Wednesday, October 24, 2012

It's Not About Hate Or Race - It's About Obama

If you didn't think Obama won the debates, or should be re-elected, then you're obviously a racist!

Yes, we only have a few days left until Election Day when we can fire Barack Hussein Obama! That's the good News!

The bad news is that the folks at MSNBC are continuing to push their whole warped idea that anyone against Obama is a racist. That's right, if you and I don't like Obama's policies - then we are racists.

That's right! The liberal mainstream media has this notion that since some of us don't agree with Obama's policies and want him gone - that that means that we must certainly be bigots.

I know its dumb! Trust me when I say that I know that it is dumb for anyone to think that sort of thing, but they have convinced themselves that all conservatives are bigots and there's no changing their minds.

Is it a surprise? Frankly no, this is not a big surprise since it's something that the mainstream liberal media has pushed for the last four years. Sorry to say, yes, it really is something we conservatives have heard for a long time now.

After the final Presidential Debate on Monday, MSNBC employee Chris Matthews was at it again saying that we on the Right are voting against Obama because we "hate" him because Obama is black.

MSNBC host Chris Matthews decided the whole Presidential Race came down to, well, race. In one of his more crazed rants, Chris Matthews said the Right hates Obama more than they want to destroy Al Qaeda, according to The Hill.

And yes, Chris Matthews' rant is too priceless to edit:

“I think they hate Obama. They want him out of the White House more than they want to destroy Al Qaeda. Their No. 1 enemy in the world right now, on the right, is their hatred, hatred for Obama. And we can go into that about the white working class in the South and looking at these numbers we're getting the last couple days about racial hatred in many cases … this isn't about being a better president, they want to get rid of this president,’ he said.”

Can you imagine how much of a brainless statement that is? That is like saying that more than 70% of the entire nation are all racists?

Yes, 70% is the amount of Americans that disagree with the Obama White House and their policies. That's the figure of just how many people there are who are tired of his lies, the corruption, and the over-spending.

That's about how many Americans have seen President Obama say one thing and do another time and time again. And yes, that's how many of us are tired of letting it happen any longer.

That figure is on the low side of how many people think that Obama has intentionally attacked American Coal, Oil, Agriculture, Manufacturing and Small Businesses.

That's low when you see how many people are angry at Obama's lies about allowing oil drilling permits on Federal land when in fact he has cut the number of permits, or about cutting our military, or about slashing $716 Billion dollars from Medicare.

Yes, over 70% of us, hate the government's rise to power and their attempt to dominant We The People - American citizens.

This election has nothing to about race. It is not about problems with the President's race, Americans are having problems with his screwed up ideology, his horrible policies, his lack of truthfulness, and his total incompetence.

This election is about Americans being sick and tired of government agencies like Obama's EPA being used like a Gestapo against agriculture producers and manufacturers and the energy industry. And yes, they have acted with Gestapo like intimidation.

This year the USDA has sought to stop family members from working on family farms. And yes, the EPA has required petroleum producers to use a cellulosic ethanol that isn't commercially available. Even though the technology for mass-producing cellulosic ethanol hasn’t been perfected, that has not stopped the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing hefty yearly fines on oil refiners. Imagine the absurdity in that! Fining someone for something that doesn't exist yet!

Even the ultra-liberal New York Times reported that in 2011 that automotive fuel producers were assessed $6.8 million in penalties. That amount is expected to climb dramatically this year.

And yes, this is what Obama has done to help bring down gas prices. After all, who ends up footing the bill for these uncalled for fines? We do!

The Obama administration has tried to push their political agenda through intimidation and fines all to ensure that everybody does as they are told - or they pay the price. And remember, it wasn't too long ago that the Obama administration asked Americans to turn in other Americans for any anti-ObamaCare rhetoric.

Obama has requested his supporters report on any civilians who dissent from his policies. There was even a White House website setup speciafically for this.

Linda Douglass, communications director for Obama's Office of Health Reform, said her job includes collecting "disinformation" about health care, and the White House asked Americans, "If you get an e-mail or see something on the Web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

Yes, an American president advocated turning in your neighbors for holding a different policy view.

Obama has used his Justice Department and Homeland Security to enforce radical environmental and social concerns. And yes, he is gearing up to use the IRS to penalize Americans $1,200 for not having health care coverage.

That's right!

It was reported a month ago that nearly 6 million Americans – significantly more than the Obama administration led us to believe -  will face a tax penalty under President Barack Obama's health overhaul for not getting insurance.

And yes, most would be in the Middle Class.

The new estimate amounted to an inconvenient fact for the administration, a reminder of what we critics of ObamaCare and the Obama administration see as broken promises.

The numbers from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office are almost 60% higher than a previous projection by the same office in 2010, shortly after the law was passed. The earlier estimate found 4 million Middle Class Americans would be affected in 2016, when the penalty is fully in effect.

I love the jerkweeds who say "Oh well, that's still only a sliver of the population, given that more than 150 million people currently are covered by employer plans."

Sure! Unless of course you're part of those 6 million Middle Class Americans that will have to pay $1200 a year in penalties! Than what? How do you pay it if you ain't got the money and the IRS says pay it or we confiscate your property or send you to prison for a year?

The Liar! Yes, in my opinion, Obama is a liar!

Why? Well, in his first campaign for the White House, Obama pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000.

But friends, the budget office analysis found that nearly 80% of those who'll face the ObamaCare penalty would be making up to or less than five times the federal poverty level.

That means that Obama is going to fine anyone making $55,850 or less, and families making $115,250 or less for a family of four.

The Supreme Court upheld Obama's law finding that the insurance mandate and the tax penalty enforcing it fall within the power of Congress to impose taxes.

And yes, the Democrats controlled Congress when they went along with Obama in creating the most costliest social program in the history of the world.

So don't fool yourself into thinking that Obama your pal won't collect it. The penalty will be collected by the IRS, just like any other taxes.

Please don't write me to say, "Oh, no, President Obama couldn't have done such a thing - he's too nice. It must me a mistake! It must be those evil Republicans in Congress!"

Horseshit! The budget office said the penalty will raise $6.9 billion in 2016. And friends, that's how Obama plans on paying for the program for others who will be exempt from paying anything at all.

Yes, if you have a job and don't have health care, you will pay a fine! Whether he told you about it or not, don't kid yourself - Obama is depending on those fines to help pay for his legacy program!

In September, Rep. Dave Camp, a Republican from Michigan, who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and is someone who wants to repeal the law, said, "The bad news and broken promises from ObamaCare just keep piling up,"

Starting in 2014, virtually every legal resident of the U.S. will be required to carry health insurance or face fines as tax penalties even if you are unemployed.

But hey, the Obama rich kids in the White House say, most people will not have to worry about the requirement since they already have coverage through employers, government programs like Medicare or by buying their own policies.

A jerkweed Obama spokeswoman lied when he said 98% of Americans will not be affected by the tax penalty – and suggested that those who will be should face up to their civic responsibilities.

Of course, the Obama asshole who said that didn't bother to mention the 23 MILLION AMERICANS out of work who don't have health insurance through jobs - because Obama's silly socialist economic policies have not produced enough jobs for the ones that have been lost.

Obama and Biden, you may know them as liar and laughing boy, said they created 5 million jobs since being in office. They don't say that they actually only created 4.4 million jobs while the economy has lost 4.3 million jobs -  but I guess they forgot!

So now, with all of those facts, MSNBC host Chris Matthews decided that the whole 2012 presidential race came down to Obama's race.

And no, no one in my home yelled racial slurs at the TV when Obama tried to score bonus points during the debate on Monday with a sarcastic remark about horses and bayonets - especially since the President didn't know that yes we actually did use horses in Iraq and Afghanistan and that my beloved Marine Corps still uses bayonets. And yes, thank God it still does!

I don't care what color a man is when someone acts like President Obama did during the last debate when he mocked and personally attacked cut and slashed and sneered at Mitt Romney with snide comments that the President obviously thought cute.

To me, Obama came off like some wise ass punk. Just some condescending jerkweed.

A great deal of his comments were derogatory, mocking, filled with disdain. He acted devious and almost underhanded at times evading questions that he did not want to answer.

Yes, in my opinion, Obama acted more like a punk than he did the President of the United States.

In those moments I'm sure Chris Matthews found a kindred spirit. Matthews seems to know real well how punks come in all sorts of colors. Some of the comments out of Matthews own mouth have shown him to be nothing but a wise ass punk at times - at least that's my opinion on guys like him and Bill Maher who think that can talk trash anytime they please.

Of course, one key point that might haunt Obama came about on the issue of “sequestration,” where a compromise budget was OK’d that would gut defense spending.

Even though sequestration was an Obama administration idea, he tried to blame it on the Republicans in the House of Representatives. And it didn't matter if Harry Reid in the Senate helped Obama come up with it, Obama wanted no part of his own idea that night during the debate.

Finally frustrated over answering questions about it, Obama responded, "First of all, the sequester is not something that I've proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed. It will not happen!"

Wow, was that News to White House senior adviser and 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe who backed away from that almost immediately after the debate saying, "No one thinks it should happen."

MSNBC's Ultra-leftist analyst Jonathan Alter seem to dislike Romney for supporting peace. Imagine that.

The guy actually had the nerve to say, "By reversing his views on war and peace, Romney has raised a character issue about his ability to be trusted as a steadfast defender of U.S.!"

Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, took the exactly opposite view. “Romney wants peace, trade, a growing economy, American strength. Obama wants to keep spending and running up debt,” he wrote.

Ultra-liberal Bob Schieffer moderated the debate and he has a long record of liberal positions, but they didn’t play a major role in the debate. It was strange though that Schieffer never did call Obama on the closure of Guantanamo, something that Schieffer has called a "cancer" in the past.

I was brought up to respect all people and accept a person for their character and not be concerned about their color. Yes, character is what really matters.

MSNBC host Chris Matthews might think that many of us on the Right dislike Obama because of the color of his skin, but he's wrong. And really, he doesn't have any idea how off the mark he truly is.

Then again, maybe its a facade? Maybe it's not all about being in denial and not understanding how the American people feel about conservatism versus liberalism? Maybe Matthews is having a hard time admit that Americans just don't like what liberalism has brought to the table? Maybe he's just using race as his excuse to blur the bigger picture?

Maybe he doesn't want to admit that most Americans don't want a government to have such a huge say in how we conduct our lives?  Maybe he really doesn't have the backbone to admit that liberalism has only brought us heavy handed government intrusion and abuses of power?  

Then again, maybe Chris Matthews doesn't have the mental capacity it takes to understand that this election is not about race or hate, and that it is really about what we want for ourselves and our nation in the future.

Maybe like others in the liberal mainstream media, he doesn't have the brain cells to understand that it's about my brother's kids and their having to pay for the selfishness of a few who want free health care? And yes, they probably don't understand that it really is about my nephew not being able to find a job.

Maybe Matthews is too dense and just doesn't understand that this election is about restoring pride in America, and yes it's about our restoring our independence and freedoms - our liberty.

We have to vote to restore our freedoms taken away by federal and state governments. Today it seems that government is run by individuals who dismiss our freedoms and want to own us as if we were a herd of cattle.

This Presidential Race does not have anything to do with Obama's race. It is a shame that the left can't get over that.

This election has everything to do with what Obama has demonstrated to the American people over the last four years. And yes. it all comes down to Obama's ideology.

It  is not over color, nationality, or religion. It is about Obama's leftist liberal ideology which forms his decision making process and subsequently builds his policies. Policies that are hurting us all both economically and culturally.

It has to do with the ideas and principles that built us as a nation. Whether Obama likes it or not, we are a nation of free people.

We are a nation that does not accept the Left's theory that God does not exist, that humans are evolving animals, and that we do not need a moral code, or the belief in laws grounded in any authority other than human authority.

This election is about decisions that should not be made on our behalf, and policies that go against the very fabric of Americanism and our liberties.

It has to do with giving the United Nation organization too much authority. And yes, too much involvement in how we conduct our lives or how we spend our money and resources.

This election goes to the heart of our allegiance to the traditions, interests, or ideals of the United States. It is about maintaining our customs and traits that are specifically American. It has everything to do with the political principles and practices essential to our uniquely American culture.

It goes to what has made America great, the very things the Obama administration is at war against.

Story by Tom Correa

Monday, October 22, 2012

Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch



Just to be ornery, I was going to call this article Robert Leroy Parker's Wild Bunch. But then again, I figured no one would know who the heck I was talking about. Robert Leroy Parker and another fella by the name of Harry Alonzo Longabaugh were criminals in the late 1880s and into the very early 1900s. Robert Leroy Parker is more famously known today for his alias of Butch Cassidy. Harry Alonzo Longabaugh is more famously known today for his alias as the Sundance Kid. They both became very famous by way of a movie that was made about a portion of their lives together. The movie was made in 1969, and it was called "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

The movie was based on a great deal of myth and folklore with some facts here and there. The film made bad guys look like great guys as it told a whimsical yet violent tale of outlaw murderers Robert Leroy Parker played by actor Paul Newman and his partner Harry Alonzo Longabaugh played by actor Robert Redford. The movie is lighthearted, jovial, and actually comedic. Believe it or not, the film actually tried to pass itself off as being a "true" story. The problem with the movie is that it is based on a script based upon very few facts and a whole lot of unsubstantiated myth. The film's story made the lives of Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh larger-than-life tales.

In 1969, Time magazine said the film's two male stars are "afflicted with cinematic schizophrenia. One moment they are sinewy, battered remnants of a discarded tradition. The next they are low comedians whose chaffing relationship—and dialogue—could have been lifted from a Batman and Robin episode." Since I'm old enough to remember watching the very corny Batman television series on TV back in the 1960s, I can visualize Burt Ward as Robin saying, "Holy heart failure, Batman, is that movie that bad?"

Well, in my opinion, yes, it is. And more so, if you like Westerns that are at least a little truthful, then it's a bad movie because it's just a big lie.

Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch was nothing like the 1969 movie.

Robert Leroy Parker was born in April of 1866 in Beaver, Utah. He was the oldest of thirteen children. At the age of 13, Parker was put to work as a seasonal laborer on the Ryan Ranch at Hay Springs. His first run in with the law came about when he rode into town to buy a pair of jeans. Finding the store closed, he broke in and stole a pair of jeans.

Myth says he left a note as an IOU. But the storekeeper wasn't impressed, and called the law. He was arrested and stood trial for petty theft, but Parker was acquitted at a jury trial. After that he was released by the Ryan Ranch and was looking for work.

After a while, Parker was working on a farm belonging to a Jim Marshall. During that time, Parker came into contact with a drifter by the name of name of Mike Cassidy who also worked on Marshall's farm. ranch. Cassidy was engaged in stealing cattle and horses and it wasn't long before Parker threw in with Cassidy. It's said Cassidy had a profound effect on Parker. So much so, that Parker would use Cassidy's name as an alias. 

Parker's cattle rustling activities had come to the attention of the local law, and he had to flee the county. He continued to work on ranches until 1884, when he moved to Telluride, Colorado, ostensibly to seek work but perhaps to deliver stolen horses to buyers.

In 1884, he joined a gang whose members included a former member of the notorious James gang, one Bill McCarty. He participated in train hold ups and bank robberies for some time before drifting out on his own. It was around this time that he took on the name Butch Cassidy. In those days, he worked as cowhand in Wyoming and in Montana before returning to Telluride Colorado in 1887.

Upon his return to Telluride, Parker met Matt Warner. Warner was about the same age as Parker, and the two developed a friendship and shared a similar fondness for the saloons and easy money. Warner owned a mare named Betty that was a racing champion, so Warner and Butch began racing her and sharing the profits. Through horse racing Parker also met the brothers Tom and Bill McCarty, who many researchers believe introduced Parker aka Butch Cassidy into the line of business that would become what he become known for - train and bank robbery.

Some out there disagree on the date and nature of Parker's first major robbery. Some researchers point to November 3, 1887, when a train was stopped near Grand Junction, Colorado, and held up by a gang of bandits. The thieves had piled stones across the tracks, forcing the engineer to stop at the blockade. Three outlaws jumped onto the train, but the man guarding the safe told the bandits that only the stationmasters along the route could open the safe and that nobody on the train had the combination.

They must have believed the guard because the outlaws collected what money they could off the pasengers - amounting to about $140 - and rode off into the darkness. Many now believe that three of the outlaws were Tom McCarty, Matt Warner, and Parker aka Butch Cassidy - making his debut as a train robber. If Parker wasn't involved in that Grand Junction robbery, then Parker definitely made his introduction to robbery two years later.

Robert Leroy Parker, as Butch Cassidy, had his first run-in with the law on on June 24, 1889, in the robbery of the the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colorado. On the morning of June 24, 1889, Cassidy and Warner and Tom McCarty, accompanied by one other man, were seen carousing among the saloons of Telluride and watching people going in and out of the San Miguel Valley Bank. Later in the day, one of the four entered the bank and gave a teller a check he wanted cashed. The teller leaned over to examine the check and was suddenly grabbed by the man and slammed down onto his desk. The outlaw threatened the startled teller with instant death if he did not do everything the robber said.

The bandit then called in the other three, and the group quickly gathered up approximately $21,000 before getting on their horses and escaping to Robbers Roost, which was a remote hideout in southeastern Utah secluded and favored by desperadoes for its difficulty to reach and its numerous look-out vistas. During this time, Cassidy also worked as a ranch hand in Utah and Wyoming. According to some, he supposedly saved enough to buy a horse ranch in Wyoming in 1890. That sounds more a fairy tale than the truth.

A more honest assessment is that he used his share of the loot from the Telluride bank job to purchase a ranch near Dubois, Wyoming. This location is across the state from the notorious Hole-in-the-Wall, a natural geological formation which afforded outlaws much welcomed protection and cover. So yes, it is possible that Cassidy's ranching, which was never economically successful, was in fact a front for their criminal clandestine activities.

It's said that in 1893, he was arrested for stealing horses but he was never charged. That I find hard to believe. The following spring, the group was joined by Tom McCarty's brother Bill, and his 17 year old son Fred, when they robbed the Wallowa National Bank at Enterprise, Oregon, on October 8, 1891. For some reason, Cassidy wasn't along for that ride. Nor was he along when on September 3,1893, McCarty and his gang robbed a bank at Delta, Colorado. In Delta, both Bill and his son Fred were killed by citizens of the town. Tom McCarty escaped and was never heard from again. All this was enough to put a bad taste in the mouths of the gang.

In early 1894, Cassidy became involved romantically with Ann Bassett who was also known as Queen Ann Bassett. She was born in 1878 to Herb Bassett and Elizabeth Chamberlain Bassett near Browns Park Colorado, but grew up in Utah, the second of two daughters. Her older sister Josie was born in 1874.

Herb Bassett was twenty years senior to his wife Elizabeth Chamberlain Bassett, and the couple moved to Browns Park some time around the earlier part of 1888. Herb Bassett had a profitable cattle ranch which straddled Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. Bassett's father, rancher Herb Bassett, did business with Parker, supplying him with fresh horses and beef. He actually did business with a lot of notable outlaws of the era such as Butch Cassidy, Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan, and Black Jack Ketchum, selling them horses and beef for supplies.

The park, as Browns Park is known, had been a haven for outlaws long before Parker and his bunch started running stolen livestock through there. For decades stolen horseflesh was trailed through the park to thriving mining communities in Eastern Colorado. 

Both Ann and Josie Bassett were said to be attractive young women, well taught by their father in the arts of horse riding, roping, and shooting. Both were educated early on in prominent boarding schools, were intelligent and articulate in their speech, but chose to return to the life of ranching. Many accounts state the sisters always preferred "cowboying" to being a lady. For the times, that was fairly uncommon.

By the time Ann Bassett was 15, yes 15 years old, she had become involved romantically with Cassidy who was 12 years older than she was. Her sister Josie was involved with Elzy Lay for a while, before taking up with Ben Kilpatrick and Will "News" Carver who were also members of the Wild Bunch gang.

Contrary to popular belief, Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (aka the Sundance Kid) was not Butch Cassidy's best friend. That position was held by William Ellsworth "Elzy" Lay. He was Cassidy's best friend and assisted him in leading the Wild Bunch gang. Elzy Lay was born in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to northeastern Colorado. At the age of 18, Lay left home looking for adventure with his childhood friend William McGinnis. McGinnis soon returned home, claiming he was homesick. Later, Lay would use the name "McGinnis" as an alias when working as a ranch hand. He worked briefly on the ranch of cattleman Matt Warner, and it was Warner who gave Lay his first tip for a robbery. From Warner, Lay learned that a shopkeeper nearby had a large sum of cash. Warner, his nephew Lew McCarty, and Lay robbed the man and split the money.

In the fall of 1889, Lay met outlaw Butch Cassidy while in Utah. The two became close friends, and Lay began dating Josie Bassett, the daughter of a rancher that often sold beef and horses to the outlaws, while Cassidy began dating her sister, 15 year old future female outlaw Ann Bassett. Using the money he stole, Lay opened up a gambling house in Vernal, Utah. For a time, it was profitable, until it was shut down by Uintah County Sheriff John T. Pope. Following his business being closed, Lay moved back to Matt Warner's ranch, where he renewed his relationship with Josie Bassett.

In 1894, the same year that Cassidy took up with Ann Bassett, Cassidy was arrested at Lander, Wyoming, for stealing horses. It's also suspected that he was running a protection racket among the local ranchers by then.

Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy, 
1894 mugshot from Wyoming Territorial Prison

Imprisoned in the state prison in Laramie, Wyoming, Cassidy served 18 months of a two-year sentence and was released in January 1896. Lay remained at Warner's until Cassidy was released from an eighteen month prison sentence he had been serving. During that time, Lay became involved with another girl, Maude Davis, whose brother Albert Davis was a small time outlaw. Outlaw Ben Kilpatrick began dating Cassidy's girlfriend Ann Bassett during that time.

In return for the partial remission of his sentence, Cassidy had promised Wyoming Governor Richards that he would never again break the law in that state. After Cassidy's prison release, he and Lay got their own cabin on the Green River. Cassidy became involved briefly with Ann Bassett's older sister Josie, but when Ann Bassett ended her relationship with Kilpatrick - she returned to her involvement with Cassidy.

And yes, upon his release he associated himself with a circle of criminals, most notably his closest friend Elzy Lay, Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan, Ben Kilpatrick, Harry Tracy, Will "News" Carver, Laura Bullion, and George Curry, who, together with a few others formed a gang known as the Wild Bunch.

In August, 1896, Matt Warner killed two prospectors named Dick Staunton and Dave Milton, during a shootout near Vernal. Warner had been employed by E.B. Coleman to intimidate Staunton and Milton away from a mining claim. The intimidation turned into a gun battle. Warner, Coleman, and hired gunman Bill Wall were arrested, and eventually transported to Ogden, Utah, where they were held in jail. In a plea for help to Butch Cassidy, Warner said he needed a lawyer.

Cassidy and Lay then robbed a bank in Montpelier, Idaho, using the funds to secure an attorney for Warner. Warner and Wall were convicted of manslaughter, and received a five year sentence, while Coleman was found not guilty. Cassidy and Lay began hiding out at what was called "Robbers Roost", in Utah. Girlfriends Maude Davis and Ann Bassett joined them there, Lay having ended his relationship with Ann's sister, Josie, who by that time was involved in a relationship with Lay's outlaw friend Will "News" Carver.

By this time, Maude and Elzy had married and Maude was pregnant with Lay's child. After the birth of their daughter, Marvel, Maude insisted he leave the outlaw life and settle down. He refused, and instead he and Cassidy traveled to New Mexico. By this time, they  were calling their gang the "Wild Bunch". There, they worked for a short time on the "WS Ranch", before heading north back to Wyoming.

In 1897, Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, also known as the Sundance Kid, was in on a bank robbery along with five other men - all part of the Wild Bunch. That was his first known involvement with the gang.

Born in Mont Clare, Pennsylvania, in 1867, Harry Alonzo Longabaugh was also known as the Sundance Kid because in 1887, Longabaugh stole a gun, horse and saddle from a ranch in Sundance, Wyoming. While attempting to flee, he was captured by authorities and was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in jail by Judge William L. Maginnis. It was during this jail time, he adopted the nickname of the Sundance Kid. After his release, he went back to working as a ranch hand, and in 1891, as a 25-year-old, he worked at the Bar U Ranch in what is today Alberta, Canada, which was one of the largest commercial ranches of the time.

Longabaugh was suspected in 1892 of being involved in a train robbery, but that can't be confirmed.
Although Longabaugh was reportedly fast with a gun and was often referred to as a "gunfighter," fact is he is not known to have killed anyone prior to a later shootout in Bolivia -  where he and Parker (Cassidy) were alleged to have been killed. He became better known than another outlaw member of the gang dubbed "Kid." That was Kid Curry, whose real name was Harvey Logan, who killed numerous men while with the gang. The "Sundance Kid" was possibly mistaken for "Kid Curry", since many articles referred to "the Kid".

Longabaugh did participate in a shootout with lawmen who trailed a gang led by George Curry to the Hole-in-the-Wall hideout in Wyoming, and was thought to have wounded two lawmen in that shootout. With that exception, though, his verified involvement in shootouts is unknown. Longabaugh and Logan used a log cabin at what is now Old Trail Town in Cody, Wyoming, as a hide-out before they robbed a bank in Red Lodge, Montana. Parker, Longabaugh and other gang members are known to have met at another cabin brought to Old Trail Town from the Hole-in-the-Wall country in north-central Wyoming. That cabin was built in 1883 by Alexander Ghent.

Etta Place is a mystery of sorts.

We know she was Longabaugh's "girlfriend" and supposed "wife", but in fact that's really bout it. According to a Pinkerton Detective Agency memorandum dated July 29, 1902, she was "said.....to be from Texas", and in another Pinkerton document dated 1906, she is described as being "27 to 28 years old", which places her birth around 1878. This is confirmed by a hospital staff record from Denver, where she received treatment in May 1902, which reports her age as "23 or 24," although both records may transpire to be from the same original source, the hospital staff. But what's amazing about Etta Place is that even her real name is a mystery.

Place happens to be the maiden surname of Longabaugh's mother, Annie Place, and she is recorded in various sources as Mrs. Harry Longabaugh or Mrs. Harry A. Place. The one instance where she is known to have signed her name, she recorded it as "Mrs. Ethel Place". The Pinkertons called her "Ethel", "Ethal", "Eva" and "Rita" before finally settling on "Etta" for their wanted posters. Her name may have become "Etta" after she moved to South America, where Spanish speakers could not pronounce "Ethel".

We do know that in 1901, the mysterious Etta Place accompanied Longabaugh aka the Sundance Kid, whom she may or may not have married to New York City where at Tiffany's jewelers they purchased a lapel watch and stickpin. It was also where, at a studio in Union Square on Broadway, she posed with him for the now famous DeYoung portrait - one of only two known images of her.


Harry Alonzo Longbaugh, alias the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place in 1901

And yes, she was very pretty! 

Other members thought to be part of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch included: Ben "The Tall Texan" Kirkpatrick was known as the lady killer of the group, Bill Tod Carver was supposedly a quick draw artist, Camila "Deaf Charlie" Hanks is known to have been partly deaf in one ear, Tom "Peep" O'Day is said to have been a sort of court jester of the gang, Joe Chancellor was supposedly skilled safe cracker but no one knows why since he failed to open safes when he tried, Jim Lowe was a bartender, Jesse Lnsley whose occupation is unknown was supposedly a dapper dresser, William "Bill" Cruzan was a horse thief, Dave Atkins was known to have been on the run from the law when he joined the gang, Walter "Wat the Watcher" Punteney was said to be a jack of all trades, Willard E. Christiansen who was also know as Matt Warner and was also once part of McCarty's gang, Bob Meeks was a cowhand, Laura Bullion, Annie Rogers, and Lillie Davis were prostitutes.

It's said that Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch was different from Bill Doolin's Wild Bunch down in the Oklahoma Territory was because it mainly stayed in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah - and of course there is that claim that Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch was in fact a non-violent band of outlaws.

This Wild Bunch gang claimed to make every attempt to abstain from killing people, and Cassidy boasted of having never killed a man. Historically, the gang was for a time best known for their lack of violence during the course of their robberies, relying heavily on intimidation and threats. But remember that these men knew that if caught and captured, they would have faced hanging.

The portrayal of the gang as non-violent is not accurate and mostly a result of Hollywood portrayals depicting them as usually "non-violent".  Though maybe not as violent as Bill Doolin's Wild Bunch down in the Oklahoma Territory, the non-violent claims about this gang were false. In reality, several people were killed by members of the gang, and as a result "Wanted dead or alive" posters were posted throughout the country with as much as a $30,000 reward for information leading to their capture or deaths.

Kid Curry, George Curry, Will Carver and other members of the gang killed numerous people during law enforcement's pursuit of them. Kid Curry was the most ruthless as he alone killed 9 lawmen while with the gang, and another two civilians during shootouts later. He was the gang's most feared member.

Elzy Lay killed another two lawmen following a robbery, for which he was wounded, arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. "Flat-Nose" George Curry killed at least two lawmen, before being killed himself by a posse from Grand County, Utah. They thrived during a period of about five years from 1896 through 1901. The gang was a group of usually ten or so outlaws banded together. Wild Bunch outlaws worked out of the Hole in the Wall located in the southern Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. Brown's Hole located in a desolate valley near the Wyoming, Colorado and Utah border was a second home for the Wild Bunch gang. In the winter Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch worked out of "Robbers Roost" located in the desert of southeastern Utah which was a famous outlaw winter resort. 

The membership was loose and varied from time to time, although the leadership was controlled by Robert Leroy Parker also known as Butch Cassidy and his sidekick, Harry Longabaugh who was better known as the Sundance Kid.  The gang was also closely associated with female outlaws Ann Bassett and Josie Bassett, whose ranch near Browns Park supplied the gang often with fresh horses and beef. Both of the Bassett girls would become romantically involved with several members of the gang, and both would occasionally accompany the gang to one of their hideouts, called "Robbers Roost".

Associations with ranchers like those in the area allowed the gang considerable mobility, giving them an easy resupply of fresh horses and supplies, and a place to hole up for a night or two. The Wild Bunch robbed banks, mine payrolls, and trains - primarily Union Pacific Railroad trains.

In April, 1897, the two women were sent home, while Cassidy and Lay began planning the robbery of a payroll shipment in Castle Gate, Utah. 

On April 21, 1897, the payroll arrived, and Cassidy and his gang members simply walked out in broad daylight and took it at gunpoint. In that robbery, they took $7,000. A gang member named Joe Walker is alleged to have disabled the telegraph lines to prevent word of the robbery being put out to nearby law enforcement.

A Pinkerton man once infiltrated the Wild Bunch, calling himself Charles Carter. During this time, Cassidy's Wild Bunch turned their attention to trains much to the dismay of the Union Pacific Railroad. After foiling several railroad robberies by notifying the Union Pacific Railroad to change the train schedule, Carter simply vanished and was never heard or seen again.

Detective Charles Siringo became a constant shadow of the Wild Bunch for about four years hounding them from Wyoming to Utah. 

At 1:00 a.m. on June 2, 1899, Cassidy, Kid Curry, Logan and Lay robbed a Union Pacific train near Wilcox, Wyoming. They flagged down the Union Pacific Railroad 's Overland Limited. They wore masks made from white napkins, possibly pilfered from a Harvey House restaurant. In the holdup, they stole between $30,000 and $60,000. The gang split up afterward, a common ploy to throw off pursuers, and several fled to New Mexico.  That infamous train robbery portrayed in the movie, The Great Train Robbery, occurred on June 2, 1899 near Wilcox, Wyoming. They detached the express car and dynamited it open. In the process destroying the car and most of the money.

The guard survived the dynamiting the car, but declined requests to open the safe. Finally in desperation the Wild Bunch dynamited the safe and blew money all over the landscape. The tale that the guard told later about watching those outlaws scrambling for as many of those green backs as they could catch before the wind took them away was one told even years later.

Three more train robberies were pulled off by the Wild Bunch. They committed their most famous robbery on June 2, 1899, by robbing a Union Pacific train near Wilcox, Wyoming. Following the robbery, they fled to the Hole-in-the-Wall, successfully evading posses that were in pursuit. Kid Curry, who was by this time a member of the gang, killed Converse County Sheriff Josiah Hazen during that pursuit.

On July 11, 1899, gang members robbed a train near Folsom, New Mexico, without Cassidy's presence. The pursuit by a posse led by Sheriff Ed Farr culminated in two gun battles, during which Sheriff Farr and two deputies were killed. Gang member Sam Ketchum was wounded and died in custody. Elzy Lay, one of Cassidy's closest friends and co-founder of the Wild Bunch gang, was wounded and also captured. The gang split up in different directions for a time, which was a common action following any of their robberies. Then Cassidy and the other members regrouped in Wyoming.

On August 29, 1900, Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Kid Curry and another unidentified gang member believed to have been Will Carver, held up another Union Pacific train at Tipton, Wyoming. Less than a month later, on September 19, 1900, they raided the First National Bank of Winnemucca, Nevada, stealing $32,640. These and other lucrative robberies led to much notoriety and fame.

The last known great escapade of the Wild Bunch was near Malta, Montana, while robbing the Great Northern Railroad, from which they escaped with $40,500. The Union Pacific Railroad organized a high speed train with good professional gunmen packing high powered rifles. These gunmen were outfitted with the finest horses carried in stock cars. These boys meant to get up close and personal with the Wild Bunch and bring them in dead or alive. The high speed Union Pacific Railroad chase train was cruising on hunches and putting out bait. Riding their tracks and close on the heels of Wild Bunch, the high speed Union Pacific Railroad chase train got too close too many times

With the last known holdup at Malta, the Wild Bunch dispersed.

Parker and Longabaugh, evidently wanting to allow things to calm down a bit and looking for fresher robbing grounds, left the United States on February 20, 1901. Longabaugh sailed with his "wife" Etta Place, and Parker, aboard the British ship Herminius for Buenos Aires in Argentina. One report says that Cassidy along with the Sundance Kid and his girlfriend Etta Place relocated to Patagonia, Argentina, owing their relocation to constantly having to remain on the move because of Pinkerton detectives, lawmen, and bounty hunters all after the huge rewards on their heads. That same year, 1901, on April 1st, Will Carver was wounded by lawmen and died later in May of complications.

Ben Kilpatrick was captured in Tennessee in December, 1901, along with Laura Bullion. He got a 20-year prison sentence, while she received a five-year sentence. Kid Curry killed two lawmen in Knoxville, Tennessee, escaped capture, then traveled to Montana, where he killed a rancher who had killed his brother Johnny years before. He then returned to Tennessee and was captured, only to escape once again. Some say that Kid Curry was killed in Colorado in 1904, during a shootout with lawmen. Fact is that the wounded Curry decided to end it at that time and fatally shot himself in the head to avoid capture.

Elzy Lay was released from prison in 1906. After his release, he found his way to Baggs, Wyoming, a small ranch town just north of the Colorado border. He later married and moved to Southern California where worked on the Colorado River Aqueduct system in Riverside and Imperial Valley just north of the border with Mexico. Elzy Lay died in 1934 in Los Angeles.

Ben Kilpatrick was released from prison in 1911, and was killed during a train robbery in Texas in 1912.

As for Laura Bullion, well she was released from prison in 1905 and lived the remainder of her life as a seamstress. She supposedly died in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1961.

Of course, the most famous ending was that of Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, who died in a shootout with Bolivian soldiers while trying to rob a bank there in 1908. Supposedly, after a short standoff at San Vicente, the Sundance Kid was shot to death while Butch Cassidy - who just like Kid Curry - had committed suicide.

As for speculations that both Parker and Longabaugh survived and eventually returned to the United States? Well, there are tales that ranks up there with Elvis sightings. 

One of these claims was that Longabaugh lived under the name of William Henry Long in the small town of Duchesne, Utah. Long died in 1936 and was buried in the town cemetery. Believe it or not, his remains were exhumed in December 2008 and testing was performed to determine whether he was Harry Longabaugh. The tests proved that William Long was not Harry Longabaugh, aka the Sundance Kid. And as for Robert Parker, aka Butch Cassidy, well it seems that folks have him appearing in all sorts of places and living for many many years after his death.

I believe these speculations are mostly wishful thinking because of that 1969 movie. I really believe that actors Paul Newman and Robert Redford played such likable outlaws in that film, that it seems that no one really wants to think that those two thieving murderers could simply have died in Bolivia.

Now as for the mysterious Etta Place? Well, although some reports had her last known sighting being in 1909 in San Francisco -  the pretty gal completely disappeared.

Others believed that she had taken the name Eunice Gray, and she became a brothel madame in Fort Worth, Texas in 1909. Supposedly, she was living in Fort Worth until her death in 1962. So, who was Eunice Gray? 

Well, she was semi-wealthy, and for some reason or another many during those days suspected that she was in fact Etta Place. But then again, contrary to common belief, the connections between Place and Gray did not establish themselves to any great extent at the time she arrived in Fort Worth, but rather many years afterwards, because of a reporter. During her entire time in Fort Worth, Gray gave but one interview, in which she supposedly told Delbert Willis of the Fort Worth Press, "I've lived in Fort Worth since 1901. That is except for the time I had to high-tail it out of town. Went to South America for a few years . . . until things settled down".

Willis did concede that Gray never admitted or even claimed to be Etta Place. Willis merely made that connection on his own, given the similarities of their age, the fact that both had classic good looks, and that the period in which Gray said she went to South America coincided, albeit roughly, with when Place was in South America. For many years, there were no known photographs of Eunice Gray in that period to compare with the one known high-quality photograph of Etta Place. Willis believed that the similarities were striking, but in the absence of a photograph of Gray, there was no way of verifying or refuting his observation.

More recently, amateur genealogist Donna Donnell found Eunice Gray on a 1911 passenger list from Panama. It was reported in 2007 that following that lead, she had tracked down Eunice Gray's niece, who had two photographs of her -- one wearing her high-school graduation dress circa 1896 and another taken in the 1920s.  Comparing the photos with one of Place, both agreed that Eunice Gray was definitely not Etta Place. So all in all, with everyone else attached to Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch accounted for, it appears that Etta Place may have just been the only one to have ridden off into the sunset without a trace.


 Tom Correa  

Saturday, October 20, 2012

RANDOM SHOTS - Obama Supporters Threaten To Kill Romney, CNN's Soledad O’Brien, Eva Longoria's Vulger Tweet, The Classless View, and More!


FIRST SHOT

Obama Supporters Threaten To Kill Romney If He Wins Election

Obama supporters are also flooding Twitter with threats to assassinate Mitt Romney if he wins the presidential election.

Obama supporters are talking about their plans to provoke violence and mayhem if Obama loses, aggrieved at fears that Mitt Romney would take away government handouts.

However, it seems that threats to assassinate Romney are proving just as popular on the social network as threats to riot.

Obama supporter putting out death threats against Mitt Romney are becoming extremely common.

While the Secret Service routinely investigates Americans for criticizing Obama, in one recent case vowing to investigate a man who hung an empty chair from a tree in his garden in reference to Clint Eastwood’s Republican Convention speech, or even merely making a political You Tube video, there is no indication that any of the Twitter users who made these threats will be investigated by anyone.

And yes, first it was Obama backers threatening post-election violence and riots if Obama is unsuccessful in securing a second term.

For a while now, there has been talk about race riots if President Barack Obama is not re-elected.


A lot of Obama supporters are seething with racial grievances, in many cases brought on by the constant use of the "race card" by this administration against anyone who disagrees with Obama's policies.

But riots after an American election? Well yes, it has happened before in our ancient history. But no, it has not been a part of America for over a hundred years. Today we pride ourselves on setting an example to the world be showing how power can be transferred peacefully.

With the real possibility that President Obama may lose the election, now some of his supporters who are threatening riots and violence should he be defeated in November. If that happens we would lower ourselves in the eyes of the world.

And yes, if this is true that there are those who really want to riot in the streets over an American election, then it shows just how much trouble Obama is really in.

Since their first debate when Mitt Romney took the president to task, Obama’s media image of superiority has been shaken to its core.

In that first debate, Obama was shown to be an incompetent leader. But worse, he was shown smirking like an arrogant man whose disdain for being questioned was all too obvious.

Some feel his disdain for free market Capitalism has failed him. His efforts to depict our economic system as one filled with greed and self-serving Americans stepping on each other to reach the top has failed him miserably. 

This has not helped the president's desire to start a cultural war in America. One that would indeed get him what he said he wanted, "to change the very fundamentals" of our nation.

This has led Obama having to rethink his tactics to achieve his desire to install a socialist system in the United States. Jobs don't fit into his plan to show the horrors of Capitalism. Traditionally, socialist have used hard economic conditions to push their communist agenda. 

I can't help but wonder if Obama has really wanted to revive the economy. With a weak economy, he would be better able to achieve his social agenda.

In 2008, he said we needed to improve our aging infrastructure of questionable bridges and pot-hole laden roads. Instead of America's aging infrastructure, we are only now finding out that his record setting Stimulus Program money was mainly spent on social programs pushed by the EPA, ObamaCare, Planned Parenthood, and people like George Soros.

The ObamaCare provisions that would have required religious institutions to cover contraception in their health insurance plans, regardless of some faith-based teachings that oppose certain forms of birth control, is a direct attempt for government to manage religious doctrine that they don't agree with.

After the anger, the White House response was to announce it would amend the rule and require insurers to offer contraception at no charge, rather than force religiously affiliated employers to pay for the medication.

Obama's desire to override religious freedoms in order to further his own agenda was blatant. And yes, despite the Obama administration's attempt to appease Catholics who his policies would have directly effected, the original Obama policy of interfering with religious doctrine was evidence of Obama’s view of the world around us.

It is one in which he believes that the government knows what's good for us and we better like it. That in a nutshell is his ideology. And yes, it is an effort of imposing his ideology on America.

Specifically, on a religious theology that does not agree with the government stance on abortion. It tested our moral code. And yes, it made Americans see a United States government with a desire to force us and our faiths to bend to the demands of the government.

Obama has a different sort of religious belief system, if at all. It seems more based on his socialist ideology than one found in the Christian faith.

And yes, it must be frustrating for him. I'm sure he must get angry over others questioning his motives and agenda.

His angry is the second debate performance had his followers panicking. And yes, some are demanding that blood flow in the streets should he lose the election. One writer said it appears that "hope and change have given way to rage and fury."

Last weekend, thousands of pro-Obama Twitter account users vowed to start a race war if Obama is not re-elected. Many pledged to burn down homes and shops.


Full of obscenities and racist language against whites, the tweets reveal the radical left’s anti-democratic, bully nature for all that it is.

“If Obama don’t [sic] win lets [sic] start a riot so Romney know [sic] what he’s getting himself into,” wrote one. Another tweet stated: “If Romney wins im [sic] goin [sic] on a rampage.”

There were countless such threats, most of them much more vile, graphic and chilling.

After the second debate, there was an explosion of tweets calling for Romney to be killed if he wins in November.


“Already planning my attack,” said one. “Somebody should assassinate Romney,” wrote another.

But wait, what do you mean you haven't heard about this? Could it be that the mainstream media has out and out refused to mention this? 

Well, the reason is simple that they aren't. It would show in stark, irrefutable detail the intolerance and hatred of many liberals.

Contrary to that myth, violence has been an overwhelming part of socialism’s rise to power. It is said that Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, and even Hugo Chavez - a socialist that Obama congratulated on his recent election - together slaughtered tens of millions to install their socialist ideology.

History shows us that in America, well it has been predominantly the left and not the right that has engaged in heinous acts. But yes, Timothy McVeigh who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City is the obvious exception.

It has been radical leftist groups such as the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, the Una bomber, and of course Eco-Terrorists and the Occupy Wall Street movement who have used violence to try to push their anti-Capitalist anti-American agenda.

But just imagine for a moment if the situation were reversed and three weeks prior to the election, thousands of Romney supporters threatened to not only riot, but also assassinate the president should their candidate lose.


Can you imagine the national uproar, the media attention, the call for troops and beefed up security?

Can you imagine what the New York Times or Democratic talking heads like Chris Matthews and the classless liberals on The View would say?

They would call for statements from Romney, the Republican Party, and maybe even Rush Limbaugh to disavow those comments. And yes, Romney and the Republican Party and Rush would do just that.

But just as we saw when leftist protesters called the death of George W. Bush doing the protests a few years ago, there is only silence from Obama, the mainstream media, and the Democrat Party.

Since the birth of the Tea Party, the liberal media have desperately sought to portray the movement as racist and extremist. Even Obama has stated that the Tea Party is "racist". 

Signs at Tea Party rallies comparing Obama to the Joker were denounced as menacing. Several placards stating that Obama’s big-government policies equaled the Soviet hammer and sickle were deemed incendiary. Many liberals to this day,  without a shred of evidence, continue to say that the "n-word" was used against Obama and black members of Congress at a rally just prior to the passage of ObamaCare.

For nearly four years, the press corps has peddled one overriding narrative: Opposition to Mr. Obama is based on white people being racists.

Because of this, it should come as no surprise that by relentlessly injecting the race card, Democrats and the liberal mainstream media have sown the seeds of widespread fear and loathing among swaths of Obama supporters.


Just recently, the Obama campaign’s co-chairman, actress Eva Longoria, made her brilliant case for President Obama by saying, “I have no idea why any woman/minority can vote for Romney,” her tweet read. “You have to be stupid to vote for such a racist/misogynistic” individual.


As I said in my articles chronicling the Democrat Party Legacy of Racism & Segregation: Part One,
the left in America has worked relentlessly to get people to believe the lie that Republicans are racists and segregationist.

And yes, I agree with one writer who said that the liberals on the left are trying to paint Mitt Romney as the second coming of that racist George Wallace. Though they fail to mention is that George Wallace was in fact a Democrat, it's no wonder Obama supporters want Romney dead.

Knowingly or not, I see Obama and the Democrats as inciting their supporters to commit murder!

Threats to assassinate President Obama would be dealt with immediately, with Mitt Romney proving just as threatened on the social network - I'm hoping someone takes this serious and doesn't treat it as they did the threats against George W. Bush.

Twitchy first reported on the death threats last Sunday but a deluge of new ones have flooded in since, including the following;

“I swear if Mitt Romney becomes president, I’m gonna be the one to assassinate his ass!!!”

“im telling you if romney gets elected somebody gon have to take a L and A. assassinate romney and ryan or B. obliterate the WH w/ them in it.”

“If Romney becomes president , hella people gonna try to assassinate him.”

“Soo Romney said black folks are free loaders n basically tryna get us back to slavery…..I will personally Assassinate dat mf.”

“If Romney Get Elected Somebody Gotta Assassinate Him” Me Duh Nigha ??”

“If Romney Get Elected Somebody Gotta Assassinate Him.”

“F*ck Romney ima assassinate.”

It is important again to stress that these are not newly created fake accounts, they are owned by people who have made thousands of previous tweets.

While some Twitter users later backed away from their threats, others seemed genuinely serious. View a selection of screenshots below.

President Obama, his administration, and the liberal media, have needlessly fanned the flames of racial division in American. When it became apparent that economics would not work, the Obama administration has tried to break America along racial, gender and class lines.

Now is the time for the ominous to be addressed. Obama and other Democrat leaders, and yes the culpable mainstream liberal press, should step forward and denounce these threats of violence right now.

If they have any decency at all, they would do so immediately.

SECOND SHOT!

What's With CNN's Soledad O’Brien Campaigning For Obama?

Before getting into the main story. I have to say that I used to be one of Soledad O’Brien's fans.

No kidding. That was when O'Brien worked as a local reporter for San Francisco NBC affiliate KRON. At KRON, she was a reporter on "The Know Zone."

O'Brien was featured on a regular segment of the Discovery Channel program The Next Step. She was the "Sun Microsystems Infogal."

She and her co-host made high tech almost sound understandable. It was a great show, and yes she was real good doing that.

In recent years, she has worked at CNN. And just as a point of record, I haven't watched CNN very much since Clinton was in office. In those days, CNN was so bias that it was pretty well known as the Clinton News Network.

I guess things haven't changed all that much at CNN. Different democrat president, yet same liberal bias.

A few days ago, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was on Monday’s "Starting Point" on CNN.

Now it is real well known that America's Mayor doesn't like to be pushed. So yes, I really wasn't very surprised when Mayor Giuliani pushed back at CNN morning anchor Soledad O’Brien who seem to have taken her talking points from the Obama administration.

While talking about the Libya terrorist attack that the Obama administration was initially trying to pass off as a "spontaneous reaction" to a goofy anti-Islam YouTube video, the words 'cover-up" came into the conversation.

When O’Brien started insisting that the word "cover-up" was going too far, and then started asking her assistant Miguel for all the Obama transcripts while talking to Mayor Giuliani - as if that would intimidate the Mayor into changing his stance - he asked, "Man, am I debating with the president's campaign? I mean, the defense of the president is overwhelming."

And yes, he was right because it was so obvious.

Giuliani simply did not accept the notion that if the Obama administration had any smarts that they would believe that the terrorist attack on Libya erupted out of a spontaneous demonstration over an old YouTube clip uploaded from California.

Mayor Giuliani thought U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice should have known this public-relations line would come back to haunt her before she ever mentioned it on five different Sunday network news shows.

"Susan Rice goes on television four days later - I was on CNN with her that morning. Says it was a spontaneous demonstration," he said. "I knew it wasn't. I'm not part of the administration; I knew it wasn't the day after. And she had to know it wasn't. They were saying it wasn't, [yet] the national security adviser said it was a terrorist plot.”

On September 16th, Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif said he believes Al Qaeda is responsible for the deadly attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

The Libyan President said it was "preposterous" to think attack was "spontaneous protest."

Reports came out that Libyan president Mohammed el-Megarif  were at odds with Obama and Susan Rice. He said the attack Benghazi that killed the American ambassador was planned well beforehand. His statements on this topic firmly contradicted the Obama administration's version of events.

"The idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous," President Mohammed el-Megarif said in an interview on NPR. "We firmly believe that this was a precalculated, preplanned attack that was carried out specifically to attack the U.S. Consulate."

The Libyan president added, "The intention was there from the beginning, for it to take this ugly barbaric, criminal form."

President Mohammed el-Megarif claimed evidence showed that some elements of Ansar al-Sharia, an extremist group in eastern Benghazi, were used as tools by foreign citizens with ties to al-Qaida to attack the consulate and threaten Libya's stability.

The Libyan account of the horrific events, however, contradicts what the Obama administration was saying.

"Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo," the American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said on ABC's This Week.

"In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated," Rice said that yet that was not true.

The Obama White House was trying to say that protests in Egypt on that Tuesday were over a video that depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud - and that in the process protesters killed the 4 Americans.

"We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to – or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo," Rice said. "And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons… And it then evolved from there."

But this was not true! It was a pre-planned attack just as President Mohammed el-Megarif claimed it was. Why the Obama administration tried to cover it up by saying it was a reaction to a YouTube video is that big question?

Can it be simply because they want American voters to believe that there has been no terrorist attacks while Obama has been in office? Is that the same reason that the Obama White House tried to play down the terrorist attack in Fort Hood by Army Major Nadal as merely a case of "workplace violence"?

Was it, especially when Nadal launched his attack in the same fashion that Muslim terrorists customarily launch their attacks - by yelling "Allah Akbar"?  Why is it so important to Obama and his surrogates to say that no terrorist attack has taken place even when it is so obvious that one has?

That interview with Mayor Giuliani, CNN's Soledad O’Brien aired more of the administration spin on things. She defended them fervently saying, "So the White House now is basically saying the State Department dropped the ball, the State Department is looking and saying - listen, I'm just telling you how it goes - and they're saying there's Intel issues."

With that Mayor Giuliani shot back, "Who put Susan Rice on? The State Department? Or the political people? It was a political appearance on CNN. So what they're really trying to do is they're trying to run out the clock. They're going to have this investigation; the investigation will be after the debate, after the election is over, so what they're trying to do is cover up this scandal as much as possible."

That's when O’Brien really started to protest saying "Calling something a cover-up kind of takes it a further step, don't you think?"

"No, wait a second," Giuliani replied. "There was - a statement was made, including by the President of the United States, that this was due to this terrible movie about Mohammad."

Then O’Brien got really passionate about things and argued, “But he actually didn't say it. The verbatim, the actual verbatim of what he said, he did not say it was something other than that, but it was mentioned. But he did not succinctly say, ‘This was due to a movie.’ Miguel, why don't you pull all these transcripts for me? We have them all in the back room, we can just pull them out."

Giuliani insisted, "There was information both in the State Department and the White House that it wasn't [a protest]. There was no protest in advance. This sounds like a cover-up. I mean, if this weren't a Democratic president, I think all of you people would be crazy."

There's plenty to make a journalist be very careful about how he or she parse words - especially when defending Obama - but Soledad O'Brien doesn't seem to want to hear facts. Like a lawyer defending her client - in this case Obama - she believes what she believes and no amount of evidence is going to change her defense of President Obama.

It is almost a matter of what the definition of is "is" when O'Brien says that "he did not succinctly say, "This was due to a movie." In fact, he does say it after everyone else in his administration gets it out there as what took place.

On September 13th, Hillary Clinton issues a statement saying, "There is no justification, none at all, for responding to this video with violence."

White House spokesman Jay Carney insisted, "The protests we're seeing around the region are in reaction to this movie."

On September 14th, when the bodies of Stevens and three Americans arrive at Andrews Air Force base, President Obama made mention of the video. Both Obama and Clinton criticized the video for prompting the attacks.

Hillary Clinton said, "We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with."

Carney denies the White House was aware of "any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent." "The story is absolutely wrong," he says. "That report is false."

On CNN's own "State of the Union" program on September 16th, UN Ambassador Susan Rice announced, "let's recall what has happened in the last several days. There was a hateful video that was disseminated on the Internet. It had nothing to do with the United States government, and it's one that we find disgusting and reprehensible. It's been offensive to many, many people around the world. That sparked violence in various parts of the world, including violence directed against Western facilities including our embassies and consulates."

Rice was even clearer in misstating the problem on CBS's "Face the Nation," when she said, "What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, prompted by the video.".

 U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice appears on five Sunday talks shows and says the attacks were spontaneous eruptions over the anti-Islam video, saying, "This was not a pre-planned, premeditated attack."

President of Libya's general National Congress Mohammed Magarief contradicts the Obama administration, saying there is "no doubt that this (attack) was pre-planned, predetermined."

It was on September 18th that President Obama said that this was due to a movie.

It was when Obama appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman and is asked by the host if the attack was an act of war. "Here's what happened. You had a video that was released by somebody who lives here … a shadowy character who has an extremely offensive video directed at Mohammad and Islam ... so this caused great offense in much of the Muslim world."

CNN's Soledad O'Brien acted as though it would have been tough to locate something President Obama precisely said on Libya, when in fact it wasn't. 

On September 20th, in an interview with Univision Town Hall, President Obama is asked whether the attack was the work of terrorists?

He says his administration is still investigating the attack and cannot say for certain. Then the president said of Libya, "I don’t want to speak to something until we have all the information. What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.

It seems O'Brien was disinterested to find out the facts. But then again, why let that stop her from
defending Obama?
On October 17th, it was reported that she decided to twist the facts during an interview with John Sununu.

John Sununu served as the Governor of New Hampshire and later White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush. He is a Republican who at 73 years of age doesn't take being toyed with.

She quickly found out that out when he wasn't going to give her a pass when she tried using so-called "facts" that weren't facts at all.

First, she tried tried to imply that Mitt Romney erred during Tuesday night's debate when he called out Barack Obama over the attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

Barack Obama was interviewed by Univision and asked if the attack was terrorism. He said "I don’t want to speak to something until we have all the information. What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.”

A few days later on The View, he was asked if it was a terrorist attack and gave the same response. Obama also made a speech to the United Nations and never once mentioned that the attack was an act of terrorism.  And yes, Obama did mention the Internet video six times.

So why is all this important? Because during the debate, Obama made it sound as if he stated it was a terrorist attack the very next day which he knows very well that he didn't do.

During the debate, Candy Crowley's behavior was obviously bias. And yes, it was wrong when she sided with Obama over that issue.

After the debate, Crowley admitted she was wrong:

As the moderator in Tuesday night's presidential debate, she appeared to side with President Obama on the question of whether he called the Libya strike a terror attack from the start. She later conceded that Mitt Romney was "right" on the broader point - that the administration for days insisted it was a "spontaneous" act.

So Romney was right. We all know he was right. For days and days, Barack Obama and his team perpetuated a lie. The murders were never about an Internet video.

And yet, that's what he kept saying. And yes, at the debate, he tried to say he didn't say that.

Even though those are real proven facts, there are Obama supporters like Soledad O'Brien who continue to spin the tale that no it didn't happen that way.

John Sununu wasn't going to let her spin the facts while talking with him, and he didn't.

O'Brien defense of Obama is too obvious to be anything else but her way of throwing her support behind the president.

And by the way, after the interview, O’Brien joked that she interprets Sununu’s demeanor during the interview as evidence of him hitting on her.

I haven't watched her for a long time, but now I know that I haven't missed much.

THIRD SHOT!

Eva Longoria tweets offensive Romney remarks, lies about it, then blames Twitter - Now one liberal wants her off Obama campaign team!  

Liberal commentator Alan Colmes calls for Eva Longoria's resignation as co-chair of Obama campaign

As a top liberal commentator Colmes calling for Eva Longoria's resignation from President Obama's reelection campaign following her retweet of a vulgar message aimed at Mitt Romney is a big deal.

"I think she should resign from the campaign or be asked to resign as co-chair because I don't think it reflects well on the campaign," Alan Colmes said Thursday on Fox News Channel's 'American Live.'

Colmes gave his opinion after Eva Longoria retweeted a follower on Wednesday who called the Republican presidential candidate a "tw*t" (the word that rhymes with "swat").

“I have no idea why any woman/minority can vote for Romney. You have to be stupid to vote for such a racist/misogynistic tw*t,” the tweet, which Longoria retweeted, read.

After sending the nasty message to her 4,462,095 followers, Longoria took some heat, and took to Twitter on Thursday morning to explain.

"Is anyone else's twitter bugging out? There are things in my timeline I didn't retweet today. Hmmm? Standby trying to fix!" she tweeted.

But later on Thursday, Longoria appeared to come clean and take responsibility.

"I use Twitter as a platform for all Americans and their opinions. Sorry if people were offended by retweet," she wrote. "Obviously not my words or my personal view. I respect all Americans #FreedomOfSpeech."

It's ironic how Eva Longoria has put herself on the same level as another wealthy Democrat Obama supporter Bill Maher who called Sarah Palin a "c*nt" (the word that rhymes with "hunt").

Classless is classless, they are two of a kind.

FOURTH SHOT!

The View takes shots at Ann Romney about religion, military, abortion after playing softball with Obamas

And talk about classless women. I know it's not surprising, but you would think those ladies would have more class than they show the public.

They are a classless group! Most seem to whore themselves for the Democrat Party, and I guess that's OK in Hollywood and New York. But wow, do they make it obvious.

It is a shame though. they make no pretense of being polite or impartial. They just hate everything that is not liberal or Democrat. And yes, they do it with zeal.

How they can stay on the air is unknown to most. They are horrible.
Ann Romney was asked her thoughts on abortion by host Barbara Walters shortly after they exchanged pleasantries and Walters reiterated an invitation for Mitt Romney to appear on the daytime talk show.

Whoopi Goldberg barely let Ann Romney settle into her seat on ABC's "The View" before pouncing on the first lady hopeful, asking why Mitt Romney didn't serve in Vietnam and if the couple is prepared to console families of fallen soldiers if voted into the White House.

Unlike a recent joint appearance on the show by President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama during which questioning ranged from how romantic is the president to the couple's anniversary, the show's five hosts skipped the softball questions and got right into red meat — including military service, abortion and the Romneys' Mormon faith.

When the Obamas' appearance aired on Sept. 25, the panel stuck to questions about the First Couple's 20th wedding anniversary and whether or not President Obama is "romantic," though they did query Obama lightly about the murder of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, which the president declined to characterize at the time as an act of terrorism.

Romney, 63, clad in a red dress and gold jewelry, was initially scheduled to appear with her husband, who backed out citing a scheduling conflict, according to host Barbara Walters.

But his wife deftly deflected her husband's description of the female clutch as "sharp-tongued," saying the candidate called the women "sharp and young."

Moments later, Goldberg asked Romney if her husband's Mormon faith precluded him or their five sons from serving in the military and whether the Romneys would be prepared to console relatives of fallen U.S. soldiers.

What an ignorant question! She is as dumb as most suspect. If not dumb, than obviously she is ignorant of the fact that many Mormons serve in the military and the faith does not bar them from doing so.

While I was in the Marine Corps, I served with Marines who were Mormons.

To ask her such a question is unthinkable. Can you imagine if Ann Romney looked at Goldberg and said, "That's like asking me if being Black would stop men and women from serving and consoling relatives of our fallen! Sort of a dumb question really." - but she didn't.

“What I know is I am here to reflect the character of the person I know."
- Ann Romney, appearing on "The View"

“He was serving his mission and my five sons also served [on] missions,” Ann Romney replied. “We find different ways of serving.”

Asked how she would explain to relatives of the fallen soldiers that her sons did not serve in the U.S. military, she continued, "I would say it’s the hardest thing that a president and a first lady can do. We have the most extraordinary fighting men and women and we have to be grateful for them.”

Walters grilled Romney on abortion, and stem cell research, but noted she is not the one running for office.

“I am pro-life and I’m happy to say that,” said Ann Romney when asked by Walters if her thoughts on the issue changed like her husband of 43 years. “When a decision came across his desk to use embryos for experimentation, he could not have, on his conscience, created human life for experimentation.

“The most important thing we can do is have respect for each other in this dialogue. This is a tender, tender issue.”

Following Walters’ initial question on abortion, co-host Joy Behar asked Ann Romney about women’s access to contraception, prompting Romney to say: “I would love if you could get my husband on the couch, Joy.”

Romney continued: “What I know is I am here to reflect the character of the person I know. Every decision he will make … [will be based on] is this is the best thing for America to go forward? I think I know where his heart is.”

Romney’s appearance was part of the show’s “Red, White and View” campaign, which highlights political topics and has made the show into an unexpected daytime battleground with the election less than three weeks away.

The interview then took a lighter turn, as co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck asked Romney’s son, Josh, who was sitting in the studio audience, if he had any political aspirations.

He does not, he said, and added it was difficult seeing his father go through the rigorous election season.

Josh Romney also downplayed reports that his brother Tagg told a radio host that he wanted to “take a swing” at President Obama.

“It’s hard in this process to see your Dad get beat up,” Josh Romney said. “So you take it pretty personally. I assure you [Tagg] didn’t mean it.”

Since Ann Romney was grilled in a sort of Inquisition, in contrast what does Michelle Obama get?

How about love and adoration!

And no, I'm not going to go to describe what took place when Michelle Obama and the president appeared on “The View” last month. The ladies of The View fawned all over the Obamas.

Of course the President did address the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.

Though he refused to say it was a "terrorist attack," he did warn people to ignore the “terribly offensive” anti-Islamic video that sparked unrest throughout the Middle East - at least that was the story at the time.

President Obama’s appearance on The View took place as world leaders convened for the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Later he was criticized for making time for the appearance but not hosting meetings with world leaders at the United Nations, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The difference in how people are treated on that show is absolutely sickening. And yes, absolutely classless!

Story by Tom Correa