From those masters of manipulation at the Associated Press:

Unemployment aid applications stay at 4-year low

CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
February 23, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking unemployment aid was unchanged last week and the four-week average of applications fell to its lowest point in four years. The figures add to evidence that show the job market is improving.

Applications stayed last week at a seasonally adjusted 351,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s the fewest since March 2008, when the country was just a few months into the recession.

This is almost a textbook case of disinformation tactics. (And we have seen it from the AP many times before.)

Last week, on February 16, 2012, Mr. Rugaber reported: "Weekly applications for unemployment benefits dropped 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 348,000, the Labor Department said Thursday."

That number was subsequently revised up by 3,000, as it almost always is under Obama. A detail that the AP almost never mentions.

However, in today’s article, the AP happily uses last week’s revised number and compares it to this week’s unrevised number. Instead of comparing apples to apples.

Meanwhile, this time next week, we will learn that this week’s new claims actually went up even compared to last week’s revised number. But the AP will never report that news. They got the headline that they and the Obama administration wanted.

Applications have fallen steadily since last October. The average has declined 13.5 percent since then. When applications drop consistently below 375,000, it usually signals that hiring is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate.

Economists said the level suggests the economy will see another strong month of hiring in February, similar to the average net gain of about 200,000 in the previous three months…

There has not been any strong hiring. What there has been is a huge number of people being dropped from the workforce because the Bureau Of Labor Statistics has decided that they have given up looking for work and are therefore no longer unemployed.

The number of people receiving unemployment aid also fell. The total benefit rolls dropped to 7.5 million in the week ended Feb. 4, the latest data available. That’s down from nearly 7.7 million in the previous week.

How much of this decline is because their unemployment benefits have just run out?

Hiring has picked up in recent months. The economy added 243,000 net jobs in January, the most in nine months. The unemployment rate dropped for the fifth straight month, to 8.3 percent — the lowest in nearly three years…

If you like made up numbers.

And look what the AP puts at the bottom of their 16 paragraph article:

One reason the unemployment rate has fallen is that many people have given up looking for work. The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching for a job.

Hopefully, nobody will bother to read to the end of the article and hear such inconvenient news.

Discreetly buried in the ‘Global Business’ section of the New York Times:

In Germany, a Limp Domestic Economy Stifled by Regulation

By JACK EWING
February 22, 2012

FRANKFURT — Torsten Emmel… was on the verge of breaking the law. Mr. Emmel’s crime: Setting a placard on the sidewalk outside his shop advertising that he would stay open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It was, after all, Mother’s Day.

But a city inspector noticed the sign and warned Mr. Emmel that it was illegal to stay open so long on a Sunday. Close earlier or be fined, the inspector said.

It was a lesson in how, despite its vaunted industrial sector, the German economy suffers from some of the same overregulation and sclerosis usually associated with much more troubled European countries…

Thank Allah it could never happen here.

Alongside [Germany's] export juggernaut… is another, creakier economy that operates well below its potential and holds back not only Germany but the rest of Europe, some economists say.

This economy is overregulated, intended to insulate insiders from competition and deeply resistant to change. Though Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, often harangues countries like Spain, Italy and Greece to become more competitive, the German economy features some of the same flaws that they do, including protected professions and zoning laws that favor existing businesses over new ones.

“Germany has what I would call a dual economy,” said Andreas Wörgötter, a senior economist at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris.

“On one side, we have this very dynamic, innovative, competitive and refreshingly unsubsidized export sector,” he said. “On the other side, there is a much less glamorous services sector which depends on barriers to entry, subsidies and not developing and reaching out for new activities.” …

Again, something we will never have to worry about.

At the end of 2011, the German economy, the world’s fourth-largest, shrank for the first time since 2009… [M]ost economists do not expect brisk growth to return any time soon.

Germany could add about 10 percent to growth over the next decade if it removed barriers to competition and other inefficiencies, according to the O.E.C.D. [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development].

Surprisingly, the untapped potential in Germany was almost as high as that in Italy and higher than that in Spain, according to the O.E.C.D…

The barriers to entrepreneurship in Germany are often obscure, but cumulatively act as a significant drag on job creation and investment.

For example, two years after a promised deregulation of domestic transportation, intercity long-distance bus service is still effectively prohibited in Germany. The decades-old ban shielded the government-owned rail company, Deutsche Bahn…

Germany has made huge progress in the last decade toward removing strictures on the economy. In the 1990s, stores closed at 6:30 p.m. and were open only a few hours on Saturday, a hardship for working parents… Now, German states can set their own shop hours…

Germany has also eased strict licensing rules that required years of qualification even for professions like basket weaver or violin maker.

But years of training are still required to qualify as a house painter, chimney sweep or bicycle mechanic, to name a few examples. The O.E.C.D. has called on Germany to loosen restrictions on advertising and fees, which limit competition among architects, lawyers and engineers.

In 2005, Germany also changed rules to put more pressure on people to find jobs…

Now that really is shocking. We thought their ‘social safety net’ was the envy of the world.

Our news media has written endless article on how wonderful it is to be unemployed in Germany.

Those changes contributed to a significant decline in the unemployment rate, to 7.3 percent in January from 13 percent in 2005. German unemployment remained low throughout the recession of 2009 and the debt crisis that followed.

Gee, maybe we should try this sometime.

Germany also has its public spending under better control than most of its neighbors. The German government budget deficit in 2011 was 1.1 percent of gross domestic product. At the same time, total debt is about average for the euro zone, equaling 80 percent of G.D.P…

By comparison, our annual budget deficit is now over 8% of our GDP, and our total national debt now exceeds 100% of our GDP.

And yet some people are complaining about Germany. We should be so lucky.

From the ABC affiliate television station in Sacramento, California, KXTV:

Feds sue anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan over back taxes

February 22, 2012

SACRAMENTO, CA (KXTV) – The federal government has filed a lawsuit to force anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan to provide her financial records to the Internal Revenue Service.

An IRS revenue officer said Sheehan refused to answer any questions about her finances after receiving a summons at her Vacaville home.

The U.S. Attorney’s office on Tuesday filed a petition to enforce the IRS summons.

The summons ordered Sheehan to produce bank account statements for the period from August through early November 2011.

According to IRS revenue officer Jose Arteaga, the financial information may be relevant to the collection of Sheehan’s federal income tax liabilities for tax years 2005 and 2006…

Sheehan said she’s always been up front with the IRS and has no intention of paying her taxes. She says the government has already taken enough from her.

"If they (federal government), can give me my son back, I’ll pay my taxes, but that’s not going to happen," Sheehan said…

As we noted at the time, Cindy Sheehan announced in August 2005 that she was never going to pay taxes again because of her son having been killed in the war in Iraq. So it would seem that she has stuck to her resolution. As a matter of principle, no doubt.

However, as we soon discovered, Ms. Sheehan has always been a tax deadbeat.

In fact, Cindy had federal tax liens in 1996 and 1998, which predated her political activism by almost ten years. As it happens, her tax lien from 1998 was only paid off in 2005.

More recently, Sheehan has been involved in the Occupy movement and was arrested during an October demonstration in Sacramento.

What a surprise.

The IRS lists Sheehan as self-employed…

She has been living off of her ‘charity’ no doubt. Which she falsely claimed was a tax deductible 501c3.

Which is another detail the IRS has ignored.

From Obama’s shameless flacks at Reuters:

Analysis: Obama goes on offense over high gasoline prices

By Jeff Mason
February 23, 2012

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As Republican presidential candidates toss barbs at Barack Obama over expensive gasoline, the U.S. president and his team are going on the offensive with a strategy to divert blame and prepare voters for higher costs.

The buck stops where?

But this is the Obama modus operandi. Shifting the blame and preparing the public for the new normal.

In subtle and not so subtle ways, Obama, a Democrat, is raising the issue of high prices to promote his own policy priorities and blunt criticism from the men vying to unseat him in the November 6 election.

His strategy is both politically- and policy-oriented. The president wants to advance his plans to increase renewable energy sources and reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil.

Policies which have worked so well before.

But he also needs to win the war of words to gain an upper hand over Republicans in Western battleground states such as Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, where people drive a lot and feel the sting of rising prices acutely.

And if Obama can just win the war of words nobody will notice the price of gas.

Republicans see many weaknesses to exploit. They blame Obama for not doing enough to increase domestic production of fossil fuels and cite his decision to block a new oil pipeline from Canada as evidence that he is beholden to environmentalists.

What craven opportunists Republicans are. They try to exploit everything. Even Obama’s well intentioned efforts to prevent domestic oil production.

Rising gasoline costs have brought the issue to the forefront of the presidential campaign. So Obama has started to pepper his speeches with references to prices at the pump.

Thank goodness. Now everything will be better.

On Tuesday he cited the extension of the payroll tax cut as a welcome buffer for workers coping with the cost of gas.

That $20 dollars a paycheck is really being stretched to pay for all kinds of things.

On Wednesday he proposed — not for the first time — getting rid of tax loopholes that benefit oil and gas companies.

Yes, jacking up the taxes on oil and gas companies will really drive prices down. (By the way, there are no loopholes. Oil and gas companies get the same lower tax rate that all manufacturers get when they deplete their resources.)

On Thursday he’ll go a step further, using a speech in Florida to outline his own accomplishments in the energy arena along with a long-term strategy to keep fuel prices down…

It should be a very short speech. Unless he wants to brag about how he has helped his campaign donors with loans for their doomed companies.

Some analysts say U.S. prices could hit $4 a gallon or more ahead of the summer when driving demand peaks…

Er, no. Most analysts say prices will hit $5 a gallon then. And, in Florida, it already has. But as with most things, the news media is always the last to know.

Analysts say even if Keystone were approved, the increase in oil supplies would not affect gasoline prices for years, but the decision is nevertheless a key flashpoint in the election.

As we have often noted before, Reuters needs new analysts. Everything affects oil prices. And the price of oil is largely driven on the speculation of what will the future will bring.

When President George W Bush opened up more areas for domestic drilling, the price of oil immediately dropped.

"The juxtaposition of the high gas prices and Keystone has (the White House) understandably nervous, and even though those two … have almost nothing to do with each other substantively, they create a political narrative that Republicans could be successful in using to paint Obama as anti-energy and pro-high gas prices," a Democratic strategist said…

Notice that Reuters quotes an anonymous Democratic strategist, probably an Obama campaign staffer, for their expert analysis here.

Charles Ebinger, director of the Energy Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution, said Republican candidates could gain traction with voters in that region by emphasizing fuel costs, though they — like Obama — had few options to suggest to bring prices down in the short term.

Brookings is another Democrat front group.

"If someone comes back at him and says, ‘What’s your policy Mr. Santorum, Mr. Gingrich, or whomever, to lower gasoline prices today,’ I don’t think they’ll have a good answer."

What a lie. Everyone of the Republican candidates will say the same thing. Open up more domestic drilling and permit the Keystone pipeline. It has worked before and it will work again.

This isn’t even slightly complicated, no matter how hard the media tries to make it so.

From a shocked and dismayed Associated Press:

UN nuclear agency reports failed Iran talks

By GEORGE JAHN
February 22, 2012

VIENNA (AP) — The U.N. nuclear agency acknowledged renewed failure Wednesday after a trip to probe suspicions of covert Iranian nuclear weapons work, in a statement issued just hours after an Iranian general warned of a pre-emptive strike against any foe threatening the country…

The IAEA team had hoped to talk to key Iranian scientists suspected of working on the alleged weapons program, break down opposition to their plans to inspect documents related to nuclear work and secure commitments from Iranian authorities to allow future visits.

They aren’t deluded or anything.

Mission head Herman Nackaerts, in comments after landing at Vienna airport, said his team "approached this trip in a constructive spirit" but "could not find a way forward" in negotiations with Iranian officials…

IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said that "at this point in time there is no agreement on further discussions." …

Rats. And we had such high hopes.

[I]n a 13-page summary late last year, [IAEA chief Yukiya] Amano listed clandestine activities that he said can either be used in civilian or military nuclear programs, or "are specific to nuclear weapons."

Among these were indications that Iran has conducted high-explosives testing to set off a nuclear charge at Parchin.

Other suspicions include computer modeling of a core of a nuclear warhead and alleged preparatory work for a nuclear weapons test and development of a nuclear payload for Iran’s Shahab 3 intermediate range missile – a weapon that could reach Israel…

What paranoia. Clearly, all of that research is only being done to advance Iran’s nuclear medicine aerospace research. Just like The Leader says.

From Iran’s Press TV:

Iran will never seek nuclear weapons: Leader

Wed Feb 22, 2012

In a Wednesday meeting in Tehran with the director and officials of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and nuclear scientists the Leader described the country’s nuclear and technological achievements further in line with national interests and beneficial for the future of the country.

“The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons,” said Ayatollah Khamenei.

“There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.”

“If nations are allowed to independently make progress in the fields of nuclear energy, aerospace, science, technology and industry, there will be no room left for the tyrannical dominance of world powers,” said the Leader.

“Sanctions have been in place since the victory of the Islamic Revolution while the nuclear issue is a matter of the past few years; therefore their (the West) real problem is with a nation that has decided to be independent.”

The West is just afraid that Iran will dominate the world through its advances in nuclear energy, aerospace, science, technology and industry.

From the Agence France-Presse:

Afghan jail inmates passed messages to each other via Korans, US military says

February 22, 2012

The US military removed Korans from a US-run prison in Afghanistan because inmates were suspected of using the sacred book to pass messages to each other, American officials say.

The Korans and other religious material were later burned at the Bagram airfield, causing outrage in Afghanistan and triggering a protest Monday with petrol bombs hurled outside the sprawling US base, which includes a large prison.

"The material was removed because there was a concern that the detainees were communicating with each other," one US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

But the Korans and other texts should have been removed from the prison in a more appropriate manner, two US officials said…

We haven’t checked with our Imam, yet. But wouldn’t writing on a Koran constitute defacing it?

And, if these Korans had been desecrated by being written on, would not the only appropriate action would be to burn them, according to Islamic teachings? How could they have done anything more appropriate?

In fact, the punishment for desecrating Korans is punished by imprisonment in many Muslim countries. And it is even punishable by death in Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan.

By the way, this article from France’s AFP seems to be the only report that the Muslim inmates were using these Korans to communicate with each other. And no US outlets seem to have picked their story up. This version, for instance, comes via the Australia’s Herald Sun.

Why isn’t our stateside media reporting this news?

From a swooning fan at Tiger Beat Magazine the Associated Press:

Obama joins Jagger, B.B. King, to belt out blues

By NANCY BENAC
February 22, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — The president just couldn’t say no: Mick Jagger held out a microphone almost by way of command, and soon Barack Obama was belting out the blues with the best of them.

The East Room of the White House was transformed into an intimate blues club on Tuesday night for a concert featuring blues all-stars of the past, present and future — and the president himself.

The surprise performance by Obama came at the end of the playlist when the blues ensemble was singing "Sweet Home Chicago," the blues anthem of Obama’s home town.

Buddy Guy prodded the president, saying he’d heard that the president sang part of an Al Green tune recently, and adding, "You gotta keep it up." Then Jagger handed over the mic, and Obama seemed compelled to comply.

"Come on, baby don’t you want to go," the president sang out twice, handing off the mic to B.B. King momentarily, and then taking it back to tack on "Sweet Home Chicago" at the end.

That was how Obama ended the night.

This was how he began it: Obama said sometimes there are downsides to being the president. You can’t just go for a walk, for example.

And then there are the times that more than make up for all those frustrations, he said, like Tuesday night, when Jagger, King, Jeff Beck and other musical giants came by the house to sing the blues.

"I guess things even out a little bit," Obama joked at the start of a rollicking East Room concert that was electrified by Jagger and the rest…

Gosh, he feels sorry for himself. Maybe it’s been too long between vacations.

King, 86, arrived in a wheelchair but rose tall to kick off the night with a raucous "Let the Good Times Roll," quickly joined by other members of the ensemble. And he followed with "The Thrill is Gone." …

A very appropriate selection.

The longtime Rolling Stones frontman delivered on "I Can’t Turn You Loose" and then teamed up with Beck on "Commit a Crime." …

‘Commit A Crime’ was another inspired choice, especially in view of the fact that Mick Jagger actually attended the London School Of Economics, once upon a time.

Obama was clearly savoring the moment, closing his eyes at times and nodding his head as he lip-synced the words.

The president rose at the end to introduce the ensemble as the "White House Blues All-Stars" for the final song of the night, "Sweet Home Chicago."

"For Michelle and me," the president said, "there’s no blues like the song our artists have chosen to close with — the blues from our hometown." …

A hometown that the Obamas find it remarkably easy to avoid, except of course for fundraisers.

First we have the White Houses official press release, via their flagship outlet, the New York Times:

Obama Offers to Cut Corporate Tax Rate to 28%

By JACKIE CALMES
February 22, 2012

WASHINGTON — President Obama will ask Congress to scrub the corporate tax code of dozens of loopholes and subsidies to reduce the top rate to 28 percent, down from 35 percent, while giving preferences to manufacturers that would set their maximum effective rate at 25 percent, a senior administration official said on Tuesday.

Mr. Obama also would establish a minimum tax on multinational corporations’ foreign earnings, the official said, to discourage “accounting games to shift profits abroad” or actual relocation of production overseas.

So Obama is going to introduce a new tax. An AMT for multinational corporations.

With the framework for changes that the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, will outline on Wednesday, Mr. Obama will enter an election-year debate with Republicans in Congress and in the presidential race who seek even lower taxes for businesses.

What a coincidence that the White House would propose this right before Mitt Romney’s tax plan announcement in Detroit.

Mr. Obama is proposing that the simplification of the corporate code should not add to the deficit…

Obama would never think of doing anything that would add to the deficit. Such as extending the payroll tax holiday.

[A]nd that most or all revenue raised by closing tax breaks should be used to lower rates or offset the cost of new or existing tax breaks favoring manufacturing, clean energy, and research and development activities, according to administration officials…

So his tax cut will raise revenue. So it is a tax increase. And, furthermore, these tax increases will go to Obama’s pet projects, like rewarding his donors in the ‘green energy’ racket.

Translation: The US is the only country that taxes foreign earnings. But that is not bad enough. Obama is going is do away with any loopholes that allow them to avoid this tax.

And being the only companies in the world that have to pay taxes on their foreign earnings will make them much more competitive.

To its credit, the Wall Street Journal spells things out a little better:

Obama Proposes Tax Revamp

By DAMIAN PALETTA And JOHN D. MCKINNON
FEBRUARY 22, 2012

The Obama administration will propose lowering the top income-tax rate for corporations to 28% from 35% but would raise overall tax revenue by eliminating dozens of popular deductions in an effort to restructure the corporate tax code.

Again, this means that corporate taxes will actually go up.

The proposal… raises taxes on oil and gas companies that would lose many large deductions and subsidies.

These higher taxes on oil and gas s, of course, will be passed along to the consumer at the pump and in your utilities bill, and everything you buy that has been transported. Which is to say, everything.

But it will do wonders for the economy.

The plan would require U.S. companies operating overseas to pay—for the first time—a minimum tax rate on their foreign earnings…

So Obama effectively wants an entirely new tax. A tax that no other country in the world has. Yes, this will certainly give American companies a leg up.

The administration’s plan would raise an additional $250 billion in taxes over 10 years to offset or eliminate many temporary deductions, credits and other measures that are extended every year, such as a research and experimentation tax credit, a senior administration official said…

So it turns out that Obama’s wonderful tax cut for corporations will actually raise taxes on them by a mere $250 billion dollars.

What a surprise. And what a shock that the New York Times and the rest of the Democrat media complex would try to tell us that it is a corporate tax cut.

From, appropriately enough, the ‘Politics’ section of the New York Times:

New Guidelines Planned on School Vending Machines

By RON NIXON
February 20, 2012

WASHINGTON — The government’s attempt to reduce childhood obesity is moving from the school cafeteria to the vending machines.

The Obama administration is working on setting nutritional standards for foods that children can buy outside the cafeteria. With students eating 19 percent to 50 percent of their daily food at school, the administration says it wants to ensure that what they eat contributes to good health and smaller waistlines. The proposed rules are expected within the next few weeks…

Efforts to restrict the food that schoolchildren eat outside the lunchroom have long been controversial…

Why should children, or for that matter, anyone else have a choice what kind of food they want to buy with their own money? Choice is only for abortion.

No details of the proposed guidelines have been released, but health advocates and snack food and soft drink industry representatives predict that the rules will be similar to those for the government’s school lunch program, which reduced amounts of sugar, salt and fat.

And never mind that these laws are emanating from the White House, and probably the unelected First Lady, and not Congress.

Those rules set off a fight between parents and health advocates on one side, who praised the standards, and the food industry, which argued that some of the proposals went too far.

Yes, it’s the parents against the food industry — Big Snacks. Not the government against kids and parents.

Members of Congress stepped in to block the administration from limiting the amount of potatoes children could be served and to allow schools to continue to count tomato paste on a pizza as a serving of vegetables…

Where does Congress get off limiting the power of the First Lady like that?

Nancy Huehnergarth, executive director of the New York State Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Alliance in Millwood, N.Y., said she expected a similar fight over the vending machine rules.

“I think the food and beverage industry is going to fight tooth and nail over these rules,” Ms. Huehnergarth said…

Everyone else will be tickled pink to have another freedom taken away.

By the way, how long will it before before it is illegal to sell ‘unhealthy’ snacks within so many thousand feet of a school?

From a selectively remembering Washington Post:

Huge crowd of Afghans protests reports of burning of Koran at U.S. base

Sayed Salahuddin and Kevin Sieff
Tuesday, February 21, 2012

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan —Deeply angered over reports that U.S. troops had burned copies of the Koran, Islam’s holy text, thousands of protesters on Tuesday tried to storm the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan.

The protests erupted early in the morning, after Afghans working inside the Bagram air base reported to local residents that a number of copies of the Koran had been burned. The incident prompted the top U.S. military officer in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, to offer a public apology and order a prompt investigation.

“When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them,” Allen said in a statement. “We are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again. I assure you … I promise you … this was NOT intentional in any way.”

And never mind that the military in Afghanistan have routinely and intentionally burned Bibles in order to avoid offending the pious locals. Such as back in May 2009.

Gen. Ahmad Amin Naseeb, who is in charge of the religious and cultural affairs department at the Afghan defense ministry, said he had received reports “that the international troops have burned and thrown copies of Koran into the dust bins.” As a result, he said, “protesters have closed various roads in the area.”

Proper treatment of the Koran is a highly sensitive issue for Muslims across the world, including in Afghanistan, where international troops are fighting to defeat the militantly Islamist Taliban in a war that has entered its 11th year. Experts in Islam say copies of the Koran should be buried or released in flowing waters if they need to be disposed of, but religious leaders in Afghanistan said Tuesday that local practice is not to dispose of the texts at all.

Previous reports of Koran-burning also have led to violent protests here. Last April, an angry mob killed at least seven foreigners in a relatively secure part of northern Afghanistan and set fire to a United Nations compound, as a protest over a Koran burning in Florida swelled into chaotic violence.

Notice how the Washington Post avoids mentioning that the most notorious report of Koran desecration to date appeared in Newsweek’s April 30, 2005 edition. Newsweek was owned by the Washington Post at the time.

Newsweek claimed a Koran had been flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo in order to torment the prison’s Muslim captives. (Which you would think, even if true, was in accordance with the "released in flowing waters" mentioned by the experts above.) Newsweek also claimed the report had been confirmed by government sources.

Needless to say, the Newsweek report turned out to be completely untrue. Even though dozens died in the subsequent rioting.

More than 3,000 people were involved in Tuesday’s protests, which began just after dawn, following the morning prayers, said Sayed Kheli, a senior police officer for Parwan province, where Bagram is located. Parwan’s deputy governor, Shah Wali, said local authorities were trying to quell the demonstrators, who had gathered at various locations within the sprawling base, about 30 miles north of Kabul.

“People’s sentiments have been hurt,” Wali said…

Gosh, that is terrible. Hopefully enough people will be beaten or killed in order to make them feel better.

For hours on Tuesday morning, protesters threw rocks at the base, breaking windows in some buildings. Many of the protesters were local employees of the U.S. military who, feeling betrayed, chanted “long live Islam” and “death to America.” …

Such loyal employees. Such a grateful people altogether.

From USA Today:

Poll: Republican voters oppose a ‘brokered’ convention

By Susan Page, USA TODAY
February 21, 2012

WASHINGTON – While most Republicans wish they had different choices in the party’s presidential field, a nationwide USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds overwhelming resistance to the idea of an old-styled brokered convention that would pick some new contender as the nominee.

Who doesn’t like to have more choices? Unfortunately, that is probably not going to happen at this point.

By 66%-29%, the Republicans and Republican-leaning independents surveyed say it would be better if one of the four candidates now running managed to secure enough delegates to clinch the nomination.

They probably should not have polled "Republican-leaning independents."

Most are happy to see their roller-coaster campaign continue: 57% say the battle isn’t hurting the party.

And according to the findings below, regarding the two top contenders gaining against Obama, it isn’t.

Meanwhile, President Obama’s standing against two potential Republican rivals has ebbed a bit. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney leads the president 50%-46% among registered voters, Romney’s strongest showing against him to date. Obama edges former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum by a single percentage point, 49%-48%.

In other words, both Romney and Santorum have gained on Obama. Meanwhile, the news media is telling us that the primary race is hurting the GOP.

The poll, taken Thursday through Sunday, illustrates the battle between head-and-heart for many Republican voters: Santorum is the current favorite, leading Romney 50%-44% in a one-on-one contest.

In the separate daily Gallup Poll of the entire Republican field, Santorum’s lead over Romney grew Monday to 10 percentage points, 36%-26%. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich is at 13% and Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 11%.

That is amazing. But notice that this latter poll is not just Republicans. So a more Democrats and ‘Independents’ could be pulling for Santorum.

But Romney is seen as the stronger competitor against Obama and as the likely nominee. By nearly 2-1, 58%-32%, Republican partisans say Romney has a better chance of winning in November than Santorum does…

But what is especially weird about this ‘Republican only’ poll is that Santorum is ahead of Romney by 6% . And yet a vast majority of Republicans, nearly 2-1 (58%-32%), say Romney has a better chance of winning in November than Santorum does.

Has that ever happened before in primary history?

Most believe Romney eventually will emerge as the nominee: 31% call that very likely, 54% somewhat likely. Just 13% say Romney probably won’t be nominated…

The findings come as Romney, who is fighting to avoid catastrophe, now trails Santorum in Michigan, which holds its primary next week. A defeat in the state where Romney was born and his father served as governor would weaken his prospects and intensify speculation about some new contender emerging…

The current delegate count stands at Romney 105, Santorum 71, Gingrich 29. Michigan has 30 delegates. A candidate will need 1144 delegates to win the nomination.

It’s preposterous for the news media to claim that Michigan is make or break for anyone. But they have to find some way to add drama to the proceedings.