Obama’s Snarky Debate Response About Horses & Bayonets (+video)

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Obama’s approach to tonight’s debate may have misfired on him. Many of his responses seemed snarky and small.

One example was his response to Romney’s concern about the incredibly shrinking size of our nation’s navy. Romney explained that the US Navy will be down to almost two hundred ships in the next presidential term if things continue.

Romney also cited the size and aging character of the US air force. Although he didn’t do so, Romney could have mentioned that the backbone of our strategic bomber force, the B-52 Stratofortress, was originally designed in the 1940’s but is still in service today.

Obama’s response did not effectively confront any of these concerns. Moreover, it was factually erroneous with respect to bayonets — I trained with them at West Point and they are still standard issue to some military units.

Turns out, Obama was even wrong about the horses.

See Obama’s childish (and erroneous) failure to address the contention that the US military’s aging infrastructure will only grow worse under a second Obama term:

The Latest Debate: Presidential?

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Besides CNN Candy Crowley’s biased performance tonight, perhaps the most memorable aspect of the Romney-Obama debate was its confrontational style. This certainly wasn’t what many expected from the town hall format.

Both candidates repeatedly pushed against each other, interrupting and talking over one another. And both, on occasion, went after the moderator and spoke over her as well.

Perhaps the most combative exchange of the night arose over whether or not Obama cut permitting for onshore and offshore drilling. Both candidates got into each other’s face, and Romney wouldn’t let up.

Turns out that Obama was on the wrong side of this issue: Romney’s assertion that the President had significantly cut permitting was accurate, contrary to Obama’s protests.

The candidates also clashed on whether oil and gas production had increased or decreased during Obama’s presidency. See an article that fact-checks the production question HERE.

As to the moderator’s bias, Obama ended up with about three more minutes than Romney, not a big deal in a forty minute plus debate. But Crowley’s intervention after a question about Benghazi and whether Obama had initially attributed the attacks to terror was particularly memorable. Crowley actually backed up Obama’s false statement that he called Benghazi’s attack terror from the outset. That caused Obama to dig in even deeper.

Reince Priebus, the chair of the RNC, flatly called the President’s statement on whether he called the Benghazi attacks terror, “a lie.”

Some pundits have said that the rough and tumble approach used by both candidates turned off women and entertained men. If so, Obama and Romney were pretty much equal offenders.

On the facts, Romney comes out on top. But each base has something it can point to in championing its cause. Although there was not a flat-out winner, my take is that undecided voters who watched the debate will break strongly for Romney.

Obama Email to Supporters Says, “The Race is Tied!”

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This morning, I was forwarded an Obama email from one of our Restoring Liberty supporters who is on the “Obama for America” email list. No, he’s not voting for Obama, but he’s very interested in knowing what the other side is saying to its support network, so he signed up for Obama’s email list.

In the fundraising email, Obama states bluntly that “this race is tied.”

He also states that what’s hanging in the balance is “not just the next four years, but what this country looks like for decades to come.”

And that’s exactly why he has to go.

Here’s the email:

Did Iranian Drone, Shot Down by Israel, Include Technology From US Drone Captured Last Year?

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The Israeli Defense Forces initially played down the intrusion of an Iranian-made drone in Israeli airspace last week. Now it turns out, not only did the drone transmit intelligence back to Iran, it also evaded several efforts by an IDF F-16 to shoot it down.

The New York Post revealed these details earlier today:

A drone plane transmitted live pictures of secret Israeli military bases back to Iran’s military, marking a rare breach of Israeli airspace and a new kind of arms race in the Middle East.

The drone, launched by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Oct. 6, is also believed to have transmitted pictures of preparations for a joint Israel-US military exercise, ballistic missile sites, and possibly Israel’s top-secret nuclear reactor near Dimona.

The three-hour drone flight was initially downplayed by Israeli officials red-faced over the shocking breach of their airspace.

Even the drone’s ultimate interception by an F-16 jet was botched — it took two tries for the pilot to down the unmanned plane.

An Israeli defense source blamed the drone’s infiltration on its “unfamiliar stealth elements.”

After finding out that an Iranian drone, with presumably homemade technology, avoided one of the world’s most advanced military’s radar, antiaircraft, and fighter jet capabilities for hours, some are wondering if the drone capitalized on some of the technology harvested from the U.S. drone captured by Iran last year.

Obama Continues to Rollout Pathetic Excuses for Debate Performance

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Given the continued fall-out from the one-sided debate that Obama fantasized he won, the administration rolled out another series of excuses.

The Washington Examiner reported that Obama’s spokesperson, Jen Psaki, contended Americans are just too dumb to comprehend Obama’s “substantive” and lengthy answers:

[W]hat the American [people] are looking for is not just a professorial list of facts or accomplishments or even goals,” Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said yesterday as part of her ongoing, almost-comical attempt to lower expectations going into the debates. She then lamented that Obama “has a tendency to give longer, substantive answers.

Obama himself joined in the excuses. On the Tom Joyner Morning Show yesterday, the President said he didn’t do well because he was just too polite:

I think it’s fair to say I was just too polite, because, you know, it’s hard to sometimes just keep on saying and what you’re saying isn’t true. It gets repetitive. But, you know, the good news is, is that’s just the first one.

Obama then threatened “more activity” in the next debate.

Here’s the audio:

Americans are growing tired of the continued Obama excuses, whether they be about the terrible state of the US economy, the Libyan fiasco, or even his debate performance. Perhaps that’s why Obama has slidden so rapidly in the polls and is now losing in Florida and is poised to fail in Pennsylvania as well as other swing states.

A New Low for CNN: Accepts Foreign Funding In Exchange for Positive Stories

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In a story that few in this country have heard about, the UK Guardian reported that CNN refused to broadcast an award-winning 2011 documentary, “iRevolution.” The documentary featured CNN’s on-air correspondent Amber Lyon and was highly critical of the regime in Bahrain for brutally suppressing peaceful protests by its own citizens.

Why didn’t CNN broadcast its own correspondent’s production? The reason might shock you.

According to the Guardian, “CNNi’s pursuit of and reliance on revenue from Middle East regimes increased significantly after the 2008 financial crisis, which caused the network to suffer significant losses in corporate sponsorships. It thus pursued all-new, journalistically dubious ways to earn revenue from governments around the world. Bahrain has been one of the most aggressive government exploiters of the opportunities presented by CNNi.”

The Guardian story continues, “These arrangements extend far beyond standard sponsorship agreements for advertising of the type most major media outlets feature. CNNi produces those programs in an arrangement it describes as ‘in association with’ the government of a country, and offers regimes the ability to pay for specific programs about their country. These programs are then featured as part of CNNi’s so-called ‘Eye on’ series (‘Eye on Georgia’, ‘Eye on the Philippines’, ‘Eye on Poland’), or ‘Marketplace Middle East’, all of which is designed to tout the positive economic, social and political features of that country.”

To the average viewer unaware of these government sponsorships, CNN’s stories all falsely appear to be the result of standard, unbiased reporting.

Back to the award-winning documentary that CNNi never aired. As noted above, “iRevolution” was critical of the Bahrain government for using violence against its own people. During the time the documentary was considered, Bahrain was highly invested in CNN’s “sponsorship” opportunities. The Bahrain-CNN relationship was so strong, “official agencies of the regime often boasted of how their extensive involvement with CNN was improving the nation’s image around the world.”

Bahrain’s image was apparently improving because Bahrain got what it paid for: “multiple examples of CNN International producing plainly propagandistic coverage of the regime, often without any minimal disclosure of the vested interests of its sources.” And Bahrain wasn’t the only country with the CNN “sponsorship” arrangement.

Essentially, CNN’s approach to government sponsorship of CNN content represents a merger of advertising and news. Frankly, CNN should drop any pretext that such stories are “news” and, instead, clearly label the pieces what they are: government-sponsored advertisements.

This recent revelation appears to be another nail in the coffin of CNN’s loss of public trust.

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More stories on CNN bias, dishonesty:

Video of Extreme Bias: CNN Asks Romney How He’d Represent Blacks if He Were to “Somehow” Beat Obama

State Department attacks ‘disgusting’ CNN for using journal of dead ambassador against family’s wishes

Video: Newt drills CNN Host-”You’re An Extension of the Obama Campaign”

Video: Sununu to CNN’s Soledad-`Put An Obama Bumper Sticker On Your Forehead’

CNN Apologizes over Palin “Stupid Girls” Intro but omits story from website

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria’s show suspended after being exposed for plagiarism

Anderson Cooper’s vicious attack on Michele Bachmann

Restoring Liberty Now Second Most-Read Alaskan News Site

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This past weekend, the Restoring Liberty news site passed another milestone. As of Friday, it now exceeds the liberal Fairbanks News Miner in Internet traffic ranking, leaving only the Anchorage Daily News with more US web users.

This is an exciting development. As reported earlier this month, Restoring Liberty surpassed the traffic of the Alaska Dispatch blog. The Dispatch blog, founded and funded by Alice Rogoff, wife of billionaire and former Carter-adviser David Rubenstein, seems to have a single purpose: tearing down any efforts to reform the corrupt political establishment in Alaska (Ms. Rogoff has not responded to Restoring Liberty’s written request for an investigative interview). Profit seems to be no objective as it reputedly sucks in millions of dollars per year and is quite staff-heavy. Advertising revenue is likely a mere fraction of expenses.

Similarly, the News-Miner has significant funding behind it. The paper, the oldest in the State of Alaska with the second-highest circulation, is controlled by the family trusts of Dean Singleton and Richard Scudder, the founders of the MediaNews Group. This entity also owns 56 other newspapers throughout the United States as well as KTVA in Anchorage, the television station that was caught attempting to fabricate a story about my campaign and child molesters in 2010.

Although rarely reported by either biased outlet, both the News-Miner and the Alaska Dispatch filed lawsuits connected with my campaign. The Alaska Dispatch remains embroiled in litigation in an attempt to secure legal fees against me related to the Fairbanks North Star Borough case.

As many computer-savvy readers already know, Internet rankings are not entirely static. But at the time of the writing of this column, the national ranking for JoeMiller.us stands at 12,038, Fairbanks News-Miner – 12,303, Alaska Dispatch – 13,167, KTUU – 15,644, the Juneau Empire – 29,324, KTVA – 70,022, Alaska Public Radio – 105,178, and the Mat-Su Frontiersman – 223,982. [Current statistics for each site are available from Alexa.com]

The fact that Alaskans are turning away from our corrupted media to solid conservative sources is incredibly encouraging. Please support our efforts by advertising at Restoring Liberty. And let your favorite businesses know about Restoring Liberty as well. Advertising revenue will allow us to hire staff reporters so that we can fully displace the biased press from the State of Alaska. You can also contribute by sending us tips ([email protected]) and by providing original content on liberty-oriented topics.

Kathleen and I thank you for your readership, prayers, and other support. May God Bless our efforts together to Restore Liberty!

Russian DM: “Today, the world begins to unite against the USA”

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The media outlet for the Russian government, Pravda, reported this weekend that a Russian observer at the recent APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Vladivostok came away convinced that the world is moving away from a U.S. dominated world. He noted that “everyone still plays by American rules, but the countries already demonstrate their independence in economic policy.”

This Member of the Duma, Yevgeny Fyodorov (who also serves as the head of the Duma’s Committee on Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship), said that China’s recent snubbing of Hillary Clinton reflected the United States’ loss of power and prestige: “I was there and saw how angry Mrs. Hillary Clinton was when she came from China, where several Chinese leaders – especially those who are to become top officials of China next year – did not even want to meet her.” He cited China’s refusal to allow Clinton “to take on mediator’s functions in resolving China’s territorial disputes with Asian countries” as further evidence of the US’s precipitous decline.

Observing that the U.S. “consumes a half the world’s GDP, despite the fact that there is only 4.5 percent of the population living there,” and that Americans “eat ten times as much as compared to the citizens of all other countries,” he argues that this excessive consumption occurs “at the expense of China, Russia, India, Brazil – all other countries.”

The Pravda interview concludes with DM Fyodorov stating that, “Today, the world begins to unite against the colonizer – USA.” He believes that the APEC conference is the start of a “national liberation movement to free the world from the U.S. occupation.”

There’s little doubt that the anti-American sentiment that erupted across the Middle East about this same time last week contributed to the atmosphere at the 21-nation APEC summit. And we can thank Obama’s love-fest with the Muslim Brotherhood for that.

Restoring Liberty Milestone Reached: Site Surpasses Web Traffic of Most Alaskan Media Outlets

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Photo credit: The National Guard

I want to take this opportunity to thank the loyal readership of the Restoring Liberty website. Since July 4th of this year, when we launched our new website, the traffic to JoeMiller.us has skyrocketed.* Our readership now surpasses almost every Alaskan news outlet, save two Alaskan papers. And we’re closing in on them as well.

Yesterday, Alexa.com, the global leader in web analytics, rated Restoring Liberty at 15,578 out of the 100 million-plus websites in the United States.** In some Alaskan communities, our performance is far better with the website ahead of the national rankings of mainstays like Fox News and Amazon.com.

More importantly, our Restoring Liberty site’s Alexa.com ranking of 15,578 exceeds that of the Alaska Dispatch (18,270), the Juneau Empire (27,505), the Mat-Su Frontiersman (106,486), KTUU (19,772), and KTVA (89,468). As noted above, we’re rapidly closing in on the Fairbanks Daily News Miner and Anchorage Daily News, also.

Many Outside readers (an Alaskan term for those of you residing in the lower-48) may not be aware of the history of animosity between conservative-liberty oriented candidates and the Alaskan press. From the beginning of my race against Lisa Murkowski in 2010, my campaign was attacked relentlessly by each of the outlets described above. Repeated, libelous stories were publicized statewide. Despite demands for retractions, the Alaskan press rejected journalistic integrity in favor of the corrupt bidding of their corporate masters.

Reportedly, subscriptions to and viewership of these traditional “news” sources has declined significantly since our 2010 race. Why? Alaskans, and the country in general, are looking for honest reporting, unbiased by the corruption that is destroying our nation.

As the publishers of JoeMiller.us, Kathleen’s and my commitment to you is that we will continue to post liberty-oriented stories, even the unpopular, without regard to the expectations of the Establishment. We fired a shot across their bow with the start of our 2010 campaign on Lexington-Concord Day. The near-upset of their consummate insider, Lisa Murkowski, gave them a real scare. Little did they know that together, with you, our fight to unshackle our nation would continue.

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*If you wish to advertise with Restoring Liberty, please click HERE or the “advertise” button at the very top of this page. Our rates are reasonable and competitive.

**The Alexa.com ranking fluctuates almost daily and reports both global and national rankings. Of course, only the national statistics are of value here. Curiously, some sites, like the online-only Alaska Dispatch, have a significant following (over 30%) in foreign countries and therefore have a much higher international ranking vis-a-vis Restoring Liberty. Significant foreign followings of unique, Alaska-oriented sites may indicate something other than normal traffic. For instance, employing foreign users to increase website traffic statistics is not unheard of. And given the Dispatch’s multi-million dollar budget, it has many tools available to it to artificially increase the appearance of readership.

Arrested Marine Vet: Patriot or Nutcase Revolutionary? See the Facebook posts here

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On Thursday, Marine veteran Brandon Raub was apparently taken into custody by local law enforcement in conjunction with several federal agencies. Mr. Raub’s mother maintains that her son was arrested because of his “patriotic Facebook postings.”

As of the writing of this column, the agencies responsible for his arrest have still not publicized a charging document explaining why Mr. Raub was arrested. Consequently, much of what we know about this case is from a radio interview with Mr. Raub’s mother as well as an apparent video taken of the actual arrest itself.

So what exactly happened with Mr. Raub? Because the FBI and Secret Service were allegedly involved in his arrest, it’s my guess that the feds will allege that he (1) threatened the President and/or Vice-President, and/or (2) advocated the overthrow of the U.S. government.

The two federal laws at issue include 18 United States Code Section 871 and 18 United States Code Section 2385. The first, 18 USC 871, criminalizes “any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect.” So, in layman’s terms, if you threaten to hurt the President or his successor, you may get to spend some time in the federal pen.

The second, 18 USC 2385, makes a federal felon out of anyone who advocates the “propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government.” In other words, never threaten to overthrow the government through any violent act.  Using a ballot box revolution, however, is perfectly acceptable.

Did the Marine vet cross the line with respect to these laws? Let’s take a look at the only information currently available outside of his mother’s interview and video, Brandon Raub’s Facebook page.  Continue to Part II, Raub Facebook posts HERE.