People don’t evolve over only four decades, certainly not leftists. During the Vietnam War, the left was pretty sure that trashing the United States Military as “baby killers” and the like would win them supporters. Instead, they felt a public relations blowback that exists to this day. As a response, the left didn’t stop hating our troops; they simply changed their tactics. Today, these leftists carefully hide their hatred and contempt for the military, because they know that that opinion is an unpopular one. I’m not saying this is true about about everyone on the left, but the extreme way in which some in the media have intentionally over-reacted and overblown a story about a few Marines caught urinating on the dead bodies of the Taliban has finally revealed who these people are.

Should those young Marines have done what they did? Of course not. Is what they did worthy of a story? Yes, it is. But is it the kind of behavior worth the media storm that’s been brewing for going on for a week now? Absolutely not.

This is simply the leftist MSM’s way of smearing the troops by pretending they’re not smearing the troops. We’re just reporting, donchaknow.

You see, over time, those on left who are currently obsessed with this story probably got tired of posing as outlets and individuals who revere America’s fighting men and women. The pent-up pressure of living this lie and all the frustration that goes along with that finally let go, and now we have mountains built from molehills and a nothingburger turned into an international scandal. The pressure valve burst and the troop-hatred came forth thinly disguised as “reporting.”

There comes a time when legitimate reporting turns into a ginned-up narrative, and some in the MSM crossed that line days ago.

Moreover, some MSM troop-haters have gone even further by attacking Dana Loesch over her defense of these same Marines. Loesch says something  on a local St. Louis radio station, and the MSM generates story after story after story about it — once again turning a nothingburger into something international. But again, this is the leftist MSM feeding their bigotry with what they see as a two-fer.  First off, the trumped up Loesch story keeps the story about the Marines alive and secondly, those in the MSM have an excuse to release all that pent-up hate and aggression they hold towards the one thing they hate more than the troops: strong, independent women who reject the left.

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- Keith Olbermann reminisces about what was his career, albeit it on MSNBC, while at MSNBC’s old offices.

- Irony defined: progressives angry at Dana Loesch’s illustration of their hyper-dramatic Marines reaction say worse to her online. Definitive reading from SooperMexican:

Not only should that give pause to any rational thinker who is not blinded by their hatred of Conservatives, but it is substantiated by the advocacy of just such acts against Dana Loesch from those supporters of the filthy liberal view. I’d like to provide some evidence of this, by documenting just some of the tweets Dana received in the course of this controversy. Of course, all of this is perfectly fine, since the situational ethics of the left allows for any violent act to be wished on Conservatives and, at the same time, hypocritically demands conservative “civility“.

- Loesch and Bill Maher make front page of the Daily Mail. This presents the question: why aren’t Huffington Post (to where Maher contributes), Media Matters, Think Progress, Politico, and Mediaite going after Maher? Why no petitioning to HBO? Is Maher getting a pass because he’s a man? Is Loesch targeted more because she’s a woman? Why are these entities not going after Mark Levin or Michael Savage?

- THIS:

Today, the NY times is setting up the next media fiction to save the destroyer in the White House. Get this: the NY Times is advancing the idea that the Marines are responsible for the failure of Obama’s “peace” negotiations with these soulless savages. As if.

Think about the timing of the tinkle news drop. You. are. being. so. played, America.

- Irony defined:

The Daily Show
The Association of Opinion Journalists (the new name of the National Conference of Editorial Writers) has a project to restore civility to public discourse. Froma Harrop, the group’s president, explains how the project squares with her own comparison of the tea party to al-Qaida in a syndicated column. (To give credit where it’s due, The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto pointed out the issue before “The Daily Show.”)

“A lot of them don’t get irony or humor.”

“How the f*ck could I get through to both of her?!”

- The Wall Street Journal puts down its crumpet, looks down its monocle at you, and discusses the horrors of the unwashed masses leaving fingerprints all over journalism. (Don’t tell it that Twitter has been breaking the big stories first. Like bin Laden.)

- “Those who do dare to speak up are promptly attacked for it. Big Journalism’s Dana Loesch describes the backlash she’s received for a few statements she made on her radio program yesterday to the effect that the reaction to the incident has been overblown.”

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In a nutshell: Woman reporter with Vlad Putin’s Russian propaganda channel pulls a female Ted Baxter on Dana Loesch and says we should be angry at our government for sending military to Afghanistan. She apparently doesn’t realize the pejorative manner in which she frames their mission which proves Loesch’s point.

RT/Russia Today: Elaborate SNL hoax or actual media entity? You decide.

Wrote John Sexton last March:

RT is essentially a glossy brochure for Putin’s strongman statism. Lots of attractive presenters with no idea what they are talking about. With a few rare exceptions, everything they pump out is designed to present America as a failure and thereby subtly suggest that, hey, maybe things aren’t so bad in dear old Russia.

From AIM:

Relatively fresh in the fight for carriage in American cable markets, Russia Today stumbled into the ring with all the grace of a drunken Moscow ballerina.

The history of the outfit:

From the outset it was clear that RT was a propaganda effort controlled completely by the Kremlin. The Kremlin put up more than $30 million to get it started and spend double that to pay a staff of over 100 reporters in just its first year of operation.

This comical weblog/RT report keeps with that quality.

“Dana thinks that troops are fighting to keep us safe.”

How would RT know? I asked Loesch in an email this afternoon prior to writing this piece. They didn’t speak with her. At all. They literally made up a quote and attributed it to her. This after RT smeared Loesch on Twitter before turning around and asking her repeatedly for an interview. Loesch says she simply deleted their emails.

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The Obamas threw an epic Halloween bash in 2009 and we’re only just now discovering how over-the-top the bash was — and how complicit media was in keeping the White House’s secret. After all, White House staff was “concerned” that the extravagant bash would appear tone-deaf to unemployed Americans, hundreds of thousands of whom are leaving the workforce entirely as new jobs are scarce and businesses are stretched thin. But is the story what it seems?

The White House has thrown so many over-the top parties and the First Lady has come under fire from the President’s advisers for her expensive tastes, so the initial reaction to hearing of yet another extravagant White House party is anger. But was the Halloween bash like the other White House parties? Was it like the party with Paul McCartney that the Obamas enjoyed while the Gulf struggled with an oil spill? Or the party the White House threw when America had its credit rating downgraded? If media reports are to be believed, the Halloween bash was “staged“/thrown by Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Security for the event would cost the public, but (I assume) comparatively no more than the cost of the annual Easter egg roll or other observances.

The point of the question isn’t to excuse the Obamas’ past irresponsibility in presentation; they lead one of the most tone-deaf administrations (Camelot style in a Carter economy, after all). The point is that this event, from my understanding, was for, and attended predominately by, military members and their families. This party is easier to justify, and features a better guest list, than the previous devil-may-care variety. I don’t want to discourage Hollywood from doing something nice for our soldiers when 99% of the movies they make about them portray them as monsters. The last time Johnny Depp dabbled in politics he called the country a “big dumb puppy.” A good deed like footing the bill (assumedly sans Secret Service, other security) for a bash thrown in honor of military families deserves some positive reinforcement by way of kudos, if this report is true.

There is still the pesky question of why the White House and media in attendance kept all of this quiet.

The White House press corps was allowed to report on more modest festivities earlier that day for Washington-area school children, but did not release details of the more glamorous festivities that occurred later for what was the Obamas’ first Halloween in office in 2009.

Why? One could beg the question that the White House and media didn’t disclose this because they knew it was wrong. Why would it be wrong? Because of public reaction? This is where it gets sneaky. It’s a set up: The narrative will be that details weren’t released because the White House didn’t want folks freaking out over extravagances for military families provided by a Hollywood director and his actor/muse. The narrative will progress into a notion that conservatives are tight-fisted when it comes to providing military families with a nice Halloween, one that wasn’t even at the conservatives’s expense. It will reinforce the stereotype that conservatives and Hollywood will always be at odds, and can’t a film director throw a party for the military if he wants? GOSH.

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Nestled in the hills of Laguna Beach, CA overlooking the Orange County coastline, a slight hint of salt in the breeze as Gen Y TV spoke with documentary filmmaker and political commentator, Stephen K. Bannon. With his latest film, “The Undefeated,” about to debut in 80 million homes through major cable and satellite companies, Bannon’s eagerness to talk to youthful viewers pushed his personal victory aside. For the next hour, I spoke with this truly humble gentleman about the existing opportunities and challenges that face my generation.

A graduate of Harvard Business School, a Surface Warfare Officer for the US Navy, and a former investment banker for Goldman Sachs, Bannon is a remarkable example of how filmmaking can come at any age and point in one’s life. Technology has enabled anyone with a digital camera to creatively express opinions as entertainment, and as a result, Bannon has written and directed four documentary films in less than two years. With our country’s finances spiraling out of control, Bannon has particularly shed light on issues that are currently affecting America’s wellbeing. He emphasized the importance of storytelling and the necessity for being passionate about the topic you are conveying. He further explained the amount of time and effort that must be committed to a project, and said, “be prepared to spend a year of your life” hashing out the story.

Moving into the specifics of his work, I asked why he chose to dedicate a film to Sarah Palin, to which he replied, because “her story has never been told.” He immediately followed with, “she is an incredibly accomplished executive who took on a corrupt and compromised political class virtually single-handed.”

The many misconceptions of Palin personified by the mainstream media opened Bannon’s film. He used this approach to gain an emotional reaction from the audience and demonstrate the influence pop culture has on the younger generation. But what started out as a conversation about independent filmmaking quickly turned to the state of the economy and the daunting problems that are soon to be inherited by those 18-35 years-old.

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There was a lot of discussion in the media this week about using our soldiers as a “political football.” After we learned that a White House draft guidance targeted the pay of our service men and women as a way to take revenge on Republicans’ targeting DC Planned Parenthoods, Democrats felt the wrath of the country — and support for Obama’s Libyan offensive sank further.

Prior to the discussion about our military however, was the discussion of the billion-dollar windfall profit AARP is set to receive, a gift from the Democrats. They cared so much about the elderly during the campaign season that they decided to craft legislation that would force millions of elderly Americans off Medicare Advantage and on to MediGap (which one can purchase as a member of AARP). Paul Begala last week argued on CNN that Democrats had to cut the federal subsidy for Medicare Advantage, you know, to cut the spending, while also ironically supporting the health control law, a subsidy that trumps any figure Medicare Advantage could have ever accrued. How convenient, too, that Democrats found a way to do this and also boost the member rolls and bottom line of AARP, one of the biggest supporters of their national health care subsidy.

While Nancy Pelosi said that Republicans were going to steal old people’s meals, while Louise Slaughter said that Republicans were going to “kill women,” Democrats themselves were quietly crafting cuts that would further affect the poor and elderly:

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This CNN report by Nic Robertson on funerals for alleged Libyan victims of allied bombing, including civilians, is model of hard-nosed reporting; of refusing to swallow government propaganda, and of speaking truth to power.  And this should come as no surprise, since CNN’s track record in challenging Arab dictators’ claims of casualties caused by the American military goes back …

… sorry, CNN’s track record of uncritically accepting Arab dictators’ claims of casualties caused by American bombing goes back to the first Gulf War, when Peter Arnett parroted the Iraqi regime’s version of the Al-Amiriyah shelter incident.  During the final stages of the air campaign leading up to the allied ground assault into Kuwait, US aircraft bombed a Baghdad command and control facility; the regime claimed it served a dual purpose as a civilian air raid shelter, and that some 400 old men, women and children were killed.

While no transcript of CNN’s coverage apparently survives on line, this self-penned puff-piece by Arnett includes his version of the incident; for a US government account, see the case study in this overview, from George W. Bush’s White House, of Saddam’s record of faking or deliberately causing civilian casualties to exploit for propaganda purposes (and while this is not the place to revisit the claims and counter claims, I couldn’t help but note that reports by CNN, the BBC and others stating that the casualties were old men, women and children also mentioned that many bodies were so badly burned as to be barely identifiable as human).

The tone and balance of CNN’s reporting at the time, along with that of other western media, can be gauged from their later reporting on the Saddam regime’s relentless milking of the incident to whip up anti-American fervour.  In a story of over 300 words on the state-controlled commemoration of the seventh anniversary of the bombing, Brent Sadler managed to find space for one off-hand, single-line reference to US claims that the shelter was a legitimate military target.

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While many Americans will park in front of their televisions to watch football on Super Bowl Sunday, others will tune in just to see the commercials. Unknown to most Americans, one commercial will be seen only by members of the U.S. military deployed overseas. Sadly, it’s a spot that probably needs to be shown to federal, state and local election officials, too.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has arranged for a public service announcement (below) to air on the Armed Forces Network’s commercial-free broadcast of Super Bowl XLV in Dallas. The objective of the PSA produced in conjunction with the Federal Voting Assistance Program is to remind overseas military of their right to vote.

Why should the FVAP spot be shown to election officials? Because election fraud, electioneering, vote fraud — call itwhat you will — seemed to run rampant during the 2010 election cycle.

Prior to the 2010 general election, several reports surfaced about problems with absentee ballots for military members stationed outside of their states of legal residence:

• BigGovernment.com reported about Illinois soldiers waiting for ballots;

• The Buffalo News reported on ballots being mailed after the federal deadline had passed;

• Pamela Geller reported on multiple cases of military ballots not being counted; and

• Investors Business Daily published an editorial, Denying Our Soldiers the Vote.

The four articles above stand as but a few examples of the voting problems faced by servicemembers deployed to other states and overseas in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

Not surprisingly, the subject — “Allegations of fraud, including illegal voting by felons and a formalized refusal by some states to follow election law regarding ballots for the military, raise the dark possibility of the manipulation of elections.” — finished in sixth place on World Net Daily’s list of most covered-up stories of 2010.

Let your elected officials know you want to ensure members of the military have their votes counted. Send each of them a link to this post!

Does anyone on the left understand right and wrong? Do any of them understand that some things humans do are morally reprehensible or is everything relative? If we could find one that understands it, it certainly won’t be Colman McCarthy. We can say this because this week the former Washington Post columnist and current director for the farcical Washington-based “Center for Teaching Peace” said that he “admires” people who “join armies” and, revealing his moral ignorance, he said he even admires those that join the Taliban’s “army.”

In a recent Washington Post piece meant to convince people that the U.S. Army is evil and that ROTC programs should be eliminated from our nation’s universities, McCarthy made the startling admission of his admiration for the Taliban’s murderous minions. And, like most leftists, he tried to dress up his admiration for immoral actions by cloaking it in the left’s favorite vehicle for misdirection: nuance.

Like most leftists McCarthy tries to split hairs saying that he isn’t “anti-soldier” by being anti-U.S. Army. He says he “admires soldiers” but just hates their work. Of course, it isn’t possible to love the troops and hate everything they do, but that is a leftist’s illogic writ large.

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“I believe that we exposed a wider truth ...”

Back in 2004, Piers Morgan was axed as editor-in-chief of the Daily Mirror, a British tabloid, for publishing photos of British soldiers who appeared to be abusing an Iraqi prisoner. They turned out to be fake.

[...]

Morgan also says he feels “vindicated” and that he has no regrets: “I feel like it was a moral duty … Sometimes you have to make a stand as an editor.”

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Happy Veterans’ Day to the brave men and women who have humbled us with their sacrifice.

An original song from the Bigs’ Jon David Khan:

An editorial-of-sorts: A special shout out to all the veterans in my family, including a very special one in Heaven, my grandfather, a sailor, a gunner during WWII. He operated the big guns on the USS Alabama, the recoil of which shook his lean frame to bits and the sound shredded his eardrums. We learned that he was exposed to a massive dose of radiation at some point during the war and only when he was being prepped for surgery to remove part of his lung at the VA (don’t dare speak to me about nationalized health care if you’ve never helped care for a vet during their time in a VA) that he revealed he saw a portion of the fallout from one of the nuclear bombs. His own wife didn’t even know as Grandpa never spoke of it.

As a teenager, I once made the mistake of parroting to him some rhetoric I’d read in the media about our military complex and how the world would be safer if we stopped being bullies and my grandfather gave me the most excoriating and deserved lecture of my life. Sometimes we fight, he explained, because the alternative is subjugation to terror, not peace. We fight when threatened. We fight because freedom isn’t free. “I pay this debt with the hope that you don’t have to,” he said gravely.

The man was a father-figure to me and his service, and the service of others, is more than partly responsible for my conservative conversion.

May God bless them, their families, and keep our active duty military safe.

Please share your tributes and stories below.

Recently in the New York Times, JFK speechwriter and adviser Ted Sorensen commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy/Nixon debates: “When Kennedy Met Nixon: The Real Story,” reads the op-ed’s title.

Turns out, however, that the “real story” as “revealed” by Sorensen is identical to the one filtered through the MSM for the past fifty years:  Kennedy, we’re given to understand, trounced Nixon—and not just in style—mainly in substance. Sorensen also laments what “now passes for political debate in our increasingly commercialized, sound-biteTwitter-fied culture, in which extremist rhetoric requires presidents to respond to outrageous claims.”

Nothing of the sort, we’re given to understand, marred those heady and substantive debates of yore. Take Kennedy’s claim that President Eisenhower had fallen asleep (or gone golfing) during his command and allowed a perilous “missile gap” to grow between the U.S. and the Soviets. In fact a huge gap had grown (roughly six thousand for us, three hundred for the Soviets.)

Might this qualify as an “outrageous claim” by Kennedy?  Not if your source is Ted Sorensen and the New York Times. In fact, prior to the debates, CIA director Allen Dulles had briefed Kennedy on the genuine missile numbers. But rather than respond to this genuinely outrageous claim, Nixon bit his tongue. Disclosing the real number (that JFK knew perfectly well) in public would alert the Soviets to how we got their number, and jeopardize U.S. national security.  Which is to say, to blindside his Republican opponent Kennedy relied on that opponent’s patriotism. Let’s face it, Republicans are at a woeful disadvantage here. (more…)

WikiLeaks is poised to release another 15,000 secret military reports, this time about the war in Iraq. A rarely spoken context for the WikiLeaks controversy is the shared hostility of WikiLeaks and leftist Democrats toward U.S. military involvement in the world.  The Make-Believe Media, most notably the New York Times and Associated Press, intentionally or inadvertently, run a smokescreen for this shared interest.

After I wrote an article illustrating the White House’s conflicting responses to WikiLeaks’ release of 76,000+ secret military Afghanistan war reports, I received an unsolicited email from someone who called herself “Sarah,” and who claimed to work for The Sunshine Press, publisher for WikiLeaks.  Her return email address checked out, but I have since received no response from her to my further emails. (There is a Sarah Tisdall listed on the WikiLeaks web page.)

“Sarah” sent me a statement, with corroborating media sources, that belies the White House line that it had no realistic opportunity to vet the documents, and brands New York Times’ reporter and White House WikiLeaks liaison Eric Schmitt as a sneaky double dealing rat fink.

WikiLeaks have consistently asserted that they offered White House officials the opportunity to review the Afghan War Diary documents to help ensure that no innocent informers were named, despite White House claims that they had no contact from the publishers…. WikiLeaks received no response.

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I’ve seen top heavyweights tangle many times. Mike Tyson was the most brutal I’ve seen, but Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield top the list the best matchups I’ve seen.

Now we have Obama vs. McChrystal. The President vs. the General. Early odds have the President a 6-1 favorite, not because he’s tougher, but just because he’s the President. President usually trumps General.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal  and his camp made some rather explosive comments about Obama and his corner man, Joe Biden in Rolling Stone, and D.C. is exploding (Biden was referred to as “bite me” by a McChrystal aide—I’ll ignore the temptation to make another Mike Tyson reference).

Basically, McChrystal is questioning the Obama war policy in Afghanistan. Rolling Stone calls him the “Runaway General.” The tone in the media right now is utter shock and surprise that a general would actually be critical of the president. This happens, even during war and perhaps even especially during war. (more…)

The left is outraged when we question their patriotism and support of our military. Perhaps, our doubts about their sincerity have something to do with their behavior. Democrat politicians have accused our troops of rape and murder. Just before we won in Iraq, democrat Harry Reid declared the war lost. The left ran a New York Times full-page ad calling a decorated U.S. general a liar for reporting our troops were making progress in Iraq. And, how many U.S. military support rallies have you seen hosted by the left? The answer is none.

On the Tea Party Express tour, we honor our military with a special tribute at each rally. The keynote speaker for our tribute is an amazing woman named Debbie Lee. Debbie is a Gold Star mom. Her son, Marc Alan Lee, was the first U.S. Navy Seal to die in Iraq (8-02-06). Marc was awarded Silver Star, Bronze Star with Valor and Purple Heart.

Debbie’s shares the extremely compelling story about how her son put himself in harm’s way on three occasions to save his fellow soldiers. The third time, he did not survive. Debbie’s strong and yet gentle spirit captures the audiences. I witness the same phenomenon at every rally. You could hear a pin drop as thousands silently hang on her every word. Here is a quote from Debbie’s extraordinary son:

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I’ve had a lot written about me in my area lately: the alterna-weekly ran a piece on me recently called “Patriot Dame,” the local daily ran a piece titled: “St. Louis activist Dana Loesch — Miss Tea Party USA?” Even more, positive and negative, after I went on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews. It was suggested to me that I take a moment to write a first-person account of who I am instead of allowing reporters define me for me. So here goes:

The first time I felt really and truly screwed over by a man was when Bill Clinton was forced to admit that he’d shacked up with Monica Lewinsky not long after he wagged his sausage-finger in the face of America and sternly intoned that he “Did. Not. Have. Sexual. Relations. With. That. Woman.” Everyone who previously entertained the possibility was made to feel ashamed for questioning the Commander-in-Chief, including me, a mere high school freshman at the time.

That was the beginning of the end of my liberally-indoctrinated upbringing, when I first began to see the Democratic party for what they really were: modern day National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and neo-plantation owners. This is validated every time a self-described Democrat-fellating poseur feminist freaks out when I dare to point out that abortion is largely female genocide and true choice lies in which form of birth control to use before intercourse; I also see it when Democrats ignore and suppress the involvement of black conservatives in the tea party movement because it doesn’t jibe with the narrative of a party still populated by Dixiecrats who set filibuster records against the Civil Rights Act. (more…)

Kandahar, Afghanistan
23 March 2010

The mission required crossing a bridge that had been blown up a couple hours earlier by a suicide car bomber.  The attacker hit a convoy from the 82nd Airborne, killing American soldier Ian Gelig.  Now with a hole in the bridge and recovery operations underway, our mission was cancelled.  So I called the Air Force to see if they were busy.  Yes, it turns out, the Air Force is busy every day, but Captain Kristen Duncan took me down to the ramp where the A-10 “Warthogs” are parked. (more…)

MAJ JF Sucher, MD FACS USAR MC Surgeon, 909th FST