Category Archives: Media

Just Another Day In Afghanistan

Gender, Islam, Media, Middle East, Military, Propaganda

Those vested in the US “mission” in Afghanistan—we don’t have a legitimate one—will spin the execution of an innocent woman by the Taliban in the province of Parwan, as a Taliban-specific atrocity. In that case, the Taliban represents the rest of tribal Afghanistan’s (mostly Pashtun) people quite well.

CNN buried the truth according to Christine Fair, with the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, in a little-watched, Sunday morning segment, which was further pruned for the online article (“Taliban shoot woman 9 times in public execution as men cheer”):

“It’s really important to not see this exclusively in terms of the Taliban, but this is a set of practices that actually have existed and continue to exist throughout Afghanistan.”

Honor killings are as endemic to Afghanistan as the opium trade, only much older. Dare I say that these “customs” are as old as Sharia?

And, as Faire pointed out (and this writer has with respect to honor killings elsewhere), women are active in mediating these killings against other women, daughters included.

Here’s what a “Palestinian” woman, Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud, did to her child, after the girl – who had been raped and impregnated by her brothers – refused to commit suicide.
Plastic bag, razor, and wooden stick in hand, the mother entered her sleeping daughter’s room. “Tonight you die, Rofayda,” the wicked witch announced, before wrapping the bag tightly around the girl’s head. The murderess Qaoud then spent the next 20 minutes slicing away at Rofayda’s wrists, ignoring pleas of “No, mother, no!” Just to be sure, this alleged mother struck her daughter on the head with the stick after the poor child passed out.
Yet members of Qaoud’s community are nonplussed – they see the woman as driven by devotion to both community and family.

(“THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL FEMINIST”)

Presidents Barack Obama—who followed George Bush and the Republicans to Afghanistan—has run out of excuses for this nation-building expedition. A tribal society is never going to apprecaite the joys of gay marriage, the ballot box, and female emancipation.

Establishment Enraged At Its Candidate, Romney

Conservatism, Economy, Elections, Media, Republicans, Taxation

“…for the sake of not abandoning his faulty health-care legacy in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney is jeopardizing his chance at becoming President,” the WSJ editorializes.

The editors have objected to Mitt Romney’s lack of objection to Obama and the gang’s framing of The un-Afforable Care Act as a tax. Capiche?

Romney is not remotely as coherent as the WSJ thinks he is in his most confused moments.

Mr. Romney should use the Supreme Court opinion as an opening to say that now that the mandate is defined as a tax for the purposes of the law, he will work to repeal it. This would let Mr. Romney show voters that Mr. Obama’s spending ambitions are so vast that they can’t be financed solely by the wealthy but will inevitably hit the middle class.

On the other hand, it is just possible that the WSJ is upset with the Romeny campaign for failing to hire as campaign adviser the ubiquitous Stephen Moore, popular commentator on Fox New and beyond, and author of “Bullish on Bush: How the Ownership Society Is Making America Richer.”

“We’re on its email list,” they whine, “and the main daily message from the campaign …[simply won’t cut it].”

Hint, hint.

CNN Moves Into Campaign Mode

Barack Obama, Celebrity, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Military

Have you noticed how desperate the Obama heads on CNN are becoming, as the election approaches? Although not quite as blatant as MSNBC, CNN’s John King, Jessica Yellin, Dona Lemon, Anderson Cooper, Soledad O’Brien, Piers Morgan, are, nevertheless, sounding positively shrill.

Expect the BHO “bitch pitch,” coming from likes of CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux and her colleague Jessica Yellin, to crescendo in the coming weeks. The women folk are especially devoted to distribution and soft militarism (“nation building,” massacre mediation, etc).

I hear Big Daddy sexual overtones when these females talk about Their Man (perverts all).

Especially noticeable is the way CNN is attempting to shape the GOP message, for what that message is worth.

It does so by presenting to the public regular Republican commentators who’re left-liberals in all but name.

In addition to being a plain idiot, Ana Navarro, for example, is a Republican identity politics activist, who would have liked BHO to have delivered on his immigration promises. Known for siring —and surrounding himself with—stupid women, John McCain had once employed the gaseous Navaro as his consultant.

Another liberal Republican, who’s part of the CNN task force entrusted with moving the GOP “forward,” is John Avlon, “chief speechwriter for former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.”

A Rockefeller Republican though he may be, David Frum does not deserve to be lumped with these boorish bores. But if he fails to veer even more to the Left, especially on immigration, I expect him to go the way of Bay Buchanan (an establishment Republican, in my opinion) who no longer appears on CNN.

CNN is being extremely crafty about crafting the meta-message.

UPDATE II: On The Radio Show Of ‘Austrian’ Jay Taylor

Economy, Ilana On Radio & TV, libertarianism, Media, Natural Law, Political Economy, South-Africa

I will be a guest on The Jay Taylor Radio Show (“Turning Hard Times into Good Times”).

Date: Tuesday, June 26, at 3:30 EST.
Topic: Into the Cannibal’s Pot, as it applies to private property rights, gold in South Africa, and the backdrop to the establishment of Apartheid.

Jay Taylor is a New-York based investor and broadcaster, who invests and broadcasts in the intellectual tradition of Austrian economics. We met at the New York Junto gathering, where I was the month of May’s featured speaker.

I was delighted to hear that the topic of the talk—“Natural Rights in ‘Into the Cannibal’s Pot’: Abstractions or Facts of Life?”—resonated with Jay.

Jay is a treasure. Tune in to support his work. (And, it goes without saying, go easy on me.)

UPDATE I (June 26): You can listen to the show here.

UPDATE II (June 27): An MP3 of my segment is here.