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Thursday, July 26, 2012

Fox meme gets Cool Blasted
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Click for Fox and Friends video.
As my esteemed colleague Steve Benen pointed out earlier, President Obama is pushing back against the Romney campaign's thoroughly bogus "you didn't build it" attacks.
This hasn't stopped Fox and Friends from putting on two adorable little girls who run a lemonade stand to further their meme. Here's a back-and-forth between host Brian Kilmeade and the 7-year-old CEO of Cool Blast Lemonade of Texas, Clara Sutton:
Kilmeade: Clara, how do you feel about the President saying that you needed help to start this business. And just speak from -- speak from within. All right, you know what? Let's switch over to --
Younger sister Eliza yawns. Clara begins to speak.
Kilmeade: Why don't you answer that one?
Clara, age 7: I would say that's rude because we worked very hard to build this business. But we did have help.
Kilmeade: And your help came from?
Clara: Our help came from our investors, our dad and stepmom, along with other friends and family.
Funny, Clara sounds not just like President Obama, but like Mitt Romney talking to athletes at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics (video). Apparently, business people do need other people. Everyone knows this. Stay classy, Fox and Friends.
And Clara? We'd buy a Cool Blast lemonade from you anytime.(H/t Erik Wemple)


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ROMNEY: You Olympians, however, know you didn’t get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities.
Romney agreed with Obama as recently as last week, saying in a campaign appearance, “I know that you recognize a lot of people help you in a business. Perhaps the bank, the investors. There is no question your mom and dad, your school teachers. The people who provide roads, the fire, the police. A lot of people help.”

The President said that together, Americans built the free enterprise system that we all benefit from…. He has invested in our roads, bridges and highways, he has doubled Pell grant scholarships and reformed the student loan system to help students afford college, and he is committed to making sure that every community in America is connected to the digital age by expanding broadband access. Ironically, Mitt Romney knows better than anyone that business can’t always do it alone…. These attack ads make you wonder. Does [Romney] even understand how our economy works? You and I know how it works. We build our businesses through hard work and initiative, with the public and private sectors working together to create a climate that helps us grow. President Obama knows that, and he’s fighting to strengthen our economy on that basic principle.

Behind the limits of Syria - a song for the displaced Hraúrna HD


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Published on Jul 23, 2012 by 
There are people Istason to oblivion, and the replacement Istason people, and people Istason on separation, 
hugging the sky Hmmanm Hmokha IPA and 
steadfast like mountains .. Not only bow to God 
is not totally immersed flood, no matter how overwhelmed and rose 
not shake no matter how battered and wind intensified 
and all those people are you, the people of a national free Syria .... O 
You who Adhishtm Besmodkm the whole world in front of the legendary machine repression and brutality of merciless old man, or woman, or child ... 
and you know .. Bkivagm the whole universe .. that there is a difference between the death ... and death ... 
What a difference between rights and to die standing tall .. or lying!! 
and the fact no one can withdraw from A freedom that knew how to defend it .. as you do you these days Bostoria impress everyone. 
freedom Liberals are in dignity, which is very expensive ..! 
.. sons of Syria Guala you Kalkhizran, bend .. possible .. But do not be broken. 
and your victory after this patience and jihad. lyrics of the song from the back of your borders Syria passed by my nymph 2 , however, carry a piece of bread and other effects of a fragment from the back of your borders Syriaasked gently from you Do you have books and identity 2 I am the daughter of pride, pottery and men admired the Freedom 2 I am the daughter of the people are free to proclaim the rights of legitimacy I am the daughter of an Arab homeland 2 and my country called Syria, from the back of your borders Syria stripped because I am in my 2 echoed want Freedom 2 burned ground Hanno cross 2 broken games brutally 2 demolished my house were killed by a bullet treachery stamens our club's intention and the Fathers of our Revolution Revolution peaceful 3 do not know whether to cry Daddy 2 Do you cry a homeland and the cause behind your borders Syria Sabra do not cry do not cry Sabra do not cry Staudi Sabra do not cry Staudi home Elmejrouh proud 2 being demolished are free revolted not international resolutions Sabra do not cry Staudi home Elmejrouh proud 2 and shine despite their noses in the Levant suns freedom 3 club with determination and parents of our revolution a peaceful revolution I do not know you cry Father, you cry a homeland and the cause behind your limits Syria from the back of your borders Syria poetess baby princess VIZO composed by Muhannad Abdul Fattah singing nymph Sham / Imad Sultan production Abu Haitham Al Zoubivision and directed by team Syria to work all Syrian4all on Facebook team Syria for all monitoring and translation of more business, please subscribe Besvanna on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/Syrian4all

The Right To Shoot Back: Another "Gun-Free-Zone" Fail

 Posted 
Gun Control: Colorado is a concealed-carry state, as a noted film critic points out, but so was Virginia when a college campus there was racked by violence. Like the school, the theater chain was also "gun-free."
In December 2007, two church members were shot to death and three others injured after a gunman opened fire outside the New Life Church in Colorado Springs as Sunday services were wrapping up.
That tragedy could have been much worse, but the gunman was shot by a church security officer and was found dead when police arrived at the scene.
On April 22 of this year a just-released felon went to the New Destiny Christian Church in Aurora, Colo., and killed the mother of Pastor Delano Strahan before being killed himself by a congregant carrying a gun.
Unlike the tragedies at Columbine High School and the movie theatre in Aurora, there was someone at these venues willing and able to shoot back.
Other than the shooter, there was nobody armed in or at the Century 16 theater complex where 12 were killed and another 59 wounded, unable to exercise their right to self-defense.
Colorado is a concealed-carry state, as was Virginia at the time of the Virginia Tech shootings. But like Virginia Tech, according to World Net Daily, the Century 16 theater's parent, Cinemark Holdings Inc., has a strict "gun-free" policy at all of its 459 theaters, even for those who have concealed carry permits.
Film critic Roger Ebert opined in the New York Times that Colorado's concealed-carry laws didn't protect moviegoers, overlooking the theater owner's gun-free policy as will the media in coming days .
The similarities between Aurora and the Virginia Tech massacre are eerie and maddening. In 2006, a Virginia Tech student was disciplined for carrying a gun on campus, despite having a permit. School officials were quick to note their school was a "gun-free zone."As Warner Todd Houston reported at Breitbart.com in 2009, an Alaska-based member of a gun owner's message board reported that he tried to enter a Cinemark-owned theater with his open-carry weapon but was turned away because the chain was a "gun-free zone," the manager said. No one in that Aurora theater was allowed to defend himself.
On April 16, 2007, there was no one able to shoot back when Seung-Hui Cho shot 32 people to death on a Virginia Tech campus. Had one or two students or teachers been armed, it could have been stopped.
One wonders if Cho would have even walked on campus with a gun if he knew his victims would be able to defend themselves. Or how the story would have been different had Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who lost his life barricading a classroom door so his students could escape, had been able to fire back.
Few Americans are aware that in an October 1997 shooting spree at a Pearl, Miss., high school that left two students dead, assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a gun from his car and immobilized the shooter until police arrived, preventing further killings.
Or, in another school shooting in January 2002 at the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia, a disgruntled former student killed Law Dean L. Anthony Sutin, associate professor Thomas Blackwell and a student. Two of the three Virginia law students who overpowered the gunman were armed, preventing further deaths.
In February 2007, at a Salt Lake City mall, armed off-duty police officer Ken Hammond killed a young Muslim named Sulejman Talovic after he had killed five people, preventing an even larger massacre.
Yet liberals will insist the answer to criminal violence is more "gun-free" zones and the disarming of more potential victims.
It remains to be seen whether Aurora, Colo., will be used to push the U.N.'s global gun grab in the form of the Arms Trade Treaty. After all, in this administration's view a crisis or tragedy is a terrible thing to waste.

Mitt Romney's overseas trip: where he's going and why

Mitt Romney, the man who rescued the Winter Olympics of 2002, is making London the first stop on his tour abroad. From Britain he'll travel to Israel and Poland, with an eye both on policy differences and domestic constituencies.

Temp Headline Image

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks in Reno, Nev., Tuesday, July 24. Romney is making London the first stop on his tour abroad, from Britain he'll travel to Israel and Poland.
(Rich Pedroncelli/AP/File)

By Howard LaFranchi

posted July 25, 2012 at 3:45 pm EDT
WashingtonIt’s no coincidence that the first stop of presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s seven-day, three-country overseas trip is London in full Olympics mode.
By attending the opening ceremonies of the Summer Games Friday and holding a number of high-profile interviews as he does, Governor Romney hopes to remind voters back home that he rescued the troubled Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002 – and is thus the very fix-it man that America needs.
The over-arching goal of Romney’s trip is to demonstrate his statesmanlike qualities and that he’s up to assuming the mantle of America’s leadership role in the world. Romney also wanted to suggest the values his foreign policy would embody, aides say, through the countries he chose to visit on this trip: BritainIsrael, and Poland.
All three countries are “pillars of liberty,” campaign policy director Lanhee Chen told reporters before Romney’s departure. That makes the trip “an opportunity for us to demonstrate a clear and resolute stand with nations that share our values and possess the fortitude to defend those values,” he said.
But just as the stop in London, where Romney landed Wednesday, is about reaching US voters with a particular message, so is each of the presumptive Republican nominee’s subsequent stops.
After London, Romney flies to Israel. The goal there? Firm up the former Massachusetts governor’s support among Evangelicals – and perhaps peel off some of the Jewish vote that went for President Obama in 2008 – by highlighting Romney’s support for Israel and hinting at what he considers has been Mr. Obama’s “shabby treatment” of the Jewish state.
From Israel, Romney will travel to Poland. While the subtext of the stop in Eastern Europe will be to underscore Romney’s support for new democracies – and his rejection of Obama’s “reset” policy of cooperation with Russia – the real objective is to appeal to Catholic voters back home, in particular the ethnic Catholics who could tip the balance in states like Ohio or Michigan.
Nowhere on the trip is Romney expected to pan either Obama or his foreign policy. As the Republican hopeful said in his speech Tuesday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he would not be criticizing Obama while overseas. Not only does tradition hold that it is unseemly for a presidential candidate to criticize the commander-in-chief from foreign soil, but the Romney campaign knows that Obama remains popular in many parts of the world, even holding his own in recent polls in Israel, where he fared poorly early in his administration.
In pre-trip discussions with reporters, Romney aides set modest goals for the trip, describing it as a “listening and learning” tour to deepen the candidate’s knowledge of issues he would have to deal with as president and his familiarity with world leaders.
Romney was to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday – it is customary for major-party candidates to meet with the leaders of the countries they visit – but the event was billed as a private meeting that would not be followed by the kind of joint press conference that two leaders might give.
Romney is already friends with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he will sit down with on Sunday in Jerusalem. The two men have known each other for three decades, since their days at the Boston Consulting Group.
And even if all Romney does is appear smiling and friendly with Mr. Netanyahu – and in Jerusalem – the Romney camp intends to contrast that with Obama’s sometimes-difficult rapport with the Israeli leader. They also plan to play up the fact that Obama managed to visit Cairo, where he delivered a major speech to the Muslim World in 2009, but has not visited Israel in his first term. (The Obama team points out that the president, like Romney, visited Israel in 2008 as a candidate, and that George W. Bush did not visit Israel as president until d termhis secon.)
Romney’s overseas tour is certain to lead to comparisons to then-Senator Obama’s trip in the summer of 2008, which culminated in the candidate’s rapturous reception by more than 200,000 well-wishers at an outdoor speech in Berlin.
Romney aides are setting more modest goals for their candidate’s trip, at least publicly. But Obama campaign aides have already pounced on their Republican opponent’s focus on the Olympics for his trip, saying it suggests a candidate who isn’t focused on foreign policy challenges.
“Mitt Romney owes it to the American people to explain where he stands,” said former White House press secretary and Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs in a conference call with reporters, “[but] Romney is not engaged in these issues.”
Gibbs noted that four years ago, candidate Obama traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as to allies in the Middle East and Europe, to hear from leaders and commanders of US forces to better understand the key national-security issues.
Obama’s point then was to underscore for American voters both how his foreign policy would differ from that of the sitting president, and what he meant by a new American leadership in the world.
Romney says he, too, would shift away from the current president’s foreign policy – in his case, to what he says would be a more energetic use of American power. His week-long overseas trip may help reveal the steps he would take to put America on that different global course.

Colorado shooting: Was James Holmes's notebook 'a cry for validation'? (+video)

James Holmes allegedly mailed a package to a psychiatrist that foretold a murderous rampage at a theater showing 'The Dark Knight Rises.' Was it a call for recognition from somebody whose family worried about his isolation?

By Staff writer / July 26, 2012
Aurora, Colo., Police Chief Daniel Oates looks at the memorial across from the movie theater where 12 people were killed and 58 wounded in a shooting attack during a showing of the Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises."
Alex Brandon/AP










News that James Holmes may have tried to communicate his intentions to a professor raises as many questions as it answers.
Details about the package sent to the professor (who is also a psychiatrist in the school where Mr. Holmes had been a doctoral candidate) are sketchy. And so far, there is no firm indication of his motivation in allegedly killing 12 people and wounding 58 others gathered to watch the midnight premiére of the latest Batman movie.
Yet it may have been a last-ditch effort for recognition by one whose isolation had led family members to express concern.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement authorities in Colorado refuse to talk about anything Holmes might have sent to the university campus, and after several days of press briefings, they have followed a judge’s order in refusing all comment – no doubt out of concern that either prosecution or defense interests could be harmed.
But according to several news sources, beginning withFox News, the notebook that Holmes reportedly sent included stick drawings of some individuals shooting others. What legal advocates on both sides of the criminal case make of that remains to be seen.
"Is it a manifesto or an apology? If it includes drawings that are sufficiently deranged as to be from someone who appears mentally ill, it could assist defense in a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity defense,” legal analyst Scott Robinson told The Denver Post. “If it appears to be the work of someone who knew exactly what they are doing, and they knew it was wrong, that could help the prosecution."
In retrospect, experts and close associates of those who go on a shooting rampage often recall signs of confused thinking and aberrant behavior that might have provided clues to mass violence. In some cases, that involves a pattern of bullying in school, evidence of “going postal” at work, or unusual mood swings observed by family members or close friends.
According to Holmes family friends who spoke to The Washington Post, Holmes’s mother had confided deep concerns about her son’s isolation over the years and sought counseling for him.
But seldom in the history of such killings has the perpetrator explicitly communicated his or her intent to target a particular group.
“It may very well have been a last-ditch cry for help or recognition ... a cry for validation,” says Brian Levin, professor of criminal justice and director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
“If the timeline [as reported] is correct,” Mr. Levin says, “he might have wanted to attract attention for merely contemplating an attack rather than doing it.”
In any case, cautions Levin, “What we know now is just a sliver compared with what we don’t know.”
Still, he speculates that the package sent to a professor is probably a sign of social and psychological isolation, depression, and some kind of personal setback – perhaps Holmes's failure to complete his doctoral program at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.
After his capture, Holmes is reported to have told authorities about the package he mailed, which led to the evacuation of a university building and a search involving bomb-sniffing dogs. As he was being apprehended after the shooting last Friday morning, Holmes also is reported to have told police about his booby-trapped apartment.
Why he apparently tipped off authorities in these instances also remains unclear, although it may reveal something about his overall motivation.
So far, there is no indication that Holmes’s communication prior to the attack included any kind of political or antisocial manifesto, as was the case with Ted Kaczynski, the “Unabomber” who killed three people and injured another 23 in a series of mail bombings over nearly 20 years. When The New York Times and The Washington Post published Mr. Kaczynski’s 35,000-word essay, “Industrial Society and Its Future,” his brother David Kaczynski recognized the ideas and writing style, which led to Ted Kaczynski’s capture.
More recently, between two separate attacks in which he shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Techbefore killing himself in 2007, Seung-Hui Cho sent NBC News a package with a manifesto, photos, and videos of himself.
Initial reports said Holmes’s mailing to the university sat in the mailroom for some days before being found, but school officials denied that in a statement:
"Officials at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus can confirm that the suspicious package discovered at the Facilities Services building on Monday, July 23, 2012, was delivered to the campus by the United States Postal Service that same day, immediately investigated and turned over to authorities within hours of delivery.”
Holmes is due to hear the charges against him at a court hearing scheduled for next Monday.

Shooting suspect James Holmes described killings in package (+video)

The University of Colorado Denver said Wednesday that the US Postal Service delivered the package Monday, and it was immediately investigated and turned over to authorities within hours.

By Kristen Wyatt and Nicholas Riccardi, Associated Press / July 26, 2012
In this July 23 photo, James Holmes, accused of killing 12 people in Friday's shooting rampage in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, appears in Arapahoe County District Court with defense attorney Tamara Brady in Centennial, Colo.
RJ Sangosti/Denver Post/AP
Enlarge
DENVER
As reports emerged of a suspicious package sent to a university the suspect in the Coloradotheater shooting once attended, the first memorial service was held for a victim of the massacre.
The University of Colorado Denver said Wednesday that the US Postal Service delivered the package Monday, and it was immediately investigated and turned over to authorities within hours.
Alleged Aurora, Colo. gunman James Holmes sent a package that may have telegraphed his intent to kill. Anna Werner reports.

It wouldn't confirm its contents or whether it was sent by former neuroscience graduate studentJames Holmes. However multiple media outlets, citing unnamed sources, reported Holmes sent a notebook with drawings and descriptions of an attack.
Fox News' website was among those reporting the notebook was in a package addressed to a psychiatrist at the school. It was unclear if Holmes, 24, had had any previous contact with the person. The neuroscience program that he withdrew from on June 10 included professors of psychiatry.
Holmes is accused of opening fire on a theater showing the new Batman movie, killing 12 people and injuring 58. He is due to hear the charges against him at a court hearing scheduled Monday.
NBC News, citing unnamed sources, reported that Holmes told investigators to look for the package and that it described killing people.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies refused to confirm the reports to The Associated Press.
US Postal Service spokesman David Rupert said the agency's inspectors have no direct knowledge of thepackage in question. He said no one has contacted the Postal Service for assistance in the investigation.
Before a judge issued a gag order in the case, police said Holmes received more than 50 packages at the school and his home that apparently contained ammunition, combat gear and explosive materials that he used in the attack and to booby-trap his Aurora apartment.
The apartment building was evacuated for days while authorities rendered it safe and collected evidence. Residents were allowed to return Wednesday.
Holmes' defense team also briefly visited the building Wednesday and left without answering reporters' questions.
Holmes, who grew up in California, was allegedly stockpiling for the attack while he studied at the school's neuroscience program. He bought a shotgun and pistol in May, authorities say. On June 7, the date he took a year-end oral exam, he bought an assault rifle. He filed paperwork to leave the program three days later and did not provide a reason, the university has said.
Meanwhile, 51-year-old Gordon Cowden was honored Wednesday at the first memorial service for a slain victim.
About 150 mourners including Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper gathered on Wednesday the father who had gone to see "The Dark Knight Rises" with his teenage children. His children were unharmed.
Cowden lived in Aurora, the Denver suburb where the theater is located. A family statement described him as a "true Texas gentleman" who loved the outdoors and owned his own business.
"A quick-witted world traveler with a keen sense of humor, he will be remembered for his devotion to his children and for always trying his best to do the right thing, no matter the obstacle," his family said.
Cowden's memorial was also attended by Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan and Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates.
Later this week, families of other victims planned to say their final goodbyes.
Funerals were planned in towns from San Antonio, home of aspiring sportscaster Jessica Ghawi, to Crystal Lake, Ill., hometown of Navy intelligence officer John Thomas Larimer.
Pierce O'Farrill, who survived being shot three times in the attack, told The Denver Post he has forgiven the gunman and feels sorrow for him.
"I want to see him sometime. The first thing I want to say to him is 'I forgive you,' and the next is, 'Can I pray for you?'" he told the newspaper.