Video: Darrell Issa's NRA Speech

There hasn't been much on the Fast and Furious front these days. When I sent an email to Rep. Darrell Issa's office inquiring as to why, I was sent this YouTube video of the Oversight Committee Chairman's speech at the NRA convention last week.

Here is a quote from it:

“The investigation of Operation Fast and Furious will not end until the full truth of fast and furious is exposed to every American, and that senior officials at the Department of Justice are held accountable, and yes, that includes Eric Holder.”—Congressman Darrell Issa

**UPDATE**

Here is a portion of my response to Issa's office after receiving the aforementioned video in response to my inquiry about why the Fast and Furious investigation has not been in the news much lately:

Two things:

1.) I very much hope so (that Issa will follow investigation to conclusion) but history is on the side of the skeptics (The fact that Eric Holder is Atty General at all proves this point) 

2.) As you know, this scandal implicates the top levels of the FBI, DHS, ICE, DEA, DOJ, ATF, the State Dept, and even the White House. The fact that Speaker Boehner has been virtually silent instead of presenting an open, transparent, forceful and united front with Rep. Issa is at best unfair on his part and at worst, suspicious.

Thanks for sending

POLITICO using the David Gregory strategy on Romney's Mormonism

Compare the attack dog techniques of MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell and the outwardly encouraging attempts by NBC's David Gregory to make Mitt Romney's Mormonism an issue. O'Donnell all but called Romney a member of a racist and sexist religion while Gregory smiled on the Late Show and insisted that Romney should talk about his Mormon faith because this is such a monumental moment - the first Mormon presidential nominee.

POLITICO's Lois Romano appears to be projecting O'Donnell's views onto disenchanted Republican voters while adopting the David Gregory mantra:

Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith has hovered over his 20-year political career like a thick layer of incense at Easter Mass. Negative perceptions of the religion so worried his 2008 presidential team that the dilemma had its own acronym in campaign power point presentations: TMT (That Mormon Thing).

Worries persisted this year as skeptical evangelical Christians flocked to other candidates—any other candidate it seemed — causing Romney to avoid all things Mormon in public.

But now that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee, many Republicans think that the standoffish candidate actually needs to embrace his Mormonism publicly to open a window into his life.

Romano, perhaps unknowingly, puts Media Research Center's Brent Bozell in the same camp as Gregory:

Conservative activist L. Brent Bozell hasn’t endorsed a presidential candidate but admittedly favored the more conservative players in the race over Romney. Still, he sees no reason for Romney to hide his light under a bushel. “If you’re a Mormon, you don’t need to distance yourself from it,” says Bozell. “We can all get along. I think the hostility seen in the primaries toward him was based more on cultural issues—social issues, not religious.”

But not entirely: Romney experienced pushback this year from evangelicals who view the Mormon faith as at odds with the historic Christian doctrine of the Trinity. They question whether Mormons even believe in Jesus Christ –even though the official name of the religion is the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. One prominent Texas cleric who supported Rick Perry called the church a “cult.”

“What I find disturbing,” said one Romney adviser who asked for anonymity, “are the exits polls where people said they could only vote for someone who shared their religious faith.” According to this adviser and others, Christian conservatives feel that electing a Mormon president would further legitimatize the lay religion founded nearly 200 years ago, when many of them see it as a false religion.

The question remains: What will the end result be of Republican voters learning more about Mormonism. Romney's reticence indicates he thinks it will hurt him.

Why? That's a question voters should answer before it's too late.

Read it all.

Video: MSNBC's counterattack on Mitt Romney quite weak

Look, anyone who visits this blog knows that it pains me to have anything good to say about Mitt Romney but in this case, it's warranted. First of all, Hilary Rosen's comment that Ann Romney hasn't worked a day in her life actually made Mitt a more sympathetic figure, even to me. Whether the statement was calculated or not makes little difference at this point. If the Axelrod Brigade pushed even me closer to Romney, they miscalculated.

Fast forward to a segment from MSNBC's Chris Hayes, a notably liberal commentator. After watching this, see if you don't find yourself asking whether Rosen's comments - as well as the perceived backlash - may have all been manufactured. After all, the mainstream media is liberal so for those entities to feed that narrative, it's at least possible. In fact, they may have thought they were baiting the Romney campaign a bit.

Check out this clip from Hayes. Note how it includes Romney on the campaign trail saying that he wants mothers to be forced to work instead of accept welfare because it gives them the "dignity of work." Hayes argues that this is contradictory to Romney's position that being a stay-at-home mom is work.

This clip will be effective with the mindless, liberal masses but there's one very important variable missing from Hayes' analysis; that variable is welfare. For some reason, he operates from a premise here that a stay-at-home mother on welfare is equal to a stay-at-home mother who is part of a self-sustaining familial unit. Children under parental supervision can't do whatever they want. There are strings attached to being provided for. Ever hear the saying, "As long as you're under my roof, you'll follow my rules." When you extrapolate that to welfare, the same applies. If you want to be subsidized by my tax dollars, the strings attached will be that you will be taught how to provide for yourself.

Painting Romney as a hypocrite on this issue without factoring in welfare is lame and you won't find me defending Romney very often.

That reminds me, the optics of John McCain standing next to Romney in this clip don't do him any favors.

MediaIt'es Tommy Christopher also seems to miss that very important point.