioscia, of course.

"I remember thinking, 'What are you doing?'" Dipoto, a college sophomore at the time, said of Johnson, now the Washington Nationals manager. "I certainly understand the critical nature of the fan, because I've been one all my life. You're naturally critical. The ebbs and flows of a baseball season bring that on."

Dipoto, having blown his share of saves in seven years as a big league reliever and having spent more than a decade in various front-office positions, has developed a different perspective on the moves he used to second-guess.

And now that he has the power to fire a manager whose decisions he may not like, Dipoto has a broader, more rational view of the game and how he evaluates those playing and managing it.

RTWT.

Romney Stands by '47 Percent of Americans' Comments

William Jacobson has some analysis, "About that Romney tape":

There is nothing remarkable about Romney’s comments except that because on a secret video, they appear more nefarious.

There is no doubt that this was an Obama campaign operation, and likely we will see more such tapes dribbled out a week at a time.  The team which obtained sealed divorce records of rivals certainly can plant donors at private fundraisers.

Don’t fall for pronouncements that Romney’s campaign now is over.  Such pronouncements now come weekly by a media seeking a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Whether it was the insane overreaction to Romney’s comments on Libya or the declaration that the polling showed Romney had lost, every week there will be a new meme circulated.

Yeah, well, I mocked the f-k out of it, "Newsflash! SECRET VIDEO Catches Mitt Romney Talking CAMPAIGN STRATEGY at GOP FUNDRAISER!"

That said, it was pretty well played, I must admit. The story's leading on all the major newspapers, at NYT, for example, "Romney Calls 47% of Voters Dependent in Leaked Video." And Mitt took to the airwaves in an attempt to tamp down the damage (even though his comments weren't in fact controversial).

There's absolutely nothing the Democrats won't do to win. I'm not shocked at all by this. But at this point I'll be surprised if Romney's able to eke out a victory come November. Charlie Cook gave O the edge, and now the progs are trying to put things away with the dirtiest of dirty tricks. History will record this era as one of the darkest in recent political history. Politics ain't beanbag, that's for sure. The trick is to out Alynsky these f-kers and the hour is getting late.

More at the Washington Post, "Romney stands by his remarks in leaked video" (at Memeorandum).

Barrett Brown Arrested: Crazed Ex-Anonymous Hacker Taken Into Custody After Threatening FBI Agent

On Sunday, I tipped off Robert Stacy McCain to the raid on Barrett Brown, and the former subsequently did a huge write-up on the case. See: "‘Anonymous’ Spokesman Barrett Brown Arrested After Bizarre Video Meltdown."

Long ago, Barrett made one of these videos denouncing me for one thing or another. I've forgotten. He did not threaten me, however. I actually got along with Barrett pretty well, until he went off the deep end.

Newsflash! SECRET VIDEO Catches Mitt Romney Talking CAMPAIGN STRATEGY at GOP FUNDRAISER!

It's over.

Mittens ought to concede right now. He's been found out!

See this TOP SECRET report from DAVID CORN at the crack progressive INVESTIGATIVE website Mother Jones, "SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters."

To protect the confidential source who provided the video, we have blurred some of the image, and we will not identify the date or location of the event, which occurred after Romney had clinched the Republican presidential nomination.

Because the Mitt mafia will be dispatched on the double to teach this spy a lesson! Never cross the Rombino crime family!

Oh brother.

It's not like progressives aren't all about "Obama Bucks," or anything. And the progressive fever swamps are all bent that Romney would actually talk strategy like this at a private fundraiser? No shit. IT'S JUST HORRIBLE that Mittens would talk about government dependents like that! I mean, it's perfectly fine for "The One's" reelection committee to create a prototypical dependency robot named "Julia" who lives cradle to grave sucking at the government's teat, but when the GOP nominee admits he'll never get the Democrats' welfare handout vote, well, THAT'S A SCANDAL!

Like I said. Time to concede. We're done. The Democrats are just too wily for us. They'll have us locked down in dependency before you know it. DOOMED!!

Added: At LONELY CONSERVATIVE!, "Who Paid $50,000 to Record Mitt Romney at a Private Fundraiser?"

Well, maybe those progs aren't that smart after all. $50,000? Somebody's been suckered and bad.

Ambassador Stevens' Photo on Front Page of 'Los Angeles Times'

I've been reading the hard-copy version of the New York Times of late, because I want to bring the paper to class to have examples for the students' writing assignments. I bring both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times with me. I normally raise current events issues at the beginning of classes, but this last week we spent more time discussing things than usual. On Thursday I was a little surprised that the Times ran the picture of Ambassador Stevens being carried through the streets of Benghazi, or his body being dragged through the streets, depending on your perspective. I posted on that here: "Body of Ambassador Chris Stevens Dragged Through Streets of Benghazi."

So then it was pretty interesting to read the reader backlash at the Times as well, at the letters to the editor over the weekend. See, "Stevens' photo on the front page":

Reader reaction was strong to Thursday's front-page photo of a mortally wounded J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

Stevens was killed Tuesday along with three other Americans in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. As the article that accompanied the photo noted, he was the first U.S. ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1988.

Some readers called the photo graphic, unwarranted, inappropriate, disgraceful, gratuitous and insensitive.

"It was very distasteful and disrespectful to post the picture of Stevens, in death in such graphic detail, on the front page," Donna Shontell of Sherman Oaks said. "This plays into the hands of those responsible for these types of horrendous acts. I respect The Times for excellence in journalism, not for tabloid exploitation."

"Stevens was a dedicated, brave, and honorable man who died serving his country. He deserves our respect and gratitude," Betsy K. Emerick of Monrovia wrote. "Instead, by printing that photo, you have taken away his dignity and turned his sacrifice into an opportunity for exploitation and sensationalism."

"It seems to me a picture of the burning embassy in Benghazi would have been quite graphic enough," Virginia G. Berg of Culver City wrote. "The ambassador's family will never be able to forget the horrible pain and suffering he went through, and in my opinion they did not need to see this very graphic photograph to make it even worse."

"Your front-page photo of a dying Stevens was unwarranted and inappropriate," wrote Tim Sunderland of Rancho Cucamonga. "With freedom of the press comes a responsibility to honor the most sensitive of moments. This was one of them, and The Times failed."

David Latt of Pacific Palisades asked: "What was gained by this photograph? Was it newsworthy? We know the ambassador was attacked by a mob. We know he died. Can you imagine the added grief his family and friends felt when they viewed that photograph? And what about your readers? What was gained by attacking your readers' sensibilities?"

Editors discussed the photo at length on Wednesday. Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin explained the thinking...

More at the link.

EXTRA: "Blood Stains: Pictures From Benghazi Consulate Indicate Horror of Final Moments Before Death (PHOTOS)."

Guns Sales Surge on Prospects of Obama Reelection

Well, I hadn't thought about it that much, trying as I might to sift through all the polling data and what not, but I can see the reasoning of folks looking to arm up for the next four years. I wrote some apocalyptic blog posts when O was first elected. Glenn Beck was some inspiration, come to think of it. But living until 2016 under the Obama regime will try men's souls, so better to be armed to the teeth while riding out the radical deluge.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Gun Sales Hinge on Obama Re-Election: Cabela's, Other Retailers Prepare for Surge in Demand."

Learn by Doing: Obama's Radically Different Approach to Use of Force

Foreign policy is the last area one would expect to see a trial-by-error approach by a presidential administration, but as the Muslim world's nations are aflame with fanatical anti-American protests, we're literally living our way through it with President Touchy-Feeling.

The Los Angeles Times reports, "Obama's foreign policy approach: Act cautiously, and not alone":

Obama's approach to the use of force, as seen most clearly in Libya, is the cornerstone of a foreign policy that differs sharply from that of his predecessor, George W. Bush, but also from the paths pursued by recent Democratic presidents.

Leading a nation confronting the limits of its power after two draining wars — and with budget strain at home — Obama shies from the type of ambitious and high-risk missions with which Bush aimed to reshape other countries. Under Obama, the United States has been more picky about missions aimed at humanitarian relief, peacekeeping and maintaining world order.

Yet more than other Democrats of the recent past, Obama has been willing to wield military power. As he nears four years in office, Obama has sent U.S. forces into at least eight countries, from Pakistan to West Africa, often covertly and with little public debate.

Supporters of the administration point to the military intervention in Libya as an example of success for the Obama doctrine, despite the storming of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi last week. While agreeing that the deaths there of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans show that Libya is still threatened by Islamist radicals and other armed groups, they say the radicals remain weak and that Libya has made a promising start after decades of dictatorship.

Obama's critics, however, say that by putting the U.S. more often in a supporting role, he has abandoned America's commitment, as President Kennedy put it, to "pay any price, bear any burden" to assure the "survival and the success of liberty." In the presidential campaign, Republicans have cast Obama as feckless and reactive, too willing to be shaped by events, rather than taking charge and clearly leading the nation and its allies.

Obama's record of incremental steps is seen by supporters as patient determination and by critics as timidity.

He has had no grand foreign policy triumphs, but neither has he had any major disasters. He has made no breakthroughs in trouble spots such as Iran, North Korea and Cuba. But the covert war against militants from Pakistan to North Africa succeeded in killing Osama bin Laden and dismantling much of Al Qaeda's leadership.

As a candidate in 2008, Obama promised to engage with regimes that Bush had shunned, rekindle the Israeli-Palestinian peace effort and intensify the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan that he believed Bush had neglected.

By his third year, he had been forced to adjust his approach on almost every front.

Obama's approach to the Middle East shows the clearest shift from the idealism of his 2008 campaign to the incremental realpolitik that has characterized much of the last two years.

When Iran's leaders refused his outstretched hand, Obama helped organize a campaign of unprecedented international sanctions that has battered the Iranian economy. Officials remain hopeful that the sanctions — backed by the threat of force — may prod Tehran into agreeing to limits on its disputed nuclear program.

On Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Obama tried to restart the process by pressing Israel for concessions on settlements. That plan quickly collapsed, forcing him to backtrack and essentially give up for now on substantive progress. The experience soured relations between the president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but overall cooperation between the two countries has continued.

When the "Arab Spring" uprisings began early in 2011, Obama promised U.S. help for any country struggling toward democracy. But he didn't abandon Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Washington's authoritarian ally, until it appeared clear that Mubarak was on his way out. Obama subsequently opened ties to Islamists who won election in Egypt, yet he kept $1.5 billion in aid flowing to the generals of the old regime even as they harassed U.S.-funded pro-democracy groups in the country.

All sides in Egypt ended up feeling somewhat alienated, but the U.S. avoided a definitive rupture with Cairo as power changed hands.

In recent months, as Syria careened toward chaos, Obama resisted pressure to provide arms to the rebels. Instead, the administration encouraged Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other neighboring states to cooperate to undermine Bashar Assad's regime. The results of that strategy remain to be seen.

Obama similarly switched course on Afghanistan as it became clear that he lacked a reliable government partner there. He lowered his sights regarding the change the U.S. could bring to that country, ordered military withdrawal by the end of 2014 and began seeking a power-sharing deal with the Taliban and neighbors...

RTWT.

IMAGE CREDIT: The Looking Spoon.

Rep. Allen West Delivers Weekly Republican Address, September 15, 2012

Congressman West lays into President Obama with a personalized attack unusual for even these tough partisan times.

And see The Hill, "GOP Rep. West presses Obama to help avert looming defense cuts."

Also at the Heritage Foundation, "Budget Control Act Sequestration Would Hit Defense Hardest."

CNN's Arwa Damon: Libya Warned U.S. About 'Deteriorating Security'

The evidence is piling up, and at this point the White House is engaging in a cover up.

Arwa Damon reports, at CNN, "More details emerge on U.S. ambassador's last moments":

Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.

Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security.

He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn't good for international business.

"The situation is frightening, it scares us," Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded.

Mabrouk said it was not the first time he has warned foreigners about the worsening security situation in the face of the growing presence of armed jihadist groups in the Benghazi area.

The main building in the compound is in charred ruins.


The suite where the body of the ambassador was found was protected by a large door with steel bars; the windows had steel bars.

His body was recovered after looters broke into the room. It appears his security detail left him in the room while they tried to deal with the attack.

There are numerous questions about what happened at the consulate where protesters had gathered to demonstrate against the film "Innocence of Muslims," which reportedly was made in California by a filmmaker whose identity is unclear.

Chief among the questions is what happened to U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who went missing during the attack.

The State Department has not released details about how Stevens died, though numerous media reports have said the ambassador was taken from the consulate to the Benghazi medical center by locals.

He arrived at the hospital, according to the reports, unresponsive and covered in soot from the fire. A doctor was unable to revive him and declared him dead, the reports said.

According to one of the Libyan security guards who was stationed at one of the gates armed with only a radio, the assault began simultaneously from three directions.

Heavy machine guns and rocket -propelled grenades were used, according to the guard. He said masked men threatened to kill him at gunpoint for 'protecting the infidels. He declined to appear on camera for fear of repercussions.

Continue reading.

And Damon indicates that Libyan officials have been issuing warnings "for months."

PREVIOUSLY: "Libya's Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf: Attack On U.S. Embassy Was 'Planned — Definitely, It Was Planned by Foreigners...'" (which generated a Memeorandum thread).

Dunkirk

I hope this ends up being Obama's Dunkirk, but we'll see.

Check Telegraph UK, "US election 2012: the battleground of Dunkirk, Ohio":

Fifty days before the US presidential election, The Telegraph meets the residents of Dunkirk, Ohio - the kind of town that will decide who wins.

On US Highway 68, down the road from an empty factory site and table-flat corn fields sits a windswept, one-street town called Dunkirk, Ohio.

There is a church, a café, a bar, a fire station and a population of about 875 people who are feeling the cold winds of global economic change.

It is Saturday morning and in Dunkirk's tiny, one-chair barbershop, a group of middle-aged men have gathered to chew the political fat. It's the kind of crowd that usually can't agree on the time of day, but Republicans, Democrats and undecided voters are unanimous: the US economy is in a hole, and no-one seems to know how to climb out of it.

The debate is spirited. The problem, says 56-year-old Richard Walden, is Barack Obama's rampant welfare culture: "People come to me and say that if they can't make $15-18 dollars (£9-£11) an hour, it ain't worth them working," he says. "That just ain't right."

Perhaps that's true, says Pete Brunow, 54, a vocal Democrat and former high-school football coach who brought glory to the town in 2004 by winning the Ohio state championships, but that the benefit culture is a symptom, not the cause, of the problems facing rust-belt towns like Dunkirk.

"The real problem is that there are too many 10-dollar-an-hour jobs," he counters, with a shake of his head, "There are always going to be people on welfare – always have been, always will be – but the problem is that the jobs we do have today are too poor-paying." Such barbershop debates are often drowned out in the raucous gaffe-spotting and point-scoring that monopolise much of the airspace of modern US political campaigns, but they go straight to the angry, despondent heart of Middle America.

Over the next 50 days, up until polling day on Nov 6, the people of Dunkirk, Ohio will provide a touchstone for The Telegraph's election coverage, providing unvarnished comment on the fizz and froth of the national campaign.

The story of Dunkirk's decline is one that has been repeated in thousands of towns across Ohio, a must-win battleground state that has borne the brunt of the fall-out from globalisation, and where Mr Obama will campaign again today.

More at that top link.

Muslim World's Unrest Is Dire Result of Obama's Foreign Policy

At IBD, "Call Obama's Dire Foreign Policy Carter 2.0":

The tragic events in Cairo and Benghazi should remove doubt that the foreign policy of the current administration is the most destructive since that of Jimmy Carter. The only question at this point is whether that policy is, as with Carter, the result of incompetence and naivete — or something more disturbing.

In other words, it may be time to ask whether the setbacks in Arab North Africa and elsewhere have been so numerous and unremitting that, rather than failures, they may be seen as consistent with the view of a president who thinks America is too rich and strong for the world's good.

How else do you explain the apologies issued to the fanatics who killed our ambassador and burned our embassy, apologies that evoke those offered in a 2009 speech in Cairo by a just-seated president who blamed the hatred some in the Mideast have for the West on "colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims"?

How else do you to explain the forsaking of a 30-year ally, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, for a Muslim Brotherhood billed as moderate but now shown to be potentially as fanatical as any government in the region?

And how to explain the rejection of Israel, our only truly democratic ally in the region, which faces nuclear annihilation by Iran, but whose prime minister can't get an audience with the president because he's booked on the David Letterman show?

The list of policy failures in the Mideast over the past four years is a long one...

A long one indeed. Continue reading at the link.

Skate and Snowboard Pioneer Tom Sims Has Died

The Los Angeles Times has an obituary, "Tom Sims dies at 61; snowboard pioneer":

Tom Sims, an innovative skateboarding and snowboarding pioneer and former world champion who helped bring snowboarding to the masses by pushing ski resorts to embrace the fledgling sport in the 1980s, has died. He was 61.

The founder of Sims Skateboards and Sims Snowboards died Wednesday at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital after suffering cardiac arrest, said his sister, Margie Sims Klinger.

"He was the godfather of all board sports," Michael Brooke, publisher of Concrete Wave Magazine, said Friday. "He literally helped build the professional skate industry, and he was one of the giants in the history of snowboarding."

Pat Bridges, editor of Snowboarder Magazine, said Sims "not only pioneered snowboarding, but he also popularized what has come to be known as the action-sports lifestyle. He had a different modus for having a good time standing sideways, depending on the season."

As Brooke said, "He wasn't just a business guy selling this stuff. He lived it."

"He was the true first pioneer of what's called longboarding — riding a skateboard over 4 feet in length," Brooke said. "He'd ride enormous longboards and cruise down the hills. He was doing this way before anybody else. He liked taking this surf kind of feeling and putting it out there on skateboards."

A New Jersey transplant who also was a surfer and wakeboarder, Sims moved to Santa Barbara in 1971 and began entering and winning skateboard contests, including the Skateboard World Championships.

"He became someone that all the kids looked up to and wanted to emulate and wanted his boards," Sims' sister said. "So he realized there was such a demand, he set up a business and began producing products. His specialty was the 4-foot-long skateboard that he started out making himself."

A few years after launching Sims Skateboards in the mid-'70s, he founded Sims Snowboards.

According to the article, "He also was the main snowboarding stunt double for Roger Moore in the 1985 James Bond movie 'A View to a Kill'."

Lacey Banghard 'Nuts' Video

She's well-endowed, to put it mildly:

PREVIOUSLY: "Lacey Banghard Topless Zoo Photo Outtakes September 2012."

Raw Video Appears to Show Ambassador Stevens Dragged Through Window at Libyan Consulate

Breitbart has the clip if this one gets pulled, "BREAKING: Video Purports to Show US Ambassador Dragged From Benghazi Consulate." And also at Gateway Pundit, "Libyans Scream “Allahu Akbar” as They Drag U.S. Ambassador’s Body From Torched Building (Video)."

The video's not authenticated, although the New York Times also reports, "Video Shows Libyans Retrieving Envoy’s Body."

And what's especially interesting is that the images appear amazingly similar to the updated account of the ambassador's recovery from the compound at the New York Times, "Diplomats’ Bodies Return to U.S., and Libyan Guards Recount Deadly Riot":

When the attack on the diplomatic compound occurred, officials said, Ambassador Stevens was separated from his security detail — and was located only later, at the hospital in Benghazi, where he had been pronounced dead.

Officials in Washington said they were investigating that blacked-out period, but as they conduct that inquiry, witnesses have emerged who said that Mr. Stevens had fled to a room in the diplomatic compound, hoping to find safety behind a locked iron gate and wooden door. But fires raged around the mission, and Mr. Stevens, unable to escape the smoke and heat, died of asphyxiation.

Witnesses say he was eventually discovered by people who rushed to see what was happening at the mission. They broke a window, spotted Mr. Stevens, who might or might not have been unconscious at the time, and removed him from the room.

According to guards at the compound, the attack began at about 9:30 p.m., without advance warning or any peaceful protest. “I started hearing, ‘God is great! God is great!’ ” one guard said. “I thought to myself, maybe it is a passing funeral.” (All the guards spoke on the condition of anonymity for their safety.)

“Attack, attack,” the guard said he heard an American calling over his walkie-talkie as the chants came closer. Suddenly there came a barrage of gunfire, explosions and rocket-propelled grenades.

“I saw the ambassador’s personal bodyguard — the one who was killed — running toward the villa where the ambassador was,” he said. Armed only with a light weapon, the bodyguard “was running there to protect him.”

Another Libyan guard said he saw Mr. Stevens escorted to the office in a wing off the main mission building, the room with an iron gate behind a wooden door. Three hours later, about 12:30 a.m., witnesses said that a crowd — possibly looters — broke through a tall and narrow window and found Mr. Stevens.

The compound’s landlord, Jamal al-Bishari, said that while watching from nearby he saw some people climb through the broken window and emerge soon after, carrying Mr. Stevens.

The wing where Mr. Stevens had sought refuge contained at least three rooms and two bathrooms, and aside from the extensive smoke damage it appeared on Friday to be largely undamaged.

Very shortly after Mr. Stevens was seen carried out of the window, he arrived at Benghazi’s main hospital, brought by a group of Libyan civilians, according to Ziad Abu Zeid, a doctor there. In a separate interview he said that the civilians did not seem to know that the American they were helping was the ambassador, a well-known and popular figure locally but now covered in dark soot. Dr. Abu Zaid said that Mr. Stevens was dressed and did not suffer any trauma, aside from the smoke inhalation. Because of the soot covering his face, the doctor said, he also initially failed to recognize Mr. Stevens. He said he eventually did so from photographs posted by admiring residents on Facebook.

The doctor said he tried for at least 45 minutes to resuscitate Mr. Stevens. He said he believed that officers from the Libyan Interior Ministry transported the body to the airport and into United States custody.

That's a narrow window at the clip, and the body shows a white t-shirt (as seen in photographs from the scene), although the face is obscured. Still, there's an eery similarity between the video and the reports from witnesses.

RELATED: At Atlas Shrugged, "OBAMA #EPICFAIL: LIBYAN OFFICIAL WARNED USA '3 DAYS BEFORE ATTACK'." This is important, for as the New York Times indicates at the report above, the Obama administration has claimed repeatedly that there was no pre-planning to the attack. But more evidence is emerging and this could reach scandal territory if the White House continues to dissemble and lie.