In his first public response to the Trayvon Martin shooting, President Obama famously said in March, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."

CNN legal analyst Mark NeJame, after uncovering a picture of George Zimmerman's relatives during his investigation of this matter, told Piers Morgan Thursday, "If President Obama has indicated that his son would have looked like Trayvon Martin, then most respectfully, if you look at these pictures, his grandparents and great-grandparents would have looked a lot like George Zimmerman's grandparents and great-grandparents

MARK NEJAME, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: When I first heard about this tragedy I jumped to the conclusion that I think many did that there was some racial aspect to this shooting, that Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman in part based upon bigotry and racial profiling. And I just presumed that from all the press reports that came out and from what I heard.

Well, as I started getting into a role as an analyst and such, I started asking questions. I’ve been a defense lawyer for over 30 years, and I have come to realize that much of what you hear is simply not factual. So we’ve got the picture there, and you can see. I had a family member give it to a friend who gave it to me and we gave it to you earlier today. And as you see there, the man in the middle is apparently George Zimmerman's great-grandfather. The woman above him is in fact his grandmother who is half black, and the little child in the gentleman's lap is his mother.

So we see that he really has significant multiracial, multicultural roots, and as I’ve come to realize and find out through my investigation, he was raised in a multicultural, integrated family in large part by his grandmother who is half black.

And I’ve made the analogy, and it seems appropriate, that if President Obama has indicated that his son would have looked like Trayvon Martin, then most respectfully, if you look at these pictures, his grandparents and great-grandparents would have looked a lot like George Zimmerman's grandparents and great-grandparents.

So, it seems to me in light of this, other things that we have found out about him mentoring African-American children quietly with nobody knowing about it for a couple of years, driving Orlando, excuse me Sanford to Orlando regularly, and talking to people that know him, I have changed my position. People can come up with whatever conclusions they want, but from looking at the facts, looking at the evidence, I don’t think there’s a racial motive in this.

Now, we have NRA issues, we have stand your ground issues, we have all sorts of other significant issues – self-defense or not self-defense. We’ll get to those at a later time. But race, was that a factor in this shooting? From what I see, from what I have now learned, I don’t think so.

Needless to say, it's going to be fascinating to see how much coverage this picture gets in the coming days.

After all, virtually the entire media have depicted Zimmerman as a racist.

Now that we actually have a picture of his great-grandparents and his grandmother, will the press be willing to share it with the public and discuss the ramifications as NeJame did with Morgan Thursday evening?

Stay tuned.

In early February, Politico reported that the Obama campaign, hoping to rekindle enthusiasm among young voters, was “looking to revive the cool appeal.” Then, suddenly, news stories started popping up about Obama’s alleged coolness, in contrast to that drip Romney. A sampling:

• President Obama: The cool factor

• ‘Cool’ Obama Returns GOP Fire on Gas Prices

• Obama: The new King of Cool

• Barack Obama is cool. Mitt Romney is not. What does it mean for 2012?

• Campaigning for the ‘Cool’ Vote

• The Obama-Romney ‘Cool Gap’

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Well, only now are we learning that things weren’t quite as “smart” as we were led to believe. Yesterday, it was reported the Federal Election Commission unanimously found that the 2008 Obama campaign had failed to properly report some $2 million in last-minute contributions. The campaign could still have to pay fines or face other penalties. (The audit for the 2008 John McCain campaign hasn’t yet been completed.)

Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The notoriously thin-skinned Obama could not have been happy with the news last week that, as the Hill newspaper put it, “an increasing number of Democrats are taking potshots at President Obama’s health care law.”

North Carolina’s Brad Miller, who voted for the law, now laments that “we would all have been better off” if Congress had dealt with more pressing issues “and then came back to health care.”

Barney Frank complained that the Democrats “paid a terrible price for health care.” And Virginia’s outgoing Sen. Jim Webb said the law would be Obama’s “biggest downside” in the election and had cost him “a lot of credibility as a leader.”

Meanwhile, stalwart Massachusetts liberal Elizabeth Warren is now calling to repeal a piece of ObamaCare — the 2.3% tax on medical devices — because, she says, it “disproportionately impacts the small companies with the narrowest financial margins.”

Warren, by the way, is running for the Senate seat occupied by Republican Scott Brown, whose victory in 2010 was a result of the public’s intense opposition to ObamaCare.

Former Alabama Rep. Artur Davis went furthest. “I think the Affordable Care Act is the single least popular piece of major domestic legislation in the last 70 years,” he said. “It was not popular when it passed; it’s less popular now.” Ouch.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

While campaigning four years ago, Sen. Barack Obama promised that a $150 billion in government spending on renewable energy projects would create 5 million green-collar jobs over 10 years. Near the end of this administration’s first year in office, Vice President Joe Biden promised 722,000 green jobs would be generated by the stimulus. A green-jobs czar was even appointed.

So what’s happened?

Well, the jobless rate is still above 8% and the number of workers no longer in the labor force is nearly 88 million, up almost 10 million from the day this president entered the White House.

Obama could have boosted job growth by approving the Keystone XL pipeline and opening more federal tracts to oil and gas drilling. But he didn’t. Instead he chose to stay on the green-collar route, which has yielded virtually nothing in the way of jobs.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Roughly 85% of our domestic energy is provided by fossil fuels. They generate more than 96% of the energy used in transportation and about 67% of the electricity we consume.

Despite promises and commands from the Obama administration — the president pledged in 2009 to cut oil consumption 35% by 2030, for instance — these ratios aren’t going to change much in coming decades.

The International Energy Agency, based in Paris — not Paris, Texas — predicted in November 2008 that from until 2030, fossil fuels will account for almost 80% of the increased global energy demand.

Oil, said the IEA, will remain the single-largest fuel source, while demand for coal will grow 61% during the period, its share of total energy demand expanding from 26% to 29%.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

There are times when I'm truly sickened by the total lack of economic acumen possessed by today's so-called journalists.

On PBS's McLaughlin Group this weekend, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift once again said something so totally ignorant that she had to be corrected by US News & World Report's Mort Zuckerman (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK: To the extent that Brazil ups its oil production, anything that diminishes the Middle East is a good thing. But we can't just funnel oil from Brazil. And I think what they're upset about in Brazil is the tightening down of the sanctions on Iran because they see that disrupting the oil market. So when these leaders get together, they each come at it from their own perspective, and I think it's a good thing that the president has good relations with this country. It's an emerging power.

Please notice the quizzical look on Pat Buchanan’s face as he also must have realized what a totally absurd statement Clift just made as did Zuckerman:

MORT ZUCKERMAN, US NEWS & WORLD REPORT: I have to say with all due respect, what’s happening with Iran has raised oil prices, which raises the revenues that Brazil gets from selling their oil.

Exactly. Clift didn’t agree:

CLIFT: Yeah, it was one of issues that she raised.

ZUCKERMAN: I'm sure it is. She's hoping that they raise prices even more.

CLIFT: Well, I don’t know about that.

The "she" in question was Dilma Rousseff, the president of Brazil who Obama met with last Monday, and as oil is a major industry for her nation, she most certainly is thrilled when energy prices go up regardless of what Clift does or does not know.

Honestly, the depths of this woman’s ignorance know no bounds.

Readers are reminded that in January, Clift said something so dumb on this program that Zuckerman did a double facepalm.

Good thing she’s got Newsweek and numerous television platforms to most effectively misinform the public from.

In covering GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's appearance at the annual National Rifle Association convention in St. Louis yesterday, Associated Press aka Adminstration's Press reporter Charles Babington pretended to know nothing about President Barack Obama's opposition to basic Second Amendment rights. At least I hope he was pretending, because Obama's hostility to the right to keep and bear arms is longstanding, well-known, and did not stop when he swore an oath to "protect and defend the Constitution" on January 20, 2009.

I have excerpted Babington's first four paragraphs plus three others. I will follow that with a rundown of Obama's pre-2008 gun-hostile record, his meeting with the Brady group in May 2011, and this "little" thing called Operation Fast and Furious Babington and his establishment media colleagues have mostly deliberately ignored for well over a year (bolds are mine throughout this post; HT to a frequent emailer):

---

Romney: Obama will erode the rights of gun owners

The presidential campaign briefly veered from the emotional Mommy Wars on Friday to the back-burner issue of gun rights, with Mitt Romney telling the National Rifle Association that President Barack Obama is not protecting gun owners – even though the topic has rarely arisen during his time in office.

Without offering details, Romney said that Obama would like to erode gun owners' rights.

"We need a president who will enforce current laws, not create new ones that only serve to burden lawful gun owners," Romney told thousands of NRA members in St. Louis for their annual convention. "President Obama has not. I will."

Obama has said relatively little about firearms, deeply disappointing gun-control groups. Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said the president's record "makes clear the he supports and respects the Second Amendment, and we'll fight back against any attempts to mislead voters."

… Asked for details to support the claims, Romney's campaign said Obama has appointed judges, including Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, who have supported moves such as placing temporary limits on importing semiautomatic assault weapons. The campaign said Attorney General Eric Holder has not adequately backed people's rights to own and use firearms.

But gun-control groups such as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence have expressed dismay over the lack of attention to their concerns. In its most recent assessment, in 2010, the group flunked on Obama on all seven issues it deemed important.

Campaigning in 2008, Obama said: "I believe in people's lawful right to bear arms. … There are some commonsense gun safety laws that I believe in. But I am not going to take your guns away."

Well, Charles, if it's "details" you want, details you'll get.

Here is a rundown of Obama's gun-hostile history which I posted in late October 2008 by reference to a more complete rundown prepared by the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action:

• Obama voted to allow reckless lawsuits designed to bankrupt the firearms industry.
• Barack Obama wants to re-impose the failed and discredited Clinton Gun Ban.
• He voted to ban almost all rifle ammunition commonly used for hunting and sport shooting.
• He has endorsed a complete ban on handgun ownership.
• Obama also supports local gun bans in Chicago and other cities.
• Obama voted to uphold local gun bans and the criminal prosecution of people who use firearms in self-defense.
• Obama opposes Right to Carry laws.
• Obama supported a proposal to ban gun stores within 5 miles of a school or park, which would eliminate almost every gun store in America.
• Obama favors a ban on standard capacity magazines.
• Obama supports mandatory micro-stamping, one-gun-a-month sales restrictions, a ban on inexpensive handguns, gun owner licensing and gun registration, and mandatory waiting periods.
• Obama supports a ban on the resale of police issued firearms, even if the money is going to police departments for replacement equipment.

My post also notes that Babington's then-colleague Nedra Pickler wrote in February 2008, with no sense of irony, that Obama "said he does not intend to take away people’s guns," but "voiced support for the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns." But after the Supreme Court's Heller ruling overturning the DC ban in late June, Obama said "he supports the decision."

My post goes reference another very important and less-known matter, namely that Obama worked with a group which conspired to create the artificial appearance of legal scholar-based opposition to Second Amendment rights, and almost succeeded:

During Obama’s tenure, the Joyce Foundation board planned and implemented a program targeting the Supreme Court. The work began five years into Obama’s directorship, when the Foundation had experience in turning its millions into anti-gun “grassroots” organizations, but none at converting cash into legal scholarship.

The plan’s objective was bold: the judicial obliteration of the Second Amendment.

Joyce’s directors found a vulnerable point. When judges cannot rely upon past decisions, they sometimes turn to law review articles. Law reviews are impartial, and famed for meticulous cite-checking. They are also produced on a shoestring. Authors of articles receive no compensation; editors are law students who work for a tiny stipend.

In 1999, midway through Obama’s tenure, the Joyce board voted to grant the Chicago-Kent Law Review $84,000, a staggering sum by law review standards. The Review promptly published an issue in which all articles attacked the individual right view of the Second Amendment.

(The Review) solicited only articles hostile to the individual right view of the Second Amendment. ….. Joyce had bought a veto power over the review’s content.

….. The plan worked smoothly. One court, in the course of ruling that there was no individual right to arms, cited the Chicago-Kent articles eight times.

….. The Joyce Foundation board (which still included Obama) ….. expand(ed) its attack on the Second Amendment. Its next move came when Ohio State University announced it was establishing the “Second Amendment Research Center” as a thinktank headed by anti-individual-right historian Saul Cornell. Joyce put up no less than $400,000 to bankroll its creation.

….. The Center proceeded to generate articles denying the individual right to arms.

….. The Joyce directorate’s plan almost succeeded. The individual rights view won out in the Heller Supreme Court appeal, but only by 5-4. The four dissenters were persuaded in part by Joyce-funded writings, down to relying on an article which misled them on critical historical documents.

If that's not enough for Mr. Babington, let's look at a May 2011 example of Obama stealth (HT Hot Air) which seems to run in the same vein as his promise to Russia's Medvedev that he'll have more flexibility" after winning reelection (internal links were in original):

While the Obama administration said it is committed to gun rights, a gun control advocate has spilled the beans, saying Obama is using stealth to work on firearms restrictions.

The Washington Post did a story on Steve Croley, the White House gun control czar. Croley is considered to be an expert on regulation and tort law. His approach to gun control appears to be a regulatory one.

According to the article, Jim and Sarah Brady visited Capital Hill on March 30, the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan; to push for a ban on "large magazines."

The couple reportedly were meeting with press secretary, Jay Carney, when, according to Sarah Brady, the President came in. She said the President told her he wanted to talk about gun control and "fill us in that it was very much on his agenda."

She went on to say Obama told her, "I just want you to know that we are working on it. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar."

The statement reinforces an article in the Huffington Post describing how the administration is exploring ways to bypass Congress and enact gun control through executive action.

The Department of Justice reportedly is holding meetings discussing the White House's options for enacting regulations on its own or through adjoining agencies and departments. "Administration officials said talk of executive orders or agency action are among a host of options that President Barack Obama and his advisers are considering. "

I guess Mr. Babington might be able to claim that he wasn't really lying when he wrote that the topic of gun control "has rarely arisen," and that "Obama has said relatively little." But, as just seen, at least one time when the topic arose and Obama said something, it was to make the point that he is "working on" gun control.

Finally, a bit on Fast and Furious from Darrell Issa, who also spoke at the NRA convention, as relayed by Katie Pavlich at Townhall, including its relationship to the administration's just-described gun control goals:

Entering the Edward Jones arena to an applauding audience at the NRA Annual Convention in downtown St. Louis Friday, Congressman Darrell Issa made it clear his congressional investigation into the Operation Fast and Furious scandal isn’t going away until the Obama Justice Department comes clean.

 

“The investigation of Operation Fast and Furious will not end until the full truth is exposed to every American,” Issa said, adding senior officials at the Department of Justice will be held accountable for the lethal program, including Attorney General Eric Holder.

“Eric Holder’s contempt for Congress and his failure to comply will not go unanswered, and you can count on me,” Issa said as a woman yelled, “Thank you!”

… Issa also touched on the motivations behind Operation Fast and Furious and how liberal Democrats in Congress have reacted to revelations in the scandal.

“Fast and Furious can be seen as nothing else but a needless attack on our right to keep and bear arms,“ Issa said. “When the facts began to come out about Fast and Furious, no surprise, Democrats in Washington, immediately seized on the opportunity to talk about the need for additional gun control laws.”

For months, I have been stressing the importance of understanding Operation Fast and Furious was not a “botched” program or an accident. Instead, DOJ officials made calculated decisions to allow some of the most ruthless criminals in the world to help themselves to American guns, while throwing law abiding gun dealers under the bus.

The bottom line for Charles Babington is that Mitt Romney is right. He either should know this and doesn't, making him extraordinarily ignorant, or he does know it and won't acknowledge it. All in all, it's just another typical Obama-supportive report from the Adminstration's Press.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.