The guy murdered a cop. End of story.

ATLANTA, Sept. 26, 2011 — President Obama candidly Friday took a little time to explain how he tried to save Troy Davis and why he did not say anything about his controversial execution, two sources told Redding News Review.

Obama’s White House spent “three days” looking at how it could legally get involved in the case on a federal level, one source said. The Obama administration even called the state of Georgia about getting involved and were told “No”.

“‘We looked at every possible avenue legally,’” the source reported Obama said. “‘There was not one there.’”

“‘It was a state case and I could not intervene because it wasn’t federal,’” another source reported Obama said.

The two sources told Redding News Review that Obama talked about Davis, during a private lunch meeting of about 10 select black broadcasters.

This administration has never met a radical Islamist group it didn’t want to coddle.

WASHINGTON — The administration of President Barack Obama has been quietly consulting with the Islamic opposition in Syria.

Senior U.S. officials have been meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood as well as its lobbyists in the United States. They said the two sides have convened several times over the last three months to discuss the Brotherhood’s role after the ouster of President Bashar Assad.

“We ask the U.S. and international community to put an end to bloodshed and send Bashar Assad to the International Criminal Court,” Susan Misto, a board member of the Syrian American Council, said.

The Reform Party in Syria has protested the administration’s meetings with the Brotherhood. RPS, regarded as one of the most pro-Western elements in the Syrian opposition, said Washington was signaling its endorsement of the Brotherhood’s goal to make Syria into an Islamic state rather than a democracy that would foster its large minority community of Alawites, Christians and Kurds.

“This ill-advised policy of the U.S. State Department will have dire consequences, not only for the future of Syria, but also through an immediate increase in violence and the strengthening of the Assad base,” RPS said on Sept. 23.

On Sept. 24, the council, regarded as a lobbyist for the Brotherhood, held a meeting in Anaheim, Calif. to discuss a post-Assad Syria. The session was addressed by U.S. special envoy Frederic Hof, responsible for U.S. policy on Damascus.

“As Syrian-Americans we stand in solidarity with the peaceful protestors in Syria who are giving their lives daily in the pursuit of freedom and liberty,” Ms. Misto said.

This marked at least the second session between the State Department and the Brotherhood in as many months. The first meeting was headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and excluded members of the secular Syrian opposition.

Keep this man in your prayers.

(CNSNews.com) — An Iranian pastor who refuses to renounce his Christian faith could be hanged as soon as Wednesday, after a trial court ruling this week upheld his death sentence for “apostasy.”

Religious freedom advocates are calling urgently for governments to take up the case of Youcef Nadarkhani, a 32-year-old evangelical first sentenced to death late last year. If the sentence is carried out he will be the first Iranian Christian known to have been executed for his faith in 21 years.

Nadarkhani embraced Christianity at the age of 19, and since his Supreme Court appeal last June, proceedings focused on the question of whether he was a practicing Muslim at the time.

According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), although a court subsequently determined that he was not a practicing Muslim adult when he became a Christian “the court has decided that he remains guilty of apostasy because he has Muslim ancestry.”

Back in court on Sunday and Monday this week, Nadarkhani faced renewed pressure to disavow his faith, on pain on death. CSW cited sources close the case as saying two more sessions have been scheduled, for Tuesday and Wednesday — and “if he continues to refuse, he will be executed thereafter.”

Unbelievably petty for the White House to pressure a private company to pull an ad simply because it makes them look bad.

(Detroit News) — For the only Detroit automaker that “didn’t take the money” of the federal auto bailouts, Ford Motor Co. keeps paying a price for its comparative success and self-reliant turnaround. . . .

As part of a campaign featuring “real people” explaining their decision to buy the Blue Oval, a guy named “Chris” says he “wasn’t going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government,” according the text of the ad, launched in early September.

“I was going to buy from a manufacturer that’s standing on their own: win, lose, or draw. That’s what America is about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you fail that you gotta’ pick yourself up and go back to work.”

That’s what some of America is about, evidently. Because Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early ’09 and again when the ad flap arose. And more.

With President Barack Obama tuning his re-election campaign amid dismal economic conditions and simmering antipathy toward his stimulus spending and associated bailouts, the Ford ad carried the makings of a political liability when Team Obama can least afford yet another one. Can’t have that.

The ad, pulled in response to White House questions (and, presumably, carping from rival GM), threatened to rekindle the negative (if accurate) association just when the president wants credit for their positive results (GM and Chrysler are moving forward, making money and selling vehicles) and to distance himself from any public downside of his decision.

HT: NRO

With Obama playing the part of the Titanic.

(The Hill) — Obama senior campaign adviser David Axelrod said Tuesday that the next presidential election would be a “titanic struggle.”

“We don’t have the wind at our backs this election,” Axelrod said according to the Boston Globe while speaking at Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics. “We have the wind in our face because the American people have the wind in their faces. This is going to be a titanic struggle.”

Axelrod added though that the elections won’t be a cakewalk for Republican presidential field either.

“It’s not going to be enough to simply point fingers of blame to try to lay on him responsibility for all America’s ills without offering prescriptions for how to solve them,” Axelrod said.

The Lean Forward crew now perilously close to falling behind perennial cable news doormat CNN.

(NY Times) — How badly has MSNBC been hurt by the loss of Keith Olbermann? Enough, apparently, to be on the verge of falling back into third place among the cable news networks.

The ratings results for the month of September show that CNN, long relegated to third place in the prime-time cable news competition, is edging its way back up, while MSNBC is moving in the other direction.

For the month, CNN averaged 257,000 viewers in prime time in the category that counts most to the networks — viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 — because that is where the advertising money goes for news programming. MSNBC was just barely ahead with 269,000 viewers. (Neither approached the leader, Fox News, with 526,000).

Both CNN and MSNBC had one especially strong night because of the Republican presidential debates. With those excluded, however, CNN beat MSNBC, 219,000 to 207,000. A year ago, when Mr. Olbermann still occupied the 8 p.m. hour, MSNBC edged CNN by 83,000 viewers, with 256,000 viewers for MSNBC to 173,000 for CNN.

The change in the September ratings was most noticeable at 8 p.m., where CNN has moved its best-known host, Anderson Cooper. The network’s performance during that hour has improved by 38 percent over last year, growing to 215,000 viewers from 156,000.

On MSNBC, meanwhile, Lawrence O’Donnell has lost 100,000 viewers from the numbers Mr. Olbermann posted last September, with 185,000 viewers in the 25-to-54 age group, a drop of 35 percent. (Bill O’Reilly on Fox, as always, dwarfs his competitors with about three times as many viewers, 611,000.)

More ominously, the falloff for Mr. O’Donnell seems to be affecting MSNBC’s biggest name, Rachel Maddow. Her audience dropped 15 percent this year, to 245,000 from 289,000. She still beats Piers Morgan on CNN in the 9 p.m. hour, but his show has improved 18 percent over Larry King’s ratings last year, with 193,000 viewers to Mr. King’s 164,000.

Our savior.

(Beltway Confidential) — President Obama took a swipe yesterday at former President Bush in remarks to supporters in California and discussed why he ran for president.

“For the last decade, it felt like that compact, that bond, that contract that we made with each other had been broken and that too many people were not being treated fairly,” Obama said to a Hollywood audience. “And what made it worse was nobody in Washington seemed to care.” President Bush, of course, occupied the White House for all of that decade before Obama’s presidential run.

I guess one mistake out of 57 states isn’t so bad.

(CNN) — Looks like someone in the White House press office needs to brush up on their U.S. geography.

The press office issued credentials to those reporters and photojournalists who are covering the president’s trip this week to Washington state, California, and Colorado. The credential even provides a handy graphic highlighting (in white) which states the president will visit.

The only problem?

Wyoming is highlighted, not Colorado. To be fair, both states are square, nearly identical in size, and stacked next to each other. But we doubt our third grade teachers would buy that!

The man’s ego needs its own zip code.

Via Fox Nation:

Sent: Tue Sep 27 00:06:48 2011
Subject: travel press pool report #12

Appearing at the Fig and Olive restaurant in West Hollywood, Obama spoke to a group of Hollywood and music industry big wigs who had paid $17,900 apiece to get in. The group included DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenburg, who introduced the president, along with actor Jack Black, actor Danny DeVito, actress Rhea Perlman, producer Jon Landau, director Judd Apatow, music producer Quincy Jones, and Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown, among others.

“Making health care affordable and accessible to every single America, we made it happen (audience claps). Even though it’s not fully implemented yet, there was just a report last week that over 1 million young people have health insure who had not had it before because they can stay on their parents’ plans.

“Ending the war in Iraq. 100,000 out. They will be all out by the end of this year. Restoring a sense of respect around the world. We do not just have power through our military but also our diplomacy, our values, the power of our examples. There’s an awful lot we’ve gotten done, but here’s the challenge: It is restoring that compact, restoring that sense we’re all in this together and everyone is doing their fair share. Shared sacrifice and opportunity, that project is not complete. It’s not finished. Which is why we’ve got to work just as hard in the coming year as we did in 2007 and 2008. If anything, we’ve got to work harder in part because it’s not going to be as sexy, not going to be as new. I’m grayer, I’m all dinged up. (audience laughs)

Keep reading…

Wahhabi justice.

(BBC) — A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for breaking the country’s ban on female drivers.

The woman, identified only as Shema, was found guilty of driving in Jeddah in July.

Women2drive, which campaigns for women to be allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, says she has already lodged an appeal.

In recent months, scores of women have driven vehicles in Saudi cities in an effort to put pressure on the monarchy to change the law.

The sentence comes two days after the Saudi leader King Abdullah announced women would be allowed to vote for the first time in 2015.

Two other women are due to appear in court later this year on similar charges, correspondents say.

Pass this bill!

(Washington Times) — President Obama still is pressing Congress to pass his jobs stimulus bill immediately, but his own party leaders in the Senate, where Democrats have a majority, have pushed that vote off yet again.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said Monday night that when the Senate returns from a weeklong vacation, the chamber will work instead on a bill that would push to label China a currency manipulator, which would make retaliatory steps in order.

“I don’t think there’s anything more important for a jobs measure than China trade,” Mr. Reid said.

Late Monday, before he closed down the Senate, Mr. Reid locked in an early test vote for when senators return next week.

Mr. Obama two weeks ago sent Congress legislation he said would create jobs by extending and expanding temporary tax cuts and boosting infrastructure spending, which he offset by increasing taxes over the long term.

The president has been traveling the country demanding that Congress act immediately, but even his own party has not been keen to rush the legislation.

Mr. Reid is the Senate sponsor of the measure, but he said there are other priorities.

“We’ll get to that, but let’s get some of these things done that we have to get done first,” he said.

In other words: Kill women and children simply because they’re Jewish.

Via Translating Jihad

“If we don’t get our fiscal house in order in a way that is fair and equitable, so that everybody feels like they have responsibilities to not only themselves and their families but also to the country that has given them so much opportunity, we’re going to have problems.”

HT: GWP

Hmmmm.

(LA Times) — Long before the politically connected California solar firm Solyndra went bankrupt, President Obama was warned by his top economic advisors about the financial and political risks of the Energy Department loan guarantee program that boosted the company’s rapid ascent.

At a White House meeting in late October, Lawrence H. Summers, then director of the National Economic Council, and Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, expressed concerns that the selection process for federal loan guarantees wasn’t rigorous enough and raised the risk that funds could be going to the wrong companies, including ones that didn’t need the help.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, also at the meeting, had a different view. Under pressure from Congress to speed up the loans, he wanted less scrutiny from the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB.

The divisions foreshadowed a question that has emerged since Solyndra’s bankruptcy: Was the program’s vetting process thorough enough? The disagreements also spotlighted an issue that has confronted Obama since he took office: What is the appropriate role of the government in stimulating the private marketplace?

Skeptics, noting that taxpayers could now be on the hook for $527 million the federal government loaned Solyndra, said the administration would have been better off making greater use of market incentives, not individual company loan guarantees.

Note to Sheila Jackson Lee. You are the last person who should be criticizing others for playing the race card.

HT: Naked Emperor News

The mafia has nothing on unions when it comes to violent intimidation and shakedowns.

(TheDC) — The AFL-CIO labor union appears, at least theoretically, to support violence and vandalism when union members use those tactics in the interest of furthering “legitimate union activity.”

Last week, top AFL-CIO lawyer Jonathan D. Newman attempted to file an amicus brief in federal court after local union officials in Buffalo, N.Y. were charged with several acts of violence.

The Buffalo News reports that members of Operating Engineers Local 17 are charged with pouring sand into construction vehicles’ engines, stabbing a company executive in the neck, tossing hot coffee at non-union workers and threatening to sexually assault the wife of a company representative.

“We’re not condoning the allegations or arguing that union officials are completely immune from prosecution,” Newman said. “Instead, we simply want to make sure that the [federal law] is not interpreted in a way that could have a chilling effect on legitimate union activity.”

While the AFL-CIO is not directly condoning the crimes alleged against the union members, its friend-of-the-court brief leans on the 1973 U.S. v. Enmons Supreme Court ruling which condones union violence as long as it is in the interest of “legitimate union activity.”

Keep reading…

Saturday’s CBC speech is the gift that keeps on giving.

AL SHARPTON: Let me say this. To those who are trying to distort what the President said and those that can’t get past themselves for the good of the people: don’t be a hypocrite! Don’t take a position with this president that you never took before. I remember, as I sat there, looking at some of those who have been on the scene a long time.

When the last Democrat was in the White House, Bill Clinton, there was a lot that I disagreed with. He brought the crime bill, that brought back the death penalty in the federal government. He brought the welfare reform bill, which hurt, in my opinion, a lot of our communities. He did things that I felt was detrimental to our community. Even had an arch-conservative, Dick Morris, run his re-election. You said nothing! You didn’t have any kind of loud voice. Now, you go from who some of you call a black president to a real black president, and you talk about “unleash us” and let me at ‘em and all of that. And then when he responds you act like he hurt your feelings or he doesn’t know who he’s talking to. Let’s be fair: if you gave a pass in the past, why are you so vociferous now? I’m not telling you to shut up. I’m telling you don’t make some of us have to speak up!

What exactly are they saying? Obama’s an idiot without TOTUS?

(National Journal) — President Obama just got a little carried away. At least, that’s how members of the Congressional Black Caucus are explaining Obama’s remarks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Dinner on Saturday night.

Obama ended his rousing speech by calling on his audience to “take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes” and press on for change and equality. “Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do, CBC,” the president exhorted.

His speech met with a standing ovation. But in television appearances Monday, Black Caucus members and African-American leaders questioned the president’s choice of words.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., called the president’s remarks “a bit curious” in a CBS appearance. She said she didn’t think the president would have made such comments to a meeting of Hispanic, Jewish, or LGBT voters.

CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., echoed Waters’ remarks in a separate MSNBC appearance, but made his support for the president clear.

“I think the president stepped away from his prepared text as many of us do who speak a lot. And in the passion of the moment, he talked about the complaining that he’s hearing around the country inside the party,” Cleaver said. “And he’s saying that that’s not helpful, join in, we need all of the members of this coalition working together so that we can successfully deal with reelection.”

That time of the month, Barack?

(Politico) — President Obama, slipping in the polls among black supporters and under fire from black Democratic leaders for policies they say fail to address black poverty and unemployment, said Monday that targeting programs to help one community “is not how America works.”

Obama’s exclusive interview with BET’s Emmett Miller in the Oval Office is the latest in a flurry of outreach that included a private lunch Friday with prominent black radio talk show hosts, and a blistering speech Saturday night at a Congressional Black Caucus dinner.

Miller asked Obama to consider the plight of a hypothetical young, African-American in Chicago’s South Side: Father gone, mother working 10 hours a day for “peanuts,” there are no jobs and, “You won’t even say, ‘Look, I am going to help you,’” Miller said.

“Emmett, that is not — first of all, that is not what people are saying,” Obama said, bristling. “What people are saying all across the country is we are hurting and we’ve been hurting for a long time. And the question is how can we make sure the economy is working for every single person.”

Obama added, “The other thing I want to make sure you don’t just kind of slip in there is this notion that African-American leaders of late have been critical. There have been a handful of African-Americans who have been critical. They were critical when I was running for president. There’s always going to be somebody who is critical of the president of the United States.”

Plus the Hoffa incident was a hundred times worse because he spoke immediately prior to Obama taking the same stage and implored the audience to “take these sons of bitches out.” A couple of unruly audience members at a debate pales in comparison. Moreover, all the GOP candidates condemned them for it while Carney refused to condemn Hoffa.

(ABC News) — The White House today added to the president’s criticism the night before of the audiences at Republican presidential debates, chastising the GOP candidates for staying silent in the face of objectionable eruptions by some members of the audience.

At a fundraiser in California on Sunday night, President Obama said of the debates, “You’ve got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because they’re gay. That’s not reflective of who we are.”

The boos and applause came from what sounded like less than a handful of individuals, it should be noted.

Regardless, White House press secretary Jay Carney elaborated on the president’s remarks, saying, “There was a question asked by a soldier, a U.S. soldier stationed in Iraq, about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and the fact that when he was booed by audience members, not a single one of the candidates for president, people who believe they have what it takes to be commander in chief, said a thing about that. And he is there defending our country, putting his life on the line for our country.

“The president was also struck by, in an earlier debate, where the hypothetical question was asked about someone who didn’t have health insurance that had died and there were cheers at that prospect and no candidate had anything to say about that,” Carney said. “It’s a matter of values. It’s a matter of who we are as Americans.”

Some of the Republican candidates have told ABC News that they weren’t aware of the cheering or booing from the stage, while others weren’t certain what the cheers were for.

Earlier this month, Carney refused to condemn Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa Jr., who called Tea Party members “sons of bitches” at a labor event the president attended.

“I understand that there is a ritual in Washington that, you know, somebody says something and you link the associations and then everybody who has an association with him or her is somehow — has to avow or disavow it,” Carney said, adding that the president wasn’t on stage at the time and “didn’t hear it. . . . Mr. Hoffa speaks for himself. . . . The president speaks for himself.”