Hell, he isn’t even a man, Michelle castrated him years ago.

(Politico) — Juana Summers flags Herman Cain’s interview with the New York Times magazine, in which the lone black candidate of the cycle expands on comments related to race and the first black president that he has at times touched on during the campaign:

Q: Before you announced your campaign, you said that the liberal establishment is scared that “a real black man might run against Barack Obama.” Are you suggesting Obama isn’t really black?

A: Not in terms of a strong black man that I’m identifying with. I identify with a strong black man like Martin Luther King Jr., or my dad, Luther Cain Jr., who didn’t have a lot of formal education, but he had a Ph.D. in common sense.

Cain: A real black man is not timid about making the right decisions, that’s what I meant. Look, I’m not getting into this whole thing about President Obama. It is documented that his mother was white and his father was from Africa. If he wants to call himself black, fine. If he wants to call himself African-American, fine. I’m not going down this color road.

Q: But you’re saying he’s not really a black man.

A: Not in terms of a strong black man that I’m identifying with. I identify with a strong black man like Martin Luther King Jr., or my dad, Luther Cain Jr., who didn’t have a lot of formal education, but he had a Ph.D. in common sense.

Keep reading…

Hypocrisy, thy name is Barack Obama.

(CNN) — President Obama will head to Philadelphia for two events organized by the Democratic National Committee Thursday, the same day the first major and closely-watched fundraising quarter of the 2012 presidential campaign cycle draws to a close.

The president, joined by Reps Bob Brady and Chaka Fattah and Mayor Michael Nutter, will deliver remarks at a fundraising bash at The Bellevue Hyatt in the afternoon. Ticket prices started at $100 according to two Democratic officials.

The officials said he will then attend a fundraising dinner at the home of Rhonda and David L. Cohen, tickets for which started at $10,000. DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania will attend the evening event.

On a DNC conference call Thursday, former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania said he thinks the events will raise $2.5 million to benefit the Obama Victory Fund, a joint account between the DNC and OVF.

The president’s trip caps off a busy fundraising schedule over the last month as both the Obama campaign and the DNC hope to report monster numbers as the 2012 reelection effort officially gears up. Less than a week ago, Obama hit three back-to-back fundraisers in New York City, including a $35,800-a-plate dinner at an Upper East Side restaurant. He was also the main attraction at two fundraisers at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the nation’s capital 10 days ago.

From yesterday:

“We are going to need to start having to cancel things and stay here until we get it done,” the president said.

“They’re in one week, out one week, then saying ‘Obama’s got to step in.’ You need to be here. You stay here, let’s get it done.”

HT: Red Dog Report

Shocker.

(JPost) — Hamas leader from Holland Amin Abu Rashid has been seen in recent days training with a Gaza-bound flotilla crew in Greece, according to a report by Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf on Thursday.

Rashid, described as the “brain” behind the flotilla, helped arrange the purchasing of theDutch boat expected to be used in the expedition, De Telegraaf reported.

Rashid also allegedly organized the majority of the funding for the flotilla, the report said.

The participation of a Hamas member in the Gaza-bound flotilla proves that the flotilla does not have humanitarian intent, but is actually a provocation and a terror operation, Public Affairs and Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein said in response to the report.

“The participation of Hamas member Amin Abu Rashid in the flotilla, who is known for fundraising money for Hamas terror operations, is clear proof that this is not a humanitarian flotilla, but a provocation and a terror operation in disguise of a flotilla,” Edelstein said.

HT: Freedomplow

Private jet owners unavailable for comment.

(RCP) — “Well, they [Republicans] draw this line in the sand on corporate jets. On oil company subsidies. On what’s happening in Wyoming with those 2,000 sort of shell companies. They draw that line in the sand, they’re going to see most of America walk across that line from the other side where Republicans are,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio said on “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

“The only thing that Cantor missed is that usually they say when President Obama does something like that or when we do something like that they usually accuse us of ‘class warfare.’ When in fact, we’re not committing class warfare, we’re just pointing out how they’ve committed class warfare for two decades by loading up the tax code with all these breaks for people who already have privilege,” Brown said.

Dick.

(Reuters) — The White House effectively turned down an invitation by Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell for President Barack Obama to visit his members on Capitol Hill on Thursday to discuss raising the debt limit.

White House press secretary Jay Carney, while not directly saying the invitation had been rejected, said Obama did not need to hear Republicans tell him what they would not support.

That, Carney said, was “not a conversation worth having.”

Without class warfare what else does Obama have to run on?

@1:42 — “He should have been negotiating with these people for the last four or five months, rather than create a sense of somebody’s negotiating, and moving the ball every time somebody gets close. I think it is all about the 2012 election and not anything about our problems.”

@3:15 — “The leader of our country is the president and he sets the tone and when he’s been inattentive and not in the game until this last week, I don’t think he can throw any darts at anybody else given his travel plans and his campaigning.”

@4:37 — “I think if you want to work a deal the last thing you do is keep putting your finger in [Republicans'] eye[s] publically and then go try to work a deal. What he needs to do is calm down his rhetoric, and roll up his sleeves, call in McConnell and Boehner and Reid, and say ‘Ok, guys, let’s stay here until we get something worked [out].’”

@7:02 — “It’s about his next election. You know, all this is about is, this is a political campaign he’s in, rather than a policy campaign for what is best for our country right now.”

@7:40 — “I think he has traveled more than any other president, been out of the country more than any other president, in the same period of time, utilized his plane more, done more campaigning at this stage than probably anybody else, and yet we’ve accomplished very little towards solving the very real problems that are in front of us. They’re urgent problems.”

@8:04 — “The best way for this president to get reelected in my mind is talk to the American people, be truthful with them, don’t be partisan, say here are the things we are going to do, I’m going to go roll up my sleeves and work to get this done. He’d be a hero if he actually got it done.”

@8:20 — “This campaign rhetoric of dividing people and class warfare. . . . What is wrong with big corporations having corporate jets to get their executives [around?]. . . . That doesn’t have anything to do with the facts.”

@10:40 — “What we need is real leadership to stand up and say we understand we have to live within our means, we’re going to make the difficult choices. We are going to ask everyone to share in that, including corporate America, everyone is going to share in that, and that’s so we can create prosperity in the future.”

Honestly, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if these morons were doing it to themselves as a convenient way of wimping out and/or to make Israel look bad. At the same time Israel is badass and they don’t mess around with their security.

JERUSALEM (WaPo) — Organizers of a flotilla seeking to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip said Thursday that another of their boats had been damaged in port, and accused Israel of sabotage.

It was the second boat reported damaged in recent days, setting back plans by the pro-Palestinian activists to sail this week.

Fintan Lane, coordinator of a boat that was to carry Irish activists, said the propeller shaft of the vessel had been damaged when it was at a marina in Gocek, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. He said a gash in the shaft appeared to have been caused by cutting equipment or a small explosive charge.

“There’s no way this could have happened accidentally,” Lane said by telephone from Turkey. “I think Israel was behind it. No one else has an interest in sabotaging our boat.”

Lane said the vessel was “out of commission for the flotilla” and that most of its passengers would return to Ireland, while six would join another boat.

He said the damaged shaft had bent during a test run Monday, and could have penetrated the hull of the boat at sea, sinking the vessel.

On Monday, organizers said that another boat slated to carry Greek, Swedish and Norwegian activists had its propeller shaft cut while in port in Greece, but that it could be repaired in a few days.

The left detests all forms of patriotism, if you instill a love of America in a child it’s extremely unlikely they will identify with the Democratic party when they grow up.

(US News) — Democratic political candidates can skip this weekend’s July 4th parades. A new Harvard University study finds that July 4th parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP turnout of adults on Election Day.

“Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation’s political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party,” said the report from Harvard.

“The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. According to this interpretation, there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans,” write Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam.

“There is no evidence of an increased likelihood of identifying as a Democrat, indicating that Fourth of July shifts preferences to the right rather than increasing political polarization,” the two wrote.

The three key findings of those attending July 4th celebrations:

• When done before the age of 18, it increases the likelihood of a youth identifying as a Republican by at least 2 percent.
• It raises the likelihood that parade watchers will vote for a Republican candidate by 4 percent.
• It boosts the likelihood a reveler will vote by about 1 percent and increases the chances they’ll make a political contribution by 3 percent.

Finally, the report suggests that if people are looking for a super-patriotic July 4th, though should head to Republican towns. “Republican adults celebrate Fourth of July more intensively in the first place.”

Keep reading…

One down, 49 to go.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A board in Kansas has unanimously approved new regulations for abortion providers, moving the state closer to becoming the first in the nation without a clinic or doctor’s office performing the procedures.

Approval of the rules by the five-member State Rules and Regulations Board was necessary for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to begin enforcing them Friday. But abortion providers have filed a federal lawsuit and hope to prevent the state from enforcing the regulations and the new licensing law under which they were written. A hearing in that lawsuit is scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan.

Kansas has three abortion providers, all in the Kansas City area. The law requires each to obtain a special license to continue performing abortions. The regulations tell providers what equipment and drugs they must stock and set space and temperature requirements for procedure and recovery rooms.

Only one provider, a Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri clinic in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, had a licensing decision pending Thursday with the health department. One provider has been denied a license; the third hasn’t been inspected and can’t get a license until it is.

Payback is most definitely a bitch.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The International Security Assistance force confirmed today a top Haqqani Network leader suspected of providing material support to the Kabul suicide bomb attack June 28, was killed in a precision airstrike in Gardez District, Paktiya province, yesterday.

Ismail Jan was the deputy to the senior Haqqani commander inside Afghanistan, Haji Mali Khan. Jan and several Haqqani fighters were killed in strike.

The Haqqani Network, in conjunction with Taliban operatives, was responsible for the Tuesday night attack on the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel which killed 12 people, including a provincial judge.

Jan also served as an insurgent leader in the Khost-Gardez Pass area, along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, and moved into Afghanistan from Pakistan in late 2010. During this time he led approximately 25 to 35 fighters in conducting attacks against Afghan and coalition security forces.

In addition to the hotel attack, the Haqqani Network is responsible for several high-profile attacks, including the assassination of a long standing governor, Taj Mohammad Wardak. Wardak was assassinated in a massive explosive-device attack as he left his compound in September 2008.

The security force tracked his location after receiving several intelligence reports from Afghan government officials, Afghan citizens and disenfranchised insurgents. After planning to avoid civilian casualties and mitigate collateral damage, the precision airstrike was conducted, killing Jan and several other insurgents.

Snuffing out belief in American exceptionalism, otherwise known as “mission accomplished” in the Obama administration

(Politico) — Nearly 4 in 10 Americans say they think the economy is in permanent decline, a new polls shows as deep pessimism about the economy becomes more widespread.

Thirty-nine percent of those surveyed for a New York Times/CBS News poll released late Wednesday say they see the economy headed on a downward path — significantly worse than when the question was last asked in October and 28 percent of Americans said the economy was in permanent decline.

At the same time, fewer Americans see the economy as having the potential to eventually recover, with 57 percent of those surveyed saying they think things will, in time, be better. That’s down from 68 percent in October.

As the economy continues to sputter in the eyes of many Americans, President Barack Obama’s approval rating is at 47 percent and his disapproval is at 44 percent. In May, surging in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden, Obama’s approval rating in the same poll was 57 percent and his disapproval was 37 percent.

Whacked-out Jewish conspiracies aren’t merely an Islamist thing.

Dublin — Israeli ‘saboteurs’ damaged an Irish ship due to set sail for the Gaza Strip from Greece as part of a flotilla aiming to break Israel’s Gaza blockade, activists said Thursday.

The Irish Ship to Gaza (ISG) campaign showed a film of the damage done to the ship, the MV Saoirse, at a press conference in Dublin, claiming that it was ‘deliberate sabotage’ by Israeli agents.

A chunk was found to be missing from the ship’s propeller shaft Monday night in the Athens port of Piraeus. The activists say it could not have been done accidentally.

‘This was done by hostile divers and identical sabotage was carried out to the Swedish ship, Juliana,’ ISG spokesman Raymond Deane told Germany press agency dpa.

‘The inference is that the saboteurs were Israeli,’ he said.

‘This is attempted murder. The damage done to the propeller means that the ship could have sailed but the propeller would have come up through the hull after some time. We are a small ship and we would have gone down,’ Deane added.

But when he gets out of pervert “rehab” he’ll be a changed man or something.

(NYP) — Anthony Weiner’s wife is taking time off from her senior job with the State Department — as well as time off from the randy former representative, The Post has learned.

While Weiner, 46, heads to an “intensive” rehab program to recover from the sexting scandal that cost him his congressional career, his 35-year-old spouse, Huma Abedin, will be relaxing at an undisclosed location.

“She is definitely taking time off away from her husband and chilling,” a source said. “And he’s going some place for at least a couple of weeks.”

Huma, who is in the early stages of pregnancy with the couple’s first child, has been seen infrequently since she returned from a trip to Africa with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

She returned just before the Democrat announced his decision to quit his Brooklyn-Queens seat in the House after six terms. It was also reported that she had decided to try to make their marriage work.

HT: Granny Jan and Jihad Kitty

And yet Tom Friedman said it was “pure crap” for American Jews to criticize Obama’s commitment to Israel.

CAIRO (Reuters) — Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood welcomes any formal contacts with the United States as a way to clarify its vision but no such contacts have yet been made, a spokesman for the Islamist group said on Thursday.

A senior U.S. official said on Wednesday that the United States had decided to resume formal contacts with the Brotherhood, a step that reflects its growing political weight but is almost certain to upset Israel and its U.S. backers.

“We welcome such relationships with everyone because those relations will lead to clarifying our vision. But it won’t include or be based on any intervention in the internal affairs of the country,” spokesman Mohamed Saad el-Katatni told Reuters.

Well done, Congressman.

(Houston News) — Congressman Ted Poe (TX-02) on Wednesday, June 29, sent a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, DC, and issued the following statement in response to recent allegations regarding religious discrimination by the Director of the Houston National Cemetery:

“I am deeply troubled by the allegations that were brought to my attention when I met with members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in Houston,” said Poe. The director of the Houston National Cemetery, Arleen Ocasio, allegedly has engaged in aggressive hostile censorship of religion at the second largest cemetery for veterans in the United States.

“The First Amendment is a sacred right of all Americans, especially those who have honorably served — and given their lives — in the name of protecting the United States. Denying their families their constitutional right to the free exercise of religious freedom is disgraceful and shows blatant disrespect for America’s veterans. If these allegations are true, I formally call for the termination of Arleen Ocasio as the director the Houston National Cemetery. This display of authoritarian behavior and religious discrimination should not be tolerated.”

LIST OF ACCUSATIONS

1) Director Ocasio and other Cemetery Officials instructed Veterans of Foreign Wars District 4 to remove prayers from its burial rituals and to no longer utter remarks when handling the discharged shell cases from the rifle salute to the family of deceased veterans.

2) Cemetery Officials instructed American Legion Post 586 to remove prayers from its burial rituals.

3) Director Ocasio told the National Memorial Ladies that it could no longer include “God Bless” in its condolence cards or speak a religious message to veterans’ families.

4) Director Ocascio shut down the Cemetery chapel; it is now a “meeting facility.”

HT: GWP

If the shoe fits…

(MRC) — On Morning Joe, commenting on President Obama’s performance at the previous day’s press conference, Mark Halperin says “I think he was kind of a dick yesterday.”

Update: MSNBC has issued the following statements:

Mark Halperin’s comments this morning were completely inappropriate and unacceptable. We apologize to the President, The White House and all of our viewers. We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air. Therefore, Mark will be suspended indefinitely from his role as an analyst.

Statement from Mark Halperin:

I completely agree with everything in MSNBC’s statement about my remark. I believe that the step they are taking in response is totally appropriate. Again, I want to offer a heartfelt and profound apology to the President, to my MSNBC colleagues, and to the viewers. My remark was unacceptable, and I deeply regret it.

Feel good story of the day.

MOGADISHU, Somalia, June 30 (UPI) — An unmanned aircraft attacked two leaders of a militant Somali group with ties al-Qaida apparently wounding the targets, a U.S. military official said.

The drone strike occurred last week against senior members of al-Shabaab, coming as concern grows within the U.S. government that some leaders of the Islamist group are working more closely with al-Qaida to strike targets outside of Somalia, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Somalia is at least the sixth country in which the United States is using drones to conduct airstrikes, the Post reported, joining Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq and Yemen.

Both of the leaders targeted in the drone attack had “direct ties” to American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the military official said.

Then again, the real aim of those references was purely to incite class warfare.

Corporate Jet Benefit Gets Six Obama Mentions, Aids Little in Deficit Cuts — Bloomberg

President Barack Obama’s proposal to end a tax break for corporate jet owners, a repeated refrain in his news conference yesterday, would achieve less than one-tenth of 1 percent of his target for reducing the federal deficit.

Changing the provision would put $3 billion into the Treasury over a decade, said two congressional aides familiar with the proposal. Democrats want to require companies that use jets for business purposes to write off the cost over seven years, instead of five years allowed under current law, said a congressional aide and a White House aide. Airplanes used for charter or commercial flights already must be depreciated over seven years.

Obama mentioned the corporate jet break six times, criticizing Republicans’ unwillingness to include tax increases in legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling. Republicans are pressing for spending cuts in the measure, which must be passed before Aug. 2, when the Treasury Department projects the U.S. will no longer be able to meet its debt obligations.

“It would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that the tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we’re not willing to come to the table and get a deal done,” Obama said during the White House news conference.

It would take much more than eliminating a break for corporate jets to complete the deal. The $3 billion proposal would generate 0.075 percent of the $4 trillion in deficit reduction that Obama is seeking through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.

(MSNBC) — Facing domestic political pressure, Pakistan’s government escalated the war of words with the United States, with its defense minister repeating calls for the U.S. to stop using a remote air base for drone strikes and to vacate the base.

Relations between the two uneasy allies have been on a downward slide for months, but deteriorated after the May 2 raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden’s presence in a military town less than a mile from Pakistan’s version of West Point reinforced suspicion in the U.S. that elements of Pakistan’s security establishment may have helped hide him.

Wednesday’s remarks by Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar that the U.S. had been asked to vacate Shamsi Air Base, in the remote southwest part of the country, was the latest salvo as the two countries tussle over their interests in an Afghanistan settlement and the Pakistani government seeks to publicly distance itself from Washington.

“We have been talking to them (on the issue) for some time, but after May 2, we told them again,” Mukhtar told Reuters on Thursday. “When they (U.S. forces) will not operate from there (Shamsi base), no drone attacks will be carried out.”